50 Mission Crush

Last updated
50 Mission Crush
50 Mission Crush cover.jpg
Developer(s) John Gray
Publisher(s) Strategic Simulations
Platform(s) Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, MS-DOS
Release1984
Genre(s) Computer wargame
Mode(s) Single-player

50 Mission Crush (sometimes Fifty Mission Crush) is a turn-based strategy computer wargame published in 1984 by Strategic Simulations (SSI) that simulates the career of the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber during World War II. The bomber is based out of the RAF Thurleigh base just north of London, and is part of the 8th Air Force. While most of SSI's games emphasized long-term strategic planning, 50 Mission Crush was marketed explicitly for its quick, comparatively fast pace: each mission takes no more than about 10 minutes. SSI described it as a "role-playing game". [1]

Contents

Gameplay

Screenshot FiftyMissionMap.png
Screenshot

Each mission is self-contained, and the player does not have to worry about resupply or repairs in between missions. Every position on the plane (for example, tail gunner, ball gunner, radio operator, and so on) is filled by a character named by the player who gains experience with each mission survived. The more missions a character survives, the more competent he becomes.

Each mission requires that the player bomb a specific target from a specific altitude. There is no strict time limit, but the amount of fuel the plane can carry is limited. The player decides upon take off how much fuel to carry and whether to carry an extra-heavy load of bombs. The player then moves the plane to the target using the number pad keys, and on each turn may ascend or descend in 5,000 foot increments. When the bomber is over the target, the player is meant to wait until there is no cloud cover before dropping the bombs. When the player is over an enemy target and there is no cloud cover, the enemy will typically fire flak, which can damage the plane, injure or kill crewmen, or set the plane on fire. The lower the bomber's altitude, the more intense the flak will be. The bomber may also be strafed by enemy fighter planes, such as the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Messerschmitt Bf 109, or Messerschmitt Bf 110.

The term

The name "50 Mission Crush" is an allusion to a type of hat. The game manual states:

A "fifty mission crush" is an Army Air Corps, or Air Force, service cap that has the stiffening ring removed, and is worn crushed and battered. This cap is obviously out of uniform, however steeped in tradition. This tradition was started by the 8th Air force flying personnel as a mark that separates the fledgling from the battle hardened survivor of 25+ combat missions. This mangled cap was frowned upon, but tolerated for those who earned the right to wear it.

Normally, this cap had stiffeners – a support piece behind the cap device and a wire around the inside top perimeter to maintain the cap's round shape. These kept the cap in its proper, regulation military shape and angle. However, since pilots wore headsets over their caps during flights, they would remove the wire stiffener to make headset wear more comfortable, causing the sides of the caps to become crushed. Eventually, the caps retained their floppy "crushed" look, giving the pilot who wore it the look of a seasoned veteran. The crush cap identified its wearer as an experienced pro, and was as much a part of his identity as his leather flight jacket. Army regulations authorized wear of the service cap in this manner in the Army Air Forces, although ground Army officers hated that manner of wearing the cap. Since most AAF general officers likewise wore the crushed caps, the ground Army could do nothing about it. The wear of the "50 Mission" cap is prohibited in the current USAF, since headsets are no longer worn over headgear.

Reception

Antic in 1985 liked 50 Mission Crush's detailed combat simulation, ease of use, and quick game play, but criticized the "very simple" graphics, slow speed, and overreliance on random events over skill. [2] The game's realism, however, impressed a former American B-24 bombardier for the Fifteenth Air Force. In a 1987 article for Computer Gaming World in which he recounted incidents from his World War II career that playing the game reminded him of, the author stated "it was all there: bomb load, ammo load, gas load, route out, fighter escort, flak at the target, cloud coverage, bombing accuracy, battle damage, fuel and ammo conservation, route back, more fighter encounters and finally, 'enough fuel to make it across the pond?' I was confronted with decisions, decisions!" The bombardier, shot down during his 50th mission, was killed in action during his seventh simulated mission. [3] A writer for the magazine, however, rated the game two of five points that year, calling it "realistic but dull, with little room for player abilities". [4] A 1993 survey in the magazine of wargames gave the game one-plus stars out of five. [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>B-17, Queen of the Skies</i> 1983 board game

B-17, Queen of the Skies is a solitaire board wargame published by On Target Games in 1981 that simulates flight missions in a Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress bomber during World War II. The game was acquired by Avalon Hill and republished in 1983.

<i>Red Baron</i> (1990 video game) 1990 video game

Red Baron is a combat flight simulation video game for MS-DOS created by Damon Slye at Dynamix. It was published by Sierra On-Line in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bombing of Augsburg in World War II</span>

The bombing of Augsburg in World War II included two British RAF and one USAAF bombing raids against the German city of Augsburg on 17 April 1942 and 25/26 February 1944.

<i>F-15 Strike Eagle</i> (video game) 1984 war video game

F-15 Strike Eagle is an F-15 Strike Eagle combat flight simulator originally released for the Atari 8-bit family in 1984 by MicroProse then ported to other systems. It is the first in the F-15 Strike Eagle series followed by F-15 Strike Eagle II and F-15 Strike Eagle III. An arcade version of the game was released simply as F-15 Strike Eagle in 1991, which uses higher-end hardware than was available in home systems, including the TMS34010 graphics-oriented CPU.

