Escorting Sturmoviks in IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad

[33LIMA 972]

Flying a typical Single Player campaign mission in the new Eastern Front air combat simulator!

 

 

At the risk of being promptly if figuratively burned at the nearest stake, I have to confess that the original IL-2 never really kindled my lukewarm interest in the air war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. However, the latest sim to carry that name has managed to do so, to the extent that I have been flying mainly Soviet planes from the outset in IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad (BoS). Not only that, but I have just recently kicked off a parallel Soviet campaign - the excellent and highly recommended 'Blinding Sun', flying the sleek MiG-3 - in IL-2 '46. For someone who's been mostly interested in the Luftwaffe and the RAF up to now, there's something faintly exotic about the red-starred, pointy-winged Soviet fighters. For those of us tempted by the lure of the orient - or just interested in WW2 warbirds, whatever their origin -  BoS offers in addition to its other aircraft the choice of three superbly-modelled VVS (Soviet Air Force) fighters: the underpowered LaGG-3, the generally superior Yak-1 and - if you have the premium version - the La-5, basically a later derivative of the LaGG with a more powerful, radial engine.

 

For my initial forays into the BoS skies, I stuck with the LaGG, mostly as I think she's the most visually attractive of the trio. With just one cannon and one MG, though, she's rather lightly armed, even by Soviet standards. And I have found her ground handling to be particularly tricky, even if, once in the air, the LaGG seems to perform well enough.

 

 

 

For my first serious effort at playing through the BoS SP campaign, I decided to switch to the Yak-1, which has two MGs rather than one and a better performance than the LaGG . The Yak-1 is visually much the same aircraft as the later Yak-7, -9 and -3, the main identification point, shared with early Yak-7s, being that the Yak-1 lacked the cut-down rear fuselage and 'blister' canopy introduced from the Yak-1b version. Despite the similar wing and tailplane planforms, the Yak is not hard to distinguish from the sleeker LaGG, at close range anyway.

 

 

 

This mission is one I flew early on during the second 'Chapter' of the BoS SP campaign. This segment is set in the timeframe of Operation Uranus, the first of two big Soviet pincer attacks and the one which closed the ring around 6th Army in Stalingrad.
 
In the BoS SP campaign, you have one player profile who can fly any available plane from any available airfield on either side, rather than one or more pilots flying with historical squadrons. Like (I expect) most traditionally-minded combat flight simmers, I dislike this approach. The nearest I can come to a more conventional pilot career is to fly the campaign while sticking to the same side, flying the same plane and operating from the same airfield, with the option to 'transfer' to a different field and plane if I choose. So that's what I'm doing here.
 
I had flown the campaign's first Chapter (covering the period just before the first Soviet counterattack) in the Yak-1 from Verkhne Pogomnoye, just north of Stalingrad on the eastern side of the River Volga. The second Chapter re-set the airfield choices, offering either Peskovatka on the German side and Illarionovskiy on the Soviet. To continue to fly the Yak, I choose the latter airfield. In effect, with the opening of the offensive, my unit had been moved from east of the Volga well to the west, near to the area of the northern bridgeheads from which one of the great pincers had already cut deeply into the enemy's big salient.  Below is the tactical map for this timeframe.

 

 

You can see that the pincers have already nearly completed the famous link-up near the town of Kalach on the great bend in the Don, having broken through the flanks held by Italian, Hungarian and Rumanian units whose weak anti-tank weapons were no match for the T-34s or KV-1s. Victory is in the air, history is in the making, and now it's time for me to play my part in driving the Fascist invaders from the Motherland! Za Rodinu! Za Stalina!
 
Before all that, there are some BoS preliminaries I must go through. Having chosen my base and my plane, I must now also chose a type of mission. Virtual HQ should really be telling me what I'm to do but like CFS3, BoS prefers to let the player choose his task. I must also choose whether I want an air start ('Short' mission duration) and the difficulty level (I fly in 'Normal' mainly as 'Expert' blocks external views and disables some other stuff I like at least to be able to use when I feel the need).
 
