| War Plan Red, and its attached War Plan Crimson, gave the U.S. Navy the task of invading Nova Scotia and disrupting communications between Britain and Canada. This is usually the task of the American player in the game. The Royal Navy foresaw these moves, and hoped to damage the Americans with commerce raiders based on Bermuda.
The game’s map covers the Eastern Seaboard, from the Labrador coast in the north to Virginia Beach in the south. In addition to the British and American fleets, Plan Red the game also includes Canada’s three proposed dreadnoughts.
One of the game’s points of popularity, that it shares with Plan Orange and Plan Black, is the inclusion of ships planned or begun but never completed. The Americans receive four examples of the 1919 battleship design, a monstrous ship with eight 18-inch guns, and also four of the South Dakota class, begun but never completed.
There are three examples of the original design of the Lexington-class battle cruiser with 14-inch guns, and five smokestacks. We’ve also got the American 1914 design of a fast armored cruiser with eight 10-inch guns, which would have been built for commerce raiding.
On the British side, we have the huge N3 design battleships, with nine 18-inch guns, and the similar G3 battle cruiser with nine 16-inch guns. The Royal Navy also gets its proposed F-class cruiser, and the three R-class battleships which were ordered but later cancelled.
In our Dreadnoughts book supplement we included some scenarios featuring Plan Red, plus some excellent advanced tactical rules by Karl Laskas, for those wanting more detail in their combat.
U.S. Navy Plan Red includes:
24”x18” tactical map
35”x24” operational map
210 game pieces
"We would as soon fight the British as the Germans."
Admiral William Shepherd Benson
U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, 1917
Avalanche Press APL0022 |
