Wargame SITREP 24-27 ~ Wargame of the Week – Skies Above Britain (GMT Games, 2022) Introductory Raid Scenarios

Skies Above Britain by designers Jeremy White and Gina Wills is a solitaire wargame from GMT Games (2022) where you, the player, leads a squadron of Royal Air Force (RAF) Hurricanes or Spitfire fighters in the skies above England during the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940. My game is a (gently) used copy thanks to a local game market match. I am working my way through the programmed rules and introductory scenarios for the game to fully learn how to play. After several days learning the Dogfight Cycle (fighter-vs.-fighter), the Bomber Cycle (fighter-vs.-bomber), and the Interception Sequence (bouncing a bomber formation) I am ready for the next section of the rules which covers the Raid Vector Sequence.

Raiders from…beyond

The Raid Vector Sequence in Skies Above Britain details plays out the events leading up to the squadron of fighters intercepting a formation of bombers. The movement of attacking bomber formations is greatly abstracted as the focus of this segment is not on the bombers but rather on the pre-intercept squadron maneuver. The Raid Vector Sequence is the time for your squadron to try to climb for altitude or maneuver for position going into the Intercept Sequence. As such, the rules for the Raid Vector Sequence are quite small—only five pages (pp. 41-45).

The Raid Vector Sequence rules in Skies Above Britain is also where the rule for assigning pilots is found under “Set-Up / A. Assignments.” The rule (with formatting preserved) is shown below:

“Arrange RAF Fighters on the Squadron Display {7} Then, you can skip the rest of this step unless you are playing a Campaign (refer to the Situation Manual for campaigns). Assign pilots to fighters. If starting a Campaign, roll a die to determine the experience levels of your pilots (see the Pilot Experience section of this Rule Book for an explanation of experience levels and Ace skills {49} ). Note all this on your Pilot Roster.”

I call your attention to this rule because (some foreshadowing here) the assignment of pilots is very important in Skies Above Britain; this is perhaps the most important rule of the game and certainly the most important rule of the Raid Vector Sequence though it is skipped here if not playing a Campaign Game. Hold onto that thought as we will return to it in a later installment…

Raid Patrol

When I turned to the Situation Manual for Skies Above Britain to find the introductory Raid scenarios I couldn’t find them. Up to this point in the programmed learning rules each section has several scenarios to step through to gradually learn the system. Following the Intercept Scenarios the next section is “Patrol Example.” As the introduction of this section states, “This is an example of how to set-up and play a patrol. It uses the Campaign set-up for Chapter 1 and skips over the details of dogfights and action in the Bomber Formation Area to focus on the Raid Vector Sequence, the transition to the Interception Sequence, and the use of pilots and experience” (Situation Manual, p. 35).

<Sigh>

Why the change in terminology? Up to this point the words used by Skies Above Britain in the programmed learning up to this point have been excellent for programming me as a player. Now comes new, somewhat inconsistent (unexpected?) terminology where “Raid” is now “Patrol” and “scenario” is now “chapter.” Further, most of the introductory scenarios have extended examples of play to help learning alongside play. Now, in the Patrol Example, there is only that extended example of play.

I ended up setting up the first scenario chapter for the first patrol in the first campaign of Skies Above Britain and tried stepping through the Raid Vector Sequence. It worked, in a fashion, but I ended the Raid Vector Sequence feeling very unsure that I actually grasped the rules. I guess I can get further reps in the campaign game with each patrol (or is that raid? or chapter?). This now un-programmed approach to learning left me a bit unsettled; whereas other programmed learning sections ended with me feeling somewhat confident that I grasped the rules here that feeling is missing.

Pilot Base

Looking at the Rule Book for Skies Above Britain I see that I am close to the end of the rules. The next section, Return to Base, covers post-Raid events while Pilot Experience introduces rules to personalize pilots. I’ll dig into those next time…

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Feature image ‘It was dangerous work’: The forgotten women of the Battle of Britain … (courtesy independent.co.uk)

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