Admiralty Trilogy Group recently dropped the April 2025 issue #68 of The Naval SITREP: The Journal of the Admiralty Trilogy Game System. This 32-page pdf is, like always, packed with much gaming goodness for players of ATG games such as Harpoon 5 (modern), Command at Sea (World War II), Fear God and Dreadnought (World War I), Dawn of the Battleship (late 19th/early 20th century), and other titles in between. The feature navy in this issue the Republic of China, or Taiwan, making it invaluable for players looking to wargame a potential conflict over that island.
Production Update
In addition to the usual update about which products are in the process of updating to the fifth edition standard, it is exciting to read about Harpoon: Theater of War. This is the new name for Captain’s Edition 2.0.
Quicksink
“Understanding the GBU-31 QUICKSINK” is an interesting (and uncredited) article showcasing how the damage model works for underwater attacks.
Mutiny, 1935
Chang Lei has become the go-to writer in the ATG stable when it comes to China. “Double Breakthrough: The Hai Chi and Hai Chen Mutiny of 1935″ is a fascinating three-and-a-half page history of the 1935 mutiny of the named ships. An accompanying scenario, “CAS Scenario: Battle East of Hong Kong” and the needed “Annex A Ship for: Battle East of Hong Kong” allows players to recreate a battle that could of—but did not—happen.
The drone wars come to ATG
In what is perhaps the most important new rule to be introduced for Harpoon 5 in a long time, Chris Carlson in “Battlefield Multitaskers” provides rules for using guided rockets to intercept Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), aka drones. The article also provides rules for using modern anti-tank guided munitions (ATGM) against air targets.
ROC’ing it
The ‘feature navy’ in this issue of The Naval SITREP is “The Ships and Aircraft of Taiwan.” Data annexes taking up 16 pages (half of the entire product) are provided for:
- Annex A – Ships
- Annex B – Aircraft
- Annex C – Naval Guns
- Annex D1 – Surface Missiles
- Annex D1a Coastal Defense Missile Batteries
- Annex D2 – Land-Based Surface-to-Air Missiles
- Annex D2a – Surface-to-Air Missile Batteries
- Annex F – Torpedoes
- Annex G – Mines
- Annex H2 – Guided Air Ordnance
- Annex H4 – Air-to-Air Missiles
- Annex H5 – Aircraft Electronics Pods
- Annex H6 – Anti-Runway Ordnance
- Annex J1 – Naval Radars
- Annex J2 – Land Radars
- Annex J3 – Air Radars
- Annex K1 – Search Sonars
- Annex L – Data Links
Between this issue of The Naval SITREP and the continually updated data annex book China’s Navy: Ships and Aircraft of the People’s Republic of China, 1955-2021, one should be able to compare the forces of these two potential combatants.
Troop targets
Michael W. Harris contributes “Dawn of the Battleship Scenario: Convoy Attack” which is a fictional encounter between French forces and a British troop convoy off the Horn of Africa in 1899.
Dark fighting
Chris Carlson appears again with another rules update, this time “Night Fighting in CaS 5th Edition.” Chris points out that earlier modeling abstracted many elements into single simplified systems. That, of course, is not a great reflection of reality and the game models can do better. Here are rules that use the same core game mechanisms but with a greater distinction between various systems.
Book ends
The April 2025 issue of The Naval SITREP includes a link to a new book on Chinese amphibious warfare and book reviews for The Neptune Factor: Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Concept of $ea Power by NIcholas A. Lambert (Naval Institute Press, 2023), Fifty-Three Days on Starvation Island: The World War II Battle That Saved Marine Corps Aviation by John R. Bruning (Hachette Books, 2024), and The German Invasion of Norway: April 1940 by Geirr H. Haarr, Seaforth Publishing, 2009.
Feature image courtesy logtool.com
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