On Yankee Station: SF2V Air/Ground Expansion Navy Campaign Updates

[Pensy101 4]

Evening (from where I am, anyway),

 

I went through the campaign files for Rolling Thunder in the Strike Fighters 2 Vietnam Air/Ground Expansion Pack's latest iteration (the September 2014 Update) and I found a problem with the pack's Rolling Thunder Variant campaigns' use of Navy squadrons. Eburger did an excellent job with these campaigns and shifting squadrons between carriers to represent the historical air wing changes during Rolling Thunder, but the campaign start and stop dates are out of whack. The dates are based on when the carrier left or arrived at her homeport, not when she actually arrived and began air ops on Yankee Station. I modified the campaign files accordingly, so that the various Navy squadrons first appear on the days they actually began airstrikes, rather than the days they left their homeports. In addition, I also modified the "RetireDate" values so that the squadrons depart the AO when they historically ceased air ops. I spent a great deal of time on various websites trying to figure this out, but sometimes I was unable to do so, and to cut a long story short, I had to make an educated guess on when some squadrons started or ended airstrikes (the only way to definitively figure out these squadrons' deployments is to physically go to Maryland and read the actual deck logs.) Still, the modifications I did will give an extra bit of immersion for Navy grognards by more accurately depicting the ebb and flow of Navy squadrons during Rolling Thunder. Keep in mind that you won't be able to fly off of Forrestal anymore, as she only spent a few days (July 25-27, 1967) on station before her infamous fire that sent her back to the States, and never made another Vietnam cruise again. All this being said, though, I can't post my campaign files yet, as this is simply my personal work on Eburger's mod and I don't want to post anything without his permission. If he comes on here and gives me the okay, I'll post these campaigns in the Downloads section under my own account. Until then, I'll await a response. If you're reading this, Eburger, I'm also okay if you want to post the files yourself in Downloads as an update to the SF2V Air/Ground Expansion Pack. If that is your chosen course of action, be sure to explicitly credit me for my work in this regard. My title for this project is "On Yankee Station: SF2V Air/Ground Expansion Historical Navy Campaign Update."

 

Cheers!