DOODLEBUGS!

DOODLEBUGS! is a solitaire game in which the player controls the British response to the V-1 rocket launches of Flak Regiment 155 located along the coast of France across the channel. Their target...London!

The game covers the first week of Operation Eisbär, which began on June 13, 1944. The game concludes after the last phase of the game is completed for June 20. The actual campaign continued until March 1945.

The goal of the player (playing the British side) is to prevent the Germans from gaining a victory, which would bring a tremendous propaganda coup for Nazi Germany.

Operation Eisbär started in full force on June 13. The Germans did launch V-1’s on 12 June but none made it to England, hence the game’s start date of June 13. Firings continued until Oct. 1944. Of the 5,823 V-1’s launched during the first month (until July 15) 2242 hit London. Aircraft were responsible for shooting down 925, AA 261, and the barrage balloons were responsible for 55 V-1 losses.

At its peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at southeast England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun by Allied forces. After this, the Germans directed V-1s at the port of Antwerp and at other targets in Belgium, launching a further 2,448 V-1s. The attacks stopped only a month before the war in Europe ended, when the last launch site in the Low Countries was overrun on 29 March 1945.

The aircraft in the game, while fast, could barely keep up with the V-1 making it difficult to sustain attacks against it, hence fighters can only fire once. Close range was preferred but it had its risks.

“We found the ideal tactics for destroying the menacing missiles to be crucially governed by the range at which we fired. Rounds shot from 250 yards or more usually hit the flying control system of the craft, which would then dive into the ground still with an active warhead. Opening fire from a range of 150 yards of less almost always clobbered the warhead which could severely damage the attacking fighter when it exploded. The best chances for success came when shooting between 200 and 250 yards, as from this distance you were reasonably certain of exploding the warhead in the air without undue damage to your fighter…” wrote Wing Commander Bobby Oxspring.

The AA batteries did not have proximity fuses. Once these started to come in from the US in the following month, AA kills began to increase and would surpass aircraft kills as time went on.

By the date in the game, it was pretty clear the Germans were going to lose the war. It was just a matter of when. What could have happened if the Germans were successful with Operation Eisbär was to see the Churchill government resign. If this had happened it would have been a tremendous propaganda victory for the Germans. But it would not have won the war for them.

The V-1 had several nicknames, the English called it a Doodlebug while the US called it a Buzz Bomb. The Germans may have called it a Höllenhund (hell hound), Kirschkern (cherry stone), or Maikäfer (maybug). V was short for Vergeltungswaffen (vengeance weapon). Its official Reich Aviation Ministry (RLM) designation was Fieseler Fi 103.