33LIMA

Maybe depends what features you want; if 'as good as B-17-2' then the answer may be 'nothing much'...I certainly haven't found anything that does the job nearly as well. If you have Il-2 '46 you may want to try this or similar heavy bomber campaigns: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=923 There was (is?) a Just Flight add-on for CFS3 called 'Memphis Belle' which is quite good, coming with the plane and recreations of each of her 25 missions. However, formations are wide, fighter style and there's none of the detailed navigation or Norden bombsight that you get in the Microprose title. With the latest DX mod that provides good water effects and dynamic shadows inside and out, graphics are not too bad. I preferred the JF Belle to the Firepower mod version, not least on my PC it was much more FPS-friendly without sacrificing anything important. Just Flight also produced a decent 'Dambusters' mod for CFS2 and while the earlier sim has even earlier graphics it's still quite good at what it does: http://combatace.com/topic/81431-cfs2-training-with-the-dambusters/

Yes I think you can still change the loadout, but orders are orders! I was a bit flabbergasted to see in the briefing that the bombs could not be timed to explode a fixed interval after dropping. Which makes this screenshot a bit of a mystery... And yes Jeanba that's the way to do it, the tricky bit being to timing. I recently ordered 'Attack bombers' just coming into range and that seemed to work. I'm not sure that just leading your flight into the front of the bombers works, with no command.

A bad day in a long war... Ok, I've just been on the ranges testing my ability to drop a bomb from a Bf 109 into a formation of enemy bombers. Now, it's time to take my new-found skill (!!!) on operations. Here's the mission briefing. The first part looks to be a member of my flight telling me, Willi Redermann, just exactly what he thinks of this air-to-air bombing lark. And he's right, but orders are orders. To make matters worse we can't set the bombs to explode a fixed interval after dropping - presumably though Il-2 may support post-inpact fuse delays it doesn't allow for the former. So only direct hits will count! We might as well have saved the Reich some money by dropping concrete practice bombs. Although we are now dropping in flight strength, it seems our chances of actually doing any damage have fallen from slim to nil. As least, at this stage in the war - spring 1943 - we don't have to worry much about escorts from the short-legged Spitfires and early Thunderbolts and their so-far unreliable drop-tanks. Most of this campaign's missions - there are about twenty, overall - seem to be air starts, which is not my preference but it certainly saves the tedious bit between takeoff and nearing the scene of the action. It also saves any issues misjudging the height and coming in below the target. So it wasnts not long before I saw the gaggle of Ami viermots crossing my front. I swung in behind and above them, waited till I'm sure my bombed-up schwarm of four 109Gs is behind me, then ordered formation to be closed up. This done, I opened the throttle and close the range, anxious to make my drop while we're still out over the North Sea. Any fishing boats or other maritime traffic down there is just going to have to take their chances. I wondered idly if compensation will be available from the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, in the event of a serious mishap. As per the briefing, the rest of the staffel was supposed to make gun attacks imediately after we bomb, but evidently, they decided they didn't want to wait. The first attacks were already under way as we slowly overhauled the big enemy bombers, whom I could see to be B-17s. I stayed well up from the bombers, trying to steer above the vertically densest part of their formation, where, if our bombs didn't hit the upper aircraft, they might impact some of those behind and slightly below. Either I managed to stay out of .50 calibre range or the other attackers kept the US air gunners occupied, but little or none of their orange tracers seemed to come near us. Finally I let go my bomb and, looking back to see the others had copied me, cut them loose for attacks on the bombers. Rather than take time to pull away in formation and then try to set up something clever, I thought we might as well just use our height advantage and dive directly down onto them at high speed. I didn't waste my time looking for any bomb hits! In my first pass, I did some damage to one of the B-17s on the right edges of the formation before zoom climbing again. The speed of my approach seemed to have saved me from the return fire, for I escaped without being hit. Back on top, the enemy formation seemed to be in the process of being somewhat thinned out by our repeated fighter attacks. Abandoning my original victim, I decided instead to join in an attack on a vic of three B-17s which was at the top left-hand corner of the formation, looking potentially exposed - it's no coincidence that bombers on the outer edges of formations were statistically most at risk, after those that had actually been forced out on their own. I could see at least two other 109s lining up for a crack at these bombers so reckoned we would split their fire while concentrating our own - a bit of impropmtu teamwork. The others beat me to the punch and I pulled out below the B-17s and closed from behind and below while the two 109s completed their passes. They were doing well. First, the right-hand bomber went on fire in the port wing and slipped down and right out of formation. The B-17 on the left was next. He too was hit and slipped down and right, out of formation. His damage didn't look too bad and I was tempted to help finish him off. But instead, I dediced that it was up to me to complete the hat-trick. Get them out of formation first. After that, somebody would complete the job, at leisure. Contributing to team results was more important than running up personal scores. All of this had left me in a rather poor position, coming up on my own behind a heavily-armed bomber from dead astern, presenting at least one turret with a no-deflection shot. The other side of the coin was that I was closing quite fast and the bomber was also now alone, apart from some potential longish-range covering fire from the main body, rather off to our right. Just one quick pass then I'll come back for something smarter, I thought, as I cut loose with my nose MGs, waiting till I saw seome strikes before joining in with my motor cannon. Wham! Suddelly my canpoy was holed and oil sprayed onto my windscreen. Serves me right! I pushed the stick down and broke away fast, left and down. Not so good. I'd got some hits on the Boeing, in return, but not enough to worry him seriously From the radio chatter in the meantime, I had heard one of my flight announce he was bailing out, while another two had claimed kills. Not a bad result for four lightly-armed Messerschmitts. I decided the law of diminishing reutrns now applied and ordered my flight to break off and rejoin formation, leaving the remaining heavies to their business. I dived gently away, knowing that we were by now near the coast and heading in that direction. If my engine failed, I was determined to keep my feet dry, if at all possible! Reaching the coast, I turned right, towards home base. My flight were by now beginning to catch up but I sent them on ahead with a 'return to base' commmand; no point in them escorting my crippled bird. Soon, I was turning onto my final approach. I seem to make a habit of landing off right-hand circuits here. Today, my main concern was to stay over terra firma so that if my damaged motor packed in, I would be able to belly-land, rather than ditch. The landing itself was a bit heavy but I could put that down to 'battle damage'! And if I had succeeded in writing off the bomb mount under my aircraft, so much the better! Either way, hopefully this rather unsuccessful sortie would mark the end of our efforts at air-to-air bombing! ...to be continued!

