Yes, they show speed. They also have markings to indicate turn radii but they don't work very well. Small boats crossing a wake have to make piloting checks to see if the boat gets thrown off course and takes damage from swamping. The game comes with nation-specific dice that you are supposed to put into a draw bag, one per unit controlled. You draw out a die and the corresponding side selects one of their units to activate. We've found that it's very easy to cheat and select one side or the other as you can feel the difference between the dice as the 6 on each die has been replaced with a national symbol. (USMC globe and anchor on US dice, Commandos anchor and eagle on Brits, rising sun and rays on Japanese, iron cross on Germans, hammer and sickle on Soviets, fasces on Italians.) As such, I ordered some nation specific metal buttons from a guy on Etsy and use those instead. We place the button on the wake marker of the just-activated ship to indicate which boats have already gone each turn.