Pancho

File Name: Nothing Phoney About This War, Mate File Submitter: Pancho File Submitted: 25 December 2010 File Updated: 29 December 2010 File Category: IL2 Series Campaigns & Missions Can you beat Cobber Kain in the race to be Britain's first ace of WWII? Nothing Phoney About This War, Mate is an historically based portrayal of RAF fighter operations from Spring 1938 until Spring 1940. Missions are set in Egypt, Palestine, England, and France. You will fly scrambles, intercepts, strikes, and patrols in Gladiators and Hurricanes, facing Bf-109s, Bf-110s, He-111s, and Ju-88s, among others. You might even encounter the elusive He-113. While all missions are based upon historical circumstances, certain episodes explore plausible alternatives. You won’t fly the same missions every campaign, either. Random variants present the opportunity of facing variable opposition, even during actions where RAF pilots did not actually encounter enemy aircraft, such as routine patrols. There’s also a chance that you might not face any opposition, depending upon which variant mission the campaign engine selects at random -- this is the Phoney War, after all. Nearly every mission in the campaign has at least one or two alternatives. This offers a new prospect with each restart. Every campaign you play should be slightly different. You will fly 40 sorties, with a pool of some 130 alternate missions to draw upon. This campaign is intended for IL2: 1946 with the UltraPack 2.01 mod installed. No additional mods need be enabled other than those active by default in UP201. Click here to download this file

Real shame this series is ending ...

Afraid not, Macelena. They were designed for the WOI map, planeset, and such. Sorry!

According to TK, there's a supply bug in the Apr 08 patch, which is causing the crashes in my "filler" campaigns. Info here: http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5346 TK is working the problem. It'll be fixed in the next patch. So sit tight!

Thanks, Dave. Will give it a look. Also, have posted a query for TK over at the TW forum.

Hey guys, Been busy with Real Life stuff the past month or so. Just heard about this problem. Haven't even patched up myself, yet, so will take a look as soon as I can. What changed with the patch? My campaigns shouldn't be overwritten by anything, since they live in new folders. so I'm thinking that some object or terrain folder names might have changed with the patch, and that's causing the weirdness. Or, since it doesn't always happen with Strike missions (as one user reported in this thread), it might be weapons or loadout related ... ?

LOL! Heck, that makes you even older than me, Typhoid. Around that time I was just getting out of high school. Okay Gramps, how about some of that gray-head wisdom, then? A few questions for an expert: Where in the Med would Essex and Saratoga have been on station, during the Lebanese crisis of 1958? What might they have called their stations -- would they use task force designations, or names like Yankee and Dixie, or something else? What other vessels would have been included as their escorts, and how would they have been deployed? And anything else you can think of to make the scenario more realistic. USAFMTL's right, this one could really be a lot of fun, and not a bit controversial (I hope) ...

Yeah, the USSR actually deployed a couple of MiG-21 squadrons to Egypt in 1970, and lost a few of 'em to the IAF. Could have gotten scary ...

Roger that, Bounder, and I hear ya! For the record, I don't have a strong opinion on the incident one way or the other, aside from believing it was a tragic accident that cost the lives of good men. No axe to grind. Gameplay was the only motivation I had in considering this campaign. I've lived through nearly 50 years of history, myself, and I'm always amazed at how ignorant some kids are of even the recent past. A college intern who works for me wasn't even aware that WWII ended with an atomic bomb -- I am not kidding. And she'll graduate this summer. Sad. Thanks for the info, Wrench! I suspected as much. Dunno, maybe this one isn't worth pursuing. Of course, you could always insert the Sixth Fleet as a hypothetical intervention force on the Israeli side in any one of the stock WOI campaigns, or any one of my "filler" campaigns. That's so easy to do, though, it's almost trivial. Might be better to move on to the Lebanon scenarios ...

Heh, Wikipedia ... well, anybody can edit Wikipedia, Bounder (and boy, do they ever). I've read other reports that contradict the ones you're citing. Not saying you're wrong, just that there is plenty of static surrounding an incident like this one. Depends who you talk to -- somebody's always "uncovering" another document or tape or eyewitness account. Anyway, personally, I don't put much credence in most conspiracy theories. You need too many people to make a conspiracy work, and too many people just can't keep secrets. Somebody always talks. Accidents happen. That's one reason I thought this might make an interesting campaign. Maybe this topic is still too controversial to portray in a game, though, even forty years later. Too bad, because those Navy Phantoms sure do look good over the Med. And I'm glad they missed you too, Bounder! Thanks for your service.