Thanks Do335! I'm still using Il-2 '46 plus Dark Blue World 1.71 for this campaign. My other Il-2 install is the one for the Team Daidalos 4.12 patch; to this I will likely apply and try out the new CFM (Compressed Full Monty) mod, when this is available in about a week; as you may have seen, it's discussed in the last few pages of this thread: http://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,40015.0.html . At the moment I find DBW is the best 'supermod' for IL-2 single player and totally indispensible. I have not yet tried to set up the ''DBW 1.71 + 4.12 patch'' combo that seems to be hailed as a sort of 'pre-DBW2', and will likely just wait for the 'official' update of DBW/DBW2 for the TD patch. I wish the next mission had been bombing ships...anyway the report will be up very soon!

Yeah, nice piece of history, including the origin of the famous callsign. Hope they make it with the restoration project.

Of late, I've been posting comparative reports of campaign missions, flying the same plane in turn, in each of the 'big three' current sims - Over Flanders Fields, Rise of Flight and First Eagles - in another forum. The aim is to highlight the single-player campaign experience offered by each sim, albeit as I see it. I've already covered the Nieu.28 but with the release of Quack's superb set of Nieuport 28 skins for First Eagles, I thought I'd 'import' that concept to CombatAce, starting with that famous French-US fighter. Commencing with Over Flanders Fields, I already had a campaign started, flying with the "Kickin' Mules" of the 95th Aero from Toul, in May 1918. So I just kicked off another mission. At the moment I'm flying OFF with only four mods. One is Andy's sound mod, another Lothar's map (which improves the awful, CFS3-style briefing and inflight maps, tho they still bear a limited resemblance to what you see in the 3d world). I also use my own FlakMod (which produces tighter groups of flak bursts without greater lethality, on the 'hard' setting especially, making it somewhat easier to track the position and heading of enemies who are being trailed by AA fire). And finally I'm also using my own ArcMod, which gives gunners back the ability to depress their guns to any degree, cut by stock OFF to prevent firing through tailplanes (a cure worse than the ailment in my experience, as it seriously 'nerfs' a gunner's arc of fire). Both my mods are available here at CA, with many others. Anyway here we are, ready to go. I'd chosen the 'high-resolution textures' option (which means minor damage doesn't show) and the ability to select my own skin (which means you can't instead select a reduced fuel load, to increase your power-weight ratio). The rest of my flight had the default 95th Aero skin. Our squadron roster contains several real-life aces, but it has about two dozen pilots overall, which is rather a lot. There's no ability to choose your flight-mates and you are often allocated a rather large flight. In this case I was allocated a reasonable five (including myself) for a mission escorting three French Sopwith Strutters to bomb an enemy target. The original target area was rather far away and in the briefing map, I used the 'optional mission' facility to swap this for a closer objective. You can't change the type of mission or move the waypoints, just try for a different objective with its own set of fixed waypoints. The OFF Nieu.28 comes with the Hat in the Ring expansion pack. It's a little angular in places and in the external view has the CFS3-style 'wide angle lens' look but it's a nice bird with very nicely-done textures. ...to be continued!