I may also pick a colour scheme and my weapon loadout. Here, I can select 'skin' (aircraft colour scheme) and equipment options which I have so far unlocked, while completing the first Chapter of the campaign. There's been some understandable angst about the BoS 'unlocks' feature. While I don't much care for it myself, you don't need the unlocks and to they extent they're desirable, well, they come to you as you progress. At this point, I had unlocked some rockets and some skins for my Yak and from the latter, I chose a striking red-nosed paint job.

 

 

I have been flying mostly 'Intercept' missions up to now but this time, I decided to fly an escort job (variants on the ground attack/close support theme being the other options). We were accordingly tasked to accompany some 'attack planes' - which for the German side means Stukas, for the Soviets, Sturmoviks - down to an unspecified target in open country, in the northern sector of the bulge. Here's the briefing map for this mission.

 

 

Unfortunately this map - which you can also refer to during the mission, as well as a 'mini-map' - no longer shows the front lines. And there's no indication of what the target is. Likewise it's only when you start the mission that you see who you're escorting and what size your own flight is (though the latter seems invariably to be either three or four aircraft, with you as flight leader). As usual in BoS, for the purposes of unlocks and progressing your player profile, you are given a personal, numerical mission objective: in this case, that no more than two Sturmoviks should be lost. Out of how many, I don't know until the mission begins.
 
Helpfully, as you can see, the map does show the bearings, distances and indicative timings for each leg of the flight plan. If I had chosen an air start, I need only have flown the legs to and from the target ('Action Point' in BoS terminology). The very close correspondence between this map and what you see in the 3d world makes decent visual navigation possible in BoS. B-17-2 the Mighty Eighth was the only other combat flight sim I recall playing which had such a good potential for visual navigation. Even though I tend to keep the aircraft map icons switched on, I still find it a joy to pick up landmarks, especially when I can rattle off the names of places I remember from reading accounts of the real battlefield, as I see them brought to life in BoS.
 
This is one of the aspects of the sim that I most appreciate. Truly, BoS is a 'Time Machine' that brings me back to this momentous point in history, much as its fans say of Battle of Britain 2 - Wings of Victory. Some look at BoS and see mainly unlocks and the lack of a conventional pilot career. I look at BoS and see mainly great aircraft, desolate but lovely environments, visceral air combat…and a powerful sense of time and place, of history bought to life.
 
But enough of such reflections. There's a job to be done. It's time to pick up those Sturmoviks, which have flown up from their base to the south. Here we are on the airfield, four Yak-1s, the others in well-worn winter camouflage, in stark contrast to my gaudy machine. I have chosen a full mission duration, not an air start. With 'Normal' difficulty selected, instead of needing to start up and taxi out (which comes with 'Expert' difficulty level), I'm lined up on the runway at the head of my flight, engine running and good to go.

 

 

Meanwhile, the Sturmoviks have arrived  - just three of them, on this trip - and are now swinging in from the west. I opened my canopy and checked my controls while I waited for the right moment to take off and go after them. In the pic below, you can see our four fighters, throwing up glistening clouds of snow, just above the nose of the Sturmovik in the foreground.

 

 

One of the reasons I chose the Yak over the LaGG is that I've found the latter's ground handling very tricky. Take-off runs regularly end with my machine pirouetting wildly as my efforts to use differential braking fail to keep me straight. The Yak is also tricky but is much more manageable, more reminiscent of planes in IL-2 '46. BoS nicely replicates formation takeoffs with shorter gaps than its predecessor's 'conga line' takeoffs, so getting run down by a following aircraft is a risk if you mess up your run. This time I crabbed left and right and back again despite applying throttle slowly. I was overtaken by the Yak on my right but made it off the ground; which is always a good start. I timed it fairly well too, as the Sutrmoviks were crossing ahead of us as we lifted off. At least that's what I'll tell the CO, if and when I get back, if he says anything about cutting it fine.

