B-17: Queen of the Skies

Yesterday I felt the desire to pull 'B-17: Queen of the Skies' out of my games cupboard. Opening it up I realised that it's probably been close to 35 years since I last opened up the box, but I guess I was feeling nostalgic.

It's a solitaire game in which you play the crew of a B-17 bomber on a series of missions over Europe. It was popular in its day, but you quickly realise that it's less of a game and more of a simulation. Player choice is very limited; the only decisions you make generally are which attacking enemy fighters to lose through air-cover (if you have it) and how to assign your bomber's guns to those fighters which do attack you. As you take damage there may be a few decisions to make regarding moving crew around, or swapping ammo, but they're not that common.

And yet it does have a certain something, despite that. The attacks and damage are quite detailed, so as they happen, turn after turn, you see your bomber progressively degrade and there's a narrative built up and some genuine tension as you wonder if this is the mission where you don't make it back.

The aim of the game is to take a bomber and/or its crew through 25 missions. Missions 1-5 are fairly straightforward, 6-10 a little harder and then 11-25 downright dangerous (you lose fighter cover for half of the time, for starters).

I did find a log in the box showing that I had taken one bomber through 25 missions, although it shows that only two of the original crew flew with it all of the way; the rest were either killed or invalided out.

Anyway, I flew the first nine missions of a run of 25 yesterday. I started with 'Golden Girl', who got to the objective on her first mission only to have her bombardier wounded by flak. This meant the bomber completely missed the target.

Her second mission was to the same objective, with a new bombardier. She also reached the target, but a lone Me109 shot her up and detonated the bombs, destroying the plane and killing all of the crew.

I set up a new bomber for the third mission - 'Lucky Seven'. She was a lot more successful, actually reaching objectives and, for five missions in a row, getting a reasonable percentage of her bombs on target. She had a few moments. On one mission the top turret and tail-guns were both disabled, leaving the plane without her best weapons, but fighter cover made up for this deficiency. On another mission the pilot compartment oxygen caught fire. The crew put out the fire, but with no oxygen for two of its crew the plane was forced to drop out of formation and fly home alone. Fighter cover saved it a couple of times, but there were a few scary moments with enemy planes that just wouldn't give up. However the crew also picked up six kills over six missions, half of which were down to the bombardier and his trusty nose-gun.

'Lucky Seven's seventh mission wasn't. Like her predecessor she reached the target only for an attacking Me110 to hit the undropped bombs. Another B-17 detonated in the air.

So I need a new crew and a new bomber. In seven missions I have lost two planes, two crew invalided out through wounds and twenty killed in action.

In the box I found the sheets we'd done for a multi-player game we played back in the 80s. We photocopied enough bits to run ten bombers - two for each of five players - and ran a single mission over the course of a very long evening. Only five bombers made it to the target - some were shot down and a couple aborted the mission and had to turn for home - and of those only one dropped any bombs near the objective. I think fewer than five bombers made it back home. 

Any way, it was a fun way to spend the day and I was surprised at how quickly I picked up the game again after all this time. To be fair it's mostly a matter of following a series of obvious processes, but there are little modifiers and extras here and there which can catch you out. 

So not the greatest solo game in the world, but still a tense and surprisingly exciting experience after all this time.

(I do have 'Raid on St. Nazaire' somewhere, which I also haven't played in a couple of decades. Now that is a good solo game, with just the right balance of helplessly watching your force get destroyed by forces you can't control or evade, and decision-making about how to best use what Lady Luck leaves you with.)