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Hi, pilots! And hi gasoline cowboys! Today I will tell you about changes in the new damage model (DM), which we are preparing for release in the near future. Daniel already mentioned it briefly in previous diaries, and now it is time to talk about the new DM in more details. Well, how many lances have broken in talks about broken wings in our community? That guns are “not damaging”, that the Pe-2 is “rock”, tails of Messers are “cut-glass”, the P-47 is "way too weak" and falls apart after a few hits, and many many other opinions, claims and expectations. To be honest, we ourselves have long wanted to double-check the DM of all aircraft and put things in order there, bringing them all to a common concept. As you remember, we already went into this river a couple of times when we changed the DM settings and tried to find a “middle ground” solution with strength and vulnerability. However, it was obvious for us that all these accumulated problems could be solved only systemically, and this would require a lot of time. Finally, this time has come. Firstly, from the very beginning we eliminated several fundamental limitations of the DM-core, which prevented us from moving on. This immediately “untied” our hands and allowed us to simulate combat damage to the aircraft structure much more flexibly. After that, a lot of research was conducted and several methods for calculating the damage of airframe elements from various types of ammunition were tried. The goal of this research was set quite ambitious (however, this is not the first time for us). We wanted to go away as far as possible from using the “game” settings of the DM, and use as many parameters and characteristics of the airframe from real life as possible. This work is not yet completed and right now the new DM is undergoing comprehensive testing (big thanks to our beta testers, and please take more ammo in the hangar!). Nevertheless now it’s becoming clear that the result of this whole work is exactly this one we really hoped for! The main news is that our new damage model now uses data taken from blueprints and technical documentation. Such as: the number of structural elements of one or another part of the airframe, their material and geometric dimensions. An engineer who sets up the DM no longer needs to invent anything and rely on dubious empirical data. Now everything is extremely concrete and objective: what figures from documents you put in the model, such resistance to combat damage you get. Our engineering team carefully collected all this data for all 59 aircraft in the simulator. This is a lot of work, and it took a lot of effort and time. But the result was worth it: now all the planes in the Great Battles have such a balance of vulnerability that they, with a very high probability, had in real life. In the new DM of the airframe, various types of ammunition “work” now in very different ways. Previously, their action differed in the settings of the ammunition itself. Now, the difference in calculation methods, which take into account the principle of causing structural damage in more detail, has been added. For example, armor-piercing bullets and shells make relatively small external damages on the skin commensurate with their caliber. They do not cause “large-scale” damage to the structure frame anymore, but they do hits like a point strike, hitting through a wing spar for example, or breaking a hinge of elevator or aileron. A broken spar, of course, loses its strength, that makes the wing more weak and leads to break it under the less G-load (this is not new in our DM, by the way). But now, using armor-piercing shells to make several damages of the spar in the same area, you need to hit it many times, depending on the spar dimensions and the ammo caliber. In the same way, in order to turn the skin into “rags” or to tear off the landing gear wheel, you need to shoot a rather long time to the particular part of the plane. In other words, firing armor-piercing shells will not be as effective against the airframe as before. The chance to get into the structure frame and break it is not great, and the skin is not particularly affected. Although, with enough desire and having the presence of a sufficient amount of ammunition, you can "cut" the airplanes apart with armor-piercing projectiles if their weight of fire converges and causes enough damage. Explosive bullets and high-explosive fragmentation shells are quite another matter. Only a few hits are enough (depending on the model of the projectile, its caliber, the amount of explosive) to make large holes in that part of the plane where you hit, and everything around it was cut with fragments. Managing such an aircraft will become quite difficult. It will noticeably lose its performances and become not a serious opponent in the battle. The structural frame will also receive “zonal” damage, mainly due to high-explosive impact. So now the effectiveness of this type of weapon against the airframe will be significantly higher than the effectiveness of armor-piercing shells and bullets. The skin will also get damages much faster than the structural frame. Thus, situations when wings or control surfaces fall off an airplane in a battle will arise much less often. To break the rear part of the fuselage by shooting will become very hard. Nevertheless, anything is possible. In addition, in the new DM, we eliminated the problem of inadequate damage to the airframe when firing at those parts of the aircraft that do not contain structural elements. For example, firing at an engine of a twin-engine aircraft or at its propeller spinner can no longer break the aircraft wing. Also, due to the improvement of the DM-core, the old problem of “extra” damages the airframe when the same projectile hit several non-structural collision-zones of this particular part of the airplane was eliminated. A HE shell also will no longer inflict damage on the structural elements of the airframe with its initial kinetic energy of the intact shell, we fixed it. The new damage model now correctly takes into account the type of material of the structural frame or skin. The same bullets and shells will cause different damage to duralumin, wood, or steel structural elements, making “virtual” holes of various sizes in them. It is important to mention that this work is about the calculations of damages, and the visualisation of the DM (textures and 3D-model) has remained unchanged. As you know, all our planes have three fixed levels of visualization of external damage for each part of the airframe. There are “light” damage (bullet holes and small holes from shells), “medium” damage (larger holes) and “heavy” damage (big holes on the airplane). Each of these three levels, switched in sequence. They have been painted by our artists as well as our community enthusiasts with attention to detail for each aircraft. The new calculations in the DM will now switch these three levels of visual damage, taking into account all the features of the action of various types of ammunition and the damage they cause to the skin, which I mentioned above. Thus there is some improvement of DM visualisation too. Because of this new DM fine-tuning the variety of our existing damage textures has improved. They were not properly being expressed in the past. Because of some bugs and errors, parts of the airframe would fly off or fail and a level of damage it should have shown prior to that was skipped or rarely seen. Moreover, there is another improvement of DM visualisation. The visual effects of hitting the plane (sparks, wood chips, etc.), as well as sound effects, will now depend on the part of the plane in which the projectile hit. Even when shooting at the same part, for example, on a landing gear wheel, one can see different effects of hits - sparks from the wheel’s disk (if the disk is metal) or a cloud of “debris” and “dust” from the tire. Also our online players, I think, will be pleased with the news that we found and fixed a bug of no sounds of hitting an airplane in multiplayer (dear God we hope, we hate this problem!). For sure, making such a large-scale work to improve the DM of an airframe, it was reasonable to take a look at the other areas of the DM. Firstly, we slightly changed the settings of the combat damages of an engine from various projectiles. This was only a preliminary step, and I think that in the near future we will conduct an equally thorough review of the DM for engines and various aircraft systems: control systems, fuel systems, onboard weapons, etc. Secondly, we rechecked the data for all types of bullets, shells, missiles and bombs in the game, such as armor penetration characteristics, high-explosive and fragmentation characteristics. Many tests were carried out and many inaccuracies and bugs found were corrected. As well as significantly optimized performance algorithms of DM. The results of this work will affect not only aircraft, but also all other game objects: ground vehicles (including detailed tanks), ships, buildings. The common model of high-explosive ammo was substantially improved. The penetrating explosion (inside the object) has become much more effective than the external one. A model of a "random" fragment for distant explosions was created, which takes into account the distance from the epicenter, the dimension of the target, and of course the type of ammunition. As I wrote above, at the moment the new damage model is undergoing final testing and debugging of core-settings. We are looking forward to completing this work in a couple weeks. And we really hope that the result will delight you and bring you many new positive emotions from playing the "Great Battles". This is invariably our top priority. At the end I'd like to accompany this boring long-read text with some interesting pictures. Here are the first WIP screenshots of the first Battle of Normandy aircraft - P-47D-22 Razorback. It's a big deal since this is the first time we show you something from this newest project: Yours sincerely, Andrey “Petrovich” Solomykin – Lead Engineer

