BattleFleet 1939: WW2 Naval Strategy Game

BattleFleet 1939 was a turn-based World War 2 naval strategy game built as an extension of the classic Battleship game: rather than firing at a single fixed grid, players moved fleets of ships, submarines and aircraft across combat maps that could measure up to 96x96 squares. A playable Battleship grid on this page demonstrates the base concept the game extended; BattleFleet 1939 kept the hidden-fleet premise but added movement, unit production and a set of scripted campaigns, missions and death-matches built around World War 2 naval warfare. A later title in the same series, BattleFleet: Pacific War, applied the same engine to the naval war against Japan.

Campaigns

BattleFleet 1939 organized its scripted content into four campaigns, one for each of the war's main combatant navies:

Together the four campaigns totalled 44 scripted missions, on top of a separate pool of standalone missions the game's own feature list put at fifty. Campaign play required at least a minor victory in every mission to progress; a player working through a full campaign would eventually be credited with every rank on that navy's ladder, while a single standalone mission only exposed its lower grades.

Missions, Death-Matches and Free Hunt Scenarios

Beyond the four scripted campaigns, BattleFleet 1939 shipped with a broader mission library. Its feature list advertised 50 Combat Strategy Missions and 23 Death-Match Strategy Scenarios, plus a set of Free Hunt scenarios: a sandbox-style variant of the death-match format built around a single named theatre rather than a scripted objective.

Death-matches carried names tied to specific fleets, among them Kriegsmarine I and II, Royal Navy I, US Navy I, and one named for Admiral Yamamoto, styled "Jamamoto" in the mission list, while Free Hunt scenarios covered Italy, Malaya, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and submarine-only engagements. Each of the game's standalone missions was assigned one of four mission types, Conquer, Defend, Escort or Destroy Class, listed here in full:

Strategic Objectives and Unit Production

Every BattleFleet 1939 mission was built around one of four strategic objectives:

• Conquer all enemy major ports
• Defend friendly ports
• Destroy enemy ships
• Secure a convoy to a friendly port

Rather than starting each mission with a fixed fleet, a player could produce and deploy new units of any available class during the mission itself, and all units carried historic WW2 names rather than generic labels.

Units

The game's own materials describe its unit roster under two different totals: feature lists advertise fifty unit types available for production, while the enumerated roster, headed "45 Ship / Sub / Plane Types," lists exactly forty-five. That list breaks down into six aircraft carrier variants (fleet, heavy, fast, medium, light and escort) plus an anti-submarine carrier and a battlecruiser, six cruiser variants, three battleship weights, three auxiliary-ship classes, a fleet submarine with an anti-submarine naval unit and a frigate, three bomber types, three naval-aircraft and fighter types, three submarine weights, three destroyer weights, a corvette with a patrol boat and torpedo boat, three transport weights, and three port-artillery weights.

• Fleet Aircraft Carrier, Heavy Aircraft Carrier, Fast Aircraft Carrier
• Medium Aircraft Carrier, Light Aircraft Carrier, Escort Aircraft Carrier
• AntiSub Aircraft Carrier, Battlecruiser, AntiSub Cruiser
• Fleet Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Hvy AntiSub Cruiser
• Medium Cruiser, Light Cruiser, Escort Cruiser
• Fleet Battleship, Heavy Battleship, Medium Battleship
• Heavy Auxiliary, Medium Auxiliary, Light Auxiliary
• Fleet Submarine, AntiSub Naval, Frigate
• Strategic Bomber, Heavy Bomber, Bomber
• Long Range Naval, Naval, Fighter
• Heavy Submarine, Medium Submarine, Light Submarine
• Heavy Destroyer, Medium Destroyer, Light Destroyer
• Corvette, Patrol Boat, Torpedo Boat
• Heavy Transport, Medium Transport, Light Transport
• Heavy Port Artillery, Medium Port Artillery, Light Port Artillery

Ranks

BattleFleet 1939 tracked a player's progress through 112 WW2-styled ranks: ten non-commissioned grades and eighteen commissioned grades for each of the four playable navies. Named ranks mixed historical fleet commanders with generic rank titles; a player working through the US Navy path, for instance, could be credited with the names of Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, William Halsey, Raymond Spruance and Thomas Kinkaid at its senior grades, above the standard Fleet Admiral, Admiral, Vice Admiral and Rear Admiral titles down to Recruit. The Kriegsmarine, Royal Navy and Imperial Japan Navy campaigns used the same 28-grade structure with their own historical names and native-language rank titles, from Grossadmiral, Admiral of the Fleet and Joto-Thai down to Matrose, Junior Seaman and Nitto-Suihei respectively. A single standalone mission only exposed the lower ranks, from Lieutenant (Junior) down to Recruit, while a full campaign covered a navy's complete rank ladder.

System Requirements