 

 

I swung around in a wide turn to the right, throttling back slightly so that the others could catch up as I looked around to pick up the Sturmoviks again. Below me you can see our airfield. It's been said the BoS airfields are a bit bland but if you look at aerial photos taken in the area during the timeframe of the BoS campaign - November 1942 to February 1943 - they look exactly right - basically, frozen.

 

 

In their white camouflage, the Sturmoviks were quite had to spot against the snowscape. You can just about see a couple of them below, just left of my auxiliary ring and bead gunsight. It was mainly their movement that revealed them to me.
 

 

My comrades were evidently intending to go in at very low level. This can make escorting them something of a challenge. Sometimes in BoS there is a fairly unbroken low overcast, giving you little option on an escort flight but to stay below it, to keep sight of your charges. Today, however, while there was a certain amount of low cloud, it was quite broken. So I climbed up to about 2000m and at about 75% throttle, took up position above and behind the Sturmoviks, flying a zig-zag pattern. This is the tactic I usually adopt on an escort mission in a WW2 sim. The weaving enables me to keep my speed up, ready to react quickly, and also means I'm less vulnerable to attack myself, compared to just flying straight and slow, in line with my bombers. On the climb, I could see signs of the fighting on the ground, in the form of smoke billowing up from a town to our right, not too far off.

 

 

 

 Our route consisted of a leg to the south-west, then a right turn to the east and the target. A prominent frozen river, the mighty Don itself, was a useful reference point - the last mile or two of our first leg ran pretty well along the frozen river as it snaked on its way across the barren steppes.

 

 

When the Strumoviks reached the L-shaped riverbank woods which marked our first waypoint, I saw them turn right and I turned with them, my flight sliding neatly across, somewhere just behind me.

 

 

 

So far we, looked to be the only aircraft in the vicinity. But appearances can be deceptive!

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

The Luftwaffe shows up!

 

 

Suddenly, happening to look behind to my left, I got a fright. Three single-engined aircraft emerged from a cloud, lancing down and away from me. Oh cripes! The Nemetski had slipped in behind us and were going for the Sturmoviks! But as the planes banked around, I saw that they had pointy, triangular wings and realised they were Soviet fighters - my own wingmen, in fact! Soon they were back behind me as I resumed my weaving back and forth across the track of the big Ilyushins.

 

 

 

As we ran in towards the target area I started to lose a little height, mindful that I might want to do a bit of flak supression if the Luftwaffe didn't show up. What did show up was some AA fire, in the form of a brief series of black bursts which blossomed in the skies slightly below and behind us.

 

 

As I continued my descent, I looked around for the Sturmoviks, of which I had lost sight against the white shimmer of the tree-dotted snowscape ahead. Not seeing them I turned on labels. Even against a sky or snow background, planes in BoS seem invisible beyond about 5-7 Kilometres, so I will sometimes turn on labels. Happily, these are not some kind of Magic Radar; the labels are invisible at long range, then appear gradually, first in neutral grey with just a range, with side (red for Germans, blue for Soviets, in fact) and aircraft type appearing only when close enough for such identification in real life.

 

This time, the labels showed up the Sturmoviks…but also revealed a couple of bogies, to my right front and lower. It was one of the rules of WW1 ace Mick Mannock that sightings should be treated as hostile, until confirmed otherwise. In the circumstances, such confirmation seemed superfluous. This must surely be the Luftwaffe; almost certainly, fighters.

 

 

I pushed my throttle fully open and raced to cut them off. I gave the command to attack air targets, though I think my three wingmen - they are all yours in BoS - had already spotted something they didn't like the look off and weren't hanging about for me to cut them loose.
 
