this project has been over a year in progress, and I'm nearly finished. This will be flyable on standard 408m, but will include files to allow the use of the vpmedia skin mod that puts skins on static planes. The following is using that mod. Without it, they will have standard skins without markings, so I recommend using it.

This is more from an alternate universe as much as alternate history. One month after the USAF gains its independance, you are a former USMC Corsair pilot who got rifted during the massive cutbacks after the war but finds a new home in the new USAF albeit at reduced rank: this was very common.

In the Scenario, Joe Stalin isn't satisfied wht the northern Kuriles and as tensions mount, he launches an invasion which quickly takes the rest of the Kuriles.

American, Australian, and British air power must defend Japan while preparing to re-take the Kuriles. Stalin starts pounding all allied forces in Japan to insure his retention of his new prize.

In this early misn which takes place on the first day of the new war (which is limited for now to area around Japan), and though this is primarily a P-80 cmpn, you do fly other planes sometimes when no jets are availible. Here, you have made a forced landing on the grass strip at Fukioka, and while your ship is being repaired, another of the endless air strikes on the base is spotted on radar.

Being a former Corsair pilot, you leap into the one sharing the revetment with your P-80 as the air raid sirens begin wailing.

Here the airwing of the Intrepid prepares to launch as the carrier finally gets under way to escape the harbor.


You take off from a revetment, and must taxi out to the runway to take off. THis is NOT a mod, but an old FMB guy trick. Don't try this at home.


You wait at the edge of the runway as some of the Intrepid's Corsairs scramble. The timing is perfect as they were about to join their carrier, and you hope they don't mind you borrowing one of their rides.


A view from the cockpit. It just looked neat. Sounds even neater with a sound mod.


A view of the battered base as the Intrepid makes her run out of the harbor. Alot of planes just aren't flyable and must endure the attacks.
They are in correct markings for the period.


You have enough time to get altitude thanks to the radar warning, and I encourage using the mini map icons as a form of radar guidance. You know that jets are among the escorts, so you avoid them, but wind up meeting a flight of Yak-3s head on escorting the strike planes you are after. A huge furball is going on around and below you.


Martin seaplanes continue to clear the Intrepid's path despite the danger surrounding them. Soviet subs have already sank several civilian ships trying to leave the harbor this day.


Tu-2s get through and make their run against the CV, but they aren't trained in anti-ship tactics and suffer heavy casualties.


They make continuous attacks but miss the evading carrier, which is only escorted by a lone minesweeper, though a destroyer is racing in from the north to join them.


You manage to flame one of the bombers with your 20mm, but have flown through the massive AA fire she has thrown up to do it.


The alert P-51s are fighting well, but are being overwhelmed by the escorts. There are WW2 vets in the opposition as well.

There are Red jets in the area and you see more contrails, but these are your squadron mates from Kita Kyushu AFB down the coast. The cavalry is here.


Mig-9s and Yak-15s are taking a toll among the prop jobs, as an Intrepid Corsair is hit by 23mm.


But one of your pals in a P-80 comes to the rescue above the CV.


More jets get involved and a general melee ensues.


The fight gets pretty bloody as losses mount on both sides; The soviets have the numbers, but the Americans apparently have more combat experience on scene.


More help arrives as RAAF Spits come in from Kita.


More bombers show up as the fight centers over the Intrepid. The Godless commies are determined to sink the only large deck CV in theatre.


The fight is at all altitudes, but as always, these things wind up on the deck.


Soviet Navy Pe-2s arrive in force, but so do more P-80s and Spits that are at altitude.


And of course so do more of the evil commies. The Red menace is everywhere, as they flew out of what we call Trotsky Island, a small bone thrown to Stalin after the war, but one we regret now.

You get in the way of a Red jet, but manage to avoid it, however you ran out of gas due to a fuel leak and manage to belly in just short of the runway as the attack ends.


Most of the Intrepid's airwing makes it to their home, and she heads north to join the gathering fleet gathering out of range of Soviet planes. She is going to be needed in the coming weeks.


The fight ends but the realization that this is a new type of war rests on the jets, though they are but a fraction of the planes involved. Thier effect is out of all proportion to their numbers.


The Soviets land at their large base on Trotsky Island SW of Kyushu. Most of the action is up north, but your P-80 squadron is the only jet unit available to defend Kyushu along with the prop planes from the previous war. A tough fight is ahead, as the allied forces are heavily outnumbered. Stalin didn't demobilize like everyone else has. This project is going to be a bit longer before it's finished and can be posted, but lets just say "two weeks".


