33LIMA

The campaign continues... As far as I recall, it's only when you kick off the first Chapter in the Single Player campaign, that you find out the first missions are in fact training. And similarly, it's only when you complete the training missions that you are told there were four of them. And that now it's 'for real', you must complete at least six successful operational missions before you can move on to the next campaign Chapter. They're called 'Regular' missions, as you can see below, yet another example of using a 'civvy' term when a military one is readily available and would have helped create 'that willing suspension of disbelief'...evidently, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wasn't on the BoS team. For the last couple of training missions, you can change sides, swapping your LaGG for a 109. By the time you are 'on ops', you can freely choose aircraft as well as side. To give you a flavour, here's how my first 'regular'/operational campaign mission went. Yes I know that this is supposed to be a review, not a mission report, but rather than me telling you what I think, I prefer mainly to describe how things look and play, so that you can see for yourself. And describing and illustrating a typical SP campaign mission is I think the best way of showing you, reasonably objectively, what BoS's SP campaign is actually like, to play. As with Quick Missions, you begin each campaign sortie by first choosing your starting point. I chose to fly from Gumrak airfield, in what would soon become the Stalingrad pocket, and after some hesitation, decided to try my hand with a Stuka. At the 'Select mission template' screen which comes next, I chose a 'Full' duration (ground start) and accepted the default 'Ground attack' mission type - for a Stuka I'm not sure what if anything would have been different had I chosen instead a 'Ground support' or 'Bombing' mission. Anyway here's the mission I was allocated: to destroy some artillery positions, up to the north-west. It's a good idea to pay particular attention to the position of the front lines on this map because once you're on your way, neither of the maps you can use during the mission (full screen briefing map or mini-map) show the front. I know this isn't World War One but even if the 'FEBA' is apt to move about, it's good to have some idea roughly where it might be, don't you think? Also as in Quick Missions, it's only when you load the mission itself, that you get to see the briefing map and can check your route and read the detailed briefing. I say 'detailed' but while there is some useful info - like your mission height, legs and bearings - you are not told what your strength (formation size) is nor is there any description of the tactical situation. Likewise you are not treated to any exhortations from your CO or other personal or suspension of disbelief-building touches. Another point worth noting here is that the mission route follows the same fixed diamond pattern - a takeoff point, an initial/ingress waypoint, an 'Action point' ('Objective' or 'Target area' would have sounded more military/less 'gamey'), an exit/egress waypoint and your airfield starting point. If you select a 'Short' duration you can skip the legs to and from your base but otherwise, this simple pattern seems used for all campaign missions, with no ability to drag waypoints about. It's a little repetitive but no worse than many other sims. I haven't unlocked anything for the Stuka so I'm stuck with the default loadout, a fairly standard 250 Kg bomb under the belly and two 50 Kg bombs under each wing. A siren is one of the 'unlocks', incidentally! I did have the option to set fuse delay and chose 5 seconds...just in case. Having started the mission, I found that I'm leading a kette of three Ju 87s; as far as I know so far, you're never a wingman in BoS, which is absolutely fine by me. It's nice that your flight takes off with you, instead of the rather awful IL-2 conga line. Both my wingmen are in temporary winter finish but not me. In campaign, the BoS airfields seem slightly livelier, though somebody should have told the fellow with the searchlight that his watch is very fast and that dusk is many hours away. Maybe he's been a naughty boy and earned the displeasure of der Speiss! The BoS Stuka sounds great and is a joy to behold, inside and out. Once I've 'earned' sufficient points I'll be able to use a 'skin' with proper unit markings; but first, I have to get some successful missions under my belt. On this mission we had a couple of Gustavs for escort. Glad of their company, I decided to overlook the fact that they were not mentioned in the briefing. The jaeger zig-zagged protectively above and behind us, at a respectful distance. My two wing-men took a long time to catch up and while I had the labels turned on to check their range, with the mini-map and on-screen instruments or HUD turned off, I got my first inkling that all was not well. Red labels, even slightly greyed out at distance, indicated the VVS had showed up. A short flurry of traffic on the radio told me a friendly fighter patrol - not our escort, as it turned out - was getting stuck into the Ivans and before long I could make out a distant dogfight, with one of the victims going down, leaving a dark greasy stain on the blue sky. Apart from some very inaccurate flak, the rest of the trip to the objective, at my assigned height of around 2500 metres, was uneventful. Low cloud obscured the target and I resorted to turning on the icons briefly, to identify it. Give me a break will you, I'm new to this sim!!! I rolled back the little targeting window in the floor of my Stuka but it didn't help much. So I ordered my flight to attack independently, via the 'Attack nearest ground target' wingman command and, hoping for the best, overflew the target area. Losing a bit of height so as to maintain a line of sight despite the clouds, I came