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CFS3 ETO: Spanish Civil War
By 33LIMA,
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 pressed on with a radical programme. Divisions deepened and political violence spiralled. The Right responded with an attempted coup, led by elements of the army, which failed in places like Madrid the capital, culminating there in siege and massacre at the Montana barracks. These events set the tone for the long, bloody and vicious civil war which ensued, won in the end by the nationalists under Franco.
Air power played a key role from the start. Fanco's leadership was established after the revolt's original leader, General Sanjurjo, was killed when the DH Dragon Rapide carrying him back to Spain crashed, supposedly from overloading with all the personal luggage the 'Jefe' insisted on bringing. Later, Hitler commented that Franco should set up a victory monument to the Junkers 52 transport, the type having flown in from Spanish North Africa colonial troops who helped secure, then advance, the nationalist cause in mainland Spain.
In the actual fighting, the German Condor Legion despatched to Franco's aid played an equally important part and tested out many tactics and weapons that would be used to good effect in WW2, including the Ju87 Stuka, the Bf109 fighter and the 88mm flak gun. The devastating Condor Legion air raid on the Basque town of Guernica became infamous, and was one of many air raids on urban areas in which civilians suffered badly. The Italian Regia Aeronautica also contributed 'volunteer' personnel and aircraft, while the Soviets supplied the republican side with some of their own latest military hardware, including I-15 and I-16 fighters and SB-2 fast bombers. Thus was the scene set for some of the fiercest air operations in Europe since the World War.
If you want to 'fly' in the SCW, there are several options, including the venerable Luftwaffe Commander (which actually runs on my Vista 64 machine) and the Strike Fighters SCW add-on, available at the A Team Skunkworks, under 'All inclusive installs', which looks great and I'm looking forward to trying out:
http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/[link]
This mission report features a different option - the CFS3 ETO Expansion. Amongst the Expansion's many and varied additional aircraft is a decent selection suitable for this conflict, all in appropriate markings. From a quick look, this comprises:
Nationalist:
Messerschmitt Bf109E
Henschel Hs123:
Fiat CR-32 'Chirri'
Breda 25:
Savoia Marchetti SM 79:
Cant 501 floatplane
Junkers 52 bomber:
Fiat G50
Republican:
llyushin IL-15 'Chaika':
Ilyushin I-16 'Mosca':
Grumman G23:
...plus some aircraft captured and repainted eg the CR-32 and the Il-16. the main gap seems to be a bomber for the Republican side; the Soviet Tupolev SB-2 fast bomber would have been ideal.
Although the Expansion doesn't feature a CFS3-style dynamic campaign for the Spanish Civil War, there is a good set of single missions which enable you to fly in - and against - the appropriate aircraft in Spanish skies, for both sides. And stock CFS3 covers much of northern Spain, no messing about here with mere map segments.
The mission
Before firing up the ETO Expansion, I used the supplied 'spawn selector' to set 'stock spawn mode' and then the 'era selector' to start the ETO expansion in '1936 to spring 1940'. To be honest, I've not yet worked out exactly what difference this era selection makes, as planes from different eras seem to be available no matter which is selected; I suspect it's a way of getting around a CFS3 limit I've forgotten on the number of installed planes, which in CFS2 was 90, if I recall right.
No matter; thus prepared, I opened the list of Historical Missions and selected the first one labelled 'SCW' - titled 'Air conflict over Llanos airfield'. This assigned me the role of a fighter pilot in the Nationalist Air Force, flying an Italian Fiat CR-32 biplane fighter and leading a formation of six.
The mission was an air start, flying on the northern front. This was one of the country's few industrialised regions, where the Spanish coastline meets the Bay of Biscay. It was October 1937, over a year into the war. Our task was described as a Combat Air Patrol - a piece of (originally USN WW2?) jargon I dislike to see used out-of-context - what other sort of patrol are combat aircraft going to fly? Anyhow, the briefing helpfully described our patrol as part of a 'Nationalist Air force attack on Llanos airfield', which is on the coast between the towns of Oviedo and Santander. Looking at the mission 'Assignments' tab, I could see that we were not on our own. Our order of battle for this mission comprised:
- six SM81 'Pipistrello' bombers (a type I missed when looking up the available planes, so not listed above - it's a 3-motor bomber like the SM79 but with fixed undercart);
- six Breda Ba 25 biplane army co-operation planes (what their role was, I have no idea, but I'm relieved not to have been flying one on this trip!);
- another flight of six CR-32 biplane fighters, like my own flight.
The default loadout gave us a pair of small bombs. These, I kept: I reckoned that we could always ditch the bombs if we encountered aerial opposition. And if we didn't, we should hopefully do some useful damage with them, down below.
Here's the briefing. As well as our flight (yellow aircraft icon), you can see other icons representing what I take to be other flights. Friendlies are blue; enemies red. I'm not sure why there appears to be an enemy airfield well out to sea (red crossed runways icon, there's one just off the top edge of the map in this screenie); maybe it's on a small island. Anyway at least I was now able to orient myself.
And here's my mount. The CR-32 was apparently one of the best of the pre-WW2 biplane fighters, lightly-armed but highly manoeuvrable; a good match for most enemy machines iin spanish skies and seemingly superior to the mediocre Heinkel He-51s which formed the fighter component of the Condor Legion until the early Messerschmitt 109s were rushed into action to replace it. The Fiat is a neat bird, sleeker than the later tubby radial-engined CR-42 and she looks the part in her ETO Expansion incarnation, complete with Nationalist Spanish camouflage and markings. I'm not clear whether my unit or my machine's 'skin' represented one of the Italian 'volunteer' formations or an indigenous unit flying the sleek Italian fighter, but no matter, she looks like a typically racy Italian job.
And here's the 'office'. In flight, you'll notice the benefits of the extra power if you've been used to the biplanes of Over Flanders Fields; one being that your wingmen keep formation better, recovering more quickly during course changes, instead of drifting well wide and being left behind. Even if they still look rather far away, thanks to the CFS3 'wide angle lens' look, which tends to distort things, especially in the external, 'spot' view.
