Action Stations!
Status unclearRating band: Fan-favorite · Year: 1989 · Developer/Publisher: Internecine / RAW Entertainment · Designer: Alan Zimm · Platform: DOS · Theme: World Wars, Naval
Action Stations! covers surface naval warfare between 1922 and 1945, and it covers almost none of it the easy way. This is a simulation built for people who already know what a gunnery solution is, or are prepared to learn, because the game isn’t going to simplify the subject to meet them halfway.
Alan Zimm designed it for the small studio Internecine, published through RAW Entertainment, and the scope alone sets it apart from most naval games of the era. Rather than picking a single battle or a narrow slice of the war, it models surface combat across the full interwar and wartime period, letting players command fleets shaped by whatever doctrine and technology actually existed at a given point on the timeline. Naval historian M. Evan Brooks put it plainly at the time: excellent research and genuine complexity, undercut by rough graphics and an interface that asks a lot of patience from the player. That assessment has aged well. The presentation is exactly as dated as you’d expect from a 1989 DOS wargame, all text readouts and sparse tactical maps, but the underlying model is dense enough that Brooks also called it usable as an actual research tool, not just a game dressed up in historical trappings.
That density is why Action Stations! became a candidate for Computer Gaming World’s Wargame of the Year award in 1990, going up against titles with far more polish and far less rigor underneath. It didn’t need slick presentation to earn that nomination. What it needed, and delivered, was a simulation detailed enough that armchair fleet commanders who already cared about the subject could trust the numbers behind every torpedo salvo and every armor penetration calculation.
This build ships with every official scenario disk included, which matters more than it might sound like for a game this scenario-driven. Naval wargames of this type live or die on the specific engagements they let you replay, and having the full official set available rather than a stripped-down base game changes how much genuine replay value the package actually holds. Two contributors, credited in the surviving materials only as Kenn and Tommy, are thanked for helping assemble that complete set, a small detail that says something about how scattered these scenario packs could get even shortly after release.
None of this makes Action Stations! an easy recommendation for someone who just wants a fun afternoon with ships. If you’re coming from a more arcade-oriented naval game and expecting quick tactical payoff, the interface will actively work against you for the first several sessions. It rewards a specific kind of player: someone who wants doctrine and gunnery tables to matter as much as the actual moment of combat, and who’s willing to treat the manual as required reading rather than an afterthought. For that player, though, few naval sims from this period go as deep, and the fact that it still gets cited as a serious reference point for the 1922 to 1945 window says something about how well the underlying research has held up, regardless of how it looks running today.
How to run it today
The DOS release runs cleanly in DOSBox on any current system. Mount the game directory and launch the executable directly; no source port or fan patch is required, and the included scenario disks work the same way once mounted alongside the base install.
Compatibility: DOS (via DOSBox) · Controls: Keyboard-driven menus and text commands, period-accurate · Setup difficulty: Low
Legal status
Internecine and RAW Entertainment were both small, niche wargame outfits, and neither survives today in any form that’s easy to trace. No confirmed rights-holder is known to be actively enforcing this title. Status here is genuinely unclear rather than confidently public domain; a small publisher going quiet isn’t the same claim as a small publisher’s rights having actually lapsed.
If you liked this, try
Harpoon 1 covers a later, Cold War-era slice of naval combat with a similarly research-heavy approach. Gary Grigsby’s Pacific War, also part of this catalog, tackles the Pacific theater with the same appetite for detail and complexity. Strike Fleet offers a faster, more arcade-leaning naval combat experience for players who want some of this game’s period flavor without its density.
Frequently asked questions
What time period does Action Stations! cover?
Surface naval combat from 1922 through 1945, spanning the interwar period and all of World War II rather than a single battle or year.
Is Action Stations! considered historically accurate?
Yes. It's been cited by naval historians as detailed enough to function as a research reference, not just a game, though that same depth comes at the cost of an unforgiving interface.
Does this version include all the scenario content?
Yes, this build includes all official scenario disks, giving access to the full historical scenario set rather than a stripped base release.
Is Action Stations! beginner-friendly?
Not particularly. It assumes players are willing to learn genuine naval doctrine and gunnery mechanics rather than offering a simplified, arcade-style approach to the subject.