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This terrific new game from Microprose
places you in some of the most exciting and interesting periods of the European air war during WWII. Microprose
allows you to plunk yourself into one of three distinct time periods of the United States and Britain's Western European conflict against Germany.
Battle of Britain
The first segment concentrates on the Battle of Britain, the very name of which conjures up half-formed images of Spitfires and Messerschmitts tracing lines of smoke across the pristine summer skies of England. Winston Churchill's immortal words echo across nearly six decades: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." It is easy to glorify the combatants as heroes larger than life, but it must be remembered that the war was fought by the common man, the fellow next door, everyone's grandfather, uncle, or father. The reality of the situation makes for some excitement as well.
During the summer of 1940, England stood alone. Adolf Hitler's legions had utterly defeated the combined British and French forces in the short Battle of France. The new German tactic of Blitzkrieg (Lightning War) had rolled up the Allied armies and their antiquated way of thinking like a worn carpet, and the Luftwaffe (German air force) had been an integral part of this new strategy. The new war brought unprecedented developments to warfare that had to be learned quickly. Air power had a minimal effect on the outcome of WWI, but during WWII it would come of age, and a terrible age it would be.
The Luftwaffe Jagdfliegers (fighter pilots) had been learning about this new style of high-speed, high-firepower air combat while assisting the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. It had been an invaluable time for learning new tactics and formations to put themselves ahead of the British and French. Both the Germans and their Russian opponents (who supported the Loyalists) quickly learned the value of tactical air power (air power in direct support of armies in the field). The Germans also evolved their formations to the needs of this new warfare. The tactical genius Werner Moelders developed the Schwarm (four-plane) formation from the earlier Kette (three-plane) formation. The Schwarm could be split into two Rotte (pairs) that would be mutually supportive in combat. The Rotte was the smallest combat unit, whereas one-on-one combat was common during WWI. During WWII, air fighters would enter combat as team players instead of individual knights. This proved an enduring change in the nature of air combat. Now there were at least two pairs of eyes scanning the sky, two planes mutually supporting each other.
The German bombers had evolved into a supreme tactical bombing force, capable of supporting the Waffen (army) units in any battle. Unfortunately, during the Battle of Britain they would have to attack strategic targets, attempting to cripple England's air force, and, once they accomplished that, pave the way for invasion. Instead of numerous short, low-altitude sorties to tactical targets, the bombers would have to slug their way through a gauntlet of fighters and anti-aircraft and accurately drop their bombs on strategic targets from relatively high altitudes. The German bombers were ill-equipped for this task.
The British on the other hand were supplied with first-rate weapons in the Spitfire and Hurricane, but lacked the hard-won experience of the Luftwaffe. Their primary tactical formation was the Vic, a grouping of three planes that the Luftwaffe had long ago discarded. Additionally, their tactical doctrines were cumbersome and unwieldy, calling for complicated and intricate attacks on the bombers. If England was to survive, it would need to learn in the space of a few months what the Germans had spent years perfecting. Young men on both sides would be fighting and dying not only to defend their respective countries but also to test these doctrines and prove them conclusively.
Enter Stage Left: The United States
The second segment of interest is the entrance of the Americans into the air war in Europe in 1943. During the 1930s, the big debate in U.S. military circles revolved around the use of air power and what its role would be in any future war. Within the United States Army Air Corps -- there was no air force at this time; all aerial forces were under control of either the Army or Navy -- proponents of strategic long-range bombing like Carl Spaatz and Ira Eaker debated with a rival camp led by Claire Lee Chennault about whether fighters could stop any bomber force. Within the Air Corps, the bomber group won the day, and the strategic doctrine held that heavily armed and armored bombers would always get through to their targets without fighter escort. (Unfortunately, most of the senior generals and admirals of the Army and Navy felt that air power would play a minor reconnaissance role, but that belief was absolutely shattered by the devastating Japanese aerial attack on Pearl Harbor.)
When the Americans entered the war, their ally Great Britain had been hardened by two years of battle. When the war started, the English had attempted daylight bombing just as the Germans had during the Battle of Britain. The result for the relatively lightly armed British and German bombers was their nearly wholesale slaughter. Both sides had completely given up on the idea of daylight precision bombing. The British attempted to persuade the Americans to benefit from their experience and give up their own aircraft and strategic doctrines to adopt the strategy of night bombing. Winston Churchill was pressing President Franklin Roosevelt hard to join the night-bomber offensive and start producing British planes like the Spitfire and Lancaster. But men like Carl Spaatz and Ira Eaker, who had invested their careers and a major chunk of their lives on the concept of strategic daylight precision bombing, would not give up without a struggle. At the Casablanca Conference, Ira Eaker met with Churchill privately to plead the case for precision bombing. Churchill's reversal was in part due to a turn of phrase. Eaker pointed out that by having the Americans bombing during the day and the RAF (Royal Air Force) at night, the German defenses would never get a chance to rest. Churchill immediately seized on this and coined the phrase "round-the-clock" bombing. The CBO (Combined Bomber Offensive) was begun.
The untried Americans entered the war with untried equipment and tactical doctrines and faced the battle-hardened Luftwaffe veterans whose mettle had been tested by five years of war. The American military organizations scrambled frantically to assimilate the experience of their British counterparts, adopting the British (who had adopted the German Schwarm) finger-four formations as their standard tactical formation. New equipment and procedures had to be adopted and tested; for instance, American HF (High Frequency) radios were not up to the task of modern air combat and had to be changed to match British VHF (Very High Frequency) gear.
| "Time to go. I'm pleased with myself. Excited -- naturally! Excited about my first combat mission, excited to realize that at long last, all those years of flying, all the skill passed on to me by instructors who wanted me to be able to fly well, to fly better than anyone else, would now be put to the test. It wasn't a war of such personal weight, of course, yet to me it was my own war, a private conflict in which I had to make good, in which I would stand or fall on my own." |
| - Major Robert S. Johnson, USAAF 27 victories, WWII |
The Battle of Germany
During the last and final phase of the European Air War, Allied air power reached full maturity. Combat doctrines and tactics were fully tested and developed, and the mighty weight of full war production began to be felt. Aircraft models reached their mature forms, which could be seen by their production numbers. About 10,000 Mustangs of all models were produced. The definitive model of the Mustang, the P-51D, had nearly 7,000 examples produced. Of the nearly 35,000 Messerschmitt Bf109s produced, over 14,000 were Gustavs (Bf109Gs).
The British and Americans combined with the goal of utterly destroying the German ability to wage war, methodically reducing cities to rubble in raids of over 1000 bombers and 800 fighters at a time. The day-and-night grind wore down the German defenses. Additionally, they attacked the infrastructure of German society, taking out bridges, destroying locomotives, train stations, and switching equipment, and making travel on the highways extremely hazardous. The Luftwaffe was forced to defend these valuable resources by committing men and materiel to them. While the actual destructive effect of the bombs themselves is still a matter of contention to this day, what cannot be contested is that the American daylight bombing raids forced the Luftwaffe into battle and ultimately its destruction.
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