BTW, there are coop versions of many of these misns included in the cmpn project. THere will be more of these updates if anyone cares, and there are some posts on the paint scheme forum of more screens from other misns.

looks breathtaking, been meaning to play a campaign with the jets and I think this one will do

thanks alot!!

also, sorry for the question but do i need a mod to play this one? (would there be missing planes, etc...)

Impressive!!

I'm looking forward to it.

Well done Herr Karl!

Please be a good K9'er and give up food and work for the next several weeks in order to finish this.

Nice shots Enforcer. This looks even better than the few missions I tried eons ago. Those skins are excellent - mostly Beebop's work? The stationary aircraft look way better in period costume, too.
Keep the shots coming.

thanx guys. You don't have to use a mod, I just will include the stuff you need to make use of the vpmedia skinmod if you want to. It will fly just fine in 408m, but the static planes will look kinda lame without the right skins....I've been spoiled.


And yes JP, Im spending all my extra time on this project, except for the rare occaission of some chick wanting some photography....so Im spending all my time on it.

FSM, there's gonna be some changes and improvements Ive made over time. The skin mod and the mods in general really make this different, though like I said, you dont really have to have em. The jets sound alot better to.
And the sound my engine made when it quit was priceless. And yes, some of those skins are Beebops work, with some from Nightshifter, Shadow, and a few others, many specially made for the sim. THe download will be pretty big since there are so many skins, and the files I'll include for use by those who have the skinmod are gonna add to it as well. I also am making some coop versions of many of htem, and the ones we've done online (including this one) work out pretty well.

Hi!, great idea for a campaign and I look forward to it's release. Janes Marine Fighters (add-on to USNF sim) had a modern campaign based in the same area.(Based in the late 90's)

A note on the Australian forces. I fairly sure that we were converting over to P51's at the end of the WWII and that the RAAF had P51 squadrons in Japan as part of the occupation forces. They stayed there until the initial stages of the Korean War and used P51's ( D models and Australian produced Mustang 21's.)
I don't know if any of our Spitfire squadron were sent to Japan. Though if things had started to get hot I'm sure the RAAF would have used anything They could have got their hands onto!

http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/bcof.asp

A bit downthe page they talk about the RAAF in Japan.

Cheers!

Thanx sir. I based this on inspiration from my late dad (who died last yr) who was a radar operator on Kyushu in the 5th AF USAF 46-49. The RAAF did get 51s and their entire fighter force in Japan was so equipped for most of that time, but when my dad got there, they had, or apparently had access to (get this) Griffin engine Spits wth 5 bladed props. He was not capable of making too much of a mistake on this, as he was already a pilot since he was 16, and could ID all the military planes of the time (he hit 18 in 45 and joined the AAF that day, but the war ended shortly after). He especially loved Spitfires, and this was the only time in his life that he could actually be around them on a regular basis.

He told me that The Spits were based at a nearby base, as tehy flew into his regularly, and took great joy in buzzing his base at dawn on weekends. He even go to sit in one once when it landed there, and there was no mistaken they were Aussies, as they had "those neat hats", talked very distinctively, and usually had the best beer. He said the Spits were soon gone and replaced shortly afterwards with 51s.

I saw the RAAF page, and have looked for such info on several sites, but not found any mention of Griffon or any Spits on Japan. My ol' man was very specific on the 5 bladed props though, so it had to be Griffon engined late models. BUT I can't find any reference on The RAAF EVER using those though.

Now althogh I have never found any historical reference to the RAAF even having Griffon engine Spits, I know he couldn't be too mistaken about the aircraft types, as I heard the same stories about a million times as a kid and he was a real Spit fanatic. He had over 13000 logged hrs when He died in everything from J-3s to AH-1Js to T-37s instructing USAF and Army pilots as a civilian ever since I was born.

This has me scratching my head, as there was apparently little if any RAF presence in Kyushu (which was where he spent most of his time based though he was at several bases), and there was no way he could mistake Aussies for Brits, even if thier AC insignia was the same; He was on their base several times (though I dont know where) and saw the things on the ramp (wish I had asked him the names of the bases when he was alive).

All I can figure is that somewhere in the mass re-organization of everyone's air arms after the war, some trading and re-equipping was done among air forces. OR maybe some switching about was done with RAF equipment in the area. They were after all commonwealth forces, so I assume some RAAF pilots could have flown RAF equipment at some point. I didn't realize until recently that the RAF had B-29s and called them Washingtons during that time. I think the RAAF has a Griffon engine spit in thier museum, but Im not sure. Maybe they flew some borrowed machines until they got enough 51s or such. I wish the photos he took of a few of htem had survived.

