Section 3 Getting Started
Gary Grigsby’s Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich is a game that requires study to learn well. However, the actual mechanics of clicking buttons, plotting German and Allied raids, launching British or German interceptors, etc., is really quite simple. This section of the Player’s Guide will help you to get started quickly, by describing how to plot a few German raids and start the Movement Phase for the Eagle Day version of Gary Grigsby’s Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich. Bombing the Reich is controlled in much the same way. It is recommended that you begin your play of Eagle Day as the Germans, as we believe it’s easier to get into the game this way, because once you’ve plotted your raids, you can sit back and watch them fly.
For more information on the campaigns of Bombing the Reich, please refer to section 6.2. A tutorial for Bombing the Reich is also provided; to view it, please refer to section 6.3.
3.1 The Anatomy of a Raid
Here’s a quick diagram of how the screens in Gary Grigsby’s Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich relate to each other. Basically, beginning a new campaign begins by selecting either “New German Campaign” or “New British Campaign” from the Start-up Screen, then on to the Campaign Selection Screen, and then on to the Main Game Screen where the game is played. Other screens can be accessed from these three main screens, but you shouldn’t concern yourself with those until you become more familiar with the game.
3.2 Playing a One-Day 1940 Campaign
You’re no doubt dying to jump right in and try your hand at bombing, strafing, and generally showing up your historical predecessors. Fear not, because we have put together the following short tutorial to show you the bare bones of managing thousands of pilots and their machines. You will get to play a one-day 1940 Campaign as the Germans.
In this tutorial, we will walk you through the steps in choosing a campaign and plotting a bombing raid against Kenley, a British airfield.
First, select “New Luft. Campaign” in the lower portion of the Start-up Screen. Resist the temptation to play the RAF for now, as otherwise this tutorial will make little sense. You’ll get your chance soon enough…
On the Campaign Selection Screen, select “Eagle Day, one day campaign.” When you do this, the campaign’s description is displayed under the Campaign options and the map in the bottom right-hand corner is highlighted.
Read the Campaign Description carefully. To win this simple one-day campaign, you must score more points than your British opponent. You do this by shooting down British aircraft and by bombing FC (Fighter Command) Primary Airfields.
Ensure that you have “Human” selected for the German side (next to the German black cross) and “Computer” selected for the RAF side (next to the RAF roundel). These should both be selected by default.
Once you’ve read the campaign description, select the “Start Game” option beneath the map on the Campaign Selection screen. The Loading Screen appears briefly. When the campaign is finished loading, you are taken directly to the Main Game screen.
3.3 Game Phases
It’s important to stop now and briefly describe the “phases” in the game. Gary Grigsby’s Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich is played in phases. Viewable Phases will depend on the side being played; for example, the Luftwaffe will not see the RAF or Allied briefings or movement. The Phases are as follows:
- Planning Phase
- Movement Phase (Turn Resolution)
- Debriefing Phase
A Movement Phase lasts until all raids and/or patrols are completed and no planes are left flying. This may stretch the Movement Phase well into the next day. Once the Movement Phase ends, the player may review that day’s activity (if it is not the final Turn of the campaign). Once done, a new Movement Phase begins and the process starts all over again.
As the German player in this Eagle Day scenario, when you first enter the Main Game Screen, you begin in the Planning Phase. It is in this phase that you will begin planning your upcoming day’s raids against British targets.
3.4 Continuing the Raid
Kenley is classified as a “primary sector airfield.” That means that it is directly attached to one of the four main British Air Groups (Groups 10, 11, 12, and 13). Primary sector airfields are very important, as they maintain most of the British air units that will be trying to intercept your incoming bomber formations; the German player receives points for bombing them. So, the more you damage these airfields, the better your chances for victory.
Along the right-hand side of the game map is the Preference Tool Bar. On this tool bar, click the “zoom-in” button twice. This will bring you in a little closer to the airfields. Once you’ve done this, scroll the map around a little (by moving the mouse arrow left/right, up/down along the edges of the screen) until you are just south of London (i.e., the big gray mass of urban area and targets in the bottom right-hand corner of Britain, as shown below; the circle and arrow are added for clarity and are not part of the game’s display).
Kenley airfield is just south of London and its suburbs. This is the airfield you will bomb. Move your mouse arrow over the airfield to see its name appear in a shaded black box.
Upon entering the Main Game Screen, you may have cloud cover over Kenley; to remove it, simply click the “cloud” button on the Preference Tool Bar.
Find the “highlight target damage” button on the Preference Tool Bar and click it.
This highlights all targets on the map in green. As targets take damage, the highlights turn yellow, orange, and red to show the level of damage. Kenley airfield should now be highlighted in green, but your goal is to bomb it until it changes color (to red, preferably). So, let’s begin planning your bombing raids.
3.5 Planning a Bombing Raid
Along the top of the Main Game Screen, is a group of buttons. In the Raid Planning Phase, these buttons show all the functions necessary to plan your raids. For this tutorial, we will only concern ourselves with plotting bombing missions. So, select Bombing Mission. This immediately brings up a planning screen (as shown below).
