"If it's an even-numbered year, it's Jim Eliason's turn to bring home the wood in Fifth Fleet." So went the pre-tournament wisdom. Jim Eliason, 1996, 1998, and 2000 champion, was trying for his fourth plaque in this multi-game tournament comprised of Fifth Fleet, Seventh Fleet, Third Fleet, and for the first time, Second Fleet. We had eight players again in the small but veteran field which included three former champions. The format was Swiss Elim, with three preliminary rounds used to determine four semifinalists.

The first round of swiss elim play saw three Fifth Fleet games: defending champ Jimmy Fleckenstein's Soviet submarines decisively defeated last year's "giant killer" Aaron Silverman's Allies in "Indian Ocean Wolfpacks." James Fleckenstein's Allied subs pulled out a marginal victory over Luke Warren's Soviet boats in "Undersea Showdown," while Ed Karpowicz won a substantive Allied victory over Jeff Lange, Sr.'s Soviets. Jim Eliason's Allies won a marginal victory over Mark Van Roeckel's Soviets in Third Fleet's "Soviet Raiders in the Caribbean."

The second round of play saw one Second and two Seventh Fleet scenarios. Eliason's Allies handed Karpowicz' Soviets a marginal loss in "Civil War in the Philippines," while Lange's Soviet submarines fought off Warren's hunting Allied attack subs for a substantive victory in "Soviet Bastion." James Fleckenstein shepherded his Soviet charges to Norway despite his son's U.S. carrier battle group, winning a substantive victory in the Second Fleet scenario, "The Big Stick." Silverman advanced on a forfeit.

Jimmy Fleckenstein earned a round 3 bye as defending champ, assuring him of a place in the semis. Lange, enamored with his success in the northern Pacific, guided his Soviet submarines to a marginal win over Karpowicz's Allied subs in Third Fleet's "Soviet Commandos in the Aleutians," earning his spot in the semis. In a "dignity match," Warren led his Soviet subs to a marginal win over Silverman's Allies in the same scenario. Eliason and the elder Fleckenstein advanced to the semis on the strength of their records versus the surviving opponents.

The single-elim semis saw much drama as James Fleckenstein's Soviet submarines suffered a one-point defeat by Lange's US/UK forces in Second Fleet's "Damn the Torpedoes." In the other match, Eliason led his Soviet forces to a marginal victory over Jimmy Fleckenstein's Allies in a hard-fought Seventh Fleet "Battle of the South China Sea."

In the final game, Lange's northern Pacific luck finally ran out as Eliason's Soviets easily defeated Lange's Allies in Third Fleet's "Soviet Aleutian Offensive." Jeff lost a crucial air battle on turn 1 in the North Pacific zone, allowing Jim to detect and destroy an unprotected convoy of three maritime prepositioning ships. My carriers and land based air destroyed several airbases. Russian subs and Backfires dispatched all the cargo ships in another convoy, and the Russians had lost virtually nothing. With no chance to win, Jeff resigned after Turn 3 of the six-turn scenario. It was an even numbered year, and Jim Eliason had indeed earned his fourth WBC Fifth Fleet championship.