Army Navy

Army Navy, released by Williams Manufacturing Company on October 2, 1953, is a single-player electro-mechanical game designed by Harry Williams with artwork by George Molentin. Its military-and-football theme fit the era well, tapping into post-war America's enthusiasm for the gridiron and its service academy rivalries.

The game's real claim to fame is in the backbox: Army Navy was the first Williams game to use score reel totalizers, replacing lights as the way to show the player's total earned score (the last four reels are dummy reels). Totalizers themselves were not new to pinball - Bally's 1933 'Airway' was the first machine to use them - but their adoption here marked a turning point for Williams. On the playfield, players work with two flippers, three pop bumpers, two slingshots, and two kick-out holes, accompanied by the ring of two bells. The tilt penalty is unforgiving: game over.

As an early example of the score-reel format that would dominate electro-mechanical pinball for the next two decades, Army Navy offers a glimpse into a key transition in how pinball machines communicated the score to the player.