Actually, Enforcer, your campaign was one of the last Eastern front campaigns I have actually played through. Now that you mentioned it I can see similarities though I guess that's largely due to the timeframe and available planes.
So far I'm up to about 11 kills but I died a couple of times - one PK, another I stalled and went in on a low speed landing approach. i managed to shrug them off though and continued on my merry way. Like you, I also ended up in trouble in the convoy/110 mission. In my case I was able to ditch in the sea just short of the coast. that was after the Taran attack I mentioned earlier.
Might go fire this baby up for one quick mission now before crashing out. It's been a long, boring evening of reading Linguistics so now I'm having a beer and decompressing.

Yes, and I am using the experience I gained in my own cmpn in the I-16. I've flown two more misns, and I am even more impressed by how well these are laid out. Very realistic and exciting. I'm flying them in 409 modded, and the engine sounds etc are very effective in this.

The next convoy escort misn was great as well, and I managed to kill three He 111s and a 110 without getting killed. I still had to struggle to get away from a 110 that kept hassling me, and while I was sitting on the ground he came back and engaged the 153s and 16s orbiting the base but finally left. I managed to score another kill with the rockets on an He.


The next misn was pretty difficult fighting all those fighters, but I apparently scored a hit on this gunner with 20mm. I think the blood aspect of this mod is a bit much at times.


This hit and run tactic was pretty cool, and I managed to score a perfect deflection shot on a 109E, but I was bounced by another one that blew my wing off. I managed to bail at low alt and survived. So far I've flown 4 combat misns without getting killed and scored 12 misns. This is the best I've done in a cmpn so far, despite the difficulty and realism of the misns. THis thing is a piece of work. Incredible.

I'm stoked you guys are having a good time!

I had alot alot of fun too when I was beta testing. I changed a couple of minor things as I went through, but after spending so much time in construction, I didn't have to change much, I just had to finish building the darn thing!

I have to go work at Nellis AFB for a week or so, then I'll start playing through again in 4.09b1m+AAAUI.

I think the fun will continue as the campaign develops.

B50

Nellis......Nellis? OMG......you actually get paid for this stuff to. Sheeesh.

I just got my copy of "Fighter Pilot-op Red Flag" which was filmed there, and I think a guy with a good lens could have a good time hanging out in various places.


I meant that I scored 12 kills, not misns. I also know how much time it takes to do stuff this detailed and well planned. I'm impressed with how the timing is working out as well.

I made it. I got here at 0300 in the morning, so I haven't seen anything cool yet.

Also, I forgot my camera

As a plus though, I won't suffer any injuries inflicted by Air Force security personnel while taking pictures

B50

for three hours, and back to work.

Yeah, those SP guys have a nasty tendency to butt-stroke first and ask questions later.

I'm still waiting for the tech that will allow a camera to be built into our brains so we don't have to lug all that crap around.

That's why I have one of those little Olympus cams smaller than a pack of cigarettes...that thing actually takes pretty good pix.

Well, at least it does of the chix at my part time job. Have fun.

I'm having fun so far... I had no idea how busy this base is. I've seen airborne:

1. E-3 Awacs and RC-8 Rivet joint

2. 3 B-52's

3. 4 of the Thunderbirds

4. a 4 ship of F-16's in aggressor colors

5. a C-5

6. a 4 ship of F-22's

7. and a constant stream of normal F-16's and F-15's throughout the day.

It's pretty sweet, but I i've almost ran my tow tractor into about 5 different expensive things just watching the planes fly around...

B50

You poor thing.......makes me wanna cry (that I'm not there).

Had a blast in this last mission -not sure which number it is sorry. Anyway, we took off in force to secure the air so that our lads in the salient could withdraw. Eight Migs and 6 LaGGs. Formidable opponents.

We gained altitude and circled over our beloved Motherland where we passed the time by snapping pictures of one another:




Once over our assigned patrol area things heated up rapidly. We shook up the waves of Stuka's that came in but were then bounced by several flights of 109s. Immediately our formation broke up into disparate elements. I had got good hits in on two of the swine but no definite kills.


