Fortress Games is currently wrapping up a successful Kickstarter for the wargames 8th Air Force and 20th Air Force. Both titles are solitaire WWII strategic bombing games tackling the air war over Germany and Japan. The project is fully funded and you can reserve a copy of either game for a $65.00 pledge, or score both for a $99.00 pledge, through November 16th. Expected delivery is this December.
From Fortress Games:
In 1943, the US Army Air Force (USAAF) began a strategic bombing campaign with a small but growing number of aircraft. By 1945 it had, for all practical purposes, swept the German air force (Luftwaffe) from the skies, and was bombing targets throughout the shrinking Third Reich almost with impunity. But getting to that point was no easy task…
You, as commander, 8th Air Force, have a very full plate! Early on, insure victory in the Battle of the Atlantic by bombing submarine bases in western France, then support the eventual Allied invasion of occupied France by bombing railroads and river crossings throughout France and western Germany. Failure in these critical bombing campaigns is not acceptable. Long-term, you’ll need to pulverize Germany’s aircraft factories and oil facilities to reduce the Luftwaffe’s aircraft production and support, and win the war by blasting Germany’s heavy industry. There will be more challenges along the way, from providing heavy support for the D-Day invasion and Normandy breakout, to suppressing the demoralizing V1 and V2 attacks on England, to assisting your Soviet ally by attacking German army staging areas in the east. In the meantime, the Luftwaffe is developing advanced jet and rocket technology that may tip the tide of the air war if you have not crippled their industrial capacity.
Your objective as you take command of the 20th Air Force in September 1944 is nothing short of reducing Japan’s cities, large and small, to smoldering rubble! To do it you’ve got the powerful and sophisticated B29, in ever increasing numbers and with flight crews improving in combat and navigation skills, and a research effort at home, accelerated by your own successes, developing more and more sophisticated weapons. While initially you must focus on clearing the sky of Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF) fighters and blasting Japanese war industries with high explosive bombs, eventually you will develop incendiary bombs which rapidly reduce Japan’s combustible wooden and paper cities to ashes, and their dispersed war industries to ruins. Simultaneously, demolish her ports and kamikaze bases, and mine her waters. In the meantime, achieving critical milestones pushes research on, perhaps you will have enough success to obtain the ultimate weapon, the Atomic Bomb? Hopefully you will, because you are in a race against time – if Japan can hold out long enough the US will have to launch “Operation Olympic”, the costly planned invasion of Japan, and your strategic bombing campaign will have failed.
