B-17: Queen of the Skies
Tutorial · version 1.8.1 · a first mission, step by step
How to begin
The title screen offers three save slots, a choice of tour and a difficulty. For a first game pick the Winter–Spring 1942–43 tour on Regular and press New tour — solitaire. You are at base with a B-17 and a crew of ten. The information sidebar on the left shows the mission, the aircraft, the crew and the tour; the controls sidebar on the right holds every action.
Controls
| Action | Mouse or touch | Keyboard |
|---|---|---|
| Main action (the highlighted button) | press it | Space or Enter |
| Auto-fly on or off | the Auto-fly box | F |
| Auto-assign guns | Auto-assign guns | A |
| Route map / combat board / aircraft sheet | the tabs above the map | M cycles them |
| Pan the route map | drag | arrow keys |
| Zoom the route map | wheel or pinch; + and − buttons | + −, 0 to fit |
| Move between controls | — | Tab; Escape closes a dialog |
The Aircraft tab shows the whole ship compartment by compartment. Settings (from the Menu) has larger text, high contrast, reduced motion, effects and voice volume, and the spoken intercom.
Turn order
A mission is a fixed sequence, and the right-hand panel always shows what comes next:
- Briefing — target, route, weather, position, bomb load.
- Take-off — a worn aircraft may suffer an early return.
- Each zone outbound — coast flak when crossing the enemy coast; roll for fighter waves; fight each wave; then the zone ends (fuel, fires, frostbite, first aid).
- The target — three rounds of flak, then the bomb run (or a decision if the target is under cloud).
- Each zone homebound — the same as outbound.
- Landing and debrief — credit, wounds, medals, the strike photograph, the group's losses.
Movement
Movement is zone by zone along the route drawn on the map: each press of Fly to zone N advances one zone and spends fuel. Zones over the sea draw fewer fighters; zones over Germany and near the target draw more. Watch the fuel bar on the left — it must reach England. You may abort on the way out (no credit), close up into a gap in your squadron if a ship ahead has gone down, or dive to blow out an engine fire (and lose the formation). A ship with two engines out or two control cables cut becomes a straggler, alone and attracting more fighters.
Combat and scoring
A wave puts fighters on the combat board at clock positions — 12, 1:30, 3, 6, 9 and 10:30, high, level or low, or diving and climbing vertically. On the right, each gun that bears lists the fighters it can fire at and the 2d6 roll it needs. Choose targets or press Auto-assign guns, then Open fire. Hits damage, drive off or destroy fighters; the formation's crossfire drives some off; survivors attack, and each hit is located and resolved on the damage tables. Surviving fighters may come round again, up to three passes. With a second player, the German player chooses where they set up.
Over the target the bombs are scored as the percentage within 1,000 feet of the aiming point; the group's strike photograph and the damage done to the target appear at the debrief. Fighters claimed, hits taken and the group's losses go into the logbook.
Winning
You win the tour when your pilot has flown twenty-five credited missions and goes home. A mission is credited only if the bombs are dropped on the target (or on a target of opportunity when the primary is closed in). The tour-over screen then offers a printable certificate.
Losing
The tour ends in defeat if your pilot is killed, missing, taken prisoner, evades capture and is sent home, or is invalided home with wounds. Losing the aircraft alone does not end the tour: surviving men return and a new B-17 is assigned. Men lost from the crew are replaced by green replacements, who shoot worse at first.
Saving and restarting
The game saves automatically in this browser after every action, in the save slot chosen on the title screen; there are three slots. Menu returns to the title screen, where Resume continues the tour in the chosen slot and New tour starts over in it (you are asked to confirm before a tour in progress is replaced). A finished tour stays in its slot, with its record, until a new one replaces it. Saved games stay in this browser only; clearing the site's data removes them.
The full rules and tables are in the manual (docs/manual.pdf).
Mission readiness and save tools (v1.9.0)
Before starting engines, compare the bomb-load table in the briefing. Target effect is a damage multiplier, not a probability of hitting. The recommendation balances target effectiveness with a planned reserve; fuel leaks and damage can consume that margin. Select Use recommended load to apply it.
Open Saves in the header to download the current tour or a stored slot. Download current tour includes the latest progress even if browser storage could not save it. To restore, select a JSON backup, wait for the check, choose a destination slot and confirm replacement if the slot contains data. Keep a backup before clearing browser data.
If a save cannot be read, its original contents are retained. Save tools can download that data for recovery. A new tour in that slot requires confirmation before replacement.
Flight command and crew assistance (v1.10.0)
Flight command summarizes planned fuel margin, usable guns, escort and formation cover. Red and amber notices explain fires, low fuel, serious wounds, unmanned guns and empty ammunition boxes. The fuel margin follows your current route; it cannot predict later damage or continuing leaks.
Between zones, select Review suggested crew orders. Read which men will give first aid or change guns, including the posts they leave. Apply crew orders commits the displayed orders and saves them; Keep current posts closes the preview without making changes. Helpers already treating someone stay with their patients. Both pilots and ready top/tail gunners stay at their posts. First aid takes the next zone to complete, so check any remaining alerts.
Gun targets now show their 2d6 hit chances. These are hit odds, not kill odds, and each fired burst costs one ammunition box. A gun holds fire when an earlier shot has removed its target. Fighter coverage counts targets with at least one assigned shot that can hit; zero-chance shots are flagged.
Landing outlook and Ditching outlook enumerate all 36 equally likely dice pairs using current modifiers. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. A controlled field landing is a forced landing with no initial landing injuries; it still ends the aircraft's mission as a forced landing. Later injury and rescue rolls are separate. Viewing any advice consumes no dice rolls.
Mission archive and reports (v1.11.0)
Open Logbook to search completed missions by target, aircraft, date, mission number or a word in the crew notes. Combine the Credit and Outcome filters, then choose a sort order. The four summary figures apply only to the displayed records. Bomb accuracy averages include actual drops, even zero-percent results, and exclude missions with no drop.
Report opens a sortie's comparison with earlier missions, recorded route events, group losses, aircraft and crew notes, and strike photograph when available. The current debrief also offers Detailed mission report. Earlier averages exclude the selected mission and every later sortie. Some older records lack optional details; these appear as not recorded. Returning to the logbook retains your filters and sort order.
Download shown missions (CSV) exports the displayed missions in the selected order, including notes. Clear the filters first to export the complete tour. The existing text download still exports the full logbook and crew list.
Map opens a historical route replay. Live mission actions and auto-fly stay paused while you pan and zoom. The left information panels still describe your live aircraft. Use Return to live tour to restore the previous view and camera; auto-fly then follows your existing setting. Replay does not rewind or overwrite the campaign.