Bomb Alley Returns
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
June 2013

For a while, we were steadily taking games out of print. With our new production methods we’re steadily bringing the old favorites back, and it feels really good to revive Second World War at Sea: Bomb Alley.

Bomb Alley set a record for single-month sales that still stands a decade later. Bomb Alley became a staple of our game line, and is my personal favorite of all our naval games. In terms of game design, it's a very satisfying achievement because it met my expectations. Previous games in the series, like Midway, had taken place over wide stretches of open water. In comparison, the Mediterranean is a bathtub, with enemy ports and airbases within easy striking distance of all the vital sea routes. In most scenarios, contact between opposing forces would be relatively easy to make (except if I'm the one rolling the dice).

As a historical subject, the Mediterranean campaign is almost perfect as a game setting. Both players are trying to force convoys across contested waters, sometimes at the same time. Thanks to the furious ground campaign going on in North Africa, these have to go forward at whatever cost, and in a fairly constant stream. That yielded fifty scenarios, with both the Italian and the British player acting as the aggressor.

I was pleased with the scenarios, mostly thanks to what was then a sharp break in Second World War at Sea design practice. In Bomb Alley, neither player has a discreet order of battle for air units. Instead, they roll dice and consult tables that yield a varying number of aircraft. That way, neither player knows what the enemy might have, and cannot be assured of his or her own air strength. Additionally, thanks to service rivalries the Italian Air Force might refuse to carry out naval missions, while the Germans are even more reluctant to help out. These game systems yield results very much in keeping with the sort of chaos facing the players' historical counterparts, and make for a great deal of historical validity (I dislike calling a game "historically accurate," as getting all the right units and such into your game design should be a given).

And finally, the game has lots of toys, something I consider vital in a game like Bomb Alley. There are scads and scads of aircraft pieces, including some wonderfully odd ones. The Italians get their P.108 heavy bomber and a range of aircraft from the hopeless Cr.32 biplane fighter to the deadly Mc.205. The Germans have the expected squadrons of Stukas and Messerschmitts, plus a helicopter (and helicopter carrier). British aircraft are better than most of the Italian machines, but usually not as good as the Germans. But unlike the Germans, the Brits won't suddenly pretend not to understand Italian just to duck out of a fight.

At sea, the orders of battle are pretty comprehensive. I had to cut things off after the summer of 1942, as Italian fuel shortages pretty much ended the naval campaign. The Royal Italian Navy still fields a pair of aircraft carriers plus an impressive fleet of destroyers, cruisers and battleships. It's theoretically a match for Britain's Royal Navy — but the fuel to get all of those ships into action at once is rarely available, so the Italians are often at a disadvantage at sea while most of their fleet swings at anchor. Still, we have a number of unusual vessels in Italian green: captured Yugoslav destroyers, anti-aircraft cruisers originally built for Thailand, an ancient pre-Great War armored cruiser and the heroic torpedo boat Lupo.

Britain counters with a fleet built around reconditioned battleships from the First World War, plus a large number of modern light cruisers and sometimes an aircraft carrier or two. They get some odd vessels as well: the old target ship Centurion (dressed up as the new battleship Anson), high-speed minelayers and the world's first aircraft carrier, the aged HMS Argus.

And then there are the other fleets: France has a pair of battle cruisers, a couple of old battleships, a bevy a cruisers and best of all, the super-fast super-destroyers Mogador and Volta. There are also Greeks, Americans, Romanians, Dutch, Poles and Soviets.

I don't know how what comes next for Bomb Alley. Games of this size are difficult to produce at the New Avalanche Press. But for now, thanks to the existing parts, it's back.

Order Bomb Alley while you still can!