Hello everybody, Previously we talked mostly about the Normandy project, but today we have something to tell you about Tank Crew. Functionality wise, at this stage we're polishing the implemented modules. The coming update 4.005 will bring a dozen important improvements for Tank Crew and the commander binoculars we showed you earlier. Later we plan to implement the indirect fire capability for self-propelled guns (by inputting the distance and traversing angle) and new quick mission types for the tank commanders. It should be also noted that a lot of the damage calculation changes that are prepared for 4.005 also affect the detailed tanks, this is important for the quality of their damage modeling. Today we have something to show you as well. Our partners from Digital Forms just sent us WIP screenshots of the two latest war machines that are being modeled for the Tank Crew project. The first one of them is German tank destroyer Sd. Kfz. 184 "Ferdinand". Here are some shots of its interior parts. This self-propelled gun is very hard to recreate because there is a little info left and we have to conduct a lot of research to clarify how its internal parts worked and looked. But the result is going to be really good - these tank destroyers which first saw action in the Kursk battle impress with their power - take a look at the comparison of their main gun with the entire T-34/76 tank - and unique design decisions: The second war machine that is in the works now is the SU-152 assault gun that was built on the KV-1s heavy tank chassis and armed with 152mm ML-20s howitzer. It was designed incredibly fast - it's hard to believe, but between the decision of the State Defence Committee that a new heavy SPG is needed and the act of putting it into service passed only 37 days and it was ready for production by the end of January 1943. There weren't a lot of these assault guns made, but their combat debut at the Kursk salient showed that the Red Army has something to counter the newest heavy German tanks in the coming battles: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, The work on the Normandy module is at an early stage, but of course, this doesn't mean you'll have to wait for new updates for too long. Right now we're testing the next update 4.005 which will include a number of improvements for the damage modeling, especially aircraft damage (but it is more general than that, the way weapons affect various objects is also changing). We did a lot of research observing the community opinion on the various aspects of the current damage system that require attention and corrected our priorities basing on it. In the near future, we plan to publish a special Dev Blog issue completely dedicated to this matter. We're also working on further AI improvements, namely on how they dogfight. Update 4.005 will include these improvements. In the future, we'll begin working on its tactical level and on how they follow the commands. 4.005 will also contain new ground vehicles - Soviet and German fuel trucks and ambulance cars. There are many other improvements across the board - for instance, you'll better hear the hits on your aircraft in multiplayer. And today, as we promised before, we can show you the first Work In Progress screenshots of the new Soviet pilot in Summer uniform:

Hello everybody, It's February already and we continue to improve the project as a whole. In the next update, we plan to significantly improve the airframe damage calculations and the explosive and fragmentation damage calculations for all objects in the sim in general. More AI improvements are in the pipeline too - for instance, further improvements for the vertical maneuvering in a dogfight. We have found and fixed another possible culprit for the missing aircraft hit sounds in multiplayer. There are more other corrections and fixes being worked on simultaneously with the full-scale work on Normandy theater that is already underway. And of course, we don't forget about the tank project. While Digital Forms studio creates the assault gun and the tank destroyer that are left, we added a long-requested feature - binoculars for the tank commanders. Other smaller, but nonetheless important improvements are on the way too. Take a look at the binoculars on these screenshots:

Hello everybody, This week we continue telling you about the new Collector Planes, now is the turn of Yak-9 and Yak-9T. Yak-9 was the most mass-produced Soviet WWII fighter, more than 14,000 were made on three factories in Moscow, Omsk and Novosibirsk in total. The production started during Autumn 1942 and peaked in 1944, but continued well after the war ended - it stopped only in 1948. They were used in combat en masse for the first time during Kursk battle in Summer 1943, but several documents reflect smaller scale combat deployments of the new fighters on other fronts of 1943, including the Battle of Kuban. Yak-9, while being an evolution of Yak-7 design, had significant changes: metallic spars instead of the wooden ones, bubble canopy with an improved field of view, forward-and backward-facing armored glass pieces. The fighter armament was standard - 12.7 mm UBS MG and 20 mm ShVAK gun. It was powered by M-105PF inline engine. We also recreate a special model of this fighter, Yak-9T, that was developed to counter enemy bombers and was also used against lightly armored targets. A powerful 37 mm NS-37 gun with 30 rounds ammo reserve required more space, so the pilot's cockpit has been moved back to make more room for it and to maintain the pitch balance. It's interesting to note that while this gun was much more powerful, the total weight increase was just 40 kg and the plane aerodynamics did not change for the worse noticeably. We'll start the work on Yak-9T immediately after finishing Yak-9 (the exterior 3D model of Yak-9 is nearly complete while its cockpit 3D model and physical model are in the works and show good progress). You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, It finally snows in Moscow while we continue the work on the new aircraft. Including the new Collector Planes for both the Western and Eastern fronts of the war - Yak-9, Yak-9T and Hurricane. Today we're ready to show you the progress achieved at the moment for the British Hurricane, which will have 5 (!) different modifications in our sim: Hurricane Mk.IIa: basic model armed with 8 х 7.69 mm Browning MGs; Hurricane Mk.IIb: the number of MGs has been increased to 12; Hurricane Mk.IIc: this model had 4 x 20 mm Hispano guns; Hurricane Mk.IId: anti-tank model armed with 2 x 40 mm Vickers-S guns and 2 x 7.69 mm MGs; Hurricane Mk.II with Soviet weaponry that was installed on the Lend-Lease aircraft: 2 х 12.7 mm UB MGs, 2 x 20 mm ShVAK guns and Soviet bomb and rocket holders. We hope that this nice selection of the Hurricane models suitable both for the Western and Eastern front would be a great addition to IL-2 Sturmovik series: You can discuss the news in this thread

Update 4.004 Dear friends, We're glad to report that update 4.004 is released. The main additions of this one are a new tank for Tank Crew - Pz.Kpfw.V Ausf.D "Panther" - and improved look and additional airfields for Rheinland map (Battle of Bodenplatte). There are many other fixes and improvements as well: Additions 1. Pz.Kpfw. V Ausf.D "Panther" for Tank Crew; 2. Better looking river and canal banks on Rheinland map; 3. 13 new airfields on Rheinland map: Le Culot East (Y-10) Kluis (B-91) Mill (B-89) Helmond (B-86) Amsterdam-Schiphol (B-97) Arnhem-Deelen Soesterberg Strassfeld Strassfeld 2 - Odendorf Hilversum Diest (B-64) Nivelles (B-75) Bierset–Liege (A-93) 4. 4K quality exterior textures made by Martin =ICDP= Catney added for Yak-1 series 69; 5. The better-looking transition between the river and sea waters; 6. Improved Т-70 tank model and textures; 7. Updated texture cache system, it should reduce stutters in heavy load MP missions significantly; 8. Brightness and size of very distant aircraft LODs made more uniform (it differed too much on some aircraft); 9. Added initial support for SimShaker to be used in conjunction with JetSeats and other audio powered feedback devices. AI improvements 10. Ground attack aircraft won't hit the ground when engaging a target with rockets and guns in a tight formation; 11. AI-controlled B-25 starts the engines correctly; 12. AI fighters attempt Immelman maneuver only if they have enough speed; 13. AI fighters open fire more aggressively; 14. AI pilots keep formation on large maps much better; 15. AI vehicle column won't drive into a river if the last waypoint was on a destroyed bridge or immediately before it; 16. Assault guns (simple and detailed) correctly face a target when set to LOW command priority in the mission; Aircraft improvements 17. P-51, P-47 and P-39 have correct trimmer animations; 18. A-20 engines won't trigger wrong overheat messages; 19. Wrong engine overcooled messages on P-47D were corrected; 20. P-51 landing gear covers shouldn't open and close again and again anymore; 21. Cylinder heads overheat warning will be displayed correctly; 22. Flying Circus planes won't display a wrong message about engine failure when it is switched off; 23. The time it takes to switch to combat position and back has been corrected for all gunners; Detailed tanks improvements 24. When the loader is killed, the time it takes to load the main gun or coaxial MG is increased significantly; 25. The visual effect of propellant gases is reduced when the exhaust fan is off or is not present; 26. The time it takes to vent the turret after the shot depends on the operational exhaust fan; 27. Detailed tanks won't visibly 'crouch' at a high speed; Other improvements 28. All night bombing Career missions with more than 6 planes in the flight won't start in a map corner anymore; 29. Wrong ground attack German planes in the late Stalingrad Career chapters were corrected; 30. Duplicate ID error message in the dedicated server has been removed (it blocked the server, now it is visible in the console); 31. Correct season in the pre-mission hangar (Winter/Summer); 32. In Mission Editor it's no longer possible to select a wrong part of a multi-part vehicle skin; 33. Daimler M1914 FlaK 77/L27 and Thornycroft J-type 13pdr AA shells appear in the correct place (). Please discuss the update in this thread.

Hey folks, After a few weeks spent with IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte plus the intervening two years of development, I wanted to present to you my full review for IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte. This latest title is more evolution than revolution that iterates on the series while giving us some legendary aircraft to fly. I think the developers made the right choice picking a late war western front scenario and I think the features and iterative evolution of the series over these last two years have made the IL-2 series stronger than ever. https://stormbirds.blog/2019/12/03/il-2-battle-of-bodenplatte-full-review/ I hope you enjoy the review and I of course welcome others to share their own take on reviewing IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte!