Their superior engines allowed them to pull away and while I chased them, their wingman pounced on me from behind. Diving and twisting I streaked across the ground, barely avoiding the trees, houses and seemingly endless supply of factories. While in pursuit I was again bounced.Calling for help dsesperately, I tried to evade the damned Nazi ace who has been racking up a score against us recently. My wingman came to my aid but I was horrified to see that the killer had now set his sets upon my rescuer.


I had no choice but to return to the fray, despite the hole in my port wing and some ominous leaking fluids. I succeeded in drawing him off my severely damaged wingman, who surprisingly, was able to land his plane safely at our base.

Unfortunately, I was now back in the manure, again finding myself whizzing between factory chimneys, fighting hard to keep my crate from dipping her left wing and sealing my fate. Tracer and cannon fire streaked past all around me. Frantically I slipped and shimmied, managing to avoid the fire for vital seconds. I dipped the nose suddenly,leaving a wash of dust from my propellor. My pursuer, probably assuming he had finished me, rocketed past over my cockpit - and right into my sights! Furious after the treatment I had been taking at his hands, I poured on the power and fired short bursts into his line of flight. Hits! Puffs of smoke! But I knew I hadn't crippled him. Off we went, flying at over 400kmh at only 50m above the sea. His wingman flies full out, his engine snarling above the waves, knowing full well that he cannot let any harm befall his leader.Our fellow seamen in a ship below tried to assist but our speed and manouevring were impossible to track.
I closed to within range for a long shot and fired. Again, puffs of smoke appeared but still he flew on. Heedless of the risk, I hauled the nose around, shuddering on the edge of stalls and unconsciousness. There! My nose starts to slide up along his trajectory. Just a few more seconds.
Then I am shaken by the force of the blows! The tables are turned and I am undone. In my unseeing rage, his wingman had kept on and was now flinging violent death all through the skies around me. My hopes of killing the ace disappear instantly as I turn back to the defensive, survival foremost in my mind.
Reverting to my, by now well practised, evasion manouevres I again am able to force the chaser to overshoot me. This time he shall not escape his rightful fate. The black waters are just meters below us as we turn as tight as our planes and our bodies can bear. My engine is overheating and the black smoke comes faster now but I know that I can send this Nazi to a watery hell. The superior sustained turning ability of the Mig now comes into play. By the third full circle I am almost in position for the knockout blow. His machine is smoking, his mind full of panic as I slip inexorably closer, each turn cutting the circle.
BOOM! The Ace has returned! A storm of shells slams into my port wing igniting the fuel. A split second later, his cannon shells tear my back and arms to bloody rags. The sea comes rushing up and I know that I am dead.

The ace will add another red stripe to his rudder this night.

That's a fascinating account of that mission! It has, I must say, turned out the same for me on occasion with these same aces.

It is tough right now. But keep heart, and the Motherland will be freed of the fascist menace.

These screenies are great! they really capture the essence of the campaign.

B50

Well, I can't approach FSM's dramatic presentation......that thing deserves a pulitzer prize.

I am having similar results as well. I had an unusual experience in misn 9 and finally got killed myself. We intercepted a large JU-88 formation attacking the naval base on that island, and I, as usual, hit three bombers pretty hard but those 3 .50s just don't do alot of damage. Others finished them off though. On one pass I hit a fourth one, and the gunner hit me pretty hard to. I lost my engine.....and discovered that I had lost all my controls as well and found myself spiraling downward toward the base.


I could still see and move my head around, and got no message about being wounded etc, but found to my horror that I couldn't bail out. When I did external view, I saw that I was dead and there was blood all over the cockpit.


I have never been killed before and still be able to see in the cockpit. An odd and never before seen (by me) bug I guess, but I had to fly it again. I still hit three bombers pretty hard and saw one of my comrades being attacked by a 109. I nosed over at full throttle and hit over 680 kph, lined him up and tried to fire; I was outta ammo, so I hauled back up into the clouds and headed home. I have yet to score a kill in the Mig....same problem I had in my own cmpn. The guns are just so ineffective. I could only score with the rockets.