Below us were the hills of northern Spain. Having flown over this area often enough on holiday trips, the topography looks to be captured fairly well, although the textures are to my eye a little green and lush for the region and the field patterns and hedgerows look more northern European.
Turning on aircraft labels. I was a little bemused to find we were all apparently Germans. Strange, as I don't think the Condor Legion flew Italian fighters in Spain, unhappy though they may have been with their Heinkels. Perhaps we were on an unofficial exchange programme...yes, that must have been it.
I turned on the CFS3 Tactical Display and cycled through target types. It picked up a flight of aircraft some distance to our left. Part of our attacking force...at least I hoped so. I kept a better watch in that direction, just in case, even though such use of the 'TAC' was a bit naughty - lacking radios, we should not have been able to get any help from a ground controller in locating stuff we couldn't see for ourselves.
I considered for a while orbiting to let the other friendly flights catch us up, but we seemed to have been awarded the dubious honour of going in first so I kept on my way. As for the actual flying, I had trimmed elevator to keep my kite's nose from dipping at a fast cruising speed but the torque kept pulling down my left wing, which I contented myself with correcting without resort to aileron trim. And what were we flying into? 'Light air opposition' the briefing said. Were the Republican pilots going to come out to play, or were they not, I wondered? So far, the six of us seemed to be on our own in this particular patch of sky, and at least until we'd dumped those bombs - preferably upon something deserving of them - I was quite content for it to remain so.
...to be continued!
Simply the best - the SSW DIII
By 33LIMA,
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 around the powerful Siemens-Halske ShIII rotary engine. Early operational deployment in Spring 1918 ended with the aircraft being returned for modifications to correct serious engine problems but - joined by the DIV version with a reduced-chord upper wing - the type was back on ops during the summer. The Siemens-Schukert was highly manoeuvrable and had an outstanding rate of climb with excellent high-altitude performance. They served with Jastas 14, 15 and 22, the Marine Jagdgeschwader and, in the home defence role, with Kests 4a, 4b, 5, 6 & 8. Their work in the latter capacity inspired a member of the Independent Force, formed to mount 'strategic' bombing missions into Germany, to pen the following appreciation:
'It's not the Pfalz or the Fokker Scout
It's the Siemens Schuckert that we worry about
They do fly high, with the beaucoup speed
We can thank our stars that it's the pilots they need!'
The plane and the mission
First Eagles is one of the very few sims ever to have featured this outstanding warplane, courtesy of the A Team Skunkworks. Public assess to their functional download pages is by email application only and once granted, care must be taken to observe the site's download and usage rules, but it's very worthwhile as the A Team's collection includes some excellent and essential WW1 types like the Sopwith Pup and Triplane.
http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/
In fact, as the A Team acknowledge, their SSW DIII is based on that featured in Illusion Software/Silver Wish Games's Wings of War. You may remember that when released, this neat little WW1 air war game's great-looking planes and excellent landscapes and envirommentals had many simmers attempting mods to make it more sim-like. Sadly, these didn't get far beyond unlocking all the flyables and killing off the deadly rocket armaments, but it was still great fun and a highly professional and well-produced package, well worth a blast if you can track down a copy:
Back in FE2, I wanted to play a campaign mission so opted for Ojcar's 'must have' Armchair Aces month-by-month campaign set. In the FE campaign creation screen, I cycled through those for Flanders in the last months of the air war till I found a staffel flying the SSW DIII - Jasta 14 (which really did fly the type) in October 1918, flying from Masny aerodrome, north of Cambrai and west of the larger town of Valenciennes.
When I kicked off a mission, I found that the weather was awful - a few patches of blue sky visible but mostly cloud, rain and general murk. Not for me. I don't much mind bad weather in Over Flanders Fields, but only because - apart from the clouds themselves - it doesn't really hinder your visibility. In FE and in RoF, more realistically, bad weather really does clobber your visibility. It also makes for dull screenshots, because your plane is dull and unlit (unlike OFF, where the planes in bad weather look bright, like they've been spot-lit for a movie). Another problem with bad weather in FE2 is that you're stuck with it for the campaign, as it inexplicably lost the original FE's ability to vary weather, in-campaign. Anyway being stuck with murk is not my cup of tea, really.
So I edited the campaign's data file in Wordpad, replacing the starting (and in FE2, unchanging) weather - 'INCLEMENT' - with 'BROKEN'. That did the trick. Things looked better, and there was no murk to blind me.
The weather sorted, my first mission was a defensive patrol, behind our side of the Lines, down south to Bonvais, the far side of the town of Cambrai. Two aircraft were allocated to the mission but as I usually do, I opted to pick three to accompany me, selecting Vizefeldwebels Neumann, Heim and Josten from the bottom of the staffel roster screen.
Here we are on the grass at Masny. The SSW is one of the relatively few FE planes not to feature individual aircraft markings, and although there is at least one different skin available, I elected to stick with the stock one, with a snake-marked brown fuselage and 'lozenge' pre-printed fabric wings. As usual with FE planes, there's plenty of animation - wheels, pilot, control surfaces, the rotary engine and even the cocking handles on the MGs. And provided you don't have shadows turned off in the plane's .ini file, you get dynamic self-shadowing (in the cockpit as well as outside if you have the sim's graphics/shadows option set to 'high' or better).
As usual, FE kicked off the mission with my engine just having started and my prop picking up speed, which is arguably more realistic than the ground-crewless self-starting featured in other sims. In the external view, I paused to let the others take off and then opened the throttle. There was little swing and once my wheels were off the ground, I decided to go for broke and perform an immediate test of my machine's renowned climbing abilities. I yanked back on the stick and up she went, cocking a snook at the row of Fokkers parked outside the canvas hangars to my left. Off to a good start, at any rate!
...to be continued!