Dear Friends, 1C Game Studios is proud to announce our next combat theater in the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles series of products – Battle of Normandy! It was just over 75 years ago that the western Allies launched joint airborne and amphibious landings in the Normandy region of France. Both the preparation and execution of the invasion of Normandy had a large air component and involved many airfields in the UK and in France, especially after the Allies landed and built many Advanced Landing Grounds. Some German-built and occupied airfields were captured, repaired and re-used by the Allies as they advanced. The Allied advance towards Paris and eventually Germany was not easy and air-power was heavily employed to help facilitate a breakout. The Germans had a very difficult time keeping their hold on France and were faced with defending against not only Allied fighters, but also dedicated ground attackers, bombers and even naval units. The history of this battle makes for a lot of interesting gameplay. We hope to bring this period of the war to life like never before, just like we have done with Battle of Bodenplatte and our previous Eastern Front titles. Due to its important location, Battle of Normandy opens up additional mission scenarios and a vast timeline for great aerial warfare action utilizing many aircraft and content from our previous titles. Plus, Battle of Normandy adds a lot of content that can be utilized in our Battle of Bodenplatte environment. Content Battle of Normandy, will continue to offer a wide variety of gameplay options and also push our product forward with additional technology, features and improvements. We will of course, have an awesome plane-set that represents the era in which the title takes place. It will also include all the features that is standard for our WWII titles such as QMB, Pilot Career, Custom SP Missions and Multiplayer support. We also plan to include a Scripted Campaign focusing on a specific part of the battle. See below for additional information. Battle of Normandy Plane-set: P-51 B/C P-47D “Razorback” Typhoon Mk.Ib Mosquito F.B. Mk.VI Spifire Mk.XIV (Collector Plane) C-47 Dakota (AI) B-26 Marauder (AI) Bf-109 G-6 “Late” Fw-190 A-6 Ju-88 C-6a Me-410 Ar-234 (Collector Plane) V-1 Buzz Bomb (AI) This is what we plan to build based on our current research and desires. Of course, if for any reason one of these planes cannot be built to our satisfaction, we will find a suitable replacement. Normandy Map To support this particular Great Battle, we plan to build numerous ground vehicles, tanks, paratroopers, artillery, bunkers, objects, obstacles, buildings, airfields and ships that will bring flying such dangerous missions to life. The map of Battle of Normandy is also planned to be very satisfying in its size, scope and detail. Substantial portions of Southern England, Normandy and Calais regions will be included. We plan to have two versions of the map. There will be both pre-Invasion and post-Invasion versions. This allows us the ability to have our Pilot Career span the period preparing for the invasion and post D-Day events. It also allows us to create scenarios that are even further removed from the invasion itself and explore the 1942-43 period with some assets from our previous titles and certain Collector Planes. The gameplay possibilities are quite exciting to us and we hope to you as well. In addition to the content we plan to create, we will also continue to improve our Digital Warfare Engine and add some ‘in the works’ features that were not ready for BOBP release. This includes such items as, Air Marshal, improved MP Lobby, GUI-based Object Viewer, new rendering techniques and drop-tanks. Of course, this is on top of all the numerous small improvements, tweaks, fixes and enhancements we will continue to work on. We never stop working to improve our products and simulation engine. BON Pre-Order Available! To kick off Battle of Normandy development we have launched the Pre-Order period today! Our Pre-Order discounted price is $10 Off MSRP at $79.99 for the Premium Edition until the Pre-Order/Early Access period ends. The final MSRP at time of release of Battle of Normandy Premium Edition will be $89.99. Pre-Order Battle of Normandy Here We hope you are as excited as we are to build Battle of Normandy. When it comes to WWII, there are many interesting theaters, time periods and events that would make for an awesome product. There are also many fascinating conflicts outside of WWII that could make for a really fun combat simulation. We have considered them all. However, we have chosen Normandy as our next destination so we can explore one of the most famous battles in history and Normandy will allow for a more complete accounting of the air war over Europe (East and West) which gives you the player a more complete experience. Building Battle of Normandy also allows both the developers and the community to utilize some of our existing content to expand your gameplay options even more. We also wish you the absolute best this Holiday Season to you, your family, your friends and our dedicated development partners all over the world. We appreciate all the support and nice words you have said about our products during this most recent development cycle which was a lot of hard work. We will continue to build a better product, grow the team a bit more and listen to you, our loyal customers. We’ll see you on the beach! ….and in the sky! The IL-2 Sturmovik Team

Dear Pilots! We have a few important announcements to share with you about our latest Collector Plane Pre-Orders, BOBP and FC Steam Releases and BOBP Standard Edition Release in the Official Webstore. Hurricane Mk.II, Yak-9 and Yak-9T Pre-Order Available We are proud to announce that we have begun taking Pre-Orders for the Yak-9, Yak-9T and Hurricane Mk.II Collector Planes. The legendary British-built Hurricane came to fame during the Battle of Britain where it did the heavy lifting for the RAF in that pivotal battle. The Hurricane Mk.II series which consisted of the a,b,c and d variants was outfitted with a few different armament configurations. This included either the 12 x .303 machine guns in the wings or 4 x 20mm Hispano cannons also fitted in the wings. Many of the Mk.II’s were of the ‘Hurribomber’ variety with wing racks for 250lb or 500lb bombs. One later variant could also carry two 40mm cannons for anti-armor duty. The Hurricane was built in large numbers and the Mk.II series was sent to all corners of the war to fly and fight, including the Eastern Front where the Soviet VVS put them to good use in several sectors. Pre-Order this legendary plane today right HERE! The Yak-9 was the first model in the most mass-produced family of the WWII Soviet fighters - with its many modifications the total amount of units produced reached 16,769. The work on the new long-range recon and fighter plane began in the Yakovlev design bureau during Spring 1942. Compared to the earlier Ya-7, it had a boosted M-105PF engine, a lighter wing of composite structure, and the lower spine with a bubble canopy that significantly improved the rearward visibility. However, the armament was reduced to one nose-mounted 12.7mm UBS MG and one engine-mounted 20mm SHVAK cannon firing through the propeller hub. The mass production of the new fighter and its arrival to the front-line units begun only in 1943. In combat, the Yak-9 proved itself as very maneuverable and easy to control fighter, earning the love and respect of many Soviet pilots along with volunteer French from the Normandie Niemen fighter regiment. Pre-Order this Soviet ace-maker HERE! An important variant of the Yak-9 family was the Yak-9T (tank), which appeared in early 1943. In addition to one 12.7mm UBS MG it was armed with a 37mm engine-mounted cannon model 11P (later NS-37) instead of the usual 20mm SHVAK. The installation of such a heavy and large weapon required reinforcing the airframe in the nose section and moving the pilot cabin 40cm (1.31 ft.) rearward, which resulted in worse forward and underside visibility. Combat trials showed that Yak-9T is capable of not only engaging bombers and various ground targets, but it could also hold its own as dogfighter. Its flight characteristics were only marginally worse than Yak-9 while packing a much bigger punch. Its production started in March 1943 and ended only in June 1945 with a total of 2,748 units produced. Pre-Order your tank-killing Yak right HERE! BOBP, P-38J-25, Fw-190 D-9 and FC Steam Release Date We are thrilled to announce that Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus are coming to the Steam store immediately after the Autumn Sale ends. We are aiming for December 3rd 2019 for the release. The BOBP release on Steam will be the Standard Edition with the two additional Collector Planes being sold separately. Flying Circus will include all ten aircraft, same as on our website. Each product will have a launch discount equivalent to the current Early Access discount enjoyed by customers on our website. The prices are as follows. Battle of Bodenplatte on Steam - $44.99 (Reg. $49.99) P-38J-25 Collector Plane - $17.49 (Reg. $19.99) Fw-190 D-9 Collector Plane - $17.49 (Reg. $19.99) Flying Circus on Steam - $69.99 (Reg. $79.99) Note: The launch discounts on Steam will be in effect for two weeks once launched. BOBP Standard Edition, P-38J-25 and Fw-190 D-9 IL-2 Webstore Release We are also happy to announce that we are releasing the Standard Edition of BOBP along with the P-38J-25 and Fw-190 D-9 Collector Planes in the Official Webstore on Dec. 3rd, 2019. We will also offer an equivalent Launch Discount for these three items until Dec. 17th, 2019. Early Access Discount for BOBP Premium and FC Extended in the IL-2 Webstore And finally, we have extended the Early Access discount of $10 Off for BOBP and FC in the Official Webstore until December 17th, 2019. After that date the price will rise to its standard price of $79.99 and likely remain there for an extended time. Hurry if you have not already taken advantage of this great deal before it expires! Grab your copy HERE and HERE! The Sturmovik Team

