Eastern Fleet:
Publisher’s Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
April 2024

For a very long time, Second World War at Sea: Eastern Fleet has been the core of our most popular series. It’s the oldest game in the series still in print, though it’s been heavily revised since its debut in 2001. It was the first game in the series to receive the Second Edition series rules (and be revised to match them). And it was the first game (along with Coral Sea) to be expanded with a Campaign Study.

All of that’s to say that we look at Eastern Fleet as a fundamental game not just for our entire game line, but for your game table, as well. There are reasons that it’s been so well-loved for over two decades. Let’s talk about them.

Eastern Fleet covers the 1942 Japanese carrier raids into the Indian Ocean in March and April 1942, and the British response to them. The Japanese are at the peak of their efficiency, with the carriers and air groups that devastated Pearl Harbor and would in turn be devastated at Midway a couple of months later. The British are badly outnumbered but have a few surprises in store for the Japanese.

The Japanese raid on Ceylon is the core of the Eastern Fleet game. The Japanese have five fleet carriers, each with a powerful air group, and one light carrier, plus a quartet of supporting fast battleships with escorting cruisers and destroyers. The British counter with two fleet carriers of their own, each sporting an air group less than half the size of that wielded by one of the big Japanese carriers, one capable battleship, four floating coffins classified as battleships, and some cruisers and destroyers.

Eastern Fleet is a beautiful game, starting with the striking cover showing a Grumman Martlet on the deck of HMS Formidable during her 1942 Indian Ocean operations. It’s in our standard Playbook format, with everything you need to play (except dice) right there in the package. Inside that package are 280 playing pieces: 100 “long” ship pieces and 180 square ones for airplanes and markers.

Eastern Fleet’s map covers the Bay of Bengal and points south, including the entire island of Ceylon, the southern tip of India and some of the island chains to the south of those. It overlaps the map from Java Sea, allowing you to combine them and steam from Madras to Manila (and, with the map from South Pacific which overlaps those from Java Sea, on to New Caledonia).

The main event is the April 1942 Japanese raid on Ceylon, carried out by five heavy carriers of the First Air Fleet plus one light carrier on a unique commerce-raiding mission (though it was very successful, the Japanese fortunately did not repeat the effort). The Japanese are out to cause damage through air raids, but the operation is actually a diversion to allow the safe movement of a large troop convoy from Singapore to Rangoon (the largest such operation the Japanese undertook during the Second World War). The British are badly outnumbered but those troop transports are fantastically vulnerable if the Brits can somehow slip past the huge carrier fleet, and the Royal Navy is richly rewarded for inflicting damage on the transports or Japanese warships.

Eastern Fleet has been thoroughly modernized, so the scenario set follows the same story-arc format as our newest Second World War at Sea games. We have twelve operational scenarios, which use the operational map; these are the ones where you move the fleets on the map and try to find the enemy. When you find the enemy, you fight them on the Tactical Map; the eighteen battle scenarios take place only on the Tactical Map, but battles can (and usually do) arise from operations, too.

All thirty scenarios form one chapter, and unfold between March and July 1942 (most of them take place in April). The Indian Ocean was a backwater for most of the Second World War, but when it was a major theater of conflict, it was a short and very intense adventure. We start our story in March 1942, with the first Japanese moves into the Indian Ocean, to secure Rangoon in Burma and the Andaman Islands.

As well as the historical April 1942 carrier raid, we take a deep look into the logical next step, what the Japanese called Operation Number Ten, the full-blown invasion of Ceylon by two infantry divisions (this probably would not have been enough, but that’s what they had the transports to carry). It’s a risky move for the Japanese, but it does force the British Eastern Fleet to actually try to stop them.

The Imperial Japanese Army refused to make those troops available for the invasion of Ceylon (possibly fearing being trapped in a political bait-and-switch that would see them committed instead to some mad scheme to invade Hawaii or Fiji). But they could have, either as an immediate follow-up to the April raid or later. Eastern Fleet, the game, includes options to assault Ceylon instead of attacking Midway, which gives the Japanese a serious edge in firepower despite the British having foreknowledge of exactly where the First Air Fleet is headed (and unlike the Midway plan, this one had a chance of actually working). Or the Japanese can try their invasion plan after the Midway disaster, when the odds are closer to even, though still not even: the Battle of Midway damaged Japanese carrier air power, but did not destroy it. The Japanese have only two fleet carriers available while the British have picked up a third carrier, but the Japanese have better planes, better pilots, and bigger flight decks.

Eastern Fleet is perfectly-sized to serve as your first step into Second World War at Sea, with the right mix of forces and scenarios: there are carrier battles, without a huge number of carriers, and surface action including battleships against battleships. Or if you’ve already become a player, you get to send British and Japanese aircraft carriers against each other, with Swordfish and Zeroes and Martlets, which is something you shouldn’t miss.

We’ve expanded Eastern Fleet with a pair of Campaign Studies: Defending Australia takes the British Eastern Fleet to the waters of the Coral Sea, to fulfill the Royal Navy’s commitment to, well, defend Australia. You’ll need Coral Sea to play the scenarios. And Gulf of Aden explores Japanese operations after the capture of Ceylon; you’ll need Horn of Africa to play those scenarios. And we’ll have more; now that Java Sea is in print, we can explore the proposed forward deployment of the Eastern Fleet and potential escape of Force Z in the upcoming Malay Barrier.

Plus, the WAS-FC VASSAL module for Eastern Fleet is now available at WAS-FC.

Click here to order Eastern Fleet Playbook edition!
Please allow an extra three weeks for delivery.

Australian Seas Package
      Coral Sea (Playbook)
      Eastern Fleet (Playbook)
      SWWAS: Islands
      Defending Australia
Retail Price: $142.96
Package Price: $115
Gold Club Price: $92
You can experience the Australian Seas Package right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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More Fun!

Coral Sea: Defending Australia
How strategically valuable was Port Moresby? We look at how the Japanese might have made use of this base on the New Guinea coast, that they failed to take during the Battle of the Coral Sea. In 14 scenarios the British Eastern Fleet defends Australia. Requires Coral Sea and Eastern Fleet. $12.99

You can order Coral Sea: Defending Australia right here.

Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden
Japan’s never-executed plan to capture Ceylon in the spring of 1942 would have opened the door to the next stage, securing the southern outlet to the Red Sea. Gulf of Aden looks at this potential carrier duel in the Arabian Sea. With 14 new scenarios; requires Eastern Fleet, Horn of Africa and Bismarck. $12.99

You can order Eastern Fleet: Gulf of Aden right here.