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 around the powerful Siemens-Halske ShIII rotary engine. Early operational deployment in Spring 1918 ended with the aircraft being returned for modifications to correct serious engine problems but - joined by the DIV version with a reduced-chord upper wing - the type was back on ops during the summer. The Siemens-Schukert was highly manoeuvrable and had an outstanding rate of climb with excellent high-altitude performance. They served with Jastas 14, 15 and 22, the Marine Jagdgeschwader and, in the home defence role, with Kests 4a, 4b, 5, 6 & 8. Their work in the latter capacity inspired a member of the Independent Force, formed to mount 'strategic' bombing missions into Germany, to pen the following appreciation:
'It's not the Pfalz or the Fokker Scout
It's the Siemens Schuckert that we worry about
They do fly high, with the beaucoup speed
We can thank our stars that it's the pilots they need!'
The plane and the mission
First Eagles is one of the very few sims ever to have featured this outstanding warplane, courtesy of the A Team Skunkworks. Public assess to their functional download pages is by email application only and once granted, care must be taken to observe the site's download and usage rules, but it's very worthwhile as the A Team's collection includes some excellent and essential WW1 types like the Sopwith Pup and Triplane.
http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/
In fact, as the A Team acknowledge, their SSW DIII is based on that featured in Illusion Software/Silver Wish Games's Wings of War. You may remember that when released, this neat little WW1 air war game's great-looking planes and excellent landscapes and envirommentals had many simmers attempting mods to make it more sim-like. Sadly, these didn't get far beyond unlocking all the flyables and killing off the deadly rocket armaments, but it was still great fun and a highly professional and well-produced package, well worth a blast if you can track down a copy:
Back in FE2, I wanted to play a campaign mission so opted for Ojcar's 'must have' Armchair Aces month-by-month campaign set. In the FE campaign creation screen, I cycled through those for Flanders in the last months of the air war till I found a staffel flying the SSW DIII - Jasta 14 (which really did fly the type) in October 1918, flying from Masny aerodrome, north of Cambrai and west of the larger town of Valenciennes.
When I kicked off a mission, I found that the weather was awful - a few patches of blue sky visible but mostly cloud, rain and general murk. Not for me. I don't much mind bad weather in Over Flanders Fields, but only because - apart from the clouds themselves - it doesn't really hinder your visibility. In FE and in RoF, more realistically, bad weather really does clobber your visibility. It also makes for dull screenshots, because your plane is dull and unlit (unlike OFF, where the planes in bad weather look bright, like they've been spot-lit for a movie). Another problem with bad weather in FE2 is that you're stuck with it for the campaign, as it inexplicably lost the original FE's ability to vary weather, in-campaign. Anyway being stuck with murk is not my cup of tea, really.
So I edited the campaign's data file in Wordpad, replacing the starting (and in FE2, unchanging) weather - 'INCLEMENT' - with 'BROKEN'. That did the trick. Things looked better, and there was no murk to blind me.
The weather sorted, my first mission was a defensive patrol, behind our side of the Lines, down south to Bonvais, the far side of the town of Cambrai. Two aircraft were allocated to the mission but as I usually do, I opted to pick three to accompany me, selecting Vizefeldwebels Neumann, Heim and Josten from the bottom of the staffel roster screen.
Here we are on the grass at Masny. The SSW is one of the relatively few FE planes not to feature individual aircraft markings, and although there is at least one different skin available, I elected to stick with the stock one, with a snake-marked brown fuselage and 'lozenge' pre-printed fabric wings. As usual with FE planes, there's plenty of animation - wheels, pilot, control surfaces, the rotary engine and even the cocking handles on the MGs. And provided you don't have shadows turned off in the plane's .ini file, you get dynamic self-shadowing (in the cockpit as well as outside if you have the sim's graphics/shadows option set to 'high' or better).
As usual, FE kicked off the mission with my engine just having started and my prop picking up speed, which is arguably more realistic than the ground-crewless self-starting featured in other sims. In the external view, I paused to let the others take off and then opened the throttle. There was little swing and once my wheels were off the ground, I decided to go for broke and perform an immediate test of my machine's renowned climbing abilities. I yanked back on the stick and up she went, cocking a snook at the row of Fokkers parked outside the canvas hangars to my left. Off to a good start, at any rate!
...to be continued!
The Pfalz DXII in Rise of Flight
By 33LIMA,
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 of my trusty 8800GT graphics card, which had started displaying artifacts but was restored to health - I hope for some time - by literally 'baking' it in an oven to re-solder possible decayed connections. I'm not making this up - Google it and see for yourself!
To digress a little, the recent PWCG improvement of greatest interest to me is the increased flak.
In First Eagles/FE2, fairly often, you get warning of the presence of other flights when you see flak bursts tracking them. So I find it is quite often possible to spot other planes at a respectable range, without resorting to visual aids like 'radar screens', target boxes/pointers or labels. Combined with decent rendering of more distant planes, this has two big benefits. First, I often see aircraft I might otherwise have missed. Second, I see them far enough away to make a plan to deal with them, following Mick Mannock's advice that all aircraft should be assumed to be enemies until proven otherwise. In OFF, the flak is also a good indicator of other aircraft, althoigh the planes themselves are not visible as far away as they generally should be.
In RoF, a big issue for me, flying 'aids off', has been how often enemies in the vicinity remained invisible unless our flight more-or-less blundered into them. If I didn't miss them altogether, I'd come upon them suddenly, with no opportunity to do any of that interesting patrol-leading stuff: stalking them, getting my flight into a good position, then timing and leading my attack.
PWCG not only enables you to select a rank high enough to lead patrols regularly, turning the player from drone to tactical decision-maker; recent versions have increased levels of flak, so that it can now provide the patrol-leading player with the target indicator that flak so often was, in real life. At least, that was what I was hoping I'd find out, flying this mission!
