WW2 Era German Board game

[Gildwiller1918]

I got this recently from an online auction, in which a large cache of similar games was being sold, must have been a large collection being sold. Just about all the games were complete or near complete and in very good condition. This one is quite large; box size is 14 x 19.5 inches. Each player has a fleet of ships, one side is color coded blue and the other red. Very good condition, and with all the parts, at least from what I can tell. 

[72 usmc]

  Clear for Action, Fantastic!   Send it to me for Christmas.  Are the metal playing ships flats or double sided molded ships?    What a neat game.   I too love old board games.  I cannot enlarge the rules to get a translation, but is movement by dice and is the box dated? Maybe ivory dice if pre WW I?  so a few pieces missing:

 see   https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1164591/klar-zum-gefecht

[Gildwiller1918]

The ships have 2 sides but are mostly flat with small circular stands at the bottom. The ships are metal, hand painted. No dates on the box that I can see. 

[72 usmc]

 Yep, Thanks.  I do not see any on the instructions.  It looks like a complete game has 44 metal pieces and some cardboard  pieces. 

[72 usmc]

 Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s some war games that some played were the 1962-63 American Heritage board games with plastic pieces like Dogfight and Battlecry and the Avalon Hill games with cardboard pieces like Richthofen's War and Wooden ships and Iron men.  A nice game with metal pieces was the 1960  Parker's Bothers game Conflict. Heck, even in the late 1960s in the Corps to pass time we played Broadside and Richthofen's War on base.  Later at college in the late 1970s, Dungeons & Dragons was a big thing-not so much war games although many Nam vets  played The Japanese game Go or Chess

s. 

 

 

But a WW I game is really a nice historical item. I collect the  WW I /1920s German flats when I can grab them in the original wood box.  All hand painted and hand made small boxes. 

[Kenny Andrew]

wow that's really nice , looks like a early version of Battleships , I spent hours on this in my childhood 

  

[72 usmc]

 A early 1939 version of battleship was made by Milton Bradley in the U.S. called "SUNK" .   Like all WW II games no metal pieces and few survive the ravages of time.  It is a very hard find complete,  like most pre WW II board games a tough find intact.  Only toy marbles in there original 1920s & 1930 boxes are more difficult to find intact.