I also noticed a couple of things I thought should be brought to your attention. I found the PSP runway to run through unlevel ground. Not enough to affect take off, but I had the same problem trying to find flat territory for such in my current 1947 project.


The mig skin also doesn't have the name specified in the briefing; it's just NAVY. Took me a min to find that out, but no big deal.

I also love the skins, but I would have preferred German skins with swastikas for realism. I always pick those, but again, it's no big deal.

The German attacks on the naval bases are very well done, and the briefings are good at telling the story and setting the atmosphere.

I have managed to keep the 109s off me by avoiding them and attacking only when I have an altitude and speed advantage. Most of my attacks are on bombers, but I could sure use some cannon on those bombers. After 9 misns, I still have 14 kills, lost two planes, and died once. I've flown three misns in the Mig (or 4) and still haven't scored a kill. Fast but poorly armed. Still having a great time.

Have you seen any AC of other nations yet?

Glad you guys liked it.
I was absolutely pumped throughout the whole combat - it must have taken 20 minutes or so, which is eternity for a dogfight - and set my thoughts down straight after. It really was such a fun mission.

Interesting, Enforcer. I'm not killing anything (except my own pilot) in the Mig either but i damage a few and it's fun to fly. She's a rocket in a dive I find - those elevators really stiffen up.
You're doing well to have lost so few virtual lives I must say.

I also noticed the uneven land on the runway - losing sight of the runway when you're taking off is a bit disconcerting but no biggie.

By the way, B50, is the LaGG available depending on the player's rank? I noticed in the briefing that you had included two skin options. That's a good idea.

Like Enforcer said, the briefings are nice and clear and you have done well relating the news of the larger conflict which places the missions in a real context.

Damned good fun, even if I have been killed a couple of times. I think the missions are really well balanced between realism and fun.

Sod it. Another bloody ace, pretty sure it was Trautloft,nailed me with a blinder of a deflection shot while I was engaged in chasing an 88 over Kronstadt. The way these flights of top pilots show up at unexpected angles and altitudes is damned good. I had spotted some planes coming on but figured they must be 88's or 87's as that was all I had seen till then and they were in the quadrant I thought they would be egressing from.Alas, they were inbound 109's of JG54. First thing I knew about it was when my wing caught fire. I immediately rolled over and bailed. I cleared the cockpit but was still above the plane when her fuel tanks exploded, killing me instantly. Lucky really cos I fell a loooong way down into the town of Kronstadt.
Awesome mission again.Awesome game, too. It can pull of some amazing stuff, even after umpteen years of playing it. Great deflection shots, wing tank catching fire but not blowing up immediately, explosions that have a blast radius, pilot figures sensitive enough to be affected by aforementioned blastwaves stunning stuff really.
Just wish I was a better pilot!


Prior to this mission I had reflown the mission covering the retreat from KS. This time it played out completely differently -I bagged a 109 (the secret Enforcer is to blow most of your wad in one burst, it's not like the cannon on the I-16 where you can stretch it out [Ick. Anyone else grossed out by this last sentence?]) Then I spied two flights of 88's heading for their lines. For one crew they would make it back to safety, but they would have to do it on foot.

For me, the problem isn't the hitting power of the Mig - I can be quite effective with MkI Hurricane. What bothers me is the ballistics of the bullets. Perhaps the wobbly green jellybeans throw me off as to me it seems they drop away really quickly and don't seem to fly as true as say, the .303's or .50's.
Lack of familiarity I guess.
My 109 kill.

Enemy in sight.


Bloodied but unbowed.


Did not see ths guy coming at all.

Just seconds before I am killed bailing out.

Bah!


Now I HAVE to try this campaign. I hope you're happy, FSM/Enforcer.

Well, I finally finished off my linguistics paper so I thought I'd try a few missions. Conclusion: I would have died in nanoseconds in WW2.