Turn-based tactics (TBT) is a video game genre of strategy video games. They are turn-based simulations of operational warfare and military tactics in generally small-scale confrontations as opposed to more strategic considerations of turn-based strategy (TBS) games. Turn-based tactical gameplay is characterized by the expectation of players to complete their tasks using only the combat forces provided to them in a generally realistic manner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Combat box</span> American WWII heavy bomber tactical formation

The combat box was a tactical formation used by heavy (strategic) bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. The combat box was also referred to as a "staggered formation". Its defensive purpose was in massing the firepower of the bombers' guns, while offensively it concentrated the release of bombs on a target.

<i>B-17 Flying Fortress</i> (video game) 1992 video game

B-17 Flying Fortress: World War II Bombers in Action is a combat flight simulation video game developed by Vektor Grafix and published by MicroProse for the PC MS-DOS in 1992 and for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1993. The game simulates training, combat missions and sorties in a tour of duty in the Eighth Air Force of the United States Army Air Forces in the European Theater of Operations aboard a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber during World War II. It was followed by B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th in 2000.

<i>Battlehawks 1942</i> 1988 video game

Battlehawks 1942 is a naval air combat combat flight simulation game released in 1988 by Lucasfilm Games. It is set in the World War II Pacific air war theatre, and was the first of Lucasfilm Games' trilogy of World War II flight simulations, followed by Their Finest Hour (1989) and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (1991). The 127-page manual for Battlehawks 1942 includes a 100-page illustrated overview of the Pacific War. The preface to the manual was written by Richard Halsey Best, who commanded the dive bomber squadron that sank two Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway.

<i>Triplane Turmoil</i> 2006 video game

Triplane Turmoil is a sidescrolling dogfighting flying game for MS-DOS by Finnish developer Dodekaedron Software. The game is based on the 1984 MS-DOS game by David Clark, Sopwith. Originally released as shareware, in 2009 Dodekaedron placed the source code, documentation, images and sounds under the GPLv3 on SourceForge, hosted later on github.com. The community continued the support and ported the game via SDL to other platforms including Linux and Windows.

<i>B-17 Bomber</i> (video game) 1982 video game

B-17 Bomber is a single-player video game released by Mattel for their Intellivision console in 1982. The game was bundled with the Intellivoice voice synthesis module.

"Fifty Mission Cap" is a song by Canadian rock group The Tragically Hip. It was released in January 1993 as the second single from the band's third full-length album, Fully Completely. It was first played in front of a live concert audience at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on December 16, 1991.

<i>Bomb Alley</i> 1983 video game

Bomb Alley is a 1983 computer wargame designed by Gary Grigsby and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). Covering the Mediterranean Theatre of World War II, it runs on the Apple II platform. It has the distinction of being the first true land-sea-air computer wargame, where ground troops could advance and retreat across land.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer wargame</span> Wargame played on a computer or other digital device

A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use and, in some cases, used for military purposes.

The 330th Bombardment Group was a bomber group of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was formed on 1 July 1942 at Salt Lake City Army Air Base, Utah. Initially, the group was equipped with the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, and served as a training unit within the United States until April 1944. On 1 April 1944, the group re-formed as a Boeing B-29 Superfortress-equipped unit as part of the 314th Bombardment Wing and trained for deployment to the Pacific Theater against Japan.

<i>Bomber</i> (video game) 1989 video game

Bomber, also known as Bomber 3 or Bomber III, is a combat flight simulation game developed and released in 1989 by Inline Design for the Macintosh.

<i>Dive Bomber</i> (video game) 1988 video game

Dive Bomber is a video game developed by Acme Animation in 1988 for the Commodore 64. It was ported to Atari ST, Apple II, ZX Spectrum and MS-DOS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident</span> Aerial Incident of WW2

The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident occurred on 20 December 1943, when, after a successful bomb run on Bremen, 2nd Lt. Charles "Charlie" Brown's B-17F Flying Fortress Ye Olde Pub of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) was severely damaged by German fighters. Luftwaffe pilot Franz Stigler had the opportunity to shoot down the crippled bomber but did not do so, and instead escorted it over and past German-occupied territory so as to protect it. After an extensive search by Brown, the two pilots met each other 50 years later and developed a friendship that lasted until Stigler's death in March 2008. Brown died only a few months later, in November of the same year.

<i>Kampfgruppe</i> (video game) 1985 video game

Kampfgruppe is a 1985 computer wargame designed by Gary Grigsby and published by Strategic Simulations for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, and Commodore 64. Kampfgruppe is a game tactical-scale combat on the Eastern Front. An MS-DOS port was released in 1987 followed by an Amiga version in 1988.

<i>Battle Over Britain</i> Board game

Battle Over Britain is a board wargame published by the SPI subsidiary of TSR in 1983 that simulates the Battle of Britain.

<i>Flying Fortress I & II</i> 1969 WWII board wargame

Flying Fortress I and Flying Fortress II are different versions of the same board wargame published by Poultron Press in 1969 that simulates the American bombing campaign over Europe during World War II. The games were part of a test series in which the better version was to be republished under the name Luftwaffe; however, that game was never released.

References

  1. ↑ "1985 SSI Catalog". Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 28 December 2006.
  2. ↑ Wiegers, Karl (May 1985). "50 Mission Crush". Antic. p. 83. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  3. ↑ Newby, Leroy W. "Ted" (March 1987). "50 Mission Crush: A 50 Mission Recall". Computer Gaming World. pp. 20–21, 54.
  4. ↑ Brooks, M. Evan (April 1987). "Kilobyte Was Here!". Computer Gaming World. p. 6.
  5. ↑ Brooks, M. Evan (September 1993). "Brooks' Book of Wargames: 1900-1950, A-P". Computer Gaming World. p. 118. Retrieved 30 July 2014.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.