The plane
As for the Pfalz itself, though a competent design, the DXII inevitably suffered from being compared to the contemporary Fokker DVII. The sturdy, agile and easily-flown Fokker was the plane the German fighter pilots wanted, to replace their outnumbered and increasingly-inferior Albatros DVs or Pfalz DIIIs. Anything less was regarded with suspicion. In 'Wings of War', Baviarian Rudolph Stark - by then in charge of Jasta 35 - told it like this:
'1 September 1918. We are to have more new machines. Everyone is pleased...but their joy is soon damped down, for the machines...are not Fokkers, but Pfalz DXIIs. What is a Pfalz DXII? No one has ever heard of such a machine, no one knows anything about it. We decline to take these machines...we are told...there are no more Fokkers to be had. All right; we'll have the Pfalzs...the sight of them does not inspire confidence...with a multitude of bracing wires...the whole thing looks like a harp. We are spoilt for such machines. No one wanted to fly those Pfalzs except under compulsion. Later their pilots got on very well with them. They flew quite decently and could always keep pace with the Fokkers; in fact they dived even faster. But they were heavy for turns and fighting purposes, in which respect they were not to be compared with the Fokkers. The Fokker was a bloodstock animal that answered to the slightest movement of the hand...the Pfalz was a clumsy cart-horse that went heavy in the reins and obeyed nothing but the most brutal force.'
My own references on the type are the old but valuable Profile Publication and - highly recommended - the more recent Osprey 'Pfalz Aces of WW1' which features other types like the DIII of 'Blue Max' movie fame.
If I recall right, Pat Wilson's Western Front Patch for Red Baron 3d added a Pfalz DXII but if you want to fly one in a modern WW1 sim the choices are First Eagles or Rise of Flight. The FE Pfalz is from the A Team Skunkworks and it's a fine rendition, a great bird that looks the part (seen here with the fix that corrects the slightly offset wheel hubs and a great skin, by Quack I believe)
Having read Rudolph Stark's book many years back, I was keen to add this plane to my Rise of Flight hangar and take her for a spin…literally, as it happened. While the Pfalz seemed a tractable enough mount, I found she was a bit more prone than , say, the albatros, to spin out of a tight turn...and to keep on spinning, all the way down, until stopped by something solid. I have to admit that spin recovery is a bit of a bugbear for me in RoF, generally. The classic advice for a WW1 pilot on spin recovery was to centralise all controls and pray. This doesn't work so well in RoF. For the DXII, even the classic modern technique - power off, opposite rudder, nose down - seemed not to work, quickly or at all, for the DXII. Happily, RoF pilot's notes are available on the sim's website and these include spin recovery. As described in the notes for the DXII, this is counter-intuitive - rudder (and aileron) INTO the direction of the spin. Practicing this in 'free flight' mode is recommended, before entrusting your virtual life to a campaign. Though PWCG by default renders your pilot less liable to be killed, best not to take chances, eh? Anyway here's that handbook:
http://www.777studios.net/ROF_Guides/P12_Hanbook.pdf
The man, the unit and the mission
First challenge is actually getting to fly a DXII. Unlike FE/FE2, RoF models mixed squadron establishments and in Beta Career, starting as a lowly NCO pilot, I was liable to get allocated a Pfalz for a mission or two, then get moved onto a Fokker. In real life this would have been most welcome, of course...but not for this mission!
Using PWCG, I decided to transfer my Jasta 11 Fokker triplane pilot, Richard Satchel, to Jasta 32b. Pfalz being a Bavarian firm, its products tended to go to Baviarian units such this. I opted to fly with it in August 1918, at which point Jasta 32b was based at Roucourt/Bohain airfield, between Cambrai to the south and Lille to the north. We seemed to be entirely equipped with the Pfalz so it was a simple matter to use PWCG to generate a mission. I was allocated a patrol up to the Lines, then north for a stretch. I was the leader and was allocated my preferred three flight-mates - Leutnants Wolf, Borngen and Balmer. So I accepted the mission and picked it up in RoF, in the usual PWCG fashion.
There seem to be few skins available for the DXII so I just went with the default one and here were are, lined up and ready to go, with my machine bearing the blue leader's streamers.
I don't bother with 'complex engine management' so it was a simple matter to check the controls and start up, at which point my virtual pilot gave a hand signal for the flight to do likewise. Once all props were turning I opened up the throttle and after an initial swing, my Pfalz bumped and rocked over the grass airfield and was soon airborne and climbing away.
Our base was quite close to the front and for safety's sake, I climbed away from it initially, to gain some height. All seemed peaceful so I swung around and set course on the first leg of our patrol, which would take us west and into the thick of whatever might be waiting for us there.
...to be continued!
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 of my trusty 8800GT graphics card, which had started displaying artifacts but was restored to health - I hope for some time - by literally 'baking' it in an oven to re-solder possible decayed connections. I'm not making this up - Google it and see for yourself!
To digress a little, the recent PWCG improvement of greatest interest to me is the increased flak.
In First Eagles/FE2, fairly often, you get warning of the presence of other flights when you see flak bursts tracking them. So I find it is quite often possible to spot other planes at a respectable range, without resorting to visual aids like 'radar screens', target boxes/pointers or labels. Combined with decent rendering of more distant planes, this has two big benefits. First, I often see aircraft I might otherwise have missed. Second, I see them far enough away to make a plan to deal with them, following Mick Mannock's advice that all aircraft should be assumed to be enemies until proven otherwise. In OFF, the flak is also a good indicator of other aircraft, althoigh the planes themselves are not visible as far away as they generally should be.
In RoF, a big issue for me, flying 'aids off', has been how often enemies in the vicinity remained invisible unless our flight more-or-less blundered into them. If I didn't miss them altogether, I'd come upon them suddenly, with no opportunity to do any of that interesting patrol-leading stuff: stalking them, getting my flight into a good position, then timing and leading my attack.
PWCG not only enables you to select a rank high enough to lead patrols regularly, turning the player from drone to tactical decision-maker; recent versions have increased levels of flak, so that it can now provide the patrol-leading player with the target indicator that flak so often was, in real life. At least, that was what I was hoping I'd find out, flying this mission!