back for another run. This is where unfamiliar keys and drills - and in the absence of a manual, I haven't discovered if the BoS Stuka has an automatic pull-out - got the better for me. Finger co-ordination broke down and I messed up the 2-key combo for dropping my dive brakes, dropping most of my bombs instead! By the time I got it right, it was time to pull up and though I let go my last two 50 Kg bombs as I did so, it was too late. I succeeded only in cratering an adjoining field. My wingmen I had last seen swinging off somewhere to the east. Hoping it was a case with them of 'reculer pour mieux sauter', I decided to come back in at low level and have a crack at the enemy gun positions with my wing-mounted MGs. It wasn't until I started shooting that I realised that my targets were not artillery pieces, but tanks, and thick-skinned tanks at that...KV-1s in fact. They were in revetments, so a mistake would have been understandable. I also noticed as I whizzed past that one of the Soviet emplacements held not a tank but a truck. This I first took to be a Katyusha rocket launcher, but I quickly realised that it was actually a truck-mounted multiple AA machine gun! Looking over my shoulder as I came off the target, I suddenly realised that my two flight-mates - who had lagged behind quite a bit, on the way in - had picked this perfect moment to rejoin formation, flying straight across the field of fire of the Soviet AA weapon. My suspicion that they had ignored my earlier ground attack command was well founded, for they still carried their full complement of bombs. Sure enough, one of my wingmen copped the proverbial packet. So far, this was all going rather badly. This made it personal, so I broke all the rules and made a second firing pass at a fully-alerted target, going for the MG truck. I don't think I destroyed it but I certainly gave the gunners a good fright, if nothing else. That made me feel better. On the way home, the Ivans tried to level the score with some medium and light flak, but we both made it through. You may have noticed that I'd forgotten to raise my dive brakes, though it didn't seem to make much difference, except that on the way home, after correcting my mistake, my aircraft was a bit wobbly, like I had damaged something. By the time we got back to Gumrak, my surviving wingman had caught up. I hadn't felt like getting him shot down, too, by ordering him to attack again, so he brought his bombs home. As I headed for the circuit I ordered him to 'wait here' so as to stay out of my way; which order, this time, he sensibly obeyed. In campaign, airfields are definitely a little busier than in quick missions. Apart from Searchlight Guy, who was still on the job, there were various other greatcoated and muffled German soldiers walking or standing about (albeit wearing Army rather than Luftwaffe issue) and some revetments had aircraft parked in them. So, there you have a typical BoS SP campaign mission. The 'diamond' flight patterns are pretty well standard, and the briefings, brief. The debriefings are pretty well non-existent, just the same sequence of mission results screens, in this case confirming that my successful landing meant I got 100% of the zero 'experience points' I had won, for getting no kills. I believe that it's purely the player's success that's measured here - had my flight in fact pounded the target into powder, I would have been notified only of my own results, in terms of kills and points. In-mission, my wingman formation-keeping was a bit suspect with a good deal of straggling and their ability to hit ground targets on request, more so. Perhaps a different command to 'Attack nearest ground targets' was what was required, which seems unlikely. Especially as other players report similar problems, getting their flight to pound the ground. Another negative is that - while in Quick Missions you can padlock ground and air targets - for some bizzare reason there is no padlock in campaign. Spare me lectures on the alleged unreality of padlock, which pales besides many other unrealities built into video gaming in all its forms. Granted the BoS padlock is too infallible but its complete absence in campaign is inexcusable. Back to hatswitch and mouselook for this non-head-tracker user, then. On the positive side, the Stuka is a treat to fly and whether or not there is an automatic dive recovery facility, I think learning to dive bomb in BoS, even without Complex Engine Management, will be fun. While overall numbers in this mission were small, there were at least two other flights operating in the area, besides mine and our escort. I just wish I could get my flight-mates to contribute, even if I will never know their names or be privy to the details of their successes and failures. Even sims which trouble to name your wingmen aren't necessarily much better than BoS at making you feel much of a connection with them. But it would be good to have a better sense that you were actually commanding a small team whose combined efforts, directed by you the player, signified success or failure. So yes it's like they say, the BoS SP campaign missions are repetitive and though you're the flight leader, you're very much the main man in this show. But if you were flying a Stuka over Stalingrad, day in, day out, what would you really expect to be doing, rescuing Stuka Girl from the besieged city, perhaps? Even so, after that you'd likely be back to bombing the usual suspects. And the BoS experience of flying and bombing is - for me anyway - engaging enough to make it interesting and a challenge. Heck, I may even take up Complex Engine Management, as a substitute for worrying overmuch about my little flock. Longevity, and better briefings, will doubtless come with the release of the full mission builder/mission editor and perhaps in due course, the sort of campaigns that have proved possible in Rise of Flight.. ...to be continued!

