B-17 Flying Fortress (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.

Some aspects that the player has control over are inflight crew management (a crewman might become injured during combat and temporary medical aid inflight given to him whilst another aircrewmen tends another crew position), manning an onboard .50 caliber M2 Browning machine gun against enemy fighters, and releasing the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress's ordnance on the target as well as piloting or copiloting the plane.

Although a mission is assigned to the crew before every sortie, the player may break formation and roam freely around Europe if desired, looking for and attacking targets of opportunity.

B-17 Flying Fortress came with a 230-page manual which details how to play the simulation, in addition to an in-depth historical section with numerous illustrations and photographs.

Its sequel came out in the year 2000 and B-17 Flying Fortress as freeware was made into a Microsoft Windows 9x running application from the DOS based version for the PC platform.

[1] A 1993 survey in the magazine of wargames gave the game three stars out of five, stating that "bomber operations are inherently dull ... and this simulation more than covers the topic".

Manning a machine gun turret.