← all games

Harpoon (Third Edition)

#5928BGG ↗

1987 · 2-2 players · 180min · weight 4.00 · 336 ratings

v2 v3 v4 wide v4 deep

BGG raw

ID
5928
Name
Harpoon (Third Edition)
Year
1987
Rank
8868
Min players
2
Max players
2
Playing time
180
Min playtime
180
Max playtime
180
Avg weight
4
Num weights
61
Bayes avg
5.61062
Average
6.50387
Users rated
336
Num owned
1078
Wanting
6
Wishing
27
Num comments
155
Fetched at
Wed Apr 29 2026 05:34:56 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Mechanisms (8)
Dice RollingHidden MovementLine of SightMeasurement MovementPaper-and-PencilSecret Unit DeploymentSimulationVariable Set-up
Categories (5)
Aviation / FlightMiniaturesModern WarfareNauticalWargame
Description (855 chars)

Harpoon simulates modern naval warfare. Its rules tell how ships and aircraft move, detect enemy contacts, and attack them. Weapons inflict realistic effects, and proper naval tactics produce accurate and believable results. The die-cut counters included in the game make it possible to take this game home and start playing. Tom Clancy's books Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising used Harpoon as a source. (The game was not based on the books.) To quote from the Author's Note in Red Storm Rising "(Harpoon)...served as a primary source for The Hunt for Red October" and "... a macro-wargame or campaign game which, using the" Harpoon system, would fight out a new Battle of the North Atlantic. I thought this was fascinating and we began talking about building a book around the idea...'. Larry Bond is given co-copyright to Red Storm Rising.

LLM v2 (wide)

Not yet enriched at v2 (wide pass).

LLM v3 (deep)

Not yet enriched at v3 (deep pass).

LLM v4 wide (controlled-vocab primitives)

Not yet enriched at v4 (wide pass).

LLM v4 deep (archetype fit)

Not in the v4 deep-pass top-20% slice.