The environment, the options and Quick Missions The BoS 'map' covers what you'd expect - Stalingrad itself and a large swathe of the area around it, especially to the west, where the Soviet pincers struck. You can see the area covered by the map in the Quick Mission setup screen below. Stalingrad itself is centre right, in the great bend of the River Volga. The ground left of that is the area between the bends in the Volga and the Don, where the Soviet counterattacks came in. First in late November 1942 was Operation Uranus, when attacks from north and south trapped 6th Army. Then in mid-December, Operation Little Saturn, an even bigger pincer attack further to the west, threatened to destroy the whole German Army Group in the south. There's only one seasonal variation - snowbound/frozen in, which suits the later part of the battle, from about the time of the Soviet counterstrokes. The snowbound look is well done though a bit pristine. The overall effect is extremely bland and an autumnal variation would be very welcome. The city itself I find quite well done, complete with plumes of smoke from major fires. The ruins are a bit two-dimensional but maybe that's what we should we expect from ruined buildings, with the rubble itself covered by...you guessed it, snow. Here's how Stalingrad itself looks on the map, zoomed in. To the west of the city you can see the airfields of Gumrak and Pitomnik, which were the main bases for landing supplies and evacuating the wounded from the pocket, after Stalingrad was surrounded. This screenshot is from the in-flight, full-screen version of the mission map. If you compare BoS's Stalingrad 'in game' with battle maps or wartime aerial photographs, you can pick out most or all of the main landmarks in BoS, like the big factories such as the Barrikady, the heights immediately west of central Stalingrad at Mamayev Kurgan, Tsaritsa Gorge and the 'tennis racquet' railway loop around the Lazur plant, as seen below, 'in game' and for real. If anything, the real place looks more bland than the sim version at the point the recce photo was snapped, by which time the site appears to have been basically leveled and perhaps the rubble cleared. The bluffs on the western bank of the Volga, which provided some shelter in dead ground for the last pockets of Soviet defenders as the Germans closed in, are also well represented. Incidentally, the current edition of 'After the Battle' magazine, issue 166, is a 'special' on Stalingrad with lots of 'then and now' photos and a good annotated map of the city. BoS's airfields are a bit sparsely endowed with ground objects (my medium settings may not help here!) but the more famous landing grounds appear to be there, with many others. The generally snowbound look - even the rivers are frozen - makes it quite difficult to pick up landmarks, though perhaps that is, again, more or less what we should expect for the barren steppes of southern Russia in the winter of 1942-43. In fact, BoS already includes two additional, smaller maps, which are usable in Quick Missions. Both feature snowbound, Eastern Front terrain. First there's Novosokolniki, which Google tells me is near Leningrad/St Petersburg, and is rather more wooded than the Stalingrad area: The other map is called Lapino. I believe the map is a fictional one, representing 'somewhere in the Soviet Union', though there appear to be several places called Lapino in Russia, including just west of Moscow. Settings, options and performance Here's main menu again, listing the top-level options available. If you start BoS offline, without connecting to the 'net, the options for Campaign and Multiplayer are not displayed. I like the design of the BoS menu system; it's modern, clear and crisp. From the Graphics sub-option, you are presented with four graphics presets - Ultra, High, Balanced and Low. You don't have the ability (as in RoF, for example) to tweak features individually. This has provoked some complaints but I don't find it an issue. To be honest, I didn't notice a big visual difference between 'Balanced' and 'Ultra', except that the ground objects appeared to be rendered in detail further out. But that's based on a brief foray, with the FPS hit quickly quelling my curiosity. Performance at 'Balanced' on my 2.33 Ghz Quad Core and 1Gb 250 GTS is acceptable, but for a bit of a slow-down flying through or very close to the big plumes of smoke usually seen at Stalingrad. BoS allows reassignment of keyboard and joystick button commands via an interface similar to Rise of Flight's. However, unless I've missed it, you can't set up 'response curves' to fine tune your joystick, the way you could in the earlier sim. Quick Missions If you select 'Quick Mission', you get a setup screen very much like RoF's, enabling you to choose your aircraft, numbers, skill levels, location, time of day, starting height, weather and enemies (or none, for a 'free flight' option). This is where you may first encounter the difficulty/realism presets: three of them, 'Normal', 'Expert' and 'Custom'. I fly in the latter mode as I don't care for the 'Complex Engine Management' that seems to be the main feature of 'Expert' mode but don't want all the elements of 'Normal'. Here's what you can tinker with, if you chose the 'Custom' difficulty option. As with RoF, 'Allow spectators' is the quaint term for permitting an external view. Here I am in the Yak-1 with some of the visual aids turned on, via the 'Custom' option; and third down, in the 109F, with the 'minimap' zoomed in. You can clear the screen of all this at the press of a single key ('H') and have the 'minimap' itself, on or off, zoomed in or out ('M' key cycles through modes). From what I've seen when using the icons - and assuming distances are in metres even though my 'HUD' instrument display is in Imperial units - even against a clear sky background, fighters aren't visible at much over 5 kilometres, which is rather close. I don't know if aircraft visibility/rendering distances are affected by graphics presets. If they are, then this is a setting that it would be good to