The plane
As for the Pfalz itself, though a competent design, the DXII inevitably suffered from being compared to the contemporary Fokker DVII. The sturdy, agile and easily-flown Fokker was the plane the German fighter pilots wanted, to replace their outnumbered and increasingly-inferior Albatros DVs or Pfalz DIIIs. Anything less was regarded with suspicion. In 'Wings of War', Baviarian Rudolph Stark - by then in charge of Jasta 35 - told it like this:
'1 September 1918. We are to have more new machines. Everyone is pleased...but their joy is soon damped down, for the machines...are not Fokkers, but Pfalz DXIIs. What is a Pfalz DXII? No one has ever heard of such a machine, no one knows anything about it. We decline to take these machines...we are told...there are no more Fokkers to be had. All right; we'll have the Pfalzs...the sight of them does not inspire confidence...with a multitude of bracing wires...the whole thing looks like a harp. We are spoilt for such machines. No one wanted to fly those Pfalzs except under compulsion. Later their pilots got on very well with them. They flew quite decently and could always keep pace with the Fokkers; in fact they dived even faster. But they were heavy for turns and fighting purposes, in which respect they were not to be compared with the Fokkers. The Fokker was a bloodstock animal that answered to the slightest movement of the hand...the Pfalz was a clumsy cart-horse that went heavy in the reins and obeyed nothing but the most brutal force.'
My own references on the type are the old but valuable Profile Publication and - highly recommended - the more recent Osprey 'Pfalz Aces of WW1' which features other types like the DIII of 'Blue Max' movie fame.
If I recall right, Pat Wilson's Western Front Patch for Red Baron 3d added a Pfalz DXII but if you want to fly one in a modern WW1 sim the choices are First Eagles or Rise of Flight. The FE Pfalz is from the A Team Skunkworks and it's a fine rendition, a great bird that looks the part (seen here with the fix that corrects the slightly offset wheel hubs and a great skin, by Quack I believe)
Having read Rudolph Stark's book many years back, I was keen to add this plane to my Rise of Flight hangar and take her for a spin…literally, as it happened. While the Pfalz seemed a tractable enough mount, I found she was a bit more prone than , say, the albatros, to spin out of a tight turn...and to keep on spinning, all the way down, until stopped by something solid. I have to admit that spin recovery is a bit of a bugbear for me in RoF, generally. The classic advice for a WW1 pilot on spin recovery was to centralise all controls and pray. This doesn't work so well in RoF. For the DXII, even the classic modern technique - power off, opposite rudder, nose down - seemed not to work, quickly or at all, for the DXII. Happily, RoF pilot's notes are available on the sim's website and these include spin recovery. As described in the notes for the DXII, this is counter-intuitive - rudder (and aileron) INTO the direction of the spin. Practicing this in 'free flight' mode is recommended, before entrusting your virtual life to a campaign. Though PWCG by default renders your pilot less liable to be killed, best not to take chances, eh? Anyway here's that handbook:
http://www.777studios.net/ROF_Guides/P12_Hanbook.pdf
The man, the unit and the mission
First challenge is actually getting to fly a DXII. Unlike FE/FE2, RoF models mixed squadron establishments and in Beta Career, starting as a lowly NCO pilot, I was liable to get allocated a Pfalz for a mission or two, then get moved onto a Fokker. In real life this would have been most welcome, of course...but not for this mission!
Using PWCG, I decided to transfer my Jasta 11 Fokker triplane pilot, Richard Satchel, to Jasta 32b. Pfalz being a Bavarian firm, its products tended to go to Baviarian units such this. I opted to fly with it in August 1918, at which point Jasta 32b was based at Roucourt/Bohain airfield, between Cambrai to the south and Lille to the north. We seemed to be entirely equipped with the Pfalz so it was a simple matter to use PWCG to generate a mission. I was allocated a patrol up to the Lines, then north for a stretch. I was the leader and was allocated my preferred three flight-mates - Leutnants Wolf, Borngen and Balmer. So I accepted the mission and picked it up in RoF, in the usual PWCG fashion.
There seem to be few skins available for the DXII so I just went with the default one and here were are, lined up and ready to go, with my machine bearing the blue leader's streamers.
I don't bother with 'complex engine management' so it was a simple matter to check the controls and start up, at which point my virtual pilot gave a hand signal for the flight to do likewise. Once all props were turning I opened up the throttle and after an initial swing, my Pfalz bumped and rocked over the grass airfield and was soon airborne and climbing away.
Our base was quite close to the front and for safety's sake, I climbed away from it initially, to gain some height. All seemed peaceful so I swung around and set course on the first leg of our patrol, which would take us west and into the thick of whatever might be waiting for us there.
...to be continued!
Red Sun Rising - IJN in CFS2
By 33LIMA,
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 (A6M3, later re-released by Matchbox Germany), Airfix (A6M2) and Revell (A6M5) and the excellent 1/32 A6M5 by the latter maker. The little Matchbox kit was always a favourite. Even though its Pearl Harbour version had the short wing of the later A6M5, it looked well left in the white plastic in which it was mostly moulded, with canopy frames picked out, motor cowling painted black and prop in silver. Nice box art too:
And of course there were the movies - specifically, the Zeros in 'Tora, Tora, Tora!' That was a flim made in a day - long gone, if the silly, rather sad comic-book aerial scenes in 'Pearl Harbour', 'Red Tails' and the like are anything to go by - when some film producers could contrive to show just a little bit of respect for their material. Nowadays it's just spectactular but contrived car chases on wings, often hiding behind the claim that they are 'Inspired by true events'. Ouch!
Anyhow a Zero it would be for me, in CFS2. I could have started at Pearl Harbour as I have the Just Flight add-on of that name but I'd never fully played a stock campaign before so started there, even though I knew this begins after 'the Hawaian Operation'.
While IL-2 Pacific Fighters has a better stock planeset and isn't restricted to fighters, CFS2 has a more representative set of ships, decent graphics and even now, is still a great choice for anyone wishing to fly in the PTO, not to mention the many add-ons, freeware and payware, still available.
