Geezer

Very possible. The first batches of Gladiators sent to the Middle East were painted in over all silver dope. As war became likely, they were given hasty coats of camo. After several months of operations in the desert sun, the locally applied camo started looking pretty scruffy. Dunno about Sea Gladiator colors. Other RAF aircraft, such as the Hurricane Mk1, were initially painted in Dark Earth/Dark Green with silver dope under surfaces, changing to Sky under surfaces in mid-1940.

Found this for a Malta Sea Gladiator. Looks like land colors were mostly, but not entirely, sprayed over the maritime colors. It also looks like the illustrator got careless? The undersurfaces view specifies SKY, but the side view shows maritime light gray on the lower fuselage. EDIT: The more I look at this art, the more I question it. It depicts a Sea Gladiator cowling (with maritime colors) mounted on a Gladiator with standard land camo. Thing is, the Gladiators on Malta were SEA Gladiators, not land Gladiators. Given the desperate nature of Malta's defense, it seems doubtful that vital aircraft would have been stood down for re-painting in land colors.

Yep. The Royal Navy had some Sea Gladiators in storage at Alexandria when Italy declared war in mid-1940. The RAF, desperate for any kind of aircraft, "borrowed" the Sea Gladiators for ops in the desert. Dunno if they were repainted in land camo or not. LloydNB agreed to make the Sea Gladiator textures some time ago, but I've not heard from him in a while. Progress shots. Mostly just the fuselage and engine remain to be mapped.

The three aircraft I have released so far employed both Case 1 and Case 2 textures. The Case 1 textures were 2048, while the Case 2 textures varied in size. Also, many of the textures were quite complex - multiple colors depicting intricate detail, as opposed to a few colors showing simple details. There wasn't any noticeable impact on frame rates on my mid-level desktop, though an old, low-end machine might have problems. Based on that, I suspect optimization is not a major issue unless you have a large number of big, complex textures?

Started mapping the Gladiator.

View File CR42 (1940) Graphics Pack The graphics pack contains all the .psd files used to make the CR42 skins. In addition to templates and skin art, there are numerous squadron insignia for CR42 units that were deployed in 1940 Libya. There is also selection of different squadron number styles, plus Belgian and Hungarian national insignia. Note these images are BIG - they are sized to fit the hi-res artwork. Modders who like to make decals can experiment to see if large, hi-res decals are feasible. If not, the numerous overlays can be painted into the skin artwork. Submitter Geezer Submitted 06/25/2015 Category First Eagles - Golden Era - Axis Skins

And lastly, the model doesn't seem to have any bomb pylons under the wings, so if you load bombs they hang in the air, clear of the wings. I made the following change to get them closer to the wings: [LeftBombRack] ... AttachmentPosition=-1.94,-0.073,-0.330 [RightBombRack] ... AttachmentPosition=1.94,-0.073,-0.330 The late-war version - with bomb racks and dust filter - is the SF2 version that Baffmeister is working on. It will be released later this year. Historically, bomb racks weren't installed until 1941, so my 1940 version for FE2 does not carry bomb racks.

Tweaking the flight model is one of several reasons why the CR42 has been a lengthy learning experience. Many thanks to Baffmeister for the new FM. However, he works in SF2 so there are some differences between his FM and the final FM for FE2, which is due shortly. Thanks to Ojcar for the FE2 specific FM that is now being finalized: It's a very good FM (much better than mine, believe me), but it has two issues in FE. -It has very long take off. -It's a little slow (about 321 Km/h sea level against 343 of the real thing) I think the problem it's in the engine. If you look at the engine data HasWEP=TRUE SLPowerDry=544361.0 SLPowerWEP=639811.0 And there's the problem. FE is built for very old planes. They don't use the WEP (war emergency power). They use it in Strke Fighters. In FE you haven't the real engine power. You are only using 544361.0 Watt instead 639811 Watt. So my little mod of this is: SLPowerDry=639811.0 //HasWEP=TRUE //SLPowerDry=544361.0 //SLPowerWEP=639811.0 This give you about 341 Km/h at very low height. Very close to the real 343Km/h

The graphics pack is nearly ready. When you see it you will understand why it took so long. Also, an update for the aircraft is nearly ready.