Update 4.002 Dear Friends, Our team is glad to announce that we finished another update 4.002. In this version, all Tank Crew owners get the SU-122 assault gun. In addition, everyone gets many improvements - some of them our community asked for a long time. After additional work on the aircraft visibility modeling against the clouds is improved. We also added automatic dive-recovery controls to four bombers from Battle of Stalingrad and Battle of Moscow. The login time has been drastically decreased, it will now happen up to ten times faster than before. Tank and aircraft turrets aiming will be more convenient and there are many other minor improvements. Let's go into detail about the automatic dive-recovery controls: Ju-87 When the dive system is engaged, the plane enters a dive when the air brakes are extended and will recover from the dive either by pressing the bomb drop button or when the air brakes are retracted. The dive system controls are separate: the trimmer tab on the right elevator is controlled by the dive system while the pilot controls the trimmer tab on the left elevator. Therefore the pilot input and dive system input of the trimmers are independent, and when the dive system is in operation, there is no indication of a trimmer position change in the technochat. Ju-88 When the dive system is engaged, the plane enters a dive when the air brakes are extended or when the dive button (LCtrl + D by default) is pressed. The plane will recover from the dive either by pressing the bomb drop button or by pressing the dive button (LCtrl + D by default). The dive system will return to the neutral position of the elevator trim, while the full range of trimmer travel from the pilot’s input is preserved. Therefore the pilot input and dive system input of the trimmers are independent, and when the dive system is in operation, there is no indication of a trimmer position change in the technochat. Also, the elevator trim is automatically shifted when the stabilizer is moved to the landing position (when flaps are released to the landing position). This also shifts the trim back to the neutral position. Pe-2 (both series) When the dive system is engaged, the plane enters a dive when the air brakes are extended (pass through the 45° position) and will recover from the dive when you press the bomb drop button or the dive recovery button to exit the dive (LCtrl + D by default). The dive system controls the elevator trim -for correct operation, the trimmer must be in the range between -4.5 ° to + 4.5 ° before turning on the dive system. If the trimmer is outside this range or if the airplane is trimmed manually while the dive system is in operation or if the air brakes are retracted the dive system will disengage. Ju-87 and Ju-88 Contact altimeters are installed on these aircraft. The RShift + K and RCtrl + K commands (by default) set the bomb release (contact) altitude. When the dive system is engaged, the buzzer will sound 250 m above the contact altitude. Buzzer turns off when the contact altitude is reached or when the dive system is disengaged. The pressure setting is adjusted by the same command as on the main altimeter (with a short pause after setting the pressure on the main altimeter). The contact altimeter is not connected with the dive system, it is a separate device that just gives an audio signal at a contact height. Main features 1. SU-122 assault gun made by Ural heavy machinery factory in 1943 is now available for all Tank Crew owners; 2. Guns and MGs aiming using the mouse has been improved; 3. Turret aiming in VR is improved (you don't need to physically turn while aiming); 4. The issue with planes visually disappearing against the clouds at short distances has been minimized; 5. Planes visual pixelization against the clouds at medium distances has been greatly reduced; 6. Winter textures for all Bodenplatte buildings added; 7. Winter textures for all Bodenplatte vehicles added; 8. Speed and reliability of the online login have been greatly improved; 9. GMC CCKW fuel truck added; 10. Thanks to the new tech developed for Tank Crew, B-25D, P-47D and P-51D have correct British or US pilots depending on the country specified in the mission file; 11. Dive and recovery control automatics added to Ju-87 D-3, Ju 88 A-4, Pe-2 s. 87 and Pe-2 s. 35; 12. Ju-87 D-3 and Ju 88 A-4 dive bombers are equipped with contact altimeters; 13. LaGG-3 now sports 4K exterior textures made by Martin =ICDP= Catney; AI improvements 14. AI pilots can resume engaging a target after losing it; 15. AI pilots won't try to engage a distant target flying at negative G for a prolonged time; 16. AI pilots won't crash into the ground while doing a defense spiral maneuver; 17. AI pilots won't get stuck in a shallow dive during a defense maneuver; 18. AI pilots won't attempt dangerous evasion maneuvers at low altitudes which caused them to crash; 19. AI pilots won't get too excited following a falling target and crash into the ground after it; 20. AI pilots attacking air targets will attack the planes that take off or land; 21. AI pilots won't get stuck in an upside position during a dogfight; 22. AI pilots won't get stuck in a roll during an evasion maneuver which could end in a crash; 23. AI pilots will try to bail out of a burning plane (now it depends on how fast it will decide to bail out and if he has strength left to do so); 24. Self-propelled AAA switch to combat position if they don't have movement orders and have an attack targets in area command (even if there are no targets present); 25. Ship guns aiming corrected; Aircraft improvements 26. Ju-87 D-3 has animated servo tabs; 27. Ju-87 D-3 has visual indicators for the extended dive brakes; 28. Ju-88 A-4 elevator trim adjusts automatically when the stabilizer is switched to the landing position; 29. Ju-88 A-4 has animated servo tabs; 30. heavier aircraft like He-111, Ju-52/87/88, A-20, IL-2, Pe-2 won't shake as much when their tails are damaged; 31. Pe-2 and He-111: the camera automatically turns in a correct direction when switching to a new MG in turrets with several MGs; 32. Ju-52/3mg4e 2nd pilot animations have been restored; 33. P-38J-25: canopy close sound won't play too early; 34. P-38J-25: the instruments panel can be damaged; 35. P-38J-25: signal lights won't float in the air on a severely damaged aircraft; 36. IL-2 elevator control rods damage has been corrected; 37. All additional armor elements on Bf-110 correctly shield the aircraft; 38. P-51D-15 rear landing gear can be damaged now; 39. MC 202 s8: MG151 ammo reserves can be damaged now; 40. Fw 190 A-8 ammo reserves can be damaged now; 41. Fw 190 A-8 wing pylons look correctly from various distances; 42. Bf 109 G4/G6/G14/K4: the right underwing cannon won't stop working after the loss of ammo in the left wing anymore; 43. Bf 109s except for G14 and K4: jettisoned canopies are correctly repaired; 44. Bristol Fighter will correctly register radiator hits; 45. Pedals animated correctly on Bristol Fighter; 46. Static U-2VS has winter skin; 47. IL-2 mod. 1942 has its exterior color saturation corrected; Tank Crew improvements 48. Visual detail of plates above the tracks on KV-1s has been improved; 49. Speedometer added to KV-1s (it is on the engine compartment bulkhead); 50. Batteries are visible in the KV-1s interior; 51. Many visual improvements to KV-1s interior (level of detail, textures, etc.); 52. Recoil indicators added to KV-1s and T-34 mod. 1943; 53. Panoramic sight cupola stopper added to KV-1s and T-34 mod. 1943; 54. T-34 mod. 1943 tracks have been visually improved; 55. T-34 mod. 1943 internal collision model (that is used in damage calculations) has been improved; 56. Engine exhaust is visible at the idle engine RPM; Other changes 57. Caquot balloons won't disappear at medium distances; 58. The inner walls of the damaged detailed buildings on the Prokhorovka map won't disappear at medium distances; 59. It's now possible to turn off the VR rendering mode for the propellers - any negative values specified for the prop_blur_max_rpm_for_vr parameter in startup.cfg file (like prop_blur_max_rpm_for_vr = -1) will result in the normal propellers rendering; 60. Object Fake_Block can be used on the airfields (its collision object has been lowered below the ground); 61. Levitating buildings on Stalingrad map have been fixed; 62. It's now possible to win the 5th mission of the Turning point campaign after a successful retreat; 63. The excessive effect of concussion and possible loss of consciousness after HE hits at a tank or aircraft has been removed if the player or AI weren't wounded by these hits. 64. Ten Days of Autumn campaign: all static objects have been updated to correct durability values, other minor improvements; 65. Fortress on the Volga campaign: minor improvements; 66. A black line won't appear in the middle of some Bodenplatte timeframe newspapers; 67. Added another (fifth) voice of a Soviet tanker; 68. Trees preventing a takeoff from some airfields were cut down on all Rheinland maps. Please discuss the update in this thread.

Update 4.001 IL-2: Great Battles Version 4.001 Launched – Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus Officially Released! Tank Crew Campaigns - Released! Dear Pilots! Finally, we have reached a very important milestone for our latest IL-2 Sturmovik titles. Today, two projects moving from the Early Access phase to Official Release. The first of these is Battle of Bodenplatte, which acquired the last major content components that were missing - the seasonal textures for the Rhineland map and the Pilot's Career. However, this does not mean that work on this project is completely done, we plan to spend some time before we begin our next project on fine-tuning and polishing a number of its components and adding a couple yet to be completed pieces such as Air Marshal. However, we feel it contains enough content and features that we can begin to sell it in all our channels including Steam as we head into the Holiday Season. In addition, we plan to closely monitor your messages in order to improve the quality of the project as much as we can in the last part of 2019. Bodenplatte turned out to be a truly record-setting job for us, the volume of work done on the development of maps and aircraft of the late period of the war is unprecedented for us. The late period imposes serious additional requirements on the manufactured equipment; however, the result is extremely interesting. The included aircraft make an incredible impression, because this is already the "apogee" of piston powered planes and, at the same time, the "dawn" of jet aircraft. The Rhineland map impresses with its scale, size and richness of cities and the number and historically researched airfields. The career "Battle of the Rhine" takes place over a fairly long period of time that includes four seasons - from September 17th, 1944 to April 1st, 1945. The Career covers a very significant part of the war on the western front - more than half a year. Battle of Bodenplatte was a bold step for us and when coupled with our other two projects, it pushed us to our creative limits. We hope you will enjoy it! Also, a Standard Edition of BOBP will be coming soon with the P-38J and Fw-190 D-9 offered as Collector Planes to give users more buying options. BOBP will also be available on Steam in the coming weeks, there are still a few details we must work out there first. Flying Circus - Volume 1 is now available in its fully planned state and all the remaining ground-based equipment of the First World War have been added in our new standard of visual quality. Observation balloons with observers who may leap from their post when under attack are also included now. A number of improvements were also made on the map, primarily to the front line. We hope that users who purchase this project will like the step forward in comparison with our previous title Rise of Flight, especially in the visual quality of aircraft and the environment that we, together with our partner Yugra Media, have created for you. Although the flight models generally correspond to the ones from Rise of Flight, many of the improvements that have been made over the past 7 years for Il-2 Sturmovik play a role in Flying Circus as well. Such improvements automatically benefit all projects within the framework of our one common game world and give a new, previously unavailable experience of virtual flight and combat in the First World War. All these new opportunities unfold in their fullest when playing with the use of virtual reality devices. FC includes so many new things - new landscape technology, new lighting and clouds, better sound, new AI and improved ballistics, new graphic effects and new materials for aircraft surfaces, new detailing of textures and models - all this and much more gives the virtual pilots of the First World War something that is not available anywhere else. We hope to make more Flying Circus volumes in the future and we thank those who have jumped into this new product so far! Note: We have extended the $10 Off Early Access discount for days more, but it will go to full MSRP very soon. Make your purchase before the price goes up! Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka is still under development, as one more tank and three self-propelled guns are being built by our DigitalForms partners. However, from the point of view of the gameplay, this project has almost reached its planned goals - this is expressed in the release of the Breakpoint and Last Chance scenario campaigns in this version. These campaigns tell the story, in the maximum possible historical manner we can, about the complex and intricate events of one of the greatest tank battles on the Eastern Front - the battle of Prokhorovka. This battle was not limited only to the events of July 12th, it took place over several tense days, from July 6th to July 16th, 1943. The events and outcomes of this battle are extremely complex and controversial. Although the Soviet troops and armored forces suffered heavy losses, the German command was never able to achieve their planned goals. At the end of the battle, the situation in this sector of the war front almost returned to what it was before it began. However, numbers or the “net book balance” does not always determine the magnitude of the event. The incredible tension, power, complexity and intensity of this military clash, which practically merged into one single and continuous epic multi-day battle, has few equals in world history. And the ambiguity of the outcome of the battle only enhances the intensity of the drama of these events, which do not require any embellishment - simply being retold "as is", without exaggeration is incredibly exciting. It should also be noted that the release of these tank campaigns is accompanied by the completion of the development of some of the most important features of Tank Crew – the radio and command interface. This will allow you to better control your own tank and your tank platoon. We also plan to continue the refinement of our tank project in the coming months as this project too readies for official release. And finally, the Achtung Spitfire! Scripted Campaign is also now released and ready to be played! Developed by our friends The Syndicate, this historically inspired campaign contains 20 missions featuring a fictional storyline that is inspired by historical events. Your character is a young Russian pilot from Siberia serving on the North Caucasus Front in late May 1943. The campaign features missions inspired by the Soviet 37th and 56th Armies attack on the German 44th Army Corps west of the city of Krymskaya. You’ll fly a bird of a different feather in the lend-lease Spitfire Mk.Vb over the beautiful Kuban region of the Soviet Union. The campaign is great fun and full of action. This campaign also has a new feature. We have added support for special assigned skins for the player’s plane and other planes I the mission. This is a first for us in a pay-ware campaign such as this. However, to see them, you must download the free skin pack from HERE and place the skins in the Spitfire Mk.Vb Skins folder. We have decided to offer the skin pack as an optional download to lighten our distribution costs and the size of your install if you don’t own this campaign. The skin pack is offered free of charge of course. We thank you for your patience as we have readied this product for release and many of you have already pre-ordered it and we appreciate your support. Products like these add more diversity to our product line and help fund many new innovations and content for all of you. And now we proudly present version 4.001 to you, our friends, partners and customers. And like most huge updates, there are likely to be some bugs or other unintended issues missed in testing. We of course, as always, will address them just as fast as we can. We appreciate your support as we have worked hard to build all of these new products. Here’s to you and to more great combat-sim goodness in the future! The Sturmovik Team Main features 1. "Battle of the Rhine" career timeframe consisting of five chapters added to Battle of Bodenplatte; 2. Rheinland Autumn 1944 map added to Battle of Bodenplatte; 3. Rheinland Winter 1944-45 map added to Battle of Bodenplatte; 4. Rheinland Spring 1945 map added to Battle of Bodenplatte; 5. Canon de 75 mle 1897 gun added to Flying Circus; 6. 7.7 cm FK 96 n.A. added to Flying Circus; 7. QF 4.5-inch howitzer added to Flying Circus; 8. 15 cm sFH 13 howitzer added to Flying Circus; 9. QF 13 pounder 6 cwt AAA gun added to Flying Circus; 10. 7.7 cm FlaK L/27 AAA gun added to Flying Circus; 11. Hotchkiss Mle 14 regular and AA machineguns added to Flying Circus; 12. Spandau MG 08 regular and AA machineguns added to Flying Circus; 13. Great War searchlights added to Flying Circus; 14. Thornycroft J-type self-propelled AA gun added to Flying Circus; 15. Daimler M1914 armored self-propelled AA gun added to Flying Circus; 16. Benz LKW 1912 truck added to Flying Circus; 17. Leyland 3 Ton RAF truck added to Flying Circus; 18. Crossley T5 command vehicle added to Flying Circus; 19. Mercedes Kettenwagen 22 command vehicle added to Flying Circus; 20. No-mans land visually improved on Arras map; 21. Amiens cathedral added on Arras map; 22. Balloons added on Arras map in quick mission builder (QMB); 23. Observers bail out from balloons on Arras map; 24. Soviet tank campaign Breaking point added to Tank Crew; 25. German tank campaign Last chance added to Tank Crew; 26. Tank radio chatter added to Tank Crew; 27. Tank commander interface added to Tank Crew. Attention: it is engaged from commander seat by ~ key (tilde). For the driver to follow your orders turn autopilot on from the driver seat first (otherwise you will be driving the tank manually as before); 28. Achtung Spitfire! Scripted Campaign is released; 29. Simplified AI-controlled Pz.Kpfw. VI Ausf.H1 added; 30. Simplified AI-controlled M4A2(75) added; 31. Simplified AI-controlled M4A3(75)W added; 32. New Extreme quality cloud setting added that makes the clouds sharper and less 'shifting'. 33. Three new P-51 (by ICDP and Bugsy) and one P-38 skin added (by ICDP); General improvements 34. The color of aiming helpers for the guns, bombs and rockets has been changed; 35. Ground vehicles navigate large bridges on Rheinland map correctly; 36. Rheinland and Arras maps have cobblestone roads; 37. Missing grass added to yellow fields on Prokhorovka maps; 38. Mission designers can define the default GUI map view more accurately by using Normal type lines; 39. Mission designers can use custom (unofficial) skins in the campaigns; 40. Career bug that caused the planes left in the air to be lost has been fixed; 41. The visual image of rotating propellers in VR has been improved. New parameter "prop_blur_max_rpm_for_vr" can be added to startup.cfg, [KEY = graphics] section - it governs the maximum visible RPM of the propeller in case you don't like the current setting designed to minimize the visual artifacts caused by reprojection VR tech; Aircraft improvements 42. Unlimited ammo difficulty option no longer creates bombs and rockets under a lost wing; 43. MiG-3 flaps have been corrected - any change of the flaps limiter position retracts them first and then extends to a new position; 44. A wrong shaking warning message has been removed from P-51D-15; 45. The automatic supercharger gear change altitude has been corrected on P-51D-15 when using 150 octane fuel; 46. Radio volume can be adjusted (LAlt+NumPad+ and LAlt+NumPad- by default); 47. Pitch response curve for non-FFB joysticks has been corrected for all Flying Circus planes, making them easier to fly level. SPAD 13 and Dr.1 were adversely affected due to this change and will be fixed I a Hotfix; 48. More aircraft controls are blocked when the pilot is unconscious; 49. After rearming in a service area the guns are ready to fire immediately without pressing reload key; 50. You can't see your own previous plane when starting again in multiplayer; 51. Wrong technochat messages about rudder and elevator surfaces were corrected (like reporting a right part hit instead of a left one); 52. Fw 190 D-9 fuel switch works correctly; 53. Tempest Mk.V s.2 engine startup made faster; 54. AI Bf 109 K-4s correctly start their engines on parking; 55. FlyingTempest Mk.V s.2 without part of a wing became more difficult; 56. Tempest Mk.V s.2 stall speed increased by 6 mph; 57. Me 262 A elevator is less affected by ram air according to newly found data; 58. RPM control helper won't sometimes turn on by itself on Expert difficulty; 59. AI wing leaders flying on jet aircraft won't decrease their speed too much waiting for their wingmen; 60. AI pilots try not to exceed 5G (6G if they have anti-G suits) to prevent the loss of consciousness; 61. When starting a QMB mission close to AI aircraft they'll act more aggressively; 62. A bug that could cause AI P-39 pilots to overrev and damage their engines has been fixed; Ground vehicle improvements 63. Vertical gun aiming speeds on all player-controlled vehicles were made realistic according to their correct reduction ratios and the handwheel rotation speed which is the same for all vehicles; 64. When player exit a gunner seat the gun or MG is left in the last aiming position; 65. When gunner opens his hatch, the turret is left in its last position; 66. Repairing of Pz.III main gun and turret traverse mechanism happens correctly; 67. Panoramic gunsight on KV-1s and T-34 (UVZ) mod.1943 tanks can be damaged by hitting its armored cupola; 68. The repair process has been corrected to prioritize the leaks; 69. Tiger main gun has been made sturdier against fragments; 70. Simple AI ground vehicles with damaged wheels, engine or killed crew no longer become an unmovable obstacle; 71. A destroyed AI object no longer causes excessive damage to other objects ramming it; 72. Ammo crates near artillery positions are not a difficult obstacle anymore; 73. Simple ground vehicles have realistic gun aiming speeds; 74. GAZ-AA and ZiS-5 trucks have correct mass (previously they had empty vehicle mass); 75. Simple AI tanks and guns have a delay between initial aiming and opening fire and between destroying a target and engaging another; 76. Detailed AI tanks button up when engaging a target; 77. Detailed AI controlled T-34 (UVZ) mod.1943 is correctly counted in statistics; 78. Destroyed Т-70 has correct tracks texture; 79. The forward lights of the G-8 locomotive no longer shift from it when viewed from a far distance; Scenario campaign improvements 80. Fortress on the Volga: aircraft appear and disappear according to the new visibility distance; 81. Fortress on the Volga: you can encounter U-2VS when flying over the enemy territory; 82. Fortress on the Volga: U-2VS and Hs 129 can be seen on airfields; 83. Fortress on the Volga: the movement of all transport and armored columns has been corrected; 84. Fortress on the Volga: Soviet tank attack in mission 3 has been completely overhauled; 85. Fortress on the Volga: other minor improvements; 86. Blazing Steppe: aircraft appear and disappear according to the new visibility distance; 87. Blazing Steppe: you can encounter U-2VS in the air; 88. Blazing Steppe: U-2VS, P-40 and Hs 129 can be seen on airfields; 89. Blazing Steppe: the movement of all transport and armored columns has been corrected, there are more of them and they are larger; 90. Blazing Steppe: new aircraft groups added; 91. Blazing Steppe: all Soviet 85 mm AA gun batteries were overhauled; 92. Blazing Steppe: all static objects have been updated to correct durability values; 93. Blazing Steppe: the forces and mission logic have been corrected in missions 6 and 8; 94. Blazing Steppe: other minor improvements. Please discuss the update in this thread.