Well, it was fun to pretend but these last few missions absolutely caned me! I did enjoy them though, especially the cloud one - just for the feeling of actually flying through clouds for once! - plus I had a good time of it anyway.

I'll post some pics when I am less toasted. yay!

I was doing really well in the I16,and the first time I go out in my new uber modern Mig I got slaughtered!
fun fun fun!

Heh heh you guys. Yeah, the I-16 seems to be a bit more my style, but it's slow and not very offensive minded when trying to chase these guys.

I just wish the Mig had the extra 2 wing .50s.
Those 109s will come outta nowhere if you get too concentrated on attacking bombers. Very well laid out that way.

Enforcer,

Which mission number was that, missing the skin title for the MiG? I looked in my master file that I made the release from, and I can't find any errors in the .properties files. I will check the release file next week (it's on my desktop). If anybody else has this error, or I can find it next week, I'll have that fixed in v1.1

Those steel runways are, of course, a compromise that had to be made to make that part of the campaign make sense. I would have liked to have made the town of Nizino alot more detailed, but simply did not have the time to spend on it. I just put the runways down so the location was right, and went on my mission building way. If I could, I'd put a grass airfield in.

B50

P.S. Our F/A-18E pilots have been flying some 2v2 versus the F-22. They always return beaten and amazed. They use adjectives like "silly", "ridiculous" and "alien technology".

That's interesting to hear - is the jump that big between the two, do you think? You must see some cool stuff, man.
Uther -same for me. I have done much better in the I-16. Can't remember, were there fighter opposition in the I-16 missions? Maybe not.
Right, about a million screens to follow this.

Right, I have to say that a few bottles of strong Trappist Ale do not go mix well with being behind the controls of a WW2 fighter.
I played a few missions yesterday (some repeatedly) but just couldn't stop doing stupid things. Think I could have used some pure oxygen to clear my head like the real boys did.

By coincidence I had just downloaded Mangas' superb cockpit reskins for some of theRussian birds. When I fired up the campaign I couldn't believe my eyes - the quality is so good. I don't know if some of the features are 3-d or just skillfully rendered. Feast your eyes on these.




Amazing stuff, isn't it?!

so yesterday's adventures consisted largely of sky-diving practice in various scenic locations around the Gulf of Finland.

I got killed or shotdown several times (PK'ed frequently while chasing an JU88 through the clouds - is there no armoured glass in the cockpit?), killed a grand total of one plane and even that was a completely freak accident, met no objectives but despite it all I still had a great time. Good mission design plus a few different mission types last night were the key. As Enforcer said, if you get too focussed on the bombers, the 109s will really make you pay.

I started off in a Mig again. This time I thought I'd play it cool and get as high as I could then attack in a disciplined manner.

Didn't work out that way.
Somehow I managed to get ruinously close, fire off about half my ammo and yet do virtually no damage. I yo-yo'ed a few times but to no effect until the last time.

On this occasion I timed things wrong,failed to pull up in time and went plunging through the outboard tip of an 88's wing.


Due to superior Russian engineering, my plane suffered no damage except this really cool example of the damage model in this sim

whereas the flimsy German bomber folded like a cheap suit. Typical German engineering - shoddy, patched together.

Elated by my miraculous survival, I immediately latched on to the front of a German ace - that f***ing Trautloft again!!!- and savagely sucked his cannon shells and bullets into my wings, engine and fuselage, leaving him dangerously low on ammo in a combat zone, before delivering my knockout blow, a vicious headbutt to the explosive ends of his 20mm shells.

Luckily my crew were in fine form that day and took a heavy toll on the raiders. Having joined the choir eternal rather early on in the proceedings, I decided to hang around and snap some pictures as it was such an exciting mission.



Running won't help you, fascist oppressor!


Ibid.


Enjoy the kicking-to-death you're about to recieve from the garrison of Kronstadt.


But the best part, the absolute, golden, shining moment,was watching this happen.
My faifthful squadmates, grief-stricken at seeing their mate tragically taken down in his prime (yet again), banded together and got medieval on Herr Trautloft.



Oh how we all cackled down in Hell.