Yep Bounder, I've read up on the controversy, from both sides. Wouldn't be so hasty to assign "fault," though, because there's plenty of blame to go around. For instance, IAF pilots admitted that they saw Western lettering on the Liberty, and that gave them second thoughts, yet they carried through with the attacks. One of my college buddies had an uncle on the Liberty, a marine. A tragic accident. Just thought it would make an interesting air-combat scenario, and I have for awhile. First proposed this campaign back in November 2002, shortly before I released Red Wings.

Well, I wasn't going to focus on the attack on the Liberty, itself, but the response. A-4 and A-1 strikes were launched from America and Forrestal shortly after Liberty finally managed to get word to the fleet, to attack the Israeli gunboats. LBJ recalled the strikes. So in this campaign, we'd assume that the strikes weren't recalled, and see how things play out until the end of the Six Day War. Maybe you're right, though, it might be better as a single mission. Another reason I'm doing this campaign is to lay groundwork for a Lebanon 1958 campaign, or a Lebanon 1983 campaign. Maybe it would be best to do a Sixth Fleet package as a separate install, including campaigns for 1958, 1967, and 1983.

Okay, I'm working on a campaign called "Tattered Liberty," about the USS Liberty incident. It's a short campaign, as you might imagine, and it presents some challenges, since essentially you're introducing a third side into WOI. One approach I'm considering is placing Israel and the Arab states on the same side. It's not as crazy as it sounds. The US wasn't friendly with Egypt at the time, since it was a Soviet client. After the beating the Liberty took, the Sixth Fleet would have probably been happy to shoot down Mirages or MiGs on 8 June 1967. Optimizing the campaign for USN, I'd change the frontline to parallel the Mediterranean littoral, and make my focus target Tel Aviv. Facing a whole coastline full of bad guys from Port Said to Beruit, anything could happen. However, when I switch Israel to Enemy (that is, Force 2), Israeli forces don't show up on the map, although the Arabs do. Would I need to set all the Israeli bases to Enemy in the terrain files for this to work? (If so, that would probably negate this approach, since it would dictate a stand-alone campaign, and I don't think this scenario is substantial enough to merit a separate install). What would really be great is the ability to set a third force to Neutral. I did notice that the Frontline data contains provisions for neutral areas. I don't suppose I could introduce a third force as Neutral, could I? Failing that, I guess I could put the USN on the same side as the Arabs. That's predictable, but it would still do the job. On the plus side, I've got the USS America in the Med, launching strikes. (After porting over F-4Bs and A-4Cs from WOV, I found that the America's squadrons were already in the game, and the correct squadron markings actually showed up on the birds. TK does great research!) The Saratoga was the other CV on the scene. It carried the same aircraft types as the America, except it also had a squadron of A-1Hs aboard. Do y'all think it's worth introducing another CV just for the Skyraiders? I guess I could also make the single carrier the Saratoga, too, in order to present the Skyraider option. Thing is, I'd like to make this short campaign as easy as possible to install, so I'd rather not use any aircraft, skins, or ships that don't come stock with WOV or WOI. The America is Kitty Hawk class, which comes with WOV, but of course, the Saratoga is Forrestal class, which would require an add-on (as would the A-1H). As I said, I don't think this is a big enough campaign to merit a separate install, with lots of add-ons and stuff. Unless I introduced Soviet intervention, maybe ... Anybody have any thoughs?

McCain was on the Forrestal, right in the middle of the fire. His was the A-4 hit by the errant Zuni. He barely made it out of his bird, had to climb onto the refueling probe and drop to the deck. (A similar accident occurred on the Enterprise around the same time). When the Forrestal headed home, McCain volunteered to join VA-163 on the Oriskany. After maybe twenty missions, he was shot down -- and he wasn't even scheduled to fly that day. He begged to be included on the roster, once he heard the target was Hanoi. Then, after a few weeks in captivity, the North Vietnamese learned that McCain's father was a four-star admiral, and offered to release him. McCain refused to go home until everybody who'd been captured before him was released. He was tortured pretty severely for his defiance, sustaining injuries that very nearly crippled him for life. Not to get political, but I've got a 1/72 scale model of McCain's A-4 sitting on top of my computer. Yeah, Mac has a big mouth, and he's combative, and he thinks for himself (and sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what he's thinking). We all might disagree about some of the issues surrounding this election campaign, but I don't think anybody can fault the man's personal courage, or his sense of duty. For that matter, we Americans owe every man and woman who served in our military -- or is serving in our military right now -- a huge debt of gratitude. That's a lesson I think we learned as a nation from the shameful treatment Vietnam veterans received after that war. Don't discard your heroes, because they represent the best in all of us. Um, sorry for the rant. I come from a Navy family ...