I quite like the distinctive comic book style CFS2 campaign interface - which again, seems to hail from a mostly-lost era, when sim-makers added such little touches, which brought their campaigns to life . So I sat thru the Japanese pilot's subtitled soliloquy which nicely set the scene for my campaign. Then I got my briefing for our first mission. It was March 13th, 1942, and we were flying land-based Zeros based at Malaguna in New Guinea, supporting our offensive operations in the western Solomon Islands. On our first mission, my flight of thee Zeros was to escort some D3A 'Val' dive-bombers and B5N 'Kate' torpedo/level bombers to raid the enemy airfield at Buka. Serious air opposition was not expected and were were briefed to strafe the airfield, on arrival. A gentle start to our campaign...or a death trap? I would soon find out!
Having consulted the map. I took a quick look at the reconnaisance photograph of the objective. This is actually a very good feature. As it showed the location of the airfield flak, I should have used it to make a plan, allocating my wingmen to attack these positions first, once I'd eyeballed them on arrival.
But I was I a hurry, and instead, headed off to the flight line, where my mount awaited!
...to be continued!
CFS2: Training with the Dambusters
By 33LIMA,
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 practice over Derwent reservoir, with the mighty Lancs seen from above wheeling over the water as they made their practice runs.
The Just Flight CFS2 add on 'The Dam Busters' was officially licensed by the RAF and like most of the company's add-ons, comes in a nice, solid little box with a decent printed manual. It's far from a one-horse wonder. Subtitled '617 Squadron's Greatest Raids', as well as Operation Chastise, the dams mission, it provides many others, including raids on the Tirpitz, the Dortmund-Ems canal, the Bielefeld railway viaduct and the attack on Hitler's mountain-top lair at the Berchtesgaden. There's a variety of Lancaster variants, including the basic bomber and types adapted to carry the dam-busting 'Upkeep' mine and the Tallboy and ten-ton Grand Slam bombs; plus a pathfinder Mosquito, a late-model BXVI. There's even a Wellington bomber, included so you can fly one of the trial missions flown at Chesil Beach to try out the 'bouncing bomb' in daylight. I believe the add-on is still available:
http://www.justflight.com/product/the-dam-busters
Despite CFS2 not being built to handle bombers, the package does a rather good job, featuring such neat touches as the twin spotlights used for over-water height-finding and the 'wood and nails' rangefinder sight, both as developed for the dams raid. I believe the add-on was used as the basis for a TV documentary a few years back, which featured a crew drawn from current RAF personnel who were trained up and then attempted to re-fly the mission in a specially-made Lanc simulator.
As for the real thing, while we're lucky (in the UK anyway) to be able to see (and hear!) a real Lanc flying with the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, you can get no better than this documentary, which features superb authentic wartime footage in colour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQAA2rcBno
Having recently once again watched and enjoyed the Dambusters movie, I thought I'd spool up Just Flight's add-on and fly one of the training missions, followed by at least some of the others. While the Dams raid and some others are in darkness, the package lets you fly them in daylight, if you wish. As I plan on doing it in the dark, there's little point in a screenshot-illustrated mission report on the dams raid itself so I thought I'd provide this short one of the training mission, as a little taster.
Here's the brief, using some of the custom screens that come with the add-on:
There's also a 'recce photograph, which shows the 'scenery' Derwent Dam that comes with the package, along with various RAF bases including Scampton and Woodhall Spa. The dam is crude but effective, and is neatly dressed up to look like a real-life RAF oblique recce picture.
For me, the star of this show is the Lancaster itself. The Just Flight version is nicely rendered by the standards of the time. And it has one outstanding feature - the engine sound. The roar and din of four Merlins at full throttle is an absolute joy and by far the best I've heard in any sim for any plane. And here she is, sitting at the end of the runway at RAF Scampton. She's a standard BI bomber, not the modified version cut away below to hold the drum-like dams weapon.
From the caption to the first screenie, you can see another of the add-on's nice touches - the pilot's injunction to the ground crew to remove the chocks. Neither can be seen but the accompanying audio is neat.
Looking right, I could see the airfield's buildings, a good selection including hangars and Nissen huts. Beside me was a tractor with some bomb tailers. Without further ado, I checked the controls, set the flaps down three notches, and started up. The engines fired up from left to right, bursting into life with a very satsfactory though muted roar. Ahead to the left you can see the controller's trailer, and beyond that a pair of parked Lancs. To the right, there's another parked aircraft, this time an RAF Dakota.
Now, came the mission's highlight - opening the throttles, and soaking up the din as the Merlins responded in full song. A bit of differential braking was needed to keep her on or near the centre line as we gathered speed, the rudders seeming ineffective, possibly as they are masked by that mighty Lancaster wing. Taking off in a crosswind is an even more interesting experience! Past the parked Lancs we went. As the speed increased I got the tail up and held her there until takeoff speed was reached. A gentle tug on the stick and we were airborne. I quickly retracted the undercart - the animation is a bit fast - and we were on our way!
...to be continued!
CFS2 revisited: Mosquito Squadron
By 33LIMA,
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 graphics may be noticeably more dated but they're still quite serviceable and the sim itself benefited from a tremendous amount of additional freeware and payware content, extending its scope from the Pacific to Europe, Korea and even Vietnam.
Secondly, this report was intended to be first in a series comparing the 'Mossie' in different sims - at least, in CFS2, CFS3 and IL-2. I say 'was'...which leads me onto the third reason for a CFS2 mission report...
…which is that my dated but effective 8800GT graphics card gave up the ghost at the weekend, leaving me having to make do with the budget card it replaced (a 9300GS!). So for the next few months or so, it looks like I'll be dusting off some older sims…which is not entirely a bad thing. Or so I'm telling myself!
The add-on, the mission and the plane
A little while ago on another forum, Hauksbee posted about some famous Mosquito precision bombing missions, which included Operation Jericho, the raid on Amiens Prison designed to aid the escape of French Resistance captives believed to be facing execution. This brought to mind the Just Flight add-on for CFS2 called 'Mosquito Squadron' which I recalled featured this very mission, as well as the Gestapo HQ raids which had prompted Hauksbee's original post. You can find out more about the package, which I believe is still available, here:
http://www.justflight.com/product/mosquito-squadron
…and here:
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?1180-Mosquito-Squadron
I already had CFS2 installed on my (Vista 64) PC - I still enjoy firing up some of the historical missions for a rattle in a Zero or a Corsair - so I installed the add-on, spooled her up, created a new British pilot and kicked off the Mosquito campaign.
