Aviation / Flight · Book

A.V.G.: The Flying Tigers

1–3 players60 minages 10

About the game

What is A.V.G.: The Flying Tigers

A.V.G. – The Flying Tigers is a book-based solitaire (or up to three player) air war game that recalls when a ragtag group of American pilots volunteered to fly for China against the Japanese. Recruited from the reserve officer ranks of the Navy, Marines, and Army, one hundred pilots signed contracts to fight. Of those, 99 went to Burma and China. Working together under Claire Lee Chennault, together they gave the nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek an “instant air force”.

Equipped with the fast and well-armored Curtiss P-40B Tomahawk, the pilots of the American Volunteer Group (A.V.G.) held the line against a numerically superior, better-trained cadre of elite Japanese pilots, including a number of aces, who flew aircraft that were far more maneuverable.

Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the A.V.G. began its combat operations. It wasn’t long before they scored their first success. On 20 December 1941, the pilots of the A.V.G. intercepted a Japanese bombing raid flying to bomb the western Chinese city of Kunming. Of the ten Japanese light bombers that were dispatched that day, the A.V.G. claimed three. A fourth bomber crashed on the way back to its base in occupied French Indochina. On Christmas Day, they flew again, this time downing 24 Japanese bombers and fighters.

It wasn’t long before TIME Magazine covered the story of the Flying Tigers, celebrating their victories against Japan. By April 1942, just five months after the Flying Tigers combat debut, Hollywood was already filming a movie about the outfit, starring John Wayne. Their fight boosted home front morale and inspired thousands to join the US Army’s expanding air force. In six and a half months, the Flying Tigers, as the A.V.G. came to be known, downed 297 Japanese aircraft at a loss of just 14 of their own.

Specs