Quick reference site for combat aircraft through the ages
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By 76.IAP-Blackbird
Dev Blog №1
Well — here it is, this moment. We announce to you, dear friends, our new project and our new game world — "Korea. IL-2 Series." From now on and until the release of the game, we plan to publish developer diaries regularly and quite often, in which we will tell you in detail about most aspects of the new flight simulator. In this, the first, introductory entry, we will "go over the top" and outline the main features of the new project.
What is it about?
"Korea. IL-2" immerses the player in a virtual world that recreates the air battles in the skies over the Korean Peninsula from April 1951 to July 1953. Military operations during this time were concentrated in the northern part of the peninsula, and much was decided in the air. These events became a landmark in the history of aviation and military affairs: it was the swan song of propeller aviation (which played a very important role in the Korean War) and the rise of jet aviation. By the time of release, it is planned to recreate no less than 8 player-controlled aircraft — half of them will be jets and the other half will be piston-engined aircraft. The jets will be represented not only by the first "pioneers" of the new era, in which designers and pilots for the first time faced unknown challenges to their skills, but also by the powerful and efficient second-generation F-86A Sabre and MiG-15bis. Piston-engined aircraft will be the quintessence of the era — in the skies of Korea piston aviation enthusiasts will be able to fly the most powerful and efficient machines of this type in history: the F-51D Mustang and F4U Corsair and their Soviet opponents. One of them will be the Il-10 attack plane — where else but in a flight simulator about the Korean War could we pay tribute to the last attack plane of the famous Il-2 series? With improved aerodynamic contours, a more powerful engine, improved flight characteristics, still powerfully armed, and having an armored fuselage — in the hands of an experienced pilot it was a powerful machine.
Who is it about?
In the new project we are recreating the air forces of those countries whose pilots were most involved in the aerial battles: the USA, North Korea, the USSR and China. It is interesting that both the Soviet pilots and the Chinese People’s Volunteers participated under the legend that they were all flying North Korean planes — the identification marks of the USSR and China were painted over by the marks of the North Korean Air Force. In fact, there were air regiments in the command structure of the Soviet and Chinese armies, which will be reflected in the uniforms and equipment of the pilots and the language of radio communication. In the main game mode, the player will no longer be an ordinary pilot, concerned only with individual success in a series of combat missions — now the player will be a commander of an entire unit, and on his shoulders will rest not only the management of personnel, but also the planning of combat missions based on the situation and the management of the unit’s resources — the personnel and aircraft.
What's new?
The new game engine is even more different from Great Battles than Great Battles was from Rise of Flight. DirectX 12, Physically Based Rendering (PBR) technologies, new visualization systems for atmosphere, vegetation, graphical effects, integration of a new version of the sound API, a new GUI engine and design, an evolution of the aircraft simulation physics engine, including a new aerodynamics, systems operation and damage model, a new damage model for ground objects and ships, a new system of decision making and giving orders to AI pilots, a new radio communication system, and, of course, a new qualitative evolution of the main game mode — all this together makes a qualitative leap, not just an evolutionary step. It required a huge investment of effort and resources from us, because for the new technologies all models, effects, sounds, graphical interface — all this had to be created from scratch. In other words — this is not just "a new version of IL-2," no. "Korea. IL-2 Series" is a completely new version of the engine and has completely new content. What's next? Actually, we started the development of "Korea" in parallel with the development of "Great Battles" back in the summer of 2022, and most of the work has already been done. Now we are actively developing the graphical interface and game modes: the development of aircraft has already moved to the stage of creating cockpit models, while the map of Korea is in its final shape and we are already filling it with cities and airfields. The development of dozens of types of ground and sea objects is nearing completion, and the new technological base — engine and tools — is already ready. Most of the development path has been completed, all the parameters of the new project have been defined, and that’s why we can finally announce it with peace of mind and tell you about its features without making promises we weren’t sure we could keep. Thanks for your patience! We will try to keep you updated on what we have already created and how we are progressing during the development cycle until the release.
Dev Blog №1 (il2-korea.com)
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By ProblemChild
I am new to this game but I am loving it and the dynamic campaign is amazing. my only and only problem is that planes just dissapear in the distance, literally just dissapear a short distance a way, around 200 - 500 meters away? not too sure but its very off putting and its clearly an issue for gameplay.
I am using Patch July 2013
Wings over Korea mod
I play on 3840x2160 4K resolution (I'd prefer playing on that) I have extracted the flightengine ini into SF2 Filght folder as well as to the korea folder and made some changes like turned off fade away and increased mesh values, but still to no avail? Anyway to fix this? Its literally the only thing destroying the fun I have with this game.