Wow! Excellent work - the camo job is impressive.

Thanks. There will also be a fair amount of crossover in 1940 ground objects. I'll make a bunch of RAF airfield stuff for the 1940 desert mod, and then make BoB equivalents. Shots below of scale models off the internet illustrate how the same ground object can have two different skins.

Thanks! I'll wait a bit to see if there are any more bugs, and then issue an update. There ARE bomb racks, but they are part of the late-war CR42 which is still in-work. Baffmeister wanted to tweak the FM a bit more for the SF2 version, so I'm making haste slowly. 1940 desert combat made it obvious biplane fighters were no longer competitive, so front line units began installing bomb racks as field mods in 1941. The CR42 remained in production through 1942 as a ground attack machine, with bomb racks installed at the factory. Shot of late-war machine below. When released, it will also have a graphics pack. Oops! Will fix that with an update. This is my first time making damage TGA files. Looks like I want to save them as 32bit files? Also inwork is a selection of 1930s bombs for 1940 desert and Spanish Civil War. Not done yet - gotta add Soviet bombs.

Thanks for spotting that. Will fix with an update soon-ish.

I just posted the 1940 desert CR42 in First Eagles. Late this year, or early next year, I'll develop a BoB version for SF2. Shot below show testing of BoB camo colors. Some of the Italian aircraft sent to Belgium were repainted in northern European colors, while others retained their Mediterranean colors - see second shot.

Three pilot choices are included in the Pilots folder. One option is a hot weather desert pilot in shirt sleeves, while the default Euro pilot wears a flight jacket and kapok life vest. A third option is a high altitude version of the Euro pilot with oxygen mask. A 1940 graphics pack, with templates, artwork, and alternate insignia and markings, will follow shortly. Sometime in the future, I will probably release a 1941-42 version, with appropriate graphics pack. Tonight, I'm gonna celebrate with a bottle of wine. Tomorrow, I'll resume mapping my next project, the Gloster Gladiator Mk2.

View File CR42 (1940) Updated files to reflect user inputs - see change log. The SAVE SELECTION AS CHANNEL button in my copy of Photoshop has stopped working, so I cannot fix the bullet holes alpha channel problem. I have placed the _Holes files in the Graphics Pack. If you can make your own .tga files with alpha channel, just drop the resulting four .tga files into the CR42_1 folder. ************************************************************************************************************************************************************** The CR42 was Italy's most numerous fighter in 1940, and fought over North and East Africa, plus briefly in the Battle of Britain. Export versions operated in the Battle of France (Belgium) and on the Eastern Front (Hungary). Immensely strong, its license-built Pratt & Whitney engine drove a license-built Hamilton-Standard constant speed propeller, giving the CR42 a performance edge over Allied biplanes in early WW2. This is the first of many 1930s aircraft intended for FE/FE2. The planned selection of aircraft will cover the early desert war in North Africa and also the Spanish Civil War. Whenever appropriate, an SF2 version will also be developed for Baffmeister's BoB mod. A number of modders have assisted me in developing this aircraft, particularly Stephen1918. Additional thanks to Wrench, Baffmeister, Sully, gambit168, Nixou, and Viper63a. I've probably forgotten someone - if so, my apologies. Special thanks to professional illustrator Jim Laurier for use of his instrument art for the cockpit. The only known problem is the extended take off run - once in the air, no other problems have been observed. When Baffmeister returns in the autumn, he said he will tweak the FM a bit more to his satisfaction. The current FM lists the CR42 as a German aircraft so it will drop into most First Eagles' mods. You can change the nationality by opening the CR42_DATA.ini and editing the first two lines of the Mission Data listings. THIS MODEL IS ONLY TO BE DISTRIBUTED AS FREEWARE AND IN NO OTHER CIRCUMSTANCE SHALL IT BE USED, EVEN IN PART, OF ANYTHING THAT IS PAYWARE, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE COMBAT ACE MODDERS AGREEMENT. Submitter Geezer Submitted 06/20/2015 Category First Eagles - Golden Era - Axis Add-On Aircraft