The two bogies (the RAF radio call for unidentified aircraft) were indeed bandits - enemies. Messerschmitts in fact. And they had turned into us. The leader swept below me at one o'clock and disappeared under my starboard wing. I rolled right and nosed down, intending to do an improvised low yo-yo, picking up speed in the dive then using this to come up somewhere behind him. And relying on the fact that the presence nearby of the rest of my flight would mean he wouldn't be entirely focussed on me.

 

 

Somewhere along the line I lost sight of the 109 - incomprehensively, padlock works fine in Quick Missions but is disabled in campaign. As I pulled up, I levelled off and came around in a steady turn to clear my tail. As I did so, I looked round. Back where I'd come from, an aircraft was going down in flames.

 

 

Ahead of me, things looked better. The Sturmoviks were making a diving attack; against an emplaced artillery battery, as it happened.

 

 

 

The really bad news was that the aircraft going down was one of mine. He'd had his port wing shot off by a pair of closely co-operating 109s.

 

 
As I pulled around, I suddenly found myself in a good position behind another 109, this time on his own, ahead and at about 500 metres. He started to roll left, then reversed, then leveled off, as if he was unsure of his next move. I'd kept my turn fairly wide so still had some of the speed I'd built up in the dive; soon I was at 300 metres and still closing.
 
Now it was my turn to feel uncertain. Gunnery I'm finding a big challenge in BoS. As in its predecessor Rise of Flight, I find aircraft tend to hunt; as I try to line up my sights, I find myself overcorrecting, back and forth. Tho otherwise fine, my old and possibly a tad worn Saitek Cyborg may be partly to blame here. Without the benefit of RoF's ability to set custom joystick response curves, in BoS I had done what I could and tried an increase in the 'noise' filter. This would be its first try out.
 
Now, I was about to apply the approach I'd learned in RoF. In turn, this was adapted from a technique I'd been taught many years ago, to engage crossing targets with the rifle. One method the instructors called 'following through', where you (briefly) track the target's movements with your sights. The other is the ambush method, when you set your sights ahead, on the crossing target's track, taking up the first pressure on the trigger and shooting when the target itself creates the correct sight picture. The latter method was what I was adapting for use now.

 

I came up from behind and slightly below, closing quite fast and glad the BoS AI doesn't have the original IL-2's 'early warning radar' which invariably causes them to break just, it seemed, as you were about to shoot.  I lined up my sights at a spot in the sky toward which both me and the 109 looked to be heading. Essentially, I was trying to lock onto a fixed intercept course for the last few hundred meters. Having set up the trajectory, I waited, for the moment the sight picture would be right. If it didn't happen, I would avoid my previous mistake, of attempting a series of late adjustments, more likely spoiling my aim rather than correcting it. And I would not be tempted to shoot with a less-than-decent firing solution, spraying the target in the hope of a lucky hit. This time I'd rather not fire at all and would break off my attack, seeking an opportunity to set up a second pass.
 
The moment came and I squeezed both triggers as my sights passed through the right spot. It was the shortest of bursts, just a handful of rounds. There was a bang as the 109 disappeared under my nose and I pulled up and away. Looking right and down, I could hardly believe my eyes. A black smoke trail stained the blue sky and at the head of it was the 109, still flying but dropping away on fire and clearly doomed.

 

 

 

I continued turning to clear my tail, watching the smoke trail spiral earthwards behind me as I swung around. This was not a sight I'd got to see too often in the campaign thus far, so all the more welcome! And a Messerschmitt, too, regarded as the most dangerous German fighter by the Soviets, who seemed not to rate the FW 190 as highly as the Western Allies.

 

 

But the battle wasn't over yet!

 

...to be continued!

[33LIMA 972]

Victory to the Red Army of Peasants and Workers...and me!

 

                                             

 

Since this particular party had kicked off, I had knocked down a 109 but lost one of the four Yaks in my own flight. From what I could hear on the radio, the other two were still engaged with the Messerschmitts.