Sure enough, the campaign mission set included Op Jericho, along with many other representative or historical Mosquito raids. And though these are arranged in date order, to create the semblance of an operational tour or career, you can start the sequence with any mission you choose.
So it was that I found myself at the planning screens for Operation Jericho, on 18 February 1944, leading a strike force of eight aircraft. All were Mosquito FBVIs, the fighter-bomber version packing four .303' machine guns and a similar number of 20mm cannon. Despite the latter taking up a good bit of space including the front half of the internal bomb bay, the FBVI still had a room in the rear half for a couple of 500lb bombs, less than the contemporary BIV glass-nosed bomber but capable of being supplemented by bombs or rockets carried under the outer wings. The famous 'Mossie' will need no introduction to anyone with any interest in WW2 aviation; she had a blistering performance for her day and was the envy of her enemies, excelling as day bomber, fighter-bomber, night fighter, anti-shipping and photo-recce aircraft. The 1960s film '633 Squadron' may (or may not!) be rather clichéd by modern standards but it was a feast of roaring Merlins and low-flying Wooden Wonders, with the odd bit of wooden special effects to match but totally free of the contrived Star Wars-style CGI which seems to blot most flying films nowadays.
Anyhow, back to our raid on Amiens Prison...the CFS2 planning screens, as usual, allowed me to switch crews between flight positions, inspect a map, check mission goals...and view a 'recce photo' of the target. This latter was most useful - it was a render of the target building, annotated to highlight the guard towers, walls and barracks that wanted bombing, as well as the jail block itself, which did not. This was useful, both to help me get 'eyes on' the target during the run in, and to make sure we attacked the right bits of it, only!
The default armament for my machine was rockets and I stuck with these as more accurate weapons (in my unpracticed hands, anyway!) than the HE bombs which I think were actually used on the real raid. Having quickly run through the planning phase - too quickly to take a screenshot, but you'lll be able to see the map at the debriefing stage, later - I kicked off the mission. And here we are, lined up on the runway at RAF Methwold:
Experienced CFS2 players will understand that this sim dates from the time when Microsoft flight sim landscapes were basically barren, apart from placed sets of 'scenery' objects, like the RAF airfield provided with 'Mosquito Squadron'. Despite being Pacific-based, CFS2 does at least include reasonably topographically accurate terrain for much of NW Europe and (as far as I know) the rest of the world, even if it is covered with nothing more than bland (but reasonably effective) textures and odd spots of scenery objects created and placed for specific missions.
Looking at our mounts, the Just Flight Mossie is a nice representation. The canopy framing looks a little slender but the machine's outline looks quite accurate; unlike the CFS3 Mossie, which was a BIV bomber with distinctive split (instead of flat-fronted) windscreen and glass nose painted over for the FBVI and FBXVIII variants, and had a rather poorly-shaped fin.
One negative about this CFS2 version is that the upper surface camouflage pattern is mirrored, whereas in real life the green 'shadow shading' on the upper surfaces was different on left and right sides. Otherwise, it is a reasonable representation of the mid-war Mossie scheme, which used the RAF fighter Command scheme of the day, later modified to use the same, lighter shade of grey above and below.
Inside, you get the old-fashioned fixed cockpit graphic and the less detailed virtual cockpit, the former only supporting snap view, the latter panning as well. Neither are up to IL-2 standards but CFS2 virtual cockpits are not bad, some considering them generally better than the CFS3 versions, though the Just Flight Mossie's is rather dark.
In the external view, I set the flaps to down one notch, checked the controls worked, and started engines, my two Merlins firing up one after the other. One of the highlights of this package - as with the Just Flight 'Dambusters' add-on - is the engine sounds, which are noisy, dramatic and effective, worthy of any current sim.
Brakes off and throttle briskly up to the limit, and I was on my way. Rudder was needed to keep her straight; with the rapid acceleration from my fast application of full throttle, it was easy to overcorrect and some care had to be taken to prevent my kite ground-looping. The CFS2 Mossie's wheels are not animated in rotation but they and the undercart look the part, unlike the undernourished articles on the CFS3 version. I was soon off the ground and retracting my gear.
Flaps up, I called up the 'radar'/Tactical Display/TAC - retained in CFS3, but changed from rectangular to an even more radar-like circular display - and checked the orientation of my first leg with the blue track line to the next waypoint. I climbed slowly and turned gently onto my course, at which point the track line turned green. Throttling back for a bit to enable my squadron to catch up, I looked around. Apart from the scenery objects representing RAF Methwold and the nearby village of that name, there was not much to be seen - open country with summer-like field textures, the odd beige-grey patch denoting an urban area, the flat landscape reasonably appropriate for the low-lying county of Norfolk in eastern England.
Settled on course and into formation, I set the TAC to display ground targets and used the 'warp' feature to avoid the long flight over Norfolk, across the Thames Estuary, over SE England then the English Channel and overland to Amiens in north-western France.
CFS2 campaign missions being scripted rather than 'dynamic', I was confident that unlike CFS3, warp would bring me out at a sensiblly low level, appropriate for this mission, not the 'one-size-fits-all' tens of thousands of feet of the later sim. And so it came to pass.
...to be continued!
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 graphics may be noticeably more dated but they're still quite serviceable and the sim itself benefited from a tremendous amount of additional freeware and payware content, extending its scope from the Pacific to Europe, Korea and even Vietnam.
Secondly, this report was intended to be first in a series comparing the 'Mossie' in different sims - at least, in CFS2, CFS3 and IL-2. I say 'was'...which leads me onto the third reason for a CFS2 mission report...
…which is that my dated but effective 8800GT graphics card gave up the ghost at the weekend, leaving me having to make do with the budget card it replaced (a 9300GS!). So for the next few months or so, it looks like I'll be dusting off some older sims…which is not entirely a bad thing. Or so I'm telling myself!
