Strategic Bomber

The strategic bomber represents the doctrine that wars can be won by destroying an enemy's industrial capacity and civilian will to fight from the air — bypassing armies entirely. Britain's Lancaster, America's B-17 Flying Fortress, and the B-29 Superfortress that carried the atomic bombs over Japan all embodied this vision: four-engined behemoths carrying tonnes of ordnance to targets hundreds of kilometers from the nearest friendly soil. The Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany from 1942 to 1945 cost the lives of over eighty thousand Allied aircrew. In the Atomic Age, a single B-52 Stratofortress can replace an entire raid with one thermonuclear weapon, making it a pillar of deterrence rather than merely an instrument of destruction. In the game the strategic bomber excels at demolishing industrial buildings, fortifications, and dense troop concentrations at range, but requires fighter escort against enemy interceptors and is vulnerable to concentrated anti-aircraft fire over defended targets.