 

I quickly considered my next move.  Should I rejoin the surviving Sturmoviks - whose safety was my primary goal - and accompany them out of the area while my two remaining wingmen kept the 109s busy? Instead, I decided that my charges' safety could best be assured by concentrating my flight against the immediate threat. Otherwise, the 109s might defeat us in detail, starting with my two flight-mates then coming after me and the Sturmoviks. Ignoring a flurry of tracers from light flak that suddenly spewed up to my right and then clearing my tail, I extended away to gain a bit of separation.

 

 

Sod being a wingman - I love the tactical decision-making of flying as a flight leader in an air combat sim!

 

I turned back in to rejoin the battle with the 109s; two or three of them, from what I could make out. Like me, you probably relish the opportunity of butting in to someone else's air fight. Choose your moment instead of rushing straight in, and it's a wonderful chance to catch somebody unawares, while they're otherwise occupied. For the second time I set up another firing pass, diving down to come up from behind and below 109 who seemed to be out on his own and didn't see me coming.

 

 

Closing more slowly this time, I was able to repeat my performance, catching up on the German who did not interrupt his wide right-hand turn. I cut loose with another short burst with very little deflection as my sights passed through what I judged to be the right point of aim. The 109 pulled up sharply and rolled to the left, burning fiercely and losing speed rapidly. The pilot wisely jettisoned his canopy and promptly bailed out. Two fighter kills in one mission! This was mostly going rather well, I decided.

 

 

 

I could see that there were still two Messerschmitts in the fight but now, it was three Yaks against two of them. These two seemed to be sticking together; possibly they were the same ones who had earlier clobbered one of my wingmen.

 

 

The 109s cut in towards the Sturmoviks but my other two Yaks were quickly on their case. A flurry of radio traffic confirmed a flight-mate was already engaged and indicated the Sturmoviks were claiming their ground target was destroyed, though one of them had been hit and the pilot was reporting in wounded. It wasn't long before he went down in flames. One of the 109s might have got him but it could have been the light flak I'd seen, I couldn't be sure.

 

 

 

The second 109 came up again in a right-hand climbing turn, thereby placing himself in a position from which I could dive onto his tail. Which, of course, is exactly what I did.

 

 

I cut across his turn and set up another 'ambush' firing solution ahead of him. When the 109 obligingly flew into it, I pressed my triggers briefly, before pulling up. On this mission, I didn't seem to be able to put a foot wrong, for the third Messerschmitt burst into flames, with the pilot slumped forward in his cockpit.

 

 

 

Three 109s down, in a single air fight! I had to admit, though, that it had been a team effort; two of my kills had effectively been set up for me, with my wingmen doing the hard work while I bided my time...though good stalking and then good (or very lucky!) shooting had been needed on my part, to convert opportunity to success.

 

Looking around again, I saw another 109, apparently fleeing the area, pursued by a Yak some way behind. I joined the chase for a while, but once I judged the German was unlikely to present a further threat to the Sturmoviks, I decided the time had come to rejoin them. Looking back occasionally until I was sure the 109 was well gone, I recalled my flight and turned away. As you can see from the screenshot below, the BoS wingman command menus are as conspicuous as the aircraft labels are subtle, but you can allocate hot-keys to individual commands and thus keep your screen clear.

 

 

Having strayed to the west, I now turned north-east to intercept the leg back to the post-target waypoint. With the help of the aircraft labels I re-located the Sturmoviks…or Sturmovik, to be precise, down low again and on the assigned track north, out of the target area. Out of three, he was the only one still around. I had seen one Sturmovik go down near the target; what had happened to the third one, I had no idea. My elation with my earlier victories was suddenly dampened. As my two remaining wingmen closed up behind me, I resumed my position above and behind the Ilyushin. This time, instead of staying high, I led the flight down until I was nearly at his level. There was no way I was going to take a chance of a German fighter or two slipping in below us for a pass on the remaining attack aircraft, even if it meant we were, in effect, his duralumin sandbags.