be able to tweak, outside of the presets. The 'O' key will bring up a full screen briefing with (non-mini-) map - as seen in the screenshot below. This is actually taken from one of the included 'pre-built' missions, not a Quick Mission. My task here is to lead another 109, escorting six Stukas from Pitomnik in an attack up on the north-eastern perimeter of the pocket. You can clear the text briefing panel from the map, for a clearer view. Quick Missions is where you may also first come across the 'unlocks' which have generated much of the controversy surrounding BoS's release. For each plane, there are loadout options, plus some extra 'skins', all displayed with a 'locked' symbol. The 'skins' and equipment options for the 109G2 are shown in the pics below. Some of these 'skins' are from other fronts or theatres of war. At least the 'skins' - when you can get at them - have the unit and individual markings that the standard ones lack. I gather than BoS doesn't support IL-2-style 'decals' to give different planes in your flight different numbers, squadron codes or other distinctive markings. Neither skins nor the equipment options - like 20mm underwing gunpods for the Gustav above - can be selected, until you have 'earned' them by gaining 'experience points' (XP). You can gain XP only through flying - and achieving pre-set minimum mission goals in - the Single Player campaign - even to unlock stuff for Quick Missions or Multiplayer! This approach may be what the developers had in mind, when they referred in the release announcement to incorporating 'the best features of other genres'. But - I think predictably - this has proved unpopular with players - myself included. MP folk in particular fail to see why they should have to play through much of the SP campaign, to be able to access these features. The concept of additional stores or weapons being in limited supply, or better pilots being given certain types of better kit (or a choice thereof) first, isn't inherently bad. And as the developers have said, the kit itself is basically historical, rather than the likes of 'power ups' (though the twin 3.7cm cannon 'unlock' for the Stuka, trials aircraft apart, is I think a bit too soon for Stalingrad). But the method of 'earning' this stuff - especially combined with the 'arcade game' terminology used - feels rather out of place in 'proper' air combat sim. It has certainly generated a good deal of criticism, some of it rather hostile. We can but hope that there will be some changes here! One thing you'll want to get the hang of in Quick Missions is the radio menus. There is no real interaction with ground controllers, apart from some seemingly event-triggered set pieces. So the radio option comes into play when you're a flight leader. You can make various pilot gestures, a leftover from RoF which the developers acknowledge isn't much, if any, use. Here are examples of the wingman (radio) commands available to you. We'll cover how well they're followed later, when considering the BoS AI. I think these win the prize for the biggest, most conspicuous wingman command menus in any sim I have played. Happily, you can assign hotkeys to wingman commands. For example I have set the 'H' key, familiar from CFS2 and 3 as 'Help me!', to issue the command 'Cover me!' which (I am hoping!) will elicit a broadly similar response. There is also a set of useful commands for air gunners, for those planes which have them. In Quick Missions, as in RoF, while at the mission setup screen or while flying, you have some control over displaying or suppressing on-screen visual aids like labels, waypoint markers, sim messages, gauges and what's displayed on the in-flight 'minimap'. This gives you the ability to vary the difficulty 'presets' for a Quick (or user-made single) Mission. There's an eight-a-side limit in Quick Missions, which is not too bad for the Eastern Front. Reading pilot memoirs like those of Norbert Hannig of II/JG54, it's fairly clear that fighters at least often operated in fours or even pairs. Anyway, Quick Missions is where you can get your 'quick fix' of Luftwaffe -vs- VVS action. Like this effort - four Gustavs chasing three Pe-2 twin-engined light bombers. Not being into head trackers and using the padlock, I find the latter too infallible, able to track targets hidden by my airframe or clouds. Still, rather that, than no padlock at all. As in original Il-2, my wingmen needed no bidding to go for the bad guys, which is just as well as I'm still getting the hang of the flight commands. I'm seeing an odd visual effect where aircraft in or near clouds have their outlines a bit 'broken', as you can see from the trailing 109s in this shot. Apparently this is a known issue, said to be related to the way clouds are rendered. I was keen to find out if BoS's AI gunners are as dangerous as some say, if you give them an easy shot by attacking from the rear...which is precisely what my AI flightmates did, sad to say. So far, presented with such targets, the gunners have proved quite good shots, though perhaps not as much so, as the original sim. And my planes, though far from bullet-proof, aren't showing signs of 'glass engines' or anything massively odd, damage model wise. Unlike in original IL-2, where seemingly magic bullets would pierce (or spin around or underneath?) my Gustav's armourglass windshield and knock askew my Revi gunsight, with depressing predictability. After I broke up from my own firing pass, having taken some hits - notice the glycol vapour streaming from my port radiator and the holes in the starboard upper mainplane - my right undercarriage unit promptly fell out of the well. Fortunately, I didn't need it. If there's an emergency jettison key to dump the canopy on the 109 - as opposed to doing that and jumping out, or just hinging it open sideways - I couldn't find it. So I had to take my chances on the thing not jamming shut, when I hit the deck. Luckily, there was no fire. Maybe all that snow isn't such a bad thing, after all. Most of my flight fared no better, I have to say, like this fellow, who hit