Bombardier

Bombardier was manufactured by P & S Machine Company of Chicago in July 1944, a conversion of Genco's 1939 'Follies of 1940'. It was one of three different wartime 'Bombardier' games, each based on a different source machine, making it easy for period distributor ads to conflate the versions.

As a flipperless, single-player electro-mechanical machine with a World War II military theme, Bombardier's gameplay centered on its 16 passive bumpers, which generated scoring as the ball moved around the playfield without any active flipper control — flippers had not yet been introduced to pinball at this point. The backglass artwork reflected the game's wartime military theme, in keeping with the patriotic imagery common on machines produced during the period.

Relatively little is documented about P & S Machine Company itself, and Bombardier's status as one of several similarly named wartime conversions adds to its obscurity, making it an intriguing find for collectors of early 1940s pinball.