Plan Crimson Developer's Notes, Part 2
By Doug McNair
October 2008

As promised, here’s the second half of my developer’s commentary on our new Gold Club members only game, U.S. Navy Plan Crimson.

The Setting

The Great Lakes is by far the most challenging strategic setting of any Great War at Sea game. Players are under constant threat of having their fleets bottled up on one lake and therefore unable to support their fleets or protect their ports on the others.

Ships stationed on Lake Ontario or Lake Superior can only move to a different lake via canal, and the enemy can bottle them up by taking control canals via amphibious invasion or blocking them via Blockship missions. Ships on Lake Erie can get to Lake Huron via the Detroit River/Lake St. Clair waterway, but the enemy can set up Blockade and Coastal Defense missions along its four-zone length to slow or stop enemy movements through there.

Passage between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan is the least restricted of all, but each side will seek to fill the Straits of Mackinac with ships on Coastal Defense missions to block enemy passage. And in all cases, getting a transport or bombardment fleet to its target unspotted is all but impossible barring bad weather, since both sides have plenty of air units with the range to cover an entire lake when searching.

Battle Scenarios

U.S. Navy Plan Crimson comes with five battle scenarios, three of which pit the opposing Lake Ontario, Lake Erie and Lake Superior home fleets against each other. The “Straits of Mackinac” scenario depicts a Canadian battlefleet’s attempt to run the Straits in a fog and bypass an American coastal defense fleet sent to stop them. Each Canadian ship that exits the west edge of the map scores major VPs for the Canadians since they’ll be free to bombard the rich and extensive coastline of Lake Michigan. Finally, the “Lake Michigan” scenario depicts the worst case for the Americans: a Canadian invasion fleet steaming for Chicago with the Americans throwing everything they’ve got at it.

Operational Scenarios

Operational Scenario 1 “Canal Strike” features the Blockship Mission, which is unique to Plan Crimson. In it, the American Lake Huron Fleet begins the naval war by landing troops to seize the Canadian ports of Tobermory and Midland. They also send blockships to the entrance of the Trent-Severn canal at Midland to keep the Canadian Lake Ontario fleet from entering as reinforcements.

In Operational Scenario 2 “Michigan Thrust,” the Canadian Lake Huron Fleet counters the American moves in “Canal Strike” by mounting an amphibious invasion to seize the Straits of Mackinac. Success would open Lake Michigan and the coastal cities of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana to Canadian bombardment and invasion.

In Operational Scenario 3 “Gales of November,” the American Lake Superior Fleet prepares the way for an invasion of central Canada by landing troops to seize the Canadian canal at St. Mary’s. Success would mean that the Canadian Lake Superior fleet could get no reinforcements from the other Lakes once the Americans decided to invade the Canadian North Shore ports. But committing the necessary American forces to an operation that far north would leave Lake Michigan ports exposed to Canadian bombardment attacks, and any delay in the operation would risk running afoul of the notorious Lake Superior fall weather.

In Operational Scenario 4 “Niagara Falls,” the Americans follow their seizure of the Trent-Severn canal at Midland with an attempt to bottle up the Canadian Lake Ontario fleet completely by seizing the Welland Canal linking Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

Operational Scenario 5 “Fort Churchill” presupposes that the Canadians were able to hang onto the canal at St. Mary’s, and that overland invasions by the U.S. Army have failed to cut Canadian troop and supply movements in the interior. The Americans decide that the best way to cut Canada in two is by an amphibious invasion of the Canadian North Shore ports on Lake Superior, followed by an overland march to seize the Hudson’s Bay supply port at Fort Churchill. Success rests on an American victory over the Canadian Lake Superior fleet and preventing the Canadian Lake Huron fleet from entering Lake Superior or countering the invasion by ravaging the Lake Michigan coast.

Operational Scenario 6 “Disaster Relief” presupposes that the Americans destroyed the Canadian Lake Superior Fleet and that two of the four Canadian North Shore ports have been captured while the others are holding out under a blockade. The Canadians seek to prevent the all-out invasion of Central Canada by sending an invasion force through the St. Mary’s canal to resupply the blockaded ports and retake the captured ones.

Operational Scenario 7 “Politics by Other Means” celebrates the current election season by showing what political meddling can do to even the best-laid war plans. The American Lake Huron Fleet tries to lure its Canadian counterpart into a grand battle and destroy it. The Canadians seek to thin out the American battlefleet by bombarding ports along the Lake Huron and Michigan coasts to force American politicians to demand the U.S. Navy call ships in for coastal defense duty.

Finally, Operational Scenario 8 “Raiders on the Storm” celebrates the fact that wars almost never go according to plan, no matter what the politicians say about coming home by Christmas. It’s November 1921 and the U.S. Army has taken all the Lake Superior ports except for St. Mary’s, but is bogged down in the vast interior. North Woods partisans are sabotaging the rail lines from Duluth, and air supply alone is unable to feed an army in that day and age. So, the only hope of keeping the Doughboys fed and warm over the brutal Canadian winter is a constant line of merchant ships crossing Lake Superior until ice and bad weather force them to stop. This situation is a perfect one for the Canadian Alberta-class lake battleship to exploit, as its high speed makes it a formidable merchant raider.

As mentioned previously, designer Milan Becvar has written plenty more scenarios for U.S. Navy Plan Crimson including two campaign games. We’ll be sending them out to the Gold Club members as we get time to playtest them, along with variant rules to make your Great Lakes wargaming experience even more hardcore.

Not a Gold Club member yet? Join now and get U.S. Navy Plan Crimson as soon as we get your membership!