the silk. The AI gunners, like their immediate forebears in RoF, like to sit comfortably until the very last minute, before manning their weapons. As with the rear gunner in this Pe-2. He's sitting quietly facing sideways, despite the fact that his comrade below, in the ventral position, is already in action against the enemies coming up from behind, as you can see from the trail of spent cases. Come on, Tovaritch, buck up your ideas, before you get a cannon shell in your lap!!! At least the ventral gunner in the Pe above and ahead is also on the ball, having opened his little 'trapdoor' under the fuselage and generally standing by to repel boarders. Unless I'm missing something, there is no Quick Mission debrief to present the results, though the ability, while you're in the game, to tab around other aircraft is useful. The Pe which I attacked was smoking steadily and the other two were both holed. But I think they got three of us. I reckon that maybe I made the mistake of leaving the friendly skill level at 'Novice' when generating the mission; anyway, I trust that the BoS AI at higher settings can do better than attack from dead astern, otherwise it's going to get pretty bloody, pretty quickly. There is also a set of pre-built missions available, accessed from the main menu's 'Missions' tab strangely enough. Below, you can see most of them listed. I believe these were made by some Early Access guys using BoS's 'Full Mission Builder', which isn't on general release yet. The 'Flight Records' main menu option is where you manage the 'tracks' you have recorded during missions. So, now we come to the feature which will be the beating the heart of the sim, for many players. …coming in part 3 - the Single Player campaign!

'There is no land behind the Volga!' * * Red Army 'no retreat' slogan during the Battle of Stalingrad Well, it's here! IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad ('BoS') is the latest in a long line of WW2 air combat sims to bear the illustrious IL-2 name. The last major iteration, Cliffs of Dover, forsook the Eastern Front for the Battle of Britain. But with BoS, it's back to the (here, frozen) steppes of Mother Russia and the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets dubbed the bitter conflict in the east. As you'd expect from the title, BoS is based around the momentous and decisive battles around Stalingrad in late 1942 and early 1943. The Wehrmacht's 6th Army, fresh from its triumph in the Second Battle of Kharkov, had swept south in the major German offensive of 1942, to the banks of the River Volga and the city which bore the name of the wily and feared Soviet leader. After slowly grinding down the epic Soviet defense of the city, the German forces there were cut off by two successive pincer attacks which overwhelmed the less well-equipped Romanian, Italian and Hungarian allies holding the flanks. Manstein's attempt to break through to 6th Army fell short while Hitler forbade withdrawal, lulled by Goering's assurances that the Luftwaffe could repeat its success in supplying by air the earlier (but much smaller) Demyansk pocket. Despite herculean Luftwaffe efforts, galvanized by the highly-capable Erhard Milch, the supplies delivered were never enough and when the major airfields inside and outside the Stalingrad kessel at Gumrak, Pitomnik, Morosovskaya and Tatsinskaya were over-run, the writing was on the wall for the battered and ultimately starved 6th Army, which surrendered in February 1943. This famous Soviet victory stands with the few battles that can claim to have dictated both the outcome of WW2 and the fate of Europe for many years afterwards. So, set against this epic background, how does BoS shape up? Let's find out! The review will be in several parts, a real CombatAce team effort, with 'Founders' CowboyTodd41 and Jedi Master providing an Early Access participant's insights on different aspects of the new sim. To wrap up the review in style, Hellshade will provide a video finale showing BoS in action! Availability and installation BoS is available by download from both the Publishers and Steam and on DVD. Each format comes in two versions - 'Standard' and 'Premium' - which differ in the number of flyable aircraft provided (eight versus ten, respectively). There is no manual with the sim. Apparently, one is being worked on but for now, it's a case of diving in and working your way through things for yourself. Much of the interface and controls will be reasonably familiar, if you've played the sim's progenitor, which is actually Rise of Flight (RoF). There are some enthusiast-produced aircraft guides available already and of course you can find material covering instrument layouts, performance and handling online, if not also in books - for example, Eric Brown's most excellent 'Wings of the Luftwaffe'. On the battle itself I would highly recommend William Craig's 'Enemy at the Gates' (the film only covered the sniper duel, a tiny part of the book) which won't tell you which Kampfgruppe, Tank Brigade or Jagdgeschwader went where and when but it's a gritty, memorable and powerful picture of the battle as seen by those who experienced it. My review copy of BoS is the Premium edition and was downloaded from from the Publisher's website. The download and installation process was entirely painless, the slow part being downloading the 'game client' via the 'Launcher' app that is your point of entry into the sim. Though different in some details, this Launcher will be familiar to players of RoF. BoS's Launcher is illustrated below (the desktop background pic is from IL-2 '46). As you can see, amongst other things, the Launcher lets you configure some graphics options at this front end, though few, compared to RoF's Launcher. As in the older sim, the Launcher will update BoS over the 'net, but automatically, rather than manually as before. Once you start the sim itself, you are invited to log on. As with RoF, some features require an internet connection. You can fly Quick Missions offline but not the stock Single Player campaign. This I believe is because online