The Dam Busters

By Grant MacLean (24 September 2002)

If you feel that flying a four-engined bomber is boring, try this one for size ...

But you are not at a safe 1000 or even 300'. Flying at exactly 195 knots (you can't afford to deviate more than a few knots) you are maintaining precisely 60' above the surface -- about half the aircraft's wingspan. Cough, hiccup, or sneeze and you and your crewmates are dead. Then the flak opens up.

You hold steady as the bomb-aimer, holding in his left hand a bombsight fashioned from wood and nails, awaits the exact distance from the target. The aircraft lifts as the bomb falls away and hits the water, -- and then bounces, once, twice, three, four times, over the protecting booms and cables, and hits the dam's face. It disappears below the surface, still rotating backwards (from the spin given it by a mechanism in the Lanc's bomb bay), making it stay flush against the dam wall. As it reaches its pre-set depth, it explodes. Cushioned by the tons of water, the explosion punches into the wall, which shudders, quakes and then collapses, sending millions of tons of water into the valley below. You, and the raid's planners, hope that the Nazi war industry in the Ruhr will be crippled for several months, at least...

Bomb-aiming with wood and nails

You aren't done. With your single bomb gone, you steer a course for the next dam to support the ongoing attack in whichever way you can -- if necessary by switching on your navigation lights to draw fire from the attacking bomber.

Only then, with all your squadrons' bombs gone, and two out of three dams destroyed, you turn for home. With Nazi Germany now on full alert, naked and exposed in the bright moonlight needed for the mission, you are now even more susceptible to night fighters and flak. About half of the squadron's aircraft, containing the cream of RAF crews, fail to return. Later, if you are the mission's commander, you are awarded your country's highest award for gallantry, the Victoria Cross.

The Dams raid was RAF Bomber Command's finest hour. More than this, it is likely that this was history's finest flying exploit by any bomber crew (not being a Brit, I can stick my neck out like this!). While, for example, Doolittle's Tokyo raid was as daring in its conception, and its crews required no less bravery, nothing seems to compare to 617 Squadron's exploit for sheer courage combined with brilliant and sustained flying skills. It was also a shining example of the British skill in indirect strategy.

Rear gunner ready for the flak towers over the Möhne

After the war, in spite of the very high losses suffered by its aircrew, Bomber Command was never awarded battle honors as were other arms of service -- an unspoken acknowledgement that "Bomber" Harris' policy of mass bombing of German cities was, along with the similar campaigns waged by all the major combatants, one of the great human tragedies of the World War II.

But a decade after the war, "The Dam Busters" movie was made, a salute to the extraordinary skill and gallantry of 617 Squadron's flyers and, indirectly, to Bomber Command (the premiere was attended by Queen Elizabeth.) A great movie, with a soundtrack including the stirring and beautiful Dambuster's March, it often appears on film buffs' lists as one of the top five war movies ever made. It was saluted in turn by rock stars -- making a series of cameo appearances in Pink Floyd's "The Wall" ... it's the one showing on the tube in several scenes.

JustFlight has now offered their own salute, in "The Dam Busters" add-on for Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator 2, Flight Simulator 2000 and 2002. It is, as far as I know, the only CFS2 add-on dedicated to bomber aircraft -- an achievement in itself, given the host architecture's favoring of the fighter jock's world.

From the early testing of Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb off Chesil Beach and training runs over the Derwent Dam to the attack on the Möhne and Sorpe dams the DB missions and campaign follow 617 Squadron's course throughout the war. The squadron was formed especially for the dams raid but - such was the unprecedented heights to which they had taken precision bombing - was kept on strength to be sent against a series of key strategic targets, all requiring pinpoint attacks. Among the 25 missions in the DB package are the famous attacks on the battleship Tirpitz, the Wizernes V-2 sites, the Bergen U-boat pens, the Saumar Tunnel and the Bielefeld Viaduct. The final mission, against Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat and its SS barracks at Berchtesgaden, gives a certain poetic satisfaction...

Chesil Beach: Testing Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb in a Wellington

In the context of the richness and detail of the package, the fact that the attack on the Eder Dam is not included (apparently for technical reasons), is only mildly disappointing - although the scenery is there. Its absence might be just as well. I've visited the dam. Its breached section of wall still clearly visible, it is situated in a deep valley requiring a steep dive in, a rapid bleeding-off of speed, and an even steeper climb out, tested the crack 617 pilots to the max.

So daunting was the flying challenge that the Germans didn't bother to defend it, and the pilots took advantage of this to make several practice runs at it before they felt ready to drop their bombs. Even then, Maudslay's aircraft, flying a few knots too fast, was fatally damaged by the bomb which exploded on the dam's parapet. It could be that if the Eder attack were to be simulated and authentic, few if any flightsimmers could fly it -- altho' someone with high mesh FS2000/2002 scenery might be able to test this for themselves.

