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there is a new variant to 'operational chess' at the zillions of games
site....

it is called 'land/sea chess' and is played on a 15 file x 9 rank board

on 'leftmost' 5 files are 'sea'... the 5 middle files are
'land-sea'... the 'rightmost' 5 files are 'land'... so it is like 3
small, 5 file x 9 rank boards side by side: 

sea land-sea land

3 smaller boards making up a 15x9 board...

the pieces which start at 'sea' can move anywhere over the sea files,
plus
the 5 'land-sea' files (the center)... the pieces which start on
'land' can
enter anywhere over the 5 land files, and anywhere in the land-sea
files...


the sea pieces cannot enter land, and the land pieces cannot enter sea...

the pieces which start on the 'land-sea' files can move to sea,
land-sea,
and land; they can move anywhere... these are hovercraft (GEV), marines,
special forces, and the hq...

the game is won by capturing the opponent's hq... there is a 'gun'
version
where several piece types have 'rifle' or 'gun' capture abilities (in
addition to their normal moves)... and there is a 'non-gun' variant
where
none of the pieces have gun capture...

this is a very interesting variant... the frigates (sea) and helicopters
(land) are a couple of my favorite pieces... 

the general and admiral pieces are strong, as are the special forces,
submarine, and paratrooper... 

missile ships and cavalry are variants on the erstwhile bishop piece,
while the tank and aircraft carrier are based upon the traditional
rook/chariot

the GEV is probably the best all-around piece...  and it is versatile in
that it can enter land and sea both... 

i've seen games where side a) will lose just about all of their land
pieces for instance, then side b) will in turn move their own hq to the
land side of the board, then side a) has a lot of difficulty in trying to
capture side b's hq... 

one time i thought i had the computer beat, but did just as the example
above; lost my army whilst retaining a strong sea contignent... as it
turned out i simply didn't have the pieces on land to take out the
computer's hq...

so the gevs take on added importance in the late game, being able to move
all over the board... same with the marines, but to a lesser extent...

also important are the frigate and helicopters, at least in the default,
'gun' mode... with their range-3 gun captures they can 'interdict'
well
into the areas where they are not otherwise allowed to move... so it is
as
though these two piece types 'cover' a little bit more of the board
than
most other sea or land types... they are the only 2 gun-capture pieces
with range 3... all others are range 2 or 1...