servers generate campaign missions, track your progress and use this to apply BoS's 'extensive in-game achievement system' (as the developers describe it) which we will come to, later. I don't especially like this connection dependency but - though there was a glitch one weekend when a server issue prevented player achievements being recognized - having a decent broadband connection, this requirement doesn't much affect or concern me. The developers have said that the bandwidth required for this is low. The sim's main menu screen is the 3d aircraft view familiar to RoF fliers, displaying the last aircraft you flew (or the IL-2 Sturmovik by default) as rendered in-game, now in a hangar setting as seen here. For me, the interface is a bit choppy, with a bit of mouse lag, which I gather is a known issue for some though a minor one. We'll go through the options it presents, later on. The planes The aircraft featured in BoS are listed here. Those asterisked are flyable in the Premium version, only. German Soviet Bf 109F-4 LaGG-3 Bf 109G-2 Yak-1 FW 190A-3* La-5 * Ju 87D-3 IL-2 He 111H-6 Pe-2 So we have a decent mix of fighters, bombers and attack aircraft, out-of-the-box. The FW 190 was apparently not in action at Stalingrad but is presumably included for its popularity and to provide an alternative German single-seat fighter to the two visually very similar Bf 109 variants. The developers have said that the Ju-52 transport may be added later, possibly AI-only. While this slow tri-motor transport would be a popular mount with only the bravest (or most foolhardy) players, it really is an essential aircraft for Stalingrad and a good choice for an AI plane. The Luftwaffe used every available type that could carry cargo or personnel in their desperate 'air bridge' operation including bombers and FW 200 Condors, but the 'Tante Ju' was the mainstay and the sooner it's added, the better. A Ju 88 and a Bf 110 would also be very welcome, on the German side. In my book, the more major types a sim can feature from the get-go, the better, even if only the AI gets to fly some of them (or you have to pay to activate the cockpits). But apart from that Ju 52 - and the fact that a Bf 110 would have been a better choice, historically, than an FW 190 - BoS already comes with a respectable planeset, for the time period featured in the sim. Here are some of the stars of the show, inside and out. They are gorgeous, with accurate outlines and detail, readable stencil markings, panel lines & rivets visible in relief ('bump mapping'?) and animated aircrew, RoF-style. Heinkel He 111H: (note the subtitled radio comms from the 'tower' at Morosovskaya airfield, in the cockpit pic) Messerschmitt Bf 109F (top) & Bf 109G: Focke-Wulf FW 190A: Lavochkin La-5 (in a snowstorm): Petlyakov Pe-2: ...and finally, the star with the top billing - the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik: As well as flying these birds, you can man other crew positions, including bombardier and air gunner. Here I am in the dorsal position of the elegant Heinkel 111, manning my MG 15 and ready to ward off the Ivans. You can see the neat panel and rivet detail, especially running out along the main spar of the starboard wing. The aircraft has the correct 70/71/65 colour scheme with factory finish pattern on top and the appropriate theatre markings, comprising yellow rear fuselage band and lower wingtips. Having closed my canopy to keep out the slipstream and looking down into the fuselage, I can see two of my comrades below, one standing by a waist gun, the other ready to go prone in the sterbebett (death bed) ventral position, should the need arise. The cocking handle on the MG 15 reciprocates when you fire the weapon but I haven't yet fired off enough rounds to see if the reloading of the saddle drum magazine is animated, which if so might look a little odd as I am invisible, in the 'cockpit' view. Luftwaffe aircraft had a semi-gloss finish and this is nicely captured, along with the correct factory-applied camouflage colours and patterns. As you'd expect, the aircraft have dynamic self-shadowing, inside and out. Perhaps the cockpits are not quite as sharp as Cliffs of Dover's...and they're not 'clickable', for those who like fiddling with such things rather than hitting a key. But they look good enough to me and combined with 'head bobbing' (which you can turn off), those moving shadows and minor canopy scratches catching the sunlight, the effect of being up in the heavens in a real aircraft is superb. Externally, the lack of individual or unit markings creates a certain blandness, my only real criticism here. And I understand why there aren't swastikas on German tails, but the vestigial ones provided perhaps look worse than none - better no marking than an inaccurate one. I recall the old Revell 1/72 FW 190A, in its 1960s incarnation, had a normal cross for a tail decal with a note in the instructions acknowledging the inaccuracy and stating that portraying the correct markings (and I quote) '...would not be in keeping with the spirit of democracy.' But I digress...instead, I should add that all screenshots were taken at medium graphics settings (the 'Balanced' pre-set). My PC is slightly below the recommended specs for BoS but flies RoF, a recommended benchmark for the new sim, fine at medium settings and is ok with BoS. Engine sounds are distinctive and realistic, much better than the original IL-2. Your guns could be louder though. Some have reported your airframe being hit is barely audible but that hasn't been my experience. Radio transmissions can be a tad repetitive but sound like...well, radio transmissions (they are in the original language, with subtitles available). In short, the BoS aircraft are exceptional; they look and sound great. The contrast is a bit high between the 70 (Schwarzgrun) and 71 (Dunkelgrun) upper surfaces on the Ju 87 for my taste and I think the 109s should have little fillets either side of their lower radiator flaps but those are very minor quibbles. Coming in part 2 - the environment, the options and Quick Missions!

