Naval Wargames weekend at Fleet Air Arm Museum RNAS Yeovilton

The Naval Wargames Society organizes on a yearly basis the Naval Wargames Weekend. As a rather new Naval Wargamer I visited this weekend in 2023; I participated in the weekend of 2025 (with a 1986 Cold War Naval Wargame scenario) and I visited them again this year. This BLOG-input describes some observations I made during my 2026 visit.

The venue was conducted in a rather large (separate) function room of the museum but not in between the aircraft and ship models of the museum itself. In the function room there was place for at least 10 very large gaming tables. I visited at Saturday and Sunday morning. As a Naval Wargamer myself I am interested in Cold War, WW2, WW1 and pre-Dreadnoughts. During the weekend there were naval war games with regard to early sailing ships (1500s), late sailing ships (1800s), pre-Dreadnoughts (1880-1906), WW1, WW2 and Cold War. In scale sizes from 1:200 down to 1:6,000.

Rule Systems. I was very much surprised that I met so many players who had developed their own Naval Rules. Because the commercial available Rule Systems didn't fit their needs, their imagination or their models. So I met a group (the 'Luton Lancers') who had adapted the 'Nimitz' WW2 Rule system to use it for their WW1 naval game/scenario. That is quite a job: you possibly have to adapt some specific rules but I am sure you have to design/calculate all the required ship data cards (of this different ships from a different era) yourself!

Another person had collected 1:600 Airfix models of British warships (2 Frigate types and a LPD) and had developed an aircraft focused Rule System around it, so he could game 1979 Iranian air attacks on British warships in the Persian Gulf, defended by UK Phantom fighters.

Professor David Manley showed us his newest ideas/version of a game in which the crew of a warship can game damage control onboard: what is the damage?, where is the damage? Which limited resources can I use to fight the damage? What will happen (knock-on effects...) when we are not able to rectify the disaster quickly? Etc. From some discussions during the weekend I did understand that Artificial Intelligence is already looking around the corner as well...

And there was a guy who showed a rule system without any 'game turns'. So both (or all) players had not to wait for each other, but after they had moved a contingent of their troops, they turned a small sand timing glass (which belonged to that contingent) and that military force was not allowed to move for 2 minutes (and could be shot at, etc.). Interesting thought! 

And a guy (Dave) who had developed a method to game a modern fight of a UK surface Taskgroup against a nuclear USSR submarine. The submarine plotted a certain (secret) pre-planned course on a piece of paper (to patrol an area) and the surface Taskgroup (and her ASW hero's) had full freedom to sail around (on a numbered hex sea mat), trying to find it. Without the knowledge what the position and intended movement (PIM) was of the sub. With fixed sonar- and torpedo-ranges their paths could cross (or not).

You can get new ideas. For instance: when you want to game scale 1:200 WW2 US aircraft carrier (3D printed!) & Airwing against a Japanese opponent you use 3 large tables, meters away from

each other. Table 1: US carrier, Table 2: blue sky with clouds, table 3: Japanese carrier. Table 1 and 3 can launch their aircraft, but the ship on these tables can also game air defense (when attacked on their own table). And table 2 (the sky) can be used to game fights between attackers and CAP-aircraft. I didn't follow the game in detail, but the airwings could fly from table 1, via 2 to 3 and vice versa. However, this will not fit my Naval War Game Room... 

The Naval Wargame which used 1:300 scale WW2 coastal ships (or was it 1:350?) had an interesting method of displaying how fast a warship was sailing: the ship models didn't use a base, but underneath the model a rectangular piece of plastic was visible, with a painted wake. On this piece 3 marks were visible: 'fast', 'normal' and 'slow'. And the amount of wake that was visible, made clear which speed it used. It was probably part of the Cruel Seas Rule System?

Another idea, to randomize the showing up of a reserve force/unit. First you throw a D20 die; you remember that number result. And every next turn you throw a D6, and distract the D6 result from the number you had thrown with the D20. Until you get to zero. Clever.

You are exposed to new material. During the weekend the most local Naval Wargamers (from Somerset I believe) played 2 different WW1 games but both with miniatures scale 1:6000. I had never seen these in the flesh (only on pictures). They are tiny!

And the guys from RAF Cranwell Table Top Gaming Club (Andy & David) showed me their newest 3D-printed islands, terrain, naval forts and city's (for their 1:2400 Naval Wargame recording 1898 US vs Spain Imperial War). And we had interesting discussions about those 1:2400 miniatures and what the best Rules were for modern Naval Wargaming...

Anyhow, I enjoyed myself very much during this weekend. Thank you Simon for organizing this and thank you participants for showing up and explaining me your wonderful Naval Warfare Games. Hopefully I can attend a next version in the future.