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By kosmo92
Hello
I have little problem in SF2 North Atlantic in single mission when I select Korea v3 and Cuba Otc terrains I can't change mission year before 1970, is there any fix for that problem?
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By Menrva
View File Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition
Welcome To Duty
Built with the extraordinary expertise and dedication of modders from CombatACE.com, Operation Desert Storm – 30th Anniversary Edition promises to be the most complete total conversion ever made for Strike Fighters 2 by ThirdWire.
Fly with more than 50 aircraft ranging from Cold War relics to the most advanced platforms. Gain air superiority in the mighty F-15C Eagle or challenge the Coalition with the agile Fulcrum. Support troops with the A-10A Thunderbolt II, bomb strategic targets with the stealthy F-117A Nighthawk, lead airfield denial operations in the iconic Tornado.
Enjoy a beautifully rendered scenario on a scaled and accurate terrain. Fly over the lakes and rivers of Mesopotamia, the oil-rich fields of Kuwait, the mountains of Iran and Turkey. Take-off from aircraft carriers stationed in the Persian Gulf to watch over Kuwaiti oil rigs. Perform landings and patrols in more than 90 airports and air bases in the Middle East.
Take part in different campaigns including the Iraqi blitzkrieg on Kuwait and the US-led liberation of the Kuwaiti Emirate. Discover how the Iraqi Army was one of the biggest in the world, through the eyes of American, British, Canadian, French, Italian and Arab pilots. Test your skills and abilities flying for the Iraqi Air Force during all stages of the conflict.
Thirty years after, Operation Desert Storm still remains the largest air operation of modern warfare to date. Modders and flight sim enthusiasts at CombatACE teamed up to bring you a unique product in the lite flight sim world. Exquisitely detailed aircraft and paint schemes are delivered in a well-researched and thorough order of battle.
The ODS 30th AE Development team would like to thank CombatACE.com, its admins, moderators and contributors.
We are sure you will enjoy and appreciate this high-quality freeware product. From the aviation enthusiasts, to the aviation enthusiasts... and for the pilots of tomorrow.
Minimum Requirements
Required products from ThirdWire:
Strike Fighters 2, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: Israel, July 2013 patch Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic, July 2013 patch Full support for:
Mission Editor DLC Campaign Customizer DLC System specs:
OS: Windows 7 x86 Processor: Dual Core 2.7 GHz Memory: 4.0 GB RAM Hard Drive: 17.0 GB Free Space Video Card: 1024 MB DirectX 10
Sneak Peek
Disclaimer
CombatACE.com shall at all times retain ownership of the Software as originally downloaded by you and all subsequent downloads of the Software by you. The Software (and the copyright, and other intellectual property rights of whatever nature in the Software, including any modifications made thereto) are and shall remain the property of CombatACE.com and of the respective developers/modders.
In no event, unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, shall CombatACE.com, or any person be liable for any loss, expense or damage, of any type or nature arising out of the use of, or inability to use this installer or program, including, but not limited to, claims, suits or causes of action involving alleged infringement of copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or unfair competition.
The Operation Desert Storm: 30th Anniversary Edition modification does NOT comply with CombatACE's Freeware Licensing. Various contents of this modification are exclusive, as such you are NOT allowed to share, redistribute and/or make use of the mod and/or its contents for other purposes, without the consent of the mod's developers. Contents of the modification are the copyright of their respective authors.
Notes about the installer
Beware, the mod is available only in the ISO format. You can either mount it on a virtual drive, burn it on a DVD like in the good old days, or unzip it with 7-Zip or equivalent software.
The installer will automatically detect your installation of the required Strike Fighters 2 games by reading through the registry keys. Game folders that are copied from or manually moved from where they were originally installed are not supported. You need all three aforementioned Strike Fighters 2 games and they must be installed with ThirdWire's original installers, not manually copied from other sources nor moved elsewhere after installation to other folders or drives. If you do not meet any of these requirements, installation cannot proceed and you are on your own. If you install all required games properly, the installation of the mod will proceed correctly as intended. The installer then lets you choose where to install the mod folder; you can even install the mod on a different drive or partition than the one where Strike Fighters 2 is installed. No further user input nor manual edits after installation are ever required; the installer takes care of creating all proper links to your desired path for the mod folder. After installation is over, simply run the mod by using the created Desktop and/or Start Menu links.
If you have a previous version of the mod installed, please use the uninstaller to remove it completely. Clean installation is mandatory. You might want to make a backup of the Controls folder, so that you can easily restore your controller settings afterwards.