At the top of the screen are the mission options. To plan your first mission, select the “Primary” button. This tells the computer that you will select the primary target for your raid. Once you’ve done this, you are ready to select Kenley airfield as the first target.
On the game map, click on Kenley airfield. Immediately, a white and red line appears directly across the English Channel connecting Kenley with a German airfield. The white line indicates the inbound flight path. The red line indicates the outbound flight path. The German airfield highlighted is where your air units ‘form up’ to begin their flight to Kenley. While you can modify the inbound/outbound flight paths, and also set other flight orders using the other buttons on the planning screen, we won’t do any of that now. Your primary target is set and we will move on.
As soon as you selected Kenley as the primary target, the “Pick Lead Unit” button appears at the top of the screen (underneath “List Targets”).
Click this button to open a list of air units at the bottom of the screen.
Select the first unit in the list (Stab/ErprGr 210). This is a BF-110 fighter-bomber unit and will be the raid’s ‘lead’ unit. A lead bomber unit is the unit in a raid that takes the point in the formation. Once you’ve selected this unit, click the “Done” button at the top right of the screen.
As soon as you clicked “Done,” the “Add Bomber Units” and the “Add Fighter Escorts” buttons appeared on the planning screen.
Click “Add Bomber Units” to open a list of additional bomber units you can add to the raid. On this list, notice that your lead unit (Stab/ErprGr 210) appears with an ‘L’ beside it. This is to remind you of what unit you picked as the lead. On this list, select all three additional units (1, 2, and 3 ErprGr 210). A ‘b’ appears beside their names, showing that they have been selected. These will fly in formation with your lead unit.
When finished, click the “Done” button at the top right of the screen. You’ve now committed four squadrons of Messerschmidt Bf-110 fighter-bombers to a raid on Kenley airfield. If you send them now as is, you’ll likely be dooming those pilots to a quick but violent death; they’ll get slaughtered without a fighter escort. To minimize the damage to valuable Luftwaffe property and pilots, let’s add some fighters to escort this raid.
After selecting additional bomber units, click “Add Fighter Escorts” to open a list of fighter units.
On this list, select ‘Close Escort’ from the list at the top left of the screen. (The tactics of choosing this instead of ‘High Escort’ is debatable, but we just want to get the raid off the ground for now, so choose Close Escort.)
Next, from the list at the bottom of the screen, select units I/JG 51 and I/JG 52. These are two capable fighter squadrons utilizing the Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighter. The letters ‘ce’ will now appear beside their names, showing that they have been selected and will fly with the bomber units as ‘close escort’ fighters.
When finished, click ‘Done.’ You have successfully completed the planning of your first mission.
Select “New Mission” to refresh the screen and plan mission #2.
Repeat steps 6 through 11 above to plot a bombing mission against Biggin Hill. Pick a lead unit, additional bomber units, and fighter escort in the same manner you did for Kenley airfield. Once you are finished with the second mission, click the “Done” button to return to the main Raid Planning screen. You are now ready to enter the Movement Phase.
Click the “End Phase” button to exit the Raid Planning Phase and enter the Movement Phase. The Movement Phase is where you, as the German player, will sit back and watch your raids in action. Once you click the “START” button in this phase, the clock begins and the phase continues until your raids have run their missions and a score is determined.
To begin the Movement Phase, click the “START” button. The button immediately becomes “STOP” and you may click it on/off to start/stop the Movement Phase as you wish. For this tutorial, however, just sit back, relax and watch your planes roll over the English Channel toward Kenley and Biggin Hill.
3.6 Watching the Movement Phase
The first thing you’ll notice when you begin the Movement Phase is the radio activity in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It begins to increase. This represents your units forming up and taking off. Your raids will appear eventually (depending upon their launch time), and will fly over the Channel until they reach their targets. But it’s not as easy as that. Your British opponent will scramble his air units to intercept your raids, and as the two air forces converge, attack messages will appear, giving you details about how many of your aircraft are being shot down, and vice-versa. The Movement Phase may take a while to complete, as the game is constantly updating and calculating data to generate a final score. Once all of your units land, the one-day campaign ends and you will either win or lose, depending upon the success of your raid.
3.7 Plot More Raids
Now that you have successfully completed the tutorial, you are ready to try again. Follow the steps above a few more times and plot more raids against Kenley and Biggin Hill. Try different things. Select different bomber units and escort fighters. Set your escorts to ‘high escort’ to see how that changes your success. Change the formation’s altitude settings and stagger your launch times to see if that affects the way the British respond to your incoming raids.
Plot even more missions against other British primary airfields (such as Filton, St. Eval, Hornchurch, and Northholt). Plot some night bombing missions and fighter sweeps. Also, you can increase the game speed up to ×8 by clicking repeatedly on the clock face in the bottom right-hand corner.
Note that ×4 speed is the fastest possible speed in the game. If you run the game at anything greater than ×1 speed, you run the risk of missing quite a bit of the game. Only use the faster speeds when you want to resolve a turn quickly.
When you are finished trying your hand at the Germans, turn the tables and play the RAF. Playing the British, however, is quite different than planning bombing missions. To get a full understanding of how all functions in Gary Grigsby’s Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich work, refer to Section 5.0 – Playing the Games.