 

 

We followed the big monoplane back to the post-target waypoint, where he turned right onto the last leg to his own home base. It was beginning to look like we might get this one home. Tension began to unwind but I kept a careful look-out, the whole time.

 

 

Sure enough, the rest of the flight was uneventful. We stayed with the Sturmovik right up to the point he turned into the circuit at his airfield. He made it down fine, though by that time, we were well on our way back up north, to our own base at Illarionovskiy.

 

 

 

The last excitement of the day was provided by my own efforts at a landing. First time, I bounced high and did a go-around. My second effort became another go-around, this time because one of my wingmen had decided not to wait and was rolling down the runway towards me, as I came in on finals. We can have an 'interview without coffee' about that one afterwards, I thought to myself as I firewalled the throttle and cleaned her up for the second time. On the third attempt, I bounced again, but this time decided I was getting down, one way or another.

 

 

I hit hard but stayed on the ground, clipping my prop on the ice and rolling to a stop in the snow just off the runway.

 

 

This was counted as a crash landing but I wasn't too worried. The mission's ground target was reported destroyed. Two of the three Sturmoviks had been lost - one at most to fighters, I was pretty sure - but for the cost of one Yak shot down, we had nailed three 109s, all of which were credited to myself. Mission accomplished, and in some style! ['Fundamentalists', 'die-hards' or those unable to countenance such things may want to avert their eyes now - here come the 'Experience Points' ]

 

 

The BoS Single Player campaign has its detractors and like many, I'd much prefer to be able to sign up as one or more pilots and fight through the campaign with my choice of historical squadrons. It's no deal breaker, though. Steel Beasts and Steel Fury are widely recognised as great tanksims even though they too lack most or all of the role-playing or squad management features we prefer to see in an SP campaign, ground or air-based. And if I really felt it was so very important to have a pilot persona and logbook, after a few minutes researching squadron histories online I could create and maintain my own, anytime, on a sheet of paper, hard or 'soft'.

 

Some get really vexed about the BoS unlocks and some other 'gamey' features which we have instead. But based on my experience of actually playing this sim, I'm firmly with those who say these are pretty minor issues, detracting little or nothing from the actual combat simulation experience.

 

Others say the missions are repetitive. But even if, like me, you prefer to limit your choices to flying for one side and in one plane at a time, you have at least the choice of more than one mission type for each sortie. Besides, realistically, there's only so much variety to be expected, if you're flying and air fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad.

 

Each to their own. For me, this new sim's main attraction is two-fold - the richness of the flying, air fighting and ground-pounding experience, engaging both senses and mind; and the immersive depth and detail of BoS's recreation of that vast, sullen, snowbound battlefield, over which you are flying and fighting.

 

I'm not a one-sim player and I'll continue flying my favourites, but BoS is now definitely one of them.

 

[33LIMA 972]

As a footnote, my luck didn't last long. The 109s got me on my next mission.

 

That town was still buring across the frozen Don, over to my right...

 

 

I had a good time leading the flight along at 4-500 metres, admiring the view, orienting the map against the landmarks and generally enjoying the ride in the decent weather...

 

 

We met the Stukas we were hoping to intercept, though they were flying very low.

 

 

I went after the Stukas while my two wingmen obligingly took on the escorting 109s, delighted to find that padlock is now working in campaign mode, after the last update...

 

 

Wary of the trio's rear gunners with their fast-firing MG81Z twin-mountings, I got some hits before breaking away for a seond pass, glad of the ability to flick padlock on and off to help me track the big Junkers. But one of the 109s had slipped past my two wingmen. First I knew, there were tracers flying past. Then there was a dull bang and my Yak rolled hard left, minus its port wing...

 

 

With the plane going down in a vertical nose dive I chopped the throttle and just about managed to get out .

 

 

Oh well, better luck next time!