"Personal note, buying on their website contributes the Developer with 100% of your purchase" Dear Pilots! Battle of Bodenplatte, Flying Circus and the Achtung Spitfire! Campaign are nearing official retail release in just a few weeks and to celebrate we are giving you the opportunity to purchase our older Battle Modules and previous Scripted Campaigns for an amazing 75% OFF!! No doubt you will want to pick up our latest titles, but in case you don’t already own some of our previous titles, this is the most aggressive pricing ever offered! It’s also been 75 years since the time period in which our Battle of Bodenplatte title takes place. It’s was the height of the war on the Western Front and the Allies were struggling to break into Germany. This era was the pinnacle of piston powered aircraft designs and saw the first introduction of jet fighters. Oct. 15th - Oct. 31st 2019 on Website Oct 15th - Oct. 27th 2019 on Steam BOS = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) BOM = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) BOK = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) Blazing Steppe = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) Fortress on the Volga = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) Ten Days of August = 75% OFF (IL-2 Website Only) Havoc Over the Kuban = 75% OFF (IL-2 Website Only) Cliffs of Dover: BLITZ – 75% Off (IL-2 Website Only) All Rise of Flight Content = 75% OFF (Website and Steam) Official Webstore https://il2sturmovik.com/store/battle-of-stalingrad/ Steam https://store.steampowered.com/…/IL2_Sturmovik_Battle_of_S…/ And don’t forget to Pre-Order our next upcoming Scripted Campaign – Achtung Spitfire! Available exclusively on the Official IL-2 Website As usual, if you purchase a plane you already have you can send it as a Gift to a friend or squadron mate. IMPORTANT NOTE: The $10 OFF Early Access discount for Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus will be expiring in just a couple weeks. If you want to get that discount please don’t delay! NOTE: having at least the base game (Stalingrad) on Steam means you can launch it from the Steam client without entering a login and password and you can access your IL-2 content purchased elsewhere if you link the accounts. The Sturmovik Team

Dear Pilots! It’s our great pleasure to officially announce that our next Collector Planes for the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles series will be the – Yak-9, Yak-9T and the Hurricane Mk.II. Both of these aircraft, or I should probably say all three of these aircraft, were important designs that were workhorses of their day that made great contributions to the war effort on several fronts. These particular planes were chosen so we can offer an even more diverse and well-rounded plane-set that benefits primarily our Eastern Front products, which we still care deeply about and as of now, the majority of our customers own the most of. The Yak-9 came in many different flavors and it derived from the robust Yak-7b design. The Yak-9 was used over many important Eastern Front battles and was a very versatile and reliable airframe. It was the most produced Soviet fighter of the war. The famous Normandie Niemen pilots also used a variant of the Yak-9 in combat as did many successful front-line Soviet units. The Yak-9 was light and maneuverable at low altitudes and gave her pilots a real chance against the Bf-109 and Fw-190s of it’s day although it was less armed than its German adversaries. However, the Yak-9T came packing the NS37 37mm cannon in the nose which was a heavy hitter. A 37mm round can do some serious damage to not only enemy airplanes, but also vehicles and armor. Due to the bigger length of the 37mm cannon, the cockpit of the -9T had to be moved rearward about 400mm to accommodate it, slightly changing its lovely profile. The Yak-9 was an important aircraft for the Soviet Union and will make an excellent addition to the IL-2 Great Battles Series! The legendary Hurricane, which was built by Hawker, became famous in the west for winning the Battle of Britain and for the many sorties flown in the Mediterranean and North Africa theaters. However, it was also widely flown on the Eastern Front as a Lend-Lease product and saw much combat over the vast landscape of the Soviet Union. Hurricanes were one of the very first Lend Lease types to reach the Soviet Union and they were pressed into service right away as a stop-gap fighter as Soviet industry moved eastward to safer locations. It would eventually be joined or replaced by other Lend Lease designs like the Kittyhawk and Airacobra and newer Soviet designs, but the Hurricane soldiered on in many combat roles across several fronts including Stalingrad and Moscow. They were also heavily used on the Northern sectors to protect important warm water ports. Soviet ground crews also employed several weapon modifications which had a heavier punch than its original Browning machine guns. We hope to model most of these modifications. The Hurricane in Soviet service was a lengthy affair that deserves inclusion in IL-2 Great Battles. Without further delay, here are some very early Work-In-Progress renders of the Yak-9 and Hurricane in production. As is customary, Pre-Orders for these planes will commence in just a couple weeks and they will be ready for duty first half of next year. Remember, that by purchasing Collector Planes you allow us to continue to make important and interesting aircraft that we may not have been able to include in our main titles. The Sturmovik Team

Hello! We continue our movement toward the release of Battle of Bodenplatte, but even near the finish line we still find opportunities to improve the entire project. This time we found a way to implement a significant optimization to part of the graphics engine that is responsible for displaying the clouds. In addition to a significant increase in FPS on existing cloud settings, this allowed us to add an additional setting for the cloud quality called "Extreme". This option is named so because it combines somewhat increased performance with a significant reduction of the “boiling” clouds effect which appears when looking sideways from the direction of movement. We have also significantly increased the clarity of cloud shapes and boundaries. Our clouds always looked nice on the high settings, but with the addition of this new option their visual quality and realism has significantly increased. However, it is better to see an example: Work on the Tank Crew project is still in full swing, and new additions can be expected in the coming months. First, at the end of October, the project acquires its main gameplay component- two Scripted Campaigns based on historical events of the Battle of Prokhorovka. Second, our next update will include new command functionality for the tank and tank the platoon commander. Third, before the end of the year, we expect our partners from DigitalForms to complete two new armored vehicles - the Soviet self-propelled artillery SU-122 and the German medium tank Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther". The 3-dimensional model of the Panther exterior is in a high degree of readiness whereas the SU-122 has already been completed and work is underway on texturing the interior and creating its crew animations: You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, The next update 3.201 will be released really soon. In the previous Dev Diaries, we told what it will bring for Bodenplatte, but it will also contain many improvements for other projects as well. Let's start with Tank Crew. The first important feature (not only for tanks, but it is especially important for them) is the new occlusion system for object markers. Now ground and aerial object markers will be occluded by other moving objects, cockpit elements, hills, trees buildings, etc. It should really pump up the tension of battle even in the 'markers on' mode. Second, we have changed the way a turret (or closed sights MGs like bow MG-34) is steered on all tanks, now it moves like on M4A2 before and there is a special overlay indicator showing the set turret direction. In addition, all the Tank Crew player controllable tanks now have improved engine startup procedures, both visually and audibly. Pz. IV and M4 have autonomous turret traverse mode working with effects and animations. The tanks handling has been improved. Many of them have their interiors and some exterior details updated. Two historical campaigns set near Prokhorovka designed by Alexander Timoshokov and Victor Sechnoy are finished and their beta testing should start next week along with the commander interface for controlling the crew and an entire platoon. To create correct mission scenarios, a lot of effort has been put into research - just their briefings have enough text to fill up 40 book pages. Ground AI improvements required a lot of time as well. We plan to release these campaigns to all Tank Crew owners in October. Now onto Flying Circus. The coming update will include the Arras area map (1918). The cities, towns, and airfields recreate the atmosphere of the era believably. The designers paid special attention to smaller details in the airfield buildings. The towns have trade squares, suburban blocks and more detailed factory areas. There are barbed wire and dugouts on no-mans-land. Together with the latest technologies available in IL-2 engine, the new Arras map will give the aviators of the Great War the next level of immersive flight and dogfights above the Western Front positions. Returning to Bodenplatte, we're glad to report that we have found the means of increasing visual quality of Tempest Mk.V even more. Since the end of Summer, our artists worked on the texturing and materials and you can see the result on these screenshots. The aircraft released in the previous TOWs also gets attention - Battle of Stalingrad owners will see IL-2 mod. 1942 and Bf 109 G-2 skins updated to 4K quality thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney and Francisco =BlackHellHound1= Bindraban. But not only visuals are being upgraded for our previous projects - we're also working on some sound improvements. For instance, DB-601 and BD-605 engine sounds installed on Bf-109s and Bf-110s will become more realistic in 3.201. You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, We're in the second half of September and this means that the next update 3.201 isn't far away. This one will be massive and will bring a lot of new content as well. Three player controllable aircraft, AI bomber, new AI ground vehicles and of course, the new map - Rheinland. This map tops the records once again: 130 000 square kilometers of reachable terrain (401 x 324 km), 176 000 square kilometers total size (461 x 384 km), 225 cities and towns - a record number of big cities, 70 airfields - 67 of them have historically correct layout recreated using archive documents. For increased detail and historical accuracy, for the first time, we have used 4 airfield types on the same map - with concrete, metal, and unpaved runways and airstrips without runways. To populate the map with European buildings on such a large scale new 'construction kit' of European city blocks was created - this allowed to represent highly populated cities while keeping the general layout of the city where they belong. There are new models for big factories and many unique buildings and we also actively used the bridges 'construction kit' which has been developed previously. Landscape features, especially in the hilly areas - deep river valleys, hills covered by forests and small reclusive towns create a special atmosphere. Let's return to the urbanized areas - we're happy to announce that we were able to create a tech that allows displaying buildings three times farther than before. Rendering at such distances because of the enormous amount of buildings visible at the same time required heavy use of multi-threaded tech to prepare the data. We have made this feature optional for simmers that have a weaker PC. For such a map as Rheinland with many cities and towns, it really improves the perspective and the overall feel. Of course, it is useful for other maps too - for instance, it allows bomber pilots to spot their targets significantly sooner. And as we announced before, for Bodenplatte we created AI ground vehicles with increased model and texture detail, 13 new types in total. You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear Pilots, Summer is drawing to a close once again and our offices in Moscow and Las Vegas are finally transitioning to cooler weather. The Fall season brings warm sweaters and more indoor time with the family and more time playing your favorite combat flight-simulation – IL-2 Sturmovik!! The team is very busy preparing the next update due later this month which will be a big one, but not quite the final one before Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus are considered ready for release. We also continue our work on Tank Crew which has some new features and improvements coming as well. In light of our crammed schedule we simply leave you with some new images of our P-38J-25 and P-51D-15 and a shot of our A.I. B-25 from Battle of Bodenplatte! Enjoy!

