It is not beyond the ingenuity of Hitler’s military schemers to carry bombing planes in sections across the Atlantic by submarine and slip them through the slim cordons of the naval patrols in to the Hudson Bay area. There, on some lonely island, safe from the eyes of all except an occasional Indian, those planes could be assembled and made ready for an attack on the Soo ship canal. —— Lieutenant Colonel Harold A. Furlong, February 1942.

Hitting Home is an introductory level game about Axis raids on the Soo Locks during WWII. The Soo Locks were a crucial choke point for the shipment of all of the iron ore used by US and Canadian steel mills. Air raids by German and Japanese aircraft were planned by all sides.

Although never carried out, strikes against this crucial Home Front installation could have had a profound impact on the war’s outcome. Hitting Home allows players to explore the “what if” of German or Japanese attacks against the Soo Locks.

The 1942 scenario portrays a German attack using disguised merchant ships to transport Heinkel (He) 115 and 114 floatplane bombers to Hudson Bay. There the aircraft would have been unloaded, armed and taken off to attack the Soo Locks about 600 miles to the south and west. Since the range of the He-114 aircraft would be insufficient for the planes to make a return trip back to the transports, it is assumed the planes would have landed in a lake on the return leg and been picked up by the larger He-115 or other floatplanes designated for search and rescue.

The 1945 scenario portrays an attack launched from two Japanese I-400 attack submarines. These massive submarines carried three Aichi M6A bombers in hangers. The bombers were launched from a catapult that ran along the top of the ship’s bow. It is assumed 4 of these bombers would be used in the attack (based on the presumption that it would be very remarkable for all 3 of a submarine’s aircraft to be operational at the same time).

—based on description from the publisher

Hitting Home: Axis Raids on the Soo Locks, 1942 &1945

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