The add-on, the mission and the plane
A little while ago on another forum, Hauksbee posted about some famous Mosquito precision bombing missions, which included Operation Jericho, the raid on Amiens Prison designed to aid the escape of French Resistance captives believed to be facing execution. This brought to mind the Just Flight add-on for CFS2 called 'Mosquito Squadron' which I recalled featured this very mission, as well as the Gestapo HQ raids which had prompted Hauksbee's original post. You can find out more about the package, which I believe is still available, here:
http://www.justflight.com/product/mosquito-squadron
…and here:
http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?1180-Mosquito-Squadron
I already had CFS2 installed on my (Vista 64) PC - I still enjoy firing up some of the historical missions for a rattle in a Zero or a Corsair - so I installed the add-on, spooled her up, created a new British pilot and kicked off the Mosquito campaign.
Sure enough, the campaign mission set included Op Jericho, along with many other representative or historical Mosquito raids. And though these are arranged in date order, to create the semblance of an operational tour or career, you can start the sequence with any mission you choose.
So it was that I found myself at the planning screens for Operation Jericho, on 18 February 1944, leading a strike force of eight aircraft. All were Mosquito FBVIs, the fighter-bomber version packing four .303' machine guns and a similar number of 20mm cannon. Despite the latter taking up a good bit of space including the front half of the internal bomb bay, the FBVI still had a room in the rear half for a couple of 500lb bombs, less than the contemporary BIV glass-nosed bomber but capable of being supplemented by bombs or rockets carried under the outer wings. The famous 'Mossie' will need no introduction to anyone with any interest in WW2 aviation; she had a blistering performance for her day and was the envy of her enemies, excelling as day bomber, fighter-bomber, night fighter, anti-shipping and photo-recce aircraft. The 1960s film '633 Squadron' may (or may not!) be rather clichéd by modern standards but it was a feast of roaring Merlins and low-flying Wooden Wonders, with the odd bit of wooden special effects to match but totally free of the contrived Star Wars-style CGI which seems to blot most flying films nowadays.
Anyhow, back to our raid on Amiens Prison...the CFS2 planning screens, as usual, allowed me to switch crews between flight positions, inspect a map, check mission goals...and view a 'recce photo' of the target. This latter was most useful - it was a render of the target building, annotated to highlight the guard towers, walls and barracks that wanted bombing, as well as the jail block itself, which did not. This was useful, both to help me get 'eyes on' the target during the run in, and to make sure we attacked the right bits of it, only!
The default armament for my machine was rockets and I stuck with these as more accurate weapons (in my unpracticed hands, anyway!) than the HE bombs which I think were actually used on the real raid. Having quickly run through the planning phase - too quickly to take a screenshot, but you'lll be able to see the map at the debriefing stage, later - I kicked off the mission. And here we are, lined up on the runway at RAF Methwold:
Experienced CFS2 players will understand that this sim dates from the time when Microsoft flight sim landscapes were basically barren, apart from placed sets of 'scenery' objects, like the RAF airfield provided with 'Mosquito Squadron'. Despite being Pacific-based, CFS2 does at least include reasonably topographically accurate terrain for much of NW Europe and (as far as I know) the rest of the world, even if it is covered with nothing more than bland (but reasonably effective) textures and odd spots of scenery objects created and placed for specific missions.
Looking at our mounts, the Just Flight Mossie is a nice representation. The canopy framing looks a little slender but the machine's outline looks quite accurate; unlike the CFS3 Mossie, which was a BIV bomber with distinctive split (instead of flat-fronted) windscreen and glass nose painted over for the FBVI and FBXVIII variants, and had a rather poorly-shaped fin.
One negative about this CFS2 version is that the upper surface camouflage pattern is mirrored, whereas in real life the green 'shadow shading' on the upper surfaces was different on left and right sides. Otherwise, it is a reasonable representation of the mid-war Mossie scheme, which used the RAF fighter Command scheme of the day, later modified to use the same, lighter shade of grey above and below.
Inside, you get the old-fashioned fixed cockpit graphic and the less detailed virtual cockpit, the former only supporting snap view, the latter panning as well. Neither are up to IL-2 standards but CFS2 virtual cockpits are not bad, some considering them generally better than the CFS3 versions, though the Just Flight Mossie's is rather dark.
In the external view, I set the flaps to down one notch, checked the controls worked, and started engines, my two Merlins firing up one after the other. One of the highlights of this package - as with the Just Flight 'Dambusters' add-on - is the engine sounds, which are noisy, dramatic and effective, worthy of any current sim.
Brakes off and throttle briskly up to the limit, and I was on my way. Rudder was needed to keep her straight; with the rapid acceleration from my fast application of full throttle, it was easy to overcorrect and some care had to be taken to prevent my kite ground-looping. The CFS2 Mossie's wheels are not animated in rotation but they and the undercart look the part, unlike the undernourished articles on the CFS3 version. I was soon off the ground and retracting my gear.
Flaps up, I called up the 'radar'/Tactical Display/TAC - retained in CFS3, but changed from rectangular to an even more radar-like circular display - and checked the orientation of my first leg with the blue track line to the next waypoint. I climbed slowly and turned gently onto my course, at which point the track line turned green. Throttling back for a bit to enable my squadron to catch up, I looked around. Apart from the scenery objects representing RAF Methwold and the nearby village of that name, there was not much to be seen - open country with summer-like field textures, the odd beige-grey patch denoting an urban area, the flat landscape reasonably appropriate for the low-lying county of Norfolk in eastern England.
Settled on course and into formation, I set the TAC to display ground targets and used the 'warp' feature to avoid the long flight over Norfolk, across the Thames Estuary, over SE England then the English Channel and overland to Amiens in north-western France.
CFS2 campaign missions being scripted rather than 'dynamic', I was confident that unlike CFS3, warp would bring me out at a sensiblly low level, appropriate for this mission, not the 'one-size-fits-all' tens of thousands of feet of the later sim. And so it came to pass.
...to be continued!
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