Customer Reviews

Luftwaffe The Game of Aerial Combat over Germany 1943-45

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This is not a plan-by-plane air combat game. This is s simulation of the strategic bombing of Germany, where one players plans the strategy and raids of the American bomber force and its fighter scort, and the other player try to avoid the damage and dismantle as many raids as he managing the Luftwaffe fighters.

It a very enjoyable game, lots of dice rolling. Yes, it takes some time to plan the turns, but so what? This is the game. Don't expect a superb simulation that will take days to play. The game just has the flavour of the theme (and a beautiful mapboard indeed). The round counters for the planes (by "planes" I mean Fighter Groups or Jagdgeschwaders) are a plus.

If you find this game around, it is worth trying it.

This game is a part of board-game history. Everyone played it, but we hated it. The game harkens back to the days when hundreds of bombers would fly into hailstorms of lead, resolved to take the battle to the enemy at all costs.

The problem is that this game makes some really bad assumptions about technology and history. The designer was a genius in his day, so nobody questioned his work, especially since he had created a couple boardgame masterpieces. This game should have been questioned.

Assumption 1: aircraft firepower is reduced to how much lead the aircraft can throw.
Assumption 2: each mission represents the cumulative effects of 3 months of combat.
Assumption 3: german aircraft can instantly refuel
Assumption 4: german and american aircraft can react to each other even when separated by hundreds of miles.
Assumption 5: the FW190 and Me109 are just as effective at high altitude as the P47 and P51.

The fundamental problems with the assumptions and with the artificiality of the game is that "throwweights of lead" and all the other assumptions do not capture the nature of the air war. It was an excercise of attrition, and of carefully exploiting vulnerabilities in german production. The german had additional political constraints from the nutjob in charge, manpower constraints, and needed to slow down the million-man waves of Soviets.

Historically, the Luftwaffe was never able to stop a raid of heavy bombers. Not once. Yet the game suggests otherwise.

This game was designed in the days before computers when gamers didn't mind taking 20 minutes between turns to pencil out a plan for the next series of turns. That drudgery asside, this game always devolves into one big turn in which the german aircraft keep moving back "just out of range" of the american aircraft, and whoever is able to attack first (usually the german) the entire game depends on this one roll of the die.
So to recap, lots of dreary planning, OCB attention to each counter, totally unrealistic manuevering in anticipation for attack.

Still, it's a nice piece of artwork to have around. Do a little research on the European Air War, make up your own rules, and have fun.