DB aircraft include the Vickers Wellington (designed by Barnes Wallis and used by him for the test drops off Chesil Beach), the De Havilland Mosquito ('the Wooden Wonder'), and, of course, the incomparable Avro Lancaster, in various configurations - from a 'clean' Mark B.1 to the dams version, with a realistically rotating 'Upkeep' mine, and stripped-down versions for delivering the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs. As with the previous JustFlight version, the Lancaster has gained from the input of real-life Lanc pilots.

Mosquito on a low pass over RAF Scampton

This amazing aircraft, capable of extreme 'corkscrew' manoeuvres to shake off German night fighters, was able to carry a 22,000 lb. bomb - the Grand Slam - a capacity only equalled by the next generation B-29. The DB bombs are nicely modelled -- and Wallis' test bomb and the Upkeep mine, will realistically bounce if you get your height and speed spot on...

While the visual models of the aircraft are not up to the latest Gmax standard, the look is just right. All three come with the JustFlight High Visibility - great in a tail-dragger - panel option and have good virtual cockpits. The sound ... well, they're by Mike Hambly (sitting in the cockpit immersed in the sound of four burbling Merlins goes on being quite something). Even the DB AI aircraft have Merlin sounds, while the AI wingmen have undercarriages and propellers.

Three stations used by 617 Squadron are supplied, RAF Scampton and Woodhall Spa and Yagodnik in Russia. JustFlight may have learned from their BBMF experience with the Coningsby airfield (whose level of detail brings my system to its knees) and developed more frame rate friendly scenery. Several other mission airfields come with the package, including Manston, Lossiemouth and Brooklands.

Following its first appearance in an add-on in JustFlight's Vietnam Air War, the scenery is GSL -- making it both attackable and crashable, even outside of a mission. A further touch of realism is added by DB's missions starting on the runway rather than in the air. And both summer and winter textures are included.

Derwent Training (FS2002): rattling farmers' windows.

While the DB package will run on a 300 MHz Pentium II processor or equivalent, and 64Mb of RAM, because of the relatively complex scenery JustFlight recommends a 450 MHz Pentium III processor or faster, 128Mb of RAM, a 16Mb (or more) 3D graphics card, a monitor capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, and a 3D Sound card. On my relatively antique 700 MHz machine, with 256 Mb RAM and a 64 Mb graphics card, the program ran without a hiccup. Hard drive space requirements are 235 Mb for CFS2 and 128 Mb for FS2000 and FS2002.

The package comes with JustFlight's usual clear, comprehensive and well-laid out manual, covering everything from installation to details of aircraft and missions, and bomb-aiming. To fly the missions properly, I'd recommend that even hard-core -- or paper-phobic -- CFS-ers read it. In this pioneering program, the Bomb Aiming Tutorial is a must, while many DB gems will likely stay undiscovered if the manual stays in the box.

Derwent Training (FS2002): "This is bloody dangerous!"

Installation is straightforward. Starting up the program, the opening DB splash screen seems complex at first - you need to choose between Summer and Winter raids and Authentic (ops times are accurate) and Alternate (ops times adjusted to make targets more visible) modes - but after a few startups, it's a snap.

Starting with the Alternate option might make sense, until you get the hang of things. But for the Authentic night raids you might want to try turning down the lights or closing the curtains, tweaking up the screen gamma if you can. With the Authentic option selected on the Möhne Dam raid, and gamma tweaked, my monitor gave a very real sense of a moonlit landscape ... just as on the mission itself.

After the war, an Englishman visited one of the dams with an ex-Luftwaffe pilot, who commented that anyone attempting to attack it at 60 feet was either crazy, or an exceptional pilot. Maybe both. The flying challenges in the Dam Buster package are high and, just was with 617 pilots, training runs over the Derwent Dam are well worth the effort. These highly rewarding in FS2002, when the low-level AutoGen scenery adds much, and you can also replay the action to observe your exceptional flying. Flight plans for both FS2000 and FS2002 are included for round trips to the Derwent and also -- following the authentic wartime routes -- to all three Ruhr dams.

Derwent Training (FS2002): full boost climb from the dam.

Then there's the bomb-aiming. Unlike conventional missions, in the Dams raid the Lanc's crew acted as tightly organized team: the pilot maintained altitude and heading, the flight engineer kept the speed using the throttles, the navigator looked out and forward to the spotlights from the starboard blister in the canopy, while the bomb-aimer used a contraption fashioned out of wood and nails - some even used string taped to the perspex - for distance and dropping point. The front and rear gunners took on the flak towers.

