Following Japan s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Germany swiftly joined its Axis partner and declared war on the United States on Dec. 11, 1941. Admiral Karl D nitz, commander of Germany s much-feared u-boat fleet, altered his strategy to bring the maritime war to America s east coast. Where once he relied on German submarines preying on supply convoys on the open Atlantic Ocean, now he deployed long-range Type-IX u-boats to prowl the American coastal waters along which freighters and tankers sailed to convoy assembly points in the Canadian maritime. Initially u-boat commanders took advantage of America s unprepared defenses, hunting easy targets with few patrols and even coastal cities lit up, ignoring wartime blackout precautions; but the Americans quickly mustered their forces for war, increasing their patrols by aircraft and destroyers and ultimately chasing the German u-boats from the East Coast and back into wolf pack formations to prowl the North Atlantic once again. Operation Drumbeat is a solitaire game in which a player assumes the role of a u-boat commander sent to hunt shipping along America s East Coast in early 1942. The player plots a course on a grid map like the ones used by German submarine captains to travel to the patrol area and hunt targets. A series of charts helps simulate the chances of running into American patrols, encountering freighters and tankers, and attacking them with torpedoes and deck guns. Each turn equals one day; the player tracks the u-boat s progress in a log much like actual German submarine captains used. How many ships can a captain sink before his u-boat runs out of torpedoes…or luck?

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