La Guerra Civil Espanola in the CFS3 ETO Expansion! The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, foreshadowed the monumental clash that was to follow between fascism and communism, with the Italians and Germans backing the Spanish nationalists and the Soviets backing the republican side. For all that, this was a distinctly Spanish affair, the product of a deeply-divided society. Matters came to a head in 1936 when the Left, having secured a narrow electoral victory, nevertheless press

Flying the German Air Service's premier fighter in First Eagles 2   The Siemens-Schukert Werke's DIII and DIV are described with some justification in Gray & Thetford's 'German Aircraft of the First World War' as 'Without doubt...the best German fighters to reach operational status'. The first SSW D-type (biplane scout/fighter) was basically a copy of the French Nieuport 11 with a German engine and a conical spinner. But the DIII was a wholly-new machine, a barrel-shaped fighter built ar

Taking on the RAF in the Fokker DVII's Bavarian competitor   This campaign report is designed to do two things.   Primarily, it's intended to showcase the Rise of Flight Pfalz DXII, flown in career mode using (almost) the latest version of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG). I found out after flying this mission that PWCG's now up to Version 15.6, but the changes since my version (15.3) seem mostly cosmetic.   The second reason for this report is to celebrate the miraculous recovery

A stock CFS2 campaign mission in the Imperial Japanese Navy's famous Zero fighter!   Figuring that - if I was going to be spending more time in CFS2 - I should get myself better re-acquainted with its ways and workings, I decided to kick off a stock campaign in the fighter which defined the Pacific War, Jiro Horikoshi's A6M Navy Type Zero Carrier fighter. I'd always had a soft spot for this plane, having built many a model back in the day, including in 1/72 those by Matchbox (A6M2), FROG (A6

Flying the Lancaster in Just Flight's venerable 'Dambusters' add-on for CFS2   There can't be many missions more famous than that flown in May 1943 by RAF Bomber Command's 617 Squadron to attack dams in the Ruhr, Germany. And justly so, for the mission was a triumph of technical ingenuity and airmanship, immortalised in the film named after the Dambusters. Flown with real Lancasters, some of the most impressive footage in the film was shot in daylight and recreated the squadron's low-flying

Low-level precision raids in the 'Wooden Wonder', CFS2-style     Why a mission report on a sim released way back in 2000, you may ask? Well, there are three reasons for this, which go beyond a mere trip down memory lane.   Firstly, there's the relative dearth (in number, sometimes also in quality) of sim releases since then; such that many older sims still compare favourably, in features, if not graphically. IL-2 was released the year after CFS2 and it remains well worth playing. CFS2's g

'...le jour de gloire est arrivé!' - blocking the Blitzkrieg with the French air force...in a US fighter!   Having enjoyed flying for the Luftwaffe in the 1940 German offensive in the west, courtesy of the CFS3 ETO Expansion, I thought I would swap sides and see if I could stop the enemy tide. None of this comes with stock CFS3, which focuses on the later-war period. But 'Attack in the West 1940' is one of the additional 'eras' that the freeware expansion bolts on, and firing it up, I saw th