Update, Friday 27 November - per the latest developer blog, the AI Ju-52 is now being worked on (no ETA yet); and the first user-made campaign, from Veteran66, has now appeared. BoS furum member Blooddawn reports it's an exciting 8-mission mini-campaign with lots of ground activity. Part 2 of this review will follow very soon.

Hi Falcon no announcements yet but they have said an AI Ju52 is possible (and somebody found a skin for a possible ground object Ju52 in a recent patch, so maybe that is close) and some modders are working on some more (eastern front, snowbound) maps. If BoS is successful I would be very surprised if we don't get DLC planes and the official forums has several polls started by players trying to test the demand for new planes and thus persuade the developers to release them. I would love a G-6 and a 110F or G too. You'll know that the G-2 available now isn't much different to the G-6 apart from those cowl bulges and 13.1mm instead of 7.92mm MGs. A 'kanonenboot' with 20mm MG151/20s in underwing 'gondolas' is one of the G-2 options in BoS, useful for taking down those Sturmovik Zementbomber, though I haven't got to try these out yet...

Checking out the Bf109 in the new Eastern Front air combat sim! I was flattered to be invited by Skyviper to be on the team for the CombatAce review of 1c/777's IL-2 - Battle of Stalingrad (hereinafter referred to as BoS). Having only recently installed the sim (I wasn't a participant in the 'Early Access' programme) it'll be a little while until we get the review done & dusted. In the meantime I thought folks might be interested in my first impressions of one of the BoS aircraft, the iconic Messerschmitt Bf109, which comes here in the form of the F-4 and G-2 models, distinguished mainly be the latter's more powerful DB605 motor and visually, by its heavier-framed cockpit. So far, my impression of the BoS aircraft is that they're as good as, or better than, any aircraft I've seen in a combat flight sim. Cliffs of Dover's cockpits might be a little sharper-looking (perhaps just thanks to sharper or darker shadows) but outside and in, these birds look just terrific. As an old-time Luftwaffe modeller, while I find the vestigial swastikas slightly irksome and don't welcome the lack of unit markings, pending availability of the facility for user-made skins, I can't help but admire the accuracy of the finish. For example, the 109F I'm flying here has a very accurate rendition of the standard 74/75/76 fighter finish (Dunkelgrau, Mittelgrau and Hellgrau, respectively). It's applied in an accurate upper surface Messerschmitt factory pattern, appropriate for these later 109s and features readable stencil markings. Even the fuselage side mottling is straight out of the textbooks, with spots of Schwarzgrun (70), Dunkelgrau (74) and 'RLM' Grau (02). The slightly glossy standard Luftwaffe finish is also nicely captured and in the right light, you can see every rivet and panel line caught in relief. The overall effect is a joy to behold. Anyway, I recently took my first proper flight in a 109 - a favourite familiar to me from many another sim, including European Air War, CFS3 and the original IL-2 series - and it was an experience and a half! I just did the one circuit, set up via the 'Quick Mission' option (which will be familiar to Rise of Flight users, given the close family relationship with BoS). I don't do 'complex engine management' but even so, it was a pretty awesome experience, the sort of flight I'd have expected in a plane built for FSX. The airfield I think is Morosovskaya (spelt slightly different in the sim) which I recognised from William Craig's superb 'Enemy at the Gates' - if you read just one book on the battle, make it this one (the film was just a single episode from the book). This airfield I recall was, with Tatsinskaya, one of the two most important bases for the Luftwaffe's desperate 'air bridge' into the Stalingrad 'kessel'...until the T-34s arrived there and put a sudden stop to flying operations, in dramatic and violent fashion. From the cockpit of my chosen Bf109F-4, even the engine start (computer-assisted, just using the 'E' key) was most impressive. OK, there was no black-overalled mechanic standing on the wing turning the hand crank but there were cockpit indicator lights coming on and animated switches flicking. Then came the sound of the 109's flywheel spooling up and finally, the throaty roar of that big Mercedes DB601 as it spluttered then thundered into life. Great stuff, like watching and listening to a real warbird start-up video! Flaps set and flying control movement checked, taxying out to the runway was the first challenge, using mainly the brakes combined with short bursts of throttle to keep her rolling. I managed to get her lined up fairly well. The take-off was a bit hairy with plenty of swing, first left when I opened her up a bit then right when I steadily applied full power. I kept her fairly straight but once off the ground, was suddenly afflicted by a serious wobble. Did I pull her off at too low an airspeed, and maybe the leading edge slats had opened differentially? It was quite scary for a couple of seconds but I stayed in the air and, gaining height, turned onto