Suggestions on common issues
Make sure that you are using your dedicated GPU. By default, Strike Fighters 2 usually selects the integrated GPU you may have on your CPU, which is much weaker in terms of VRAM. In case you have frequent crashes or black/missing textures, I highly suggest you download and install the DXVK graphics wrapper (x86 DLLs) into your Strike Fighters 2 game folder: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk. You need a Vulkan-compatible GPU. The wrapper can greatly improve the experience with the mod. With DXVK I can play the mod on a mere Intel UHD 710, whereas without it the mod would always crash to desktop. Go to Sound and set Sound Channels to 32. We got reports that 16 is not enough and will cause crashes on some systems, due to the higher quality sounds included within the mod. The mod is pretty heavy for the game engine despite huge optimizations. Strike Fighters 2's engine is 32bit only and apparently does not manage VRAM properly; consecutive campaign missions might show black/missing textures on objects or cause crashes to desktop because the game does not release the occupied VRAM from the previous mission you played, thus the more missions are loaded consecutively, the more easily you may run out of memory. Set Ground Objects to Medium or Low, Horizon Distance to Near, and Shadows to Medium or Low. These are the most troubling settings. Avoid Unlimited settings as much as possible. If the mod used to work and suddenly crashes to desktop, updating or reinstalling video drivers should help. Make sure that DirectX June 2010 Redistributables are also installed, they are included inside the ISO disk image of the mod. Inside the mod folder, you'll find some extra text files. "(Coalition Order of Battle)" should be of your interest; the mod's terrain covers the entirety of Iraq, at the cost of not having all of Saudi Arabia; this means that a number of important units are based on airbases that are beyond the in-game playable area. With those units you always spawn near the target area, you'll never get to start from a runway nor to land on the assigned runway beyond the invisible wall. You have an entire list of the affected units in the aforementioned text file. By pressing ALT+N, the plane returns to base automatically. The mod is fully compatible with the Campaign Customizer and Mission Editor DLCs by ThirdWire. The Campaign Customizer might be an alternative way to experience those off map units I mentioned previously, since it assigns you to a random airbase of the in-game flyable area. Escort missions are often broken, this is not an issue of the mod, but a bug of the stock game; sometimes the AI flight you escort does not engage its target and keeps flying in a straight line instead of following waypoints, thus the trigger for mission success will never happen. Abandon the mission or retry it if the issue happens, sometimes it works. Pray for ThirdWire AKA Tsuyoshi Kawahito to work on a 64bit version of Strike Fighters 2, maybe even with support for DirectX 12. With that done, any out of memory issues should become an old memory. Submitter Menrva Submitted 01/16/2021 Category User Made Campaigns
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By 76.IAP-Blackbird
Dear friends,
Today we would like to tell you about a new aircraft that our artists have been working on for some time and engineers have recently started to create its FM.
The Ta 152 is the last creation of the German aircraft designer Kurt Tank, which managed to take part in combat operations during the Second World War. This aircraft was the culmination of the evolution of the Fw 190 fighter and Germany's most advanced piston fighter. It was in development for a long time, several years, and appeared at the very end of the war. During the development, several modifications of the original Fw 190 were produced, which finally led to the Ta 152 - the name "Fw" was changed to "Ta" in recognition of the designer's merits.
Compared to the Fw 190D "Dora", the wingspan was significantly increased for better maneuverability at high altitudes, the fuselage was longer, and the new Jumo-213E engine was equipped with two boost systems: MW-50 (water-methanol mixture injection for low and medium altitudes) and GM-1 (nitrous oxide for high altitudes). The "Dora" engine was already characterized by a high degree of automation and regulation and thus complexity, but here the Germans went even further - the engine was equipped with a two-stage three-speed (!) supercharger.
As you can see, these improvements were made for high-altitude combat, where the Ta 152 had to outperform the Mustangs and Spitfires of the Allies - the threat from the bomber armadas climbing higher and higher was growing every year. The plane had a pressurized cockpit and could reach a speed of 750 km/h at an altitude of 12 km, and its ceiling was 14 km! Think about it - a piston fighter that could climb and fight above modern jetliners had no equal. Its armament is also respectable, even by late WWII standards: 30mm MK 108 and two 20mm MG-151/20 cannons allowed it to destroy any air target.
The Ta 152 went into production at the end of the war and appeared in the skies of Germany in January-February 1945, but due to the disparity of forces, they had no effect on the course of hostilities: they were produced in very small numbers (about 25 H-1s). They remained in history as a monument to German wartime engineering and design. In our simulator, we expect to release this very interesting aircraft this summer.
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