The FlightSim Hangar

I’ve been playing through a bomber commander and a squadron commander campaign in B17 The Mighty Eighth. I like to do AAR’s to relive these battles, but being an older game, B17 can be hard to capture screens and film because the cameras are so limited and there is no track recording (like IL2) or instant replay (like MSFS) available within the game. I don’t like to write too much (I’m lazy) and I prefer just a sentence or two and a picture or movie to go with it. Occasionally though I grab a truly extraordinary shot, not in technical terms of cinematography or anything like that, but in terms of capturing a meaningful moment within the game.

B17 is simulation of the daylight bombing raids over France and Germany during WWII, but the mechanics of the game are mostly about crew resource management. Basically do as much damage to the enemy as possible and bring as many men and bombers home as you can. Don’t do enough damage and you are reassigned. Casualty rate too high? Reassigned. If your crews survive a few missions you really start to pull for these guys and missions become more and more tense. When you do a squadron commander campaign you are managing twelve bombers and their crews, and six go out on missions at a time.

So here we are over Germany. We’re being attacked by 109’s or 190’s. A fighter attacks #6 and some tracers whiz by the left wing. The tail gunner is returning fire and the gunners from #3 are assisting by firing at the fighter as well. You never see the attacker as he makes his pass and zooms away. It’s hard to see in this reduced size version of the film, but what happens is a tracer hits somewhere between engine #1 and #2 (there is a fuel tank there) and ignites the avgas. The result is a catastrophic rupture and explosion of that outboard wing. The B17 is mortally wounded and immediately falls out of formation. B17 TME doesn’t have the superb visual damage models that we enjoy in today’s modern sims, but the number crunching behind the scenes is very robust. What probably happened to this bomber is that the wing outboard on engine #2 departed the plane and the aircraft started a steep descending spin to the left. In the words of a crew member from the movie “Memphis Belle”, “Bye bye C-Cup.” The crew had plenty of altitude to escape the plane, but the spiral might have placed tremendous G forces on them and made it hard to get out. The result was 7 POW’s and 3 KIA for that bomber.

I find it interesting how this game can make me feel. I see a fiery explosion and the 17 dropping out of formation and my reaction isn’t “wow”, “cool”, “great effect”, or anything like that. It’s almost always, “crap”, “jesus”, “oh no”, or something to that effect. And I look for the chutes. I always look for the chutes. Why? Whether the crew member is MIA, KIA, or POW its all the same to the game. You lost that crew and it counts against you to your superiors. So why count the chutes? Because that is what the real guys did. They counted chutes and made their reports. They hoped for the best for those that weren’t coming home and were thankful that it wasn’t them. And when I think of it objectively outside the game it seems silly and pointless. But I always count the chutes every time one goes down.

The original color version is more spectacular, but I wanted to mute it and make it more period authentic by converting it to B&W.

Ted B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th

First mission sent us to Brest harbor to bomb the U-boat pens. Weather over target was fair with 5/10 overcast. One squadron of P47’s and one squadron of P38’s escorted us all the way to target and back; however, we avoided enemy fighter coverage zones completely and were only threatened by moderate and accurate flak over Brest. Bombed from eighteen thousand feet. 2LT Spafford couldn’t get sighted on the pens, but scored good hits on the factories to the west, while avoiding civilian areas to the north. Pilot 2LT Kipniss and Navigator 2LT Sulla both received substantial wounds during the flak barrage. We patched them up and brought the plane home without incident.

Ted After Action Reports, B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th

B17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth (B17 II) is a flight simulator and RPG centering around the daylight bombing raids of the Eighth Air Force between 1943 and 1945. The game was developed by Wayward Design and released in 2000 by publisher Atari. In the Bomber Commander (BC) portion of the game the player controls one B17 Flying Fortress and tries to complete a 25 mission tour, keeping at least one crew member alive and healthy enough at all times to make it to the end. In the Squadron Commander (SC) portion of the game the player controls twelve B17’s and tries to complete 25-30 missions while bombing targets considered “strategically important.” The main difference between the two portions is that in SC portion the player recons and chooses which targets to hit, which bombers (6 out of 12) to send, and what repairs to make to the bombers that do return. The SC portion the game can end if the player’s command is taken away because of insufficient bombing results, very high casualty rates, or too many targets chosen that are not considered high priority targets.

I have played many missions through many different bomber commander careers in B17 II and have made it to the end just once. And I had to fudge to do that. Most critics and fans agree that the game is extraordinarily hard and weighted against getting to the end of a tour. My new style of play will be to start a BC campaign at the beginning, December 1, 1943, and play with a crew until they finish their tour, are killed, or captured. At that point I will start a new crew and continue from the date of the last crews’ final mission. This way I will get to fly every mission in the game. If I keep enough interest in this style I will attempt the same style with SC campaign.

Mission statistics and details will be kept on the B17 II page.

Ted B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th