the crosswind leg of the left-hand circuit I was planning to fly. Throttling back and gingerly checking out control responses while relishing the realistic sound of my engine - a far cry from the drone of the original IL-2 109s - I turned left again and settled onto a downwind leg, applying a bit of elevator trim (which I believe actually adjusts tailplane incidence, in the 109) when I'd settled on what seemed like a respectable cruising speed. Possibly I was a little high for the 1,000 feet I'd planned for the circuit - I had turned off inflight map and instruments. Once well down the leg, I looked out over my left shoulder for a glimpse of my airfield, remembering that when it was at roughly 7 o'clock, I would want to turn left again, onto the base leg. OK, so where was the runway? Oh-oh....my base was lost in a sea of whiteness. I remembered that there had been a medium-sized wood or town somewhere just north of the airfield. I could see what might have been that area, in the form of a dark patch on the ground. Taking this as my mark, when I judged it about right, I turned left and rolled out onto a heading just short of north and flew my base leg. At some point, fiddling about with the 'pilot gestures' controls, I had inadvertently fired a flare, which I assume is why the flare gun has now appeared in its slot below the starboard windscreen. Nice touch! When I was nearly level with the wood, I turned left again, onto my approach to the still-invisible airfield. As I began to roll out of my turn, peering desperately ahead to the left of the dark area I was using as my reference point, I was mightily relieved to see the runway, between wisps of low cloud. Whew! I held my left turn, then reversed it, to line myself up with the runway. Throttling back, I started dropping my flaps and then lowered my gear. The 109 is no slouch and things seemed to be happening awfully quickly! It's been a long time since I had my handful of flying lessons in slower Cessnas but in pitiful ignorance of the correct numbers for a 109, I did my best to use the throttle to control my rate of descent and the elevator to manage my airspeed. I often land in the external view because with no peripheral vision and the other limitations of 'flying' at a monitor, it's easier to judge when to flare. Not this time! Having flown the circuit from the cockpit, apart from slipping outside from some screenshots, I decided I would go the whole hog. Flying from the cockpit view with all the self-assurance of a rabbit in the headlights, I flared too soon and landed heavily, bouncing rather badly. I somehow managed to keep the wings level and did my best to make the next bump survivable. They say it's a good landing if you can walk away from it and a great one, if you can re-use the aircraft. By that standard, I'd made a good landing. And most of the plane looked to be re-usable. So far so rather brilliant. But this is a combat flight sim and therein lies the real test for BoS. Anyway it's off to a good start in my books, though I will want to spend more time doing circuits and bumps before I take on the Ivans in a campaign. In the meantime, of course I could not resist a bit of blowing stuff up (or attempting to) but that's a story for another day! Watch this space for the CombatAce review!

The ammo counters work, IIRC. Not sure about the other stuff, or if stoppages are modelled. With short bursts, German tech and ammo, I'm not sure I'd expect to get to many, even in the depths of a Russian winter!

Yes Dave the visuals are certainly very good indeed. I spent a while in a Stuka, sight-seeing over Stalingrad itself, looking for 'the tennis racquet', a prominent railway track loop I remember reading about. The Ivans don't seem to care much for foreign tourists though, because their flak peppered my plane before I'd finished my trip. But I look forward to picking out a map and seeing if I can find some historic landmarks in BoS's Stalingrad, like the Barrikady factory or even Pavlov's House. Morosovskaya airfield was a bit underwhelming but they seem to have represented the Big City itself pretty well, down to the snow-covered bluffs overlooking the Volga (completely frozen over, along the bottom of the pic above), which gave the last Soviet holdouts some cover, until the big pincer movements turned the tide and changed the course of history.

Yes great planes and, with the BE2e, they fill some of the few significant gaps left in the FE/FE2 planeset. Strongly recommend fliers of the BE12/12a make the following edit (in bold) in the files BE12_Cockpit.ini and BE12a_Cockpit.ini, changing the existing value to something as shown, around the 180 degree mark, so you can see behind (allowing for peripheral vision and a loosened seat belt, I opted for 185 degrees): [CockpitSeat001] ModelName=RAFBE12Cockpit.lod HideExternalNodeName=Cockpit OpenCockpit=TRUE ExternalClipDistMin=0.04 Position=0.0,-0.95,0.52 Offset=0.0,0.0,0.00 ViewAngles=0.0,0.0,0.0 MaxYaw=185 MinYaw=-185 This is what happens if you don't :) http://combatace.com/topic/84499-be12-twosome-1-first-eagles/

It's the favourite mount of the notorious Baron von Richthamster, if I'm not mistaken. Found it, here: http://www.unmuseum.org/flystrange.htm