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The Battle of Britain looks like a conjuring trick. A German force of over two thousand aircraft which had fought three victorious campaigns, including seven hundred excellent single-seat fighters, contested the skies of southern England with half that number of British planes, of inferior design except for a few Spitfires, flown by mostly inexperienced pilots using obsolete tactics. And the British won.

Many factors, including luck, played a part in the victory, but the key was the organisation of Fighter Command through sector control stations, linked to radar, and it is these which are the focus of John Wilson and Nicholas Palmer's excellent game. The player controls the squadrons of Ten and Eleven Group (Twelve Group in the north being too distant to help) as sector-sized units through the early days of August 1940 against computer-controlled German raids. As casualties mount, depleted squadrons are replaced by novices, who, if they survive, become veterans in their turn. Limited warnings, becoming more limited as the radar stations are hit, and a variable game speed which requires instant decisions in the midst of the battle recreate superbly the atmosphere of the time.

Each day of the game takes about 45 minutes to play, at the end of which the player is summoned to meet Churchill, and either applauded, told to carry on, or - more likely - fired. The program is rather too ready, in fact, to tell the player he has lost, apparently on the basis that if three German raids get through the damage is too great. Unfortunately, there are exactly four types of raid which cannot be stopped, no matter what you do to them, including the fifty ME109s without bombers which I chased all the way to Wales (drop tanks?) where the last surviving six caused "crippling" damage to Swansea docks (with their machine guns?). This is sad, because on the rare occasions that the game goes beyond its first few days it presents a real challenge to strategic planning.

The virtues of having an experienced wargamer like Nicholas Palmer design this game are apparent in its subtleties and attention to detail.

The program also has a small bug which means that some is care is required when saving the game.

Despite this, Their Finest Hour is undoubtedly one of the best wargames I have ever played.