Recently finished what will probably be my final Stuka Leader campaign, an 18-mission journey through Zitadelle and the first week or so of the Soviet counter-offensive on the northen face of the 'bulge'. Map (Kursk), skins and aircraft types available are all good for recreating this battle with some accuracy, which made some of the campaign building quite straightforward.

Player leads 5./StG 2 through the battle, flying the Ju 87D-3, some brand new D-5s, the G-1 (a little artistic licence used there) and a 110 along the way. Although the missions are generally built so that leading the Staffel is at least as important as your own dive-bombing prowess, I have to admit, after watching the AI responses to orders during the testing of the campaign, that it might be just as easy to simply order 'everyone' to 'attack all' rather than try to get the right weapons from specific flights onto the right targets. Nevertheless, the intention is that you will often have a number of flights with specific loadouts (optimized for anti-tank, anti-flak, general-purpose etc) which you need to direct once in the target area in order to achieve the greatest effect.

There are a couple of straightforward missions, immediately pre-Zitadelle, to start you off and then it's into the big offensive. This kicks-off with what turned out to be the last dive-bomber raid flown deep behind the lines for most of the units involved. From there on the Stukas were used almost exclusively in direct support of the ground troops in and around the battlefield. Being that close to the front means you'll run into IL-2s from time-to-time.

Anyway, it's up on M4T now for any Stuka fans out there. Comments always welcome.

This looks good I will be checking it out.

Wheelsup