Skies Above the Reich

[bayonetbrant]

Boxing Terrain Fortresses in Skies Above the Reich

The combat box formation of B-17 bombers is depicted in Skies Above the Reich not by a data card or even a counter on a map, but by the map itself

https://wp.me/pae4WL-9Hx

[TTC]

This is one of the few wargames that I have quit playing because of the subject matter.

Even before watching Masters of the Air, I knew how brutal and horrifying combat was trapped in a B-17 cruising slowly over Germany while flak exploded around you or Messerschmidts made repeated passes at you. I'd seen too many videos of B-17s falling from the sky, or the infamous image of the B-17 with its wing separated - and knowing that each time I successfully shot down a B-17 in the game, it represented 10 Americans possibly falling to their death.

I know the wargames that we play all represent untold suffering in every die roll or chit pull, but this one was a tad too much for me...

[BanzaiCat]

TTC, I find this fascinating. I mean, your response to it.

Let's be clear, though - I am NOT disparaging your opinion at all. In fact, I can respect that. I just find it interesting how some people put that level of humanity on paper and cardboard. Again - it sounds like it but I'm not disparaging it.

I remember someone made a similar comment about the game "Amerika Bomber" by Greg Smith, where you take a German bomber and bomb targets in the USA. This eventually cumulates to potentially dropping a nuke on America, as well. I played the full game and had said nukes available, and dropped one on Chicago. I found the experience...well, not fun per se, but an insight into something I'd not considered before. And I think that kind of insight is equally fascinating. One person said (just a general comment on the game) that they couldn't bear the thought of shooting down and bombing Americans.

I just see it as a sim in paper and cardboard, not as actual flesh and blood. Being a sim means nobody is really getting hurt because of my choices or actions. However, we all have a certain amount of empathy, some more than others, and that's not a comment on a person with more is necessarily better than someone with less; I think it's how it translates within the brain.

Psychology is a fascinating subject to me in general and this in particular is an interesting subject. I wonder if anyone has written on this in any capacity? I will need to do some checking.

[TTC]

TTC, I find this fascinating. I mean, your response to it.

Let's be clear, though - I am NOT disparaging your opinion at all. In fact, I can respect that. I just find it interesting how some people put that level of humanity on paper and cardboard. Again - it sounds like it but I'm not disparaging it.

I remember someone made a similar comment about the game "Amerika Bomber" by Greg Smith, where you take a German bomber and bomb targets in the USA. This eventually cumulates to potentially dropping a nuke on America, as well. I played the full game and had said nukes available, and dropped one on Chicago. I found the experience...well, not fun per se, but an insight into something I'd not considered before. And I think that kind of insight is equally fascinating. One person said (just a general comment on the game) that they couldn't bear the thought of shooting down and bombing Americans.

I just see it as a sim in paper and cardboard, not as actual flesh and blood. Being a sim means nobody is really getting hurt because of my choices or actions. However, we all have a certain amount of empathy, some more than others, and that's not a comment on a person with more is necessarily better than someone with less; I think it's how it translates within the brain.

Psychology is a fascinating subject to me in general and this in particular is an interesting subject. I wonder if anyone has written on this in any capacity? I will need to do some checking.

I have no problem playing a computer game like DEFCON and nuking American cities in a big abstract way. However, I have never played Labyrinth and don't really want to - maybe because the war on terror was too close to me personally.

Skies Above the Reich is the first game, though, that I have played and enjoyed - then had these second thoughts about. Although I did recently start to have similar misgivings while playing D-Day at Omaha Beach: as I played, I thought to myself, "What would I tell a veteran in C/1-16 IN, fighting up the bluff, when I flipped the counter, indicating half of his company was hors de combat? Would he understand that this game was abstracting the untold suffering that they went through on that day?"

These are visceral reactions and not logical at all. I have dozens and hundreds of wargames that abstractly represent the death and suffering of hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands, and I have zero misgivings about playing those.

But Skies Above the Reich hit me differently when I cheered and celebrated the death of ten American airmen.