Ironbottom Sound

About this board game

Ironbottom Sound is a simultaneous-plotting, hex-based naval game for 2–4 players, with sessions lasting about 120 minutes. Set around naval actions near Guadalcanal during World War II, it presents ten scenarios across historical and balanced tournament situations.

Players plot their actions before resolving movement and combat. The game uses a scale of 600 yards per hex, while gunfire and torpedo attacks are measured in factors for each turret or mount. Guns of the same caliber firing at one target roll together, using a range-modified ordered pair of dice against a results table to determine hits.

Combat continues with a second ordered-pair roll that determines where each hit lands. Every ship has a dedicated damage sheet showing its gunnery and torpedo layout, the factors for its weapons, its damage record, and armor thickness for protected locations such as the belt, primary turrets, secondary turrets, and bridge. A ship sinks when its final hull box is marked off.

• Ten scenarios: five historical situations and five balanced tournament situations.
• Detailed damage tracking: record hits across hull, armor, weapons, and other protected locations.
• Multiple play formats: rules cover face-to-face play, play by mail, moderated two-player games, and moderated multiplayer games.

The original design is primarily set up for two-player face-to-face play, while its additional rules support other formats. The second edition, Iron bottom Sound 2, was published by Moments in History in 1998, with significant rule changes—particularly to torpedoes—a different scenario mix, and a night convoy battle in the Mediterranean.