I also wish I could find somebody that could shed some light on this. Rest assured that my aviation obsessed dad wasn't mistaken about some Australians flying Spit into his field, at least for a short while. I know that anyone can be mistaken, but it's just so unlikely with him and his familiarity with such. It must have something to do with the organization of the commonwealth forces.

And Yeah, I had Janes Marine fighters. I loved that sim, along with Navy fighters. Those were the days.

And btw, the RAAF sqadrons in my cmpn are mostly equipped with 51s. The skin Nightshifter made for those Spits sure looks good though.

Hi Enforcer. Screens are looking good. I remember briefly discussing this campaign with you last year when my small campaign was released.

On the Griffon Spits in Japan. I too can't find any reference to the RAAF having them on Kyushu. As you probably know though, the RAF did have No 11 and No 17 squadron at Miho airbase equipped with MkXIVs.

Given the international make up of the RAF at this time (or during the War at any rate), is it possible that these squadrons contained quite a number of Aussies? Or is Miho too far away from your Dad's base?

The only other thing I could think of is if the Spits in question were perhaps shore based late marque Seafires. I'm not able to find any leads to post war Seafire usage in Japan, but a number of FAA squadrons were manned almost exclusively by Australians.

Hey man, yeah, I think something like that is the explanation for it. He was impressed by the five bladed props, but htat would make them a bit later than the ones you mentioned. I am pretty sure they were British planes with Aussie pilots, which is pretty likely for any of hte reasons we've come up with. They weren't there for long though.

Im not sure where my dad was based at the time, but I always thought it was in Kyushu at the time, as he took some photos of Nagasaki as he rode through on a train enroute to one of his bases....man I wish I could remember the names.

Anyway, I figure, as was stated above, that in case of high tensions or war, the RAAF would use whatever was available, and the Brits certainly had alot of late model Spits around at that time. the nightshifter skin above simulates a Griffon model. Maybe before long we won't have to use a hack for such.

Well the Mk XIVs of Nos. 11 and 17 would definitely have 5-bladed props. I've got a picture from Osprey's 'Griffon Spitfire Aces' of them on the ground at Miho. They were there from April 1946 to Feb 1948, when they were both disbanded. I can scan the picture and post it if you're interested.

Miho is about 160 miles north of the northen tipof Kyushu

Yeah, I'd love to see that shot. I thought that mk had 4 bladed props, so this would explain alot.

The time period would certainly be right.

Will do. It'll take me 36 hours or so to scan it (at work) and then upload it (from home). Keep up the good work on the campaign, looking forward to it.

As I said, comes from Osprey's Aircraft of the Aces, "Griffon Spitfire Aces"

http://www.raf.mod.uk/organisation/17squadron.cfm

Spitfires began to arrive in March 1944 and were taken back to the Burma front in November to fly escort and ground attack missions. In June 1945 , it was withdrawn to prepare for the invasion of Malaya and was taken by carrier to the landing beaches near Penang in early September soon after the Japanese capitulation. In April 1946, it arrived in Japan to form part of the Commonwealth occupation force until disbanded on 23 February 1948.

On 11 February 1949, No 691 Squadron based at Chivenor for anti-aircraft co-operation duties was renumbered No 17 Squadron, being officially disbanded on 13 March 1951.

And halfway down here http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/IAF/History/1940s/Spitfires.html




I dont know how much help this is to you but.....

Good info guys

Want me to update the Spitfire in light of this new info Enforcer?

There is however conflicting sources of how this aircraft looked:

There is this one which does indeed look like the aircraft pictured:



And this one which I have made before onto a MK.VIII Model:

By all means Nightshifter, that would be great. I could put both of htem in there, since both RAF and RAAF squadrons are in the cmpn. the one in the 3 view color sheet sure looks great. Id love that color scheme as well, green and blue grey looks great. It had never occured to me that they could've been RAF planes with Aussie pilots flying some of them.Wow. For that matter NS, I bet we have an actual series of Griffon spits in the next few mos. That's why Im gonna release a version of it later on that incorporates some of the new stuff we will have.

I appreciate you guys posting this, as Im sure this is the explanation of what my dad saw and even sat in. Im sure they had some Aussie pilots that were the ones he talked to. Heck, most of em could've been Australian for that matter. I always wondered how they were painted.

This is really amazing to me to finally figure this out. Ill try and incorporate these into the sim in a realistic way.

Well this link i posted suggests some were indian, which is new to me, as i was unaware of the commonwealth providing pilots. Suppose it should have been obvious given the polish/candian squadons ect. Its funny to see how they were quite behind in getting the latest models. Though this seemed relatively common in the pacific theatre.