B-17 Flying Fortress rookie guide

Welcome to yet another rookie guide for a MicroProse simulation from the DOS era. This time it is for the military sim B-17 Flying Fortress , and I haven't played it in a while, so please take all this with a grain of salt.



Background

The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was an American WWII heavy bomber best know best know for its use in the European theater, from 1941 to the end of the war. It was both operated by the American air for and the British RAF, who used it in bombing campaigns against Germany as well as other European countries ruled by the Germans.

According to Wikipedia, it was a relatively fast, high-flying, long-range bomber with heavy defensive armament at the expense of bomb load. It also developed a reputation for toughness based upon stories and photos of badly damaged B-17s safely returning to base. [Source]

The game

B-17 Flying Fortress was released in 1992 for DOS computers, and the next year for the Atari ST and Amiga computers. In this guide we'll be using the DOS version.

Although the B-17 features plenty of action and uses a similar engine to other MicroProse military sims, such as F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 or Dogfight , it is quite a different animal. It is, so to speak, a thinking man's military sim, and probably much closer to submarine sims than your usual military flight sim.

This means B-17 might not be the best option for newbiews nor action junkies. Instead, if you've already played other MicroProse sims and want something more serious and challenging, this might be right up your alley.

IMPORTANT: The game needs an American keymap to work, so make sure to type KEYB US before starting the game.

Aso, I thought the game was 100% DOSBox compatible, but while i was taking the screenshots for this piece it crashed a few times while toying with the external views, so use a SVN version or a DOSBox fork instead.

Overview

B-17 puts you in charge of an entire crew in a B-17 bomber during WWII. Your ultimate goal is to survive (and fulfill!) 25 bombing missions, what was then known as a tour of duty . This is not going to be easy, because apart from the flighting those Germans are there to get you. You'll face enemy airplanes, triple A and mechanical failures, and the mission won't count as completed unless you hit the main or secondary targets.

As I said before, you'll control the entire B-17 crew here. These means 10 men, who man the bomber's different stations:

Bombardier
Navigator
Pilot
Co-pilot
Engineer / Top turrent gunner
Radio operator
Ball turret gunner
Left waist gunner
Right waist gunner
Tail gunner

You can access every position at any time with the F1- to F10 keys.

Now, to prevent you from fainting, every station has to positions, CPU or player control , which we switch using the M key. Whenever you abandon a position, the computer will take care of it.

You can leave many of the mission tasks in the hands of the computer, but you need to aim and drop the bombs yourself.

A standard mission

Once we've set up our bomber (we can give it name and pick a logo), we'll go straight into the briefing :



He we can take a look at the map , but the most important thing is to check out the recon movies . This are very important if we want to identify the target later.

In this case, I chose a training mission , so the target looks like this:



The next step is the runway:



As I said before, you can leave many tasks to the CPU, and this includes taking off and landings. Personally, I prefer to let the computer taxi around, take off and join formation, but to land the plane myself.

I won't bother you with the flight controls, you can check them out in the manual.

So we make sure the pilot station is on CPU (see the icon on the upper left part of the screen) and press either ALT+T (to skip until something happens) or ALT+A (to accelerate time while the keys are pressed).

It's a good time to cycle through the different stations and check the alternate views, if any. The bombardier, pilot and co-pilot, for instance, have external views we can access through the E key:



Every crew member also has a compartment view, which you access with the C key:



This compartment view comes in handy when there is some malfunction or any of the crew members gets injured. You can pick any other crew member, move him around the plane, solve the issue and, if necessary, man the now vacant position.

For instance, imagine one of your gunners is wounded. You can send another crew member to his compartment, attend his wounds and then man his machine gun, because wounded crew members can't do their jobs anymore.



Be careful, though. Because although anybody can shoot a machine gun, not everybody in your crew can pilot or use the bomb sights. Speaking of which...

The bombing run

Wen the time comes to drop your bombs, you'll be warned by the rest of the crew. It's time to move to the bombardier position ( F1 ) and man the station in person ( M ):



First things first, first open the bomb doors with key D .

Now, press O to operate the sight. You are now in control of the plane for the duration of the bombing run.

Now you need to keep the target in your sights for 20 or more seconds .

And finally press SPACE to drop your bombs.

You can see if you hit the target with the external views, but also from the ball gunner position:



With the target destroyed, you can now let the pilots take you home and, if you're a lazy bastard like me, to land the plane themselves:



Although doing it yourself is much more rewarding.

The real thing

But wait, that was a training mission, right? Are the real missions too different?

Well, not in the essential. But they are much more difficult.

1) First of all, make sure to watch the recon footage during the briefing. Otherwise, you may not be able to identify the target. Here an X doesn't mark the spot anymore.

[You can also check out pictures of every target in the Flight supplement , but that would be cheating]

2) Enemy planes! You'll be attacked a lot, and the machine guns are not exactly easy to aim.



This means your plane will suffer lots of damage, that some crew members will be injured, and you'll have to cure and replace them. It can get VERY intense.

Also, notice you can hit other plains in your group with your machine guns!



So watch your aim.

3) Sometimes your own plane will get too damaged to continue its flight. in that case, try to reach the open sea before ordering your crew to abandon the plane.



An engine on fire is never a good sign.

And that's pretty much it.