So the challenge of the solo CFS2 pilot is a real one. True to life, the secret is getting the plane set up and stable for the attack run. Then fly it from the bomb-aimer's view, using Shift-N with Shift-Z for flight data (DB provides a special cutout in the panel) for altitude and speed. I'd also recommend assigning the bomb release key to a joystick button (I use the trigger) -- glancing at the keyboard could send you into the drink. The spotlights coincide at 60 feet, but you'll be too busy to use them in a sub-window.

For high-level missions, Shift-N brings up a bomb-aimer's view in the middle of which, if the aircraft is in the air, and flying straight and level, is the bomb-aiming cross. Although the device lacks some authenticity -- its visual position is on the ground rather than part of a bombsight -- it is 100% accurate: hit the bomb release with the cross on the target and it's gone. Flying straight and level onto the target is the key ... not as easy as it seems, even before the flak...

0330H: Heading for the Tirpitz over the North Sea

If the flying and bomb-aiming are fine and engrossing CFS challenges, I have to confess it's the historical authenticity and the immersive experience which grab me. From the Derwent training runs, through the dams raids, to the almost literally chilling experience of taking off from Lossiemouth at 3 a.m. for a flight across the frigid North Sea to attack the Tirpitz in her Norwegian lair, this is an extraordinarily atmospheric package.

Banking back over the Möhne to survey the damage - DB includes spray and flooding effects from the breached dam - the only thing missing was the Dam Busters March. Maybe I'll move the stereo into the computer room...

The level of attention to historical detail is often breath-taking. Times, dates (in Authentic mode), flying routes for the Dams raids (other missions fly direct to the target) heights and speeds, aircraft codes and serial numbers are all accurate. But what takes things into another realm is the operational authenticity. As in the real Dams mission, on the Möhne raid, Gibson's and Martin's aircraft fly with you across the dam to draw off the flak. On the Sorpe raid you fly past the previously breached Möhne and then must drop marker flares to make out the dam in the mist. And so on.

The standard American radio chatter is replaced by dryly humorous and stiff-upper-lippish British radio communication (another CFS2 add-on first, as far as I know). Each raid has custom audio voices -- some even based on words reported as spoken during the raid -- and authentic Morse code success messages.

Tallboy on its way to the Tirpitz

Between the very high level of authenticity, the scenery, and the flying, I wonder if there are any other pieces of reality-based software - in any genre - which come as close to the real thing as this does.

"The Dam Busters" is a superb piece of software. With its classic missions, and its innovations, technical accuracy and immersive atmosphere, it is a fitting jewel in the CFS2 crown. With hindsight, you wonder why it hasn't been done before.

The DB package deserves a segment on any flightsimmer's hard drive. Even civilian flyers who are usually turned off by the simulated violence and killing of CFS dogfights might find it compelling: the aircraft are on the money, flying challenges are high, the strategic and historical reality is really compelling -- and the raids were, after all, directed at strategically critical inanimate objects rather than people. This reviewer is sometimes happy to do little more than circuits-and-bumps in a Lancaster over Scampton, or an FS2002 training run out to the Derwent Dam and back.

Early Morning Arrival", by Robert Taylor

The Dams raid was an epic feat of arms. And, just as exploits like the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Midway continue to engross us, it may be that software develops will continue to visit and re-visit them, upgrading them as the technology advances. There seems no reason why 617 Squadron's exploits could not find future innovative developers. JustFlight's "The Dam Busters" a very impressive start.

After the extraordinary skill and sacrifice of the Dams raid, it was poignant to learn after the war that the dams' destruction did not significantly hinder Nazi war production. On this count Doolittle's thirty seconds over Tokyo, succeeding as it did in seriously unbalancing the Japanese high command -- probably military strategy's highest objective -- might be counted the more successful of the two raids.

So, in the end, it may be that history's honors for the most brilliant bombing exploits must be shared, at least on the Allied side, between the Dams and the Doolittle raids. Both raids succeeded, perhaps even beyond their planners' dreams in giving heart to their countries in the war's darkest moments -- and in giving all of us a memory of exploits to celebrate and, in the case of the Dams raids, to simulate.

Here's a suggestion. Carve out an evening, pour yourself your favorite brew -- tea, or whatever -- watch The Dambusters movie and then bust some dams. If you can...

Later, if you have anything left, you might offer a toast to 617 Squadron ... and to the JustFlight developers.

Grant MacLean
gmac@hfx.eastlink.ca
http://www.victoryoverwar.com

617 Squadron web site