Ka-50 USMC HMLA-167 "Warriors" Skin Pack 1.12a

Marine Light Helicopter Squadron (HML) 167 was commissioned in April 1968 in Vietnam, and flew the UH-1E in combat operations until June 1971, where it was the last Marine helicopter squadron in Vietnam. Of note, HML-167 was the first unit to drop a bomb from a helicopter, accomplished with the use of the Helicopter Trap Weapon (HTW). In June 1971, HML-167 returned stateside to MCAS New River, North Carolina, as part of the 2nd Marine Air Wing.

In 1972, HML-167 received the UH-1N Twin Huey, which it would fly until 2012 when the UH-1N was replaced by the UH-1Y Venom. In 1984, HML-167 received its first AH-1T Cobras and became a composite squadron of Cobras and Hueys. HML-167 was redesignated Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 167 in April 1986, and as such designated as a permanent composite squadron of both Cobras and Hueys. HMLA-167 began upgrading to the AH-1W Super Cobra in late 1989.

Today the HMLA-167 "Warriors" fly the UH-1Y Venom and the AH-1W Super Cobra.

This is a fictional skin pack of Ka-50 Black Sharks with HMLA-167 markings. There are five different Modexes (USN/USMC side numbers) allowing you to create packages of different aircraft. Each skin has a "normal" version and a weathered version. Weathered skins have a bleached effect as if the aircraft were heavily exposed to the sun for months on end. Normal skins include pilots with green flightsuits, while weathered skins include pilots with desert flightsuits.

Note: this skin pack uses an EXE installer that creates common texture folders and an autoexec.cfg (if you already have one, you can make manual changes). I would like your feedback on this system; if it works I intend to apply it to my other skin packs.

For Compact Installations - A Note About Autoexec.cfg:

Rather than copying texture files to their respective livery folders, I prefer to use a series of common texture folders along with unique filenames. This allows a single instance of many of my common textures, and keeps the hard drive footprint to a minimum (especially nice if you run a SSD for your system drive).

The installer will add a series of folders to the DCS Texture path; if you do not have these folders created, then it is no problem. The autoexec.cfg included will automatically point to the Texture folder in your Saved Games\DCS folder, and regardless of whether you run the Open Alpha, Open Beta, or Release version of DCS, the path will always point to your Saved Games\DCS\Texture folder. Again, this saves space on your hard drive.

If you use your own Autoexec.cfg, then when prompted to overwrite you can click "no". This will create a file called autoexec.new, and you can manually make the updates as you like. Just don't modify the top line with the file date; this is used by the installer for version control. However, feel free to include it in your existing autoexec.cfg, so you don't get prompted to overwrite until there's another update to the autoexec.cfg.

If you inadvertently overwrite your autoexec.cfg, it is actually backed up as autoexec.old. Just open it and copy the appropriate information to the new file.

For Traditional Installations:

If there is an issue with textures not displaying, it is likely a problem with the installer. Please let me know what textures are missing so that I can troubleshoot the issue.

Special thanks to EricJ for his USMC Ka-50 skin, which I used as the basis for this skin pack as well as the bleaching effects for weathered skins.
You are free to use any of the textures in other skins or projects as long as proper credit is provided in the readme file.

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