Enemy Coast Ahead: Operation Chastise – The Dambuster Raid

About this board game

Enemy Coast Ahead: Operation Chastise – The Dambuster Raid is a solitaire or cooperative-competitive board game for 1–3 players about planning and executing the historic 1943 raid on Germany’s Ruhr dams.

In the campaign, players form and train a squadron of Lancaster bombers before launching the mission. Requisition aircraft, aircrew, and ground crew, then prepare crews for low-altitude flying, precise navigation, steady speed, target acquisition, and the difficult release of the bouncing mine known as Upkeep.

Preparation is a constant balance of opportunity and risk. Reconnaissance can reveal defenses, routes, and reservoir levels, but too much investigation may compromise security. Training improves your crews, yet excessive pressure can cause fatigue, damage, or crashes. Meanwhile, the moon, the clock, and rising reservoirs limit how long you can prepare.

• Manage individual Lancasters, aircrew, ordnance, elite crewmen, and ground crew.
• Choose targets among seven dams while assessing flak, searchlights, balloons, and other hazards.
• Navigate the flight path while facing threats including nightfighters, utility poles, trees, engine trouble, and getting lost.
• Resolve attacks using target maps focused on altitude, speed, distance, and approach angle.

Each bomber has only one bomb, so every attack run matters. You may pull up and circle for another approach, but prolonging the attack can expose the formation to additional danger. After the raid, returning aircraft and lost bombers are resolved, followed by a morning-after reconnaissance mission to determine whether damaged dams have breached.

Enemy Coast Ahead also includes nine scenarios that introduce the operation in stages, from focused action over the Möhne reservoir to the complete campaign from squadron formation through bombing and return. In team play, the squadron commander seeks to breach the dams while subordinates compete to complete their orders with the fewest casualties.