b-17; queen of the skies   

Updated Nov. 23, 2013

2013 WBC Report    

 2014 Status: pending 2014 GM commitment

Steve Ambruzs, VA

2013 Champion

Event History
1992    Frank Alexander      32
1993    Kevin Combs      35
1994    Kevin Combs      32
1995    Paul Risner      31
1996    Robert Hamel      32
1997    Paul Risner      34
1998    Paul Weintraub      32
1999    William Burch     32
2000    John Conlon     29
2001    Jim LeVay     32
2002    Paul Risner     32
2003    William Rohrbeck     34
2004    Stephen Quirke     37
2005    Keith Hunsinger     36
2006    Paul Risner     39
2007    Dave Long     42
2008     Dan Dolan Sr     46
2009    Rich Moyer     47
2010    Paul Risner     66
2011     Steve Sabatino     77
2012    Paul Risner     60
2013    Steve Ambruzs     61

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Paul Risner        FL    12    343
  2.  Richard Moyer      MN    09    156
  3.  William Rohrbeck   NH    06    106
  4.  Keith Hunsinger    OH    05    100
  5.  Bill Beckman       SC    13     90
  6.  Eric Stranger      OH    11     76
  7.  Steve Ambruzs      VA    13     60
  8.  Steve Sabatino     PA    11     60
  9.  Dan Dolan Sr       NJ    08     60
 10.  Dave Long          NC    07     60
 11.  Stephen Quirke     WI    04     56
 12.  Judy Krauss        PA    02     42
 13.  Jim LeVay          MA    01     40
 14.  John Conlon        OK    00     40
 15.  Justin Rice        VA    13     36
 16.  Brian Wool         DE    11     36
 17.  Chris Daly         SC    10     36
 18.  William Burch      MD    00     34
 19.  Tim Evinger        PA    10     31
 20.  Kevin Coombs       GA    07     28
 21.  Anthony Musella    VA    10     27
 22.  Chris Storzillo    NJ    13     24
 23.  Gus Collars        SC    12     24
 24.  Joshua Vierheller  MD    10     24
 25.  Ruth Evinger       PA    09     24
 26.  Mike Windle        DE    09     24
 27.  Ken Richards       SC    08     24
 28.  Don Del Grande     CA    01     24
 29.  John Ellmann Sr    MD    00     24
 30.  Paul Weintraub     MD    09     22
 31.  David Gantt        SC    03     20
 32.  Daniel Hoffman     NC    12     18
 33.  Steve Shedden      TN    12     18
 34.  Jonathan Izer      MD    11     18
 35.  Jim Miller         TN    08     18
 36.  Bill LeVay         MA    01     16
 37.  John Poniske       PA    00     16
 38.  Roger Knowles      OH    04     15
 39.  Ashton Worley      ru    13     12
 40.  Nathan Hill        MD    12     12
 41.  Bruce Peckham      NY    07     12
 42.  Scott Pfeiffer     SC    06     12
 43.  Ralph Gleaton      SC    02     12
 44.  Rob Navolis        OH    01     12
 45.  Chris LeFevre      AZ    04     10
 46.  Michael Metcalf    NC    99      9
 47.  John Emery         SC    02      8
 48.  Joshua Dunn        VA    02      8
 49.  Michael Haley      NY    00      8
 50.  Pete Pollard       TN    13      6
 51.  Roger Covington    MD    11      6
 52.  Steve Munchak      VA    08      6
 53.  Phil White         MD    09      6
 54.  Marty Musella      VA    06      6
 55.  Evan Hitchings     DE    04      5
 56.  John Poniske Jr    PA    05      5
 57.  Henry Richardson   VA    03      3

2013 Laurelists                                                 Repeating Laurelists: 

Justin Rice, VA
2nd

Chris Storzillo, NJ
3rd

Bill Beckman, SC
4th

Ashton Worley, ru
5th

Pete Pollard, TN
6th


Past Winners

Kevin Coombs, GA
'93-'94

Paul Risner, TN
95, 97, 02, 06, 10, 12

Robert Hamel, CT
1996

Paul Weintraub, MD
1998

William Burch, MD
1999

John Conlon, OK
2000

Jimmy Levay, MA
2001

William Rohrbeck, NH
2003

Stephen Quirke, WI
2004

Keith Hunsinger, OH
2005

Dave Long, NC
2007

Dan Dolan Sr, NJ
2008

Richard Moyer, MN
2009

Steve Sabatino, PA
2011

Steve Ambruzs, VA
2013

The USO entertains the troops in the form of Ruth Evinger and Kaarin Engelmann.

The Top Squadron in action. Great bombardiers but lousy German fighter pilots apparently.

The FUBAR squadron in action with its crack Me-109 pilots.

The FUBAR squadron with their "winnings".

Milk Runs Still Pack 'em in!

Our B-17 tournament features historical missions of the Mighty Eighth USAAF, and this year we conducted missions from December 1943. This marks a time after the second Schweinfurt raid in October 1943 during which less dangerous missions were conducted as the Mighty Eighth rebuilt their strength. Our targets this year were in Germany and Norway. The Norway raid was on the Telemark Heavy Water plant and was designed to disrupt the German atomic bomb efforts.

Because of the "safer" raids, we wound up with scores that were tightly bunched from top to bottom. This resulted in eight ties throughout the standings, including a tie for first place. All the ties were broken based on a priority of bombing performance followed by crew survival and enemy aircraft shot down. We also had a tie for fifth place, with the "loser" of the tiebreakers obtaining the sand plaque.

Again this year we had a few planes make it back to England in very poor condition. Greg Smith and Kaarin Engelmann both had severe crash landing modifiers, bailing out crewmembers before one brave soul tried to land their planes to enable their severely wounded crew members to survive.

Most notable of all was Dave Long, who did something that set a record which will never be broken and can only be tied. Dave managed to lose his plane over enemy occupied territory on all three missions, which is not that rare as Dave has done that before, thanks to his German counterpart, Jim Miller, who has quite a record of shooting Dave down. But the unique thing was that Dave rolled for crew survival and POWs, and against the odds, he managed to have 10 POWs on the first mission, second mission AND third mission, for a grand total of 30 POWs this year. That record can only be tied, never broken, and given the slim odds, it will be awhile before we see someone racking up more franchise loyalty points at Stalag 17 than Dave did this year.

During our offseason, Michael Coomes designed two magnificent squadron trophies, one for the best squadron performance and one for the worst, which is known as the FUBAR squadron. If you don't know what FUBAR stands for, well, let's just say it is one of the top ten acronyms you should know as a boardgamer - just ask Private Ryan. The trophies Michael designed are perpetual prizes, with placards to be engraved each year, like the Stanley Cup. These trophies will sit with each squadron next year as we enter our 23rd year of the WBC B-17 tournament.

As always, we encourage you to come out and enjoy the fun. See you in August .

Keeping score ...

The prize table ...

 Top squadron fliers Stephen Munchak, Peter Pollard, Roger Covington, Eric Stranger and Bill Thomson
 GM      Dave Terry  [22nd Year]  NA 
    david.terry@jhuapl.edu   NA

2013 Previews | View the Icon Key | Return to main BPA page