Today I’d like to tell you a story about how our Tempest Mk.V came to be. Every once in a while, I get to stop being a producer and just be a fanboy and add something to the simulation to fulfill a dream. When I saw how well our Spitfire Mk.Vb turned out, I knew I wanted a Tempest added whenever possible. There is something very cool about these British birds. I knew a Tempest built by our team would be awesome. I’ve always thought the Tempest was really an awesome warplane. It just looked tough and mean with that huge air scoop under the nose of that powerful Sabre engine. It appealed to me as the perfected sibling of the legendary, but initially troubled Typhoon. The Tempest represented the pinnacle of piston powered late-war aircraft. The type of Allied fighter that could beat the best the Luftwaffe had and put the final nail in the coffin. As an American kid, the British Tempest looked uniquely cool and somehow different, but I could only see pictures in books and read about them. I never got to see an actual Tempest in the air. Unlike Spitfires and Mustangs, so few examples survived their service and performed to airshows in California where I grew up. So, when the opportunity came much, much later in life, I decided I wanted to fly one built to our specs in our engine with our team. Now it’s finally time. From the first moment I decided we should make the Tempest, I knew building it would be a challenge. I recalled from the days of IL-2:1946 that there was a real lack of quality references to make the plane to a high degree of detail, both in its physical shape and the engine’s performance. That Tempest model is a great accomplishment as well and I remember the enthusiasm that accompanied it way back then. I knew it would be the same difficult road today for our Tempest without a real effort and help from other people. And luckily, that is exactly what happened. Thanks to total strangers and friends in the community, this mission has been a successful one. In the past, other such endeavors have failed, so I am very excited that this one did not. 1CGS Office Las Vegas, NV U.S.A Last year I put out a call on the forum asking for help locating information and references for the Tempest. The community responded in force, and I was able to quickly get a grasp of what was out there. This got the ball rolling and I bought the team several books, drawings and sourced any operator manuals that were publicly available. I also learned what actual airframes existed and I started to try and make contact with their owners. Fantasy of Flight in Lakeland, Florida U.S.A. My first bit of luck was successfully making contact with Fantasy of Flight outside Orlando, FL thanks to social media. Fantasy of Flight is home to the famous Kermit Weeks, who’s videos of him flying many different aircraft on YouTube is legendary. I took a trip to Orlando and drove out to FOF to see the two Tempest airframes they have there. They have a Mk.V and a Mk.II. I was informed that the Mk.V was a front line WWII bird, but it had crash landed in the Netherlands and was recovered, but then turned into a test airframe for refurbished Sabre engines at a repair depot. I was told the Mk. II airframe was one of the prototypes. Both are in various stages of restoration, but the project manager was retiring in a matter of days and the planes were going into a crate and locked away for who knows how long. Matter of fact, a lot of the plane was already in crates! I had to act fast. I made it to FOF just in time and met with Andy, the gentleman who was retiring the next week. I learned as much as I could from him about the Tempest airframes they had and took lots of pictures for our modelers. Here is a sampling of what I saw there, which was two airplanes in bits with the wings and an incomplete fuselage. I was stressing this would not be enough. Fantasy of Flight has a great collection of aircraft and I highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in the Orlando area. It’s not a far drive from Disneyworld. Lots of interesting and rare aircraft in great condition. The staff there is great and really helped us out and they are willing to do so again in the future. A great outfit. www.fantasyofflight.com RAF Hendon, London, England, UK My second bit of luck was successfully making contact with the RAF Museum at Hendon. This took some real doing and I must thank community member EAF19_Marsh aka Ed for helping get me in touch with the right person. It looked grim and I was extremely frustrated with Hendon at one point, because I knew they had the missing piece of the puzzle, but they just were not responding to my requests. However, in the end it all worked out and Ed’s effort helped get things moving. I hopped on a plane to London and took the London Underground for the first time to Hendon. There I saw a real complete Tempest Mk.V in the flesh. Airframe NV778 was a former target tug, but other than the unique target tug equipment it was the exact airplane we needed. Here are some pics of it at Hendon. My worry was starting to subside, it looked like we could make the Tempest after all. I also encourage anyone who visits London to go to the RAF Hendon museum. Their collection is awesome and includes some real gems. The Lancaster bomber there is extremely impressive! Makes the B-17 and B-24 look small. The crew at Hendon did us a real solid. Please show them your support and thanks for helping us out. A special thanks to Ian Thirsk, Brendan O’Gorman and especially to Tim Bracey for his assistance in accessing the Tempest. www.rafmuseum.com While I was in London I met up with a few IL-2 community members and had some beer and some chat. Thanks to Custard, Herne, Elem and Royal Flight and a few other gents which I embarrassingly can’t remember their names of so many months later. My apologies. I had a great time with everyone even though I had caught a nasty cold. I felt awful and I apologize to everyone who came for not being my usual chatty self. Why is beer so warm in England? What’s up with that? Typhoon Legacy British Columbia, Canada Getting pictures for the Tempest model was a huge step, but what about other things like flight data, engine data and operator manuals? Without some kind of understanding about the performance of the plane we’d just be guessing and users would not be happy. Well, shortly after my original call for help on the forum I was contacted by community member [IV./JG54]Croquemou aka Nicolas who works on the Typhoon Legacy project. They are restoring a Typhoon and they had lots of useful info and references for us about the Tempest and Napier Sabre engine. They were kind enough to share this information with me and I passed it onto the Sturmovik engineering team. We acquired official manuals, parts lists, drawings, engine test data, flight-data and other small bits of info that should help us make the Tempest fly in a realistic fashion. Special thanks to Nicolas and Ian Slater for their help in acquiring this important information. www.typhoonlegacy.com 1CGS Office Moscow, Russian Federation Armed with all the information and pictures I could gather our modeling team went to work building the Tempest. It took quite a while, but Phil really did an excellent job capturing its shape and he somehow untangled the complicated cockpit structure to create what I consider a masterpiece. Here is Phil’s take on building the Tempest, “Each aircraft is unique, even within the same series, there will always be small differences. Working on a visual model of Tempest was not a challenge, but unlike many others, there were features that I could not foresee. The unique designs and decisions of British engineers were of great interest to me in the process of studying this aircraft, but, in turn, covered with the lack of references that were high enough for modeling, was affected by the great stress in the process of creating this war bird. Spatial frames, many open cabin panels, non-standard solutions of simple assemblies, many details, confusion of differences in series, all this at certain times became difficult, but no less interesting. Starting with the external model of the fuselage, you feel like a sculptor, deriving smooth contours, wide and graceful wings, a streamlined body - all this contrasts with the cabin, reminiscent of some kind of chaos of scattered parts, wires, hoses. One got the impression that this was done not at the factory, but in the field, or in the form of a prototype. But this style is observed in many British warbirds - Hurricane, Spitfire, and others. For me, the artistic process is inextricable with the study of not only visual references, but also the design of how it works and what it was intended for. Understanding the internal processes and historical decisions gives many details that affect the final result. You can also find interesting comparisons in the future. For example, I often find similar solutions in other planes of other countries. For example, in the Yak-9 - this is unbelievable, but there are many similarities with Tempest. Or at one time I found interesting comparisons in the models of Foke-Wolf Dora and Soviet Lavochkin LA-5. Returning to Tempest, I would also like to note that once it was one of my favorite airplanes. As a child, I often riveted such airplanes with large “beard” air intakes, but then cooled down to this design. Work on Tempest revived this love in me, and I hope you all will like it, and you will also feel the power of this bird. Feel the smell of fuel and oil. And shooting down an enemy plane you will feel like those heroes defending your country!” Any time we create an airplane model from scratch under our tight deadlines it’s a struggle to include all the necessary details without blowing up our polygon and texture budget. Lucky for everyone, Phil somehow got it done! Next came the flight model work and our engineer Alex dove right in. Even with all of the data I gathered, there is still some mystery surrounding the Tempest’s Sabre engine and certain engine limits and performance characteristics. Alex says, "The Tempest is a bit of a mystery plane in history. Not a lot of books and no flying examples like you get with say the Spitfire. There are several different versions of performance numbers in the data we collected and trying to weed through all of them and find the truth was a challenge. In cases like this, our aero model and our systems start to tell the story instead of the data telling us, which happens on more well documented planes. It's a bit like a detective story. We search for the truth with our advanced aero modeling and see what starts to line up. As I measured its shape and entered more and more data points into our aerodynamic and power models, its real flight envelope began to emerge and it began to line up with one or more of the data sources. The end result is a really great war-winning airplane that Allied pilots are going to like and we think is the most accurate Tempest ever made for a PC flight-sim." With the info we gathered, the Mk.V sub-variant we decided to build is the Series II with the Sabre IIa engine. The initial results of FM tests are very promising for fans of British airplanes and Alex has done another outstanding job. The Tempest is indeed a deadly plane and British pilots were lucky to have her. Without further delay here is a short movie featuring our Tempest Mk.V in Beta testing. As always, all textures, markings and even its performance are still a work-in-progress. We hope you enjoy and THANKS to everyone who had a hand in our research and its development. Truly an international effort by a wonderful community. You can discuss the news in this thread.

