Golden Journal No. 45:
Fleet Air Arm
Publisher’s Preview
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2021

Back in the Zeroes, we made a book called East of Suez. It was an expansion for our gigantic, long out-of-print Second World War at Sea: Leyte Gulf. It was a popular book, but eventually we sold out of Leyte Gulf, and so we let East of Suez fall out of print as well.

We made fewer copies of Leyte Gulf than most games in those days, but the East of Suez pieces were printed alongside other games, so we always had many more of them than we did Leyte Gulf sets, which meant that many thousands would be left over. And they’ve waited in storage ever since, to be called forward for use in another book or game.

When my assistant challenged me to use them or toss them, I couldn’t bear to toss them, so they became the core of Golden Journal No. 45: Fleet Air Arm.

It’s a full sheet of pieces, following the pattern we used back in the day (before we could customize our die-cutting patterns). You get 210 pieces total: 70 of them “long” ship pieces, and 140 standard-sized ones with 41 small ships and 99 aircraft.

Almost everyone involved is a Brit: 59 of the 70 big ships, 35 of the small ships (the others are five Royal Indian Navy and one Australian). Forty of the airplanes are from the Royal Air Force, 52 are Fleet Air Arm, five from the Indian Air Force (it did not become “Royal” until March 1945), one Canadian and one Dutch.

Some of those ships and planes have appeared since then in other books, expansions and games: the last British battleship, Vanguard; the never-completed Lion class battleships; a whole slew of cruisers and destroyers. Plus a great many minesweepers and landing ships.

The aircraft are all the most modern types. The Fleet Air Arm receives plenty of Hellcat fighters (the American F6F in British service, in two versions, one with bombs and one without) and British-made Seafires. They get a few of the usual suspects, too, like Wildcats (the FM-2 model in British service, itself an F4F modified for escort carrier operations; other F4F models flown by the Fleet Air Arm were called Martlets by the British). And there are a few Swordfish torpedo bombers and Mitchell (B25) land-based bombers. But the cool part is that they get jets: Sea Vampire fighters, for operation off the carriers, and SRA-1 seaplane jet fighters, which look like something out of Thunderbirds Are Go.

The Royal Air Force likewise has some planes you’ve seen before – Hurricanes, Beaufighters, Beauforts, Wellingtons. But they also get jets, the Gloster Meteor fighter, and very heavy bombers, the Liberator (American-made B24’s) and the late-model Spitfire XIV, only a hair less capable than the Meteor jet.

All of that new armament is the framework for a Plan Z variant. For a while I’d entertained the idea of including this sheet with Plan Z, but there would be a finite number of sheets available. Aside from that problem, it wasn’t a bad idea; most of pieces on the sheet very smoothly tie right into the Plan Z story line.

Since we’re working with a pre-designated counter sheet that can’t be altered, since it’s already in the warehouse (you’d be surprised, at least I hope you’d be surprised, at how many game designers fail to grasp this), it’s the pieces that dictate the story. East of Suez has the British Eastern Fleet (and later Pacific Fleet) on the offensive against the Japanese, in the last days of the Pacific War. And so it's a fleet built for invasions and support of same.

While the battleships overlap with what we’ve already seen in Plan Z, there are all of those lovely aircraft carriers and plenty of airplanes to fly off their decks. Of those 13 escort carriers, only one (HMS Emperor) has appeared before (in Arctic Convoy) and none of the five light carriers have been seen in other games. That’s a lot of air power to send to sea, and there are now plenty of late-model planes to equip the air groups of other carriers already in the Plan Z set.

And then there are those landing ships. A huge number of minesweepers (15 pieces, or 45 of these vital but exceedingly boring little warships) and American-provided LST’s (a dozen pieces, or 60 Large Slow Targets). They of course must be used as intended.

In Plan Z, the Germans are using their massive new fleet to break the GIUK (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom) Barrier by taking the Shetland and Faroe Islands and Iceland. Eventually they’ll make a move on Ireland with a view toward isolating Britain. The Brits are fighting to repel them.

Those roles are reversed in Fleet Air Arm: it’s the Royal Navy who have the initiative, and they’re going to use it to invade Norway and clean out the nests of vipers the Germans have planted in Norwegian ports and airfields. The Germans have seized Norway, but holding it’s going to be a challenge against this enlarged and aggressive Home Fleet.

There’s also a small Royal Dutch squadron with three battle cruisers, two light cruisers and a pair of destroyers. They’re there, so we have to use them, because. They’ll also inflict some pain on the Germans, in their own scenarios, because they deserve to be highlighted,

These aren’t part of the Plan Z story arc; they’re sort of an alternative alternative history, in which the Royal Navy is even more prepared for war than it is in the main-line story (where they’re pretty prepared). This is a chance for Anglophiles to beat up on the Nazi mariners, who deserve to be beat upon.

The Golden Journal is our place to tell unusual or outright weird stories. In this case, it’s the perfect venue to use these counter sheets; we have plenty of them for a Golden Journal’s expected shelf life, more than enough really, but probably not nearly sufficient for something as popular as the Plan Z expansion set.

This one’s going to be fun, with the British on the attack and with plenty of ships and planes to punish the Nazis. It’s always good to punish Nazis.

The Golden Journal is only available to the Gold Club (that’s why we call it the Golden Journal). We print enough of them to handle initial demand and a few extras, but once they’re gone we won’t reprint them.

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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 zillions of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his dog Leopold, who is a good dog.

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