Hello Dear Friends! As you know, to work well one needs to have a good rest. While the summer season continues, and our colleagues go on vacation, I will tell you how important it is for a military pilot to be able to save and properly spend his strength during combat. Probably you have already realized that in today's diary I want to talk about our new pilot physiology modeling, which we are preparing for the release in the next update. Our Beta testers will receive this model for tests today. About Pilot Physiology The focus of the new physiology model is, above all, on a more realistic imitation of a person's tolerance to high G-load. Although this is not the only change in the pilot physiology, you will most likely notice it first, so let's talk about it in more detail. As you know, we all are different, and each of us has different stamina, physical strength, and ability to resist negative environmental factors. Therefore, the ability of a particular pilot to withstand high G-load is, of course, purely individual, and depends on a good number of factors: age, state of health, fitness, whether a pilot slept well the night before, how much he ate and how long ago, and even what his emotional state is. Of course, we cannot collect all this information about you, and take all these factors into account in such detail; such a model would be excessively complex, although it would probably allow the player’s best immersion into virtual reality. Nevertheless, we found that the most reasonable approach would be to choose a certain averaged model of an average pilot physiology. By "average pilot" we mean a trained pilot in good physical condition, who often performs aerobatics. A large number of different medical studies with the collected statistics of experiments with pilots and volunteers come to our aid. Based on them it is possible to establish a “middle way” of the typical human tolerance to high G-load. The first thing that all researchers pay attention to is the fact that the amount of G, both positive (when a pilot is “pressed” into his seat) and negative (when a pilot is “pulled away” from his seat and “hangs on the belts”) depends primarily on the duration of the G-load and on the rate the G-load was applied. For example, at a positive +6G the “average” pilot loses consciousness within the first 5-8 seconds, but the same pilot quite successfully sustains +5G for about 40 seconds, if the rate of G-load application was less than 1G/sec. However, if you create the same +5G in just 1-2 seconds, then loss of consciousness will occur in 5-7 seconds. In aviation medicine, this phenomenon is explained by the “hemodynamics” of the cardiovascular system. The body needs some time to mobilize and begin to effectively counteract overload. This is illustrated in the chart from the article written by Anne M. Stoll, “Human tolerance to positive G as determined by the physiological end points” published in The Journal of aviation medicine in 1956: In our new model of human physiology, all these factors are now taken into account. If a high G-load is applied within 1-2 seconds, the negative consequences (visual and hearing disorders) do not appear immediately, but rather with a 2-3 seconds delay, then a quick “crisis” follows, and then, after a few seconds, the body mobilizes and its ability to tolerate G-loads becomes better. This “crisis” can be avoided, or at least reduced, if you pilot more smoothly and create G-load gradually and slowly. Here is another graph that shows how long an average pilot is able to withstand positive and negative G until he loses his consciousness. The blue line is a summary of data we collected as a result of our various medical studies analysis. Red dots are the results our new model shows: As you can see, pilots tolerate the positive g-loads much better than the negative ones. In addition, now we also take the pilot’s fatigue factor into account, based on the data mentioned above. This means that every pilot’s maneuver performed with a large g-load is no longer in vain, and the more actively a pilot maneuvers, the worse he and his crew will suffer further g-loads. If the pilot is already pretty worn out by maneuvering combat, be aware that a new opponent who entered the battle will have a significant advantage, and maybe you should get out of the dogfight and catch your breath. This may take you a few minutes. Another important part of this work is the reconfiguration of the visual effects of visual impairment. We brought it into a full compliance with the sequence described in the scientific literature. First, under the influence of positive g-load, a pilot begins to lose color perception (a so-called “grayout”). Then his peripheral vision field (or a “tunnel vision”) narrows, until it becomes completely dark in the eyes (a so-called “blackout”). The visual impairment is also accompanied by hearing loss. On a negative g-load, the effect of “tunnel vision” and loss of color perception do not happen, because, unlike a positive overload, there is no oxygen starvation of the optic nerve. But on the other hand, the pilot feels a rush of blood to his head, which is expressed in the appearance of a noticeable red tint of vision (a so-called “redout”), and the sharpness of vision also deteriorates. I have mentioned a “loss of consciousness” several times already. Yes, now we are simulating this state, too. A pilot can lose consciousness at large positive or negative g-loads if the threshold of their physiological tolerance is exceeded (taking into account the duration of g-loads, the pace of their creation and accumulated fatigue). A harbinger of the loss of consciousness at the positive g-load is a blackout, although even having completely lost his eyesight, the pilot is still able to control his aircraft for some time. At the negative g-load loss of consciousness occurs more unexpectedly, and the only way to determine it in time is by a sharp deterioration in visual acuity. Studies have established that, depending on a number of factors, a usual period of a G-lock can be as long as 10 to 15 seconds, and during this time the aircraft will remain uncontrollable. Keep in mind that each subsequent loss of consciousness will cost you even greater loss of time and energy. WWII fighter pilots were very human, not Superman and they did experience pretty high G-loads even in piston planes. Another feature of this model is an anti-g suit a pilot has. On average, according to various studies, the anti-g suit increases the physiological tolerance threshold to positive g-load by 1.5 - 2G, so pilots with the anti-g suits will certainly get a significant advantage in dogfight. The anti-g suit does not affect tolerance to a negative g-load. In conclusion, I would like to mention that we also limited the pilot’s ability to bail out at the airspeed of more than 400 km/h, or under the influence of positive g-load of more than +3G (which is the physiological limit in terms of the ability of a person to get out of the seat). These numbers refer to a healthy pilot; in case of injury getting out of the cockpit will be even more difficult for a crew. The effect of hypoxia model on g-load tolerance model has also been refined and will take air pressure into account more correctly. Preparing for the release of a new physiology model, we understand that for some players it incomprehensible and not obvious at first. Therefore, we left you the opportunity to choose a simplified physiology model in the realism settings, which will work quite similar to the current model, and will not take into account the pilot’s fatigue, the hemodynamics of his cardiovascular system, or limit the pilot’s endurance according to the duration of g-loads or the pace of their creation. Also, in a simplified model your crew will not be able to lose consciousness. At the same time, this simple model will use the new reconfigured effects of visual and hearing disorders, and the magnitude of the g-load at which these disorders occur will be brought into line with the updated data from the new model. We really hope that the new model of the pilot’s physiology will make the gameplay more interesting, and significantly change the tactics of dogfight. So, the players will now have to take care of the physical condition of the pilot and be more careful about active maneuvering, and this will take us one step closer to the reality of air combat. Andrey “Petrovich” Solomykin – Lead Engineer News from Jason Bodenplatte Coming Along Nicely! We continue to work on the BOBP map and its large list of airfields and urban areas which is something rather new for us. This map has been a challenge like never before and we have it functioning in Beta, but it has a little way to go still. However, our last three Allied planes are coming along nicely. Check out this beautiful formation of vintage American air power and a bonus shot of the Tempest in flight. The Tempest continues to be tweaked and improved after the first round of Beta testing and the P-38 is also in Beta with small tweaking necessary. The P-51D will also be coming to Beta soon. All three aircraft are quite complex. The different design philosophies of each nation have really become evident as we make more and more planes. We must remind everyone that these planes are still a Work-In-Progress so some of these details in these images may change. Saddle Up Cowboy! Our P-51D-15 “Pony” is nearing the Beta stage as we finish the cockpit and external model. Here are the first pics of the P-51D cockpit. Our model team has done another awesome job! Personal Images in Cockpits Another popular request has been the ability to place a personal picture in the cockpit of your plane. We have now added this capability. New View Distance for Airplanes Yes, by popular request, we have increased the visibility of distant airplanes. This has been a difficult technical challenge, but we think Sturmovik pilots will appreciate this new reality. Can you spot the far-off planes? We’re still tweaking the feature, but it’s in testing. Next Collector Planes in Pre-Production And last but not least, we have begun preliminary work on a couple cool Collector Planes. We aren’t announcing them quite yet, but they will available for pre-order later this year and then in your hangar next year. Sorry, no hints quite yet! You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear Friends, After the recent release of the update 3.102 many of you wondered "why there are no new Bodenplatte planes"? There is nothing strange about it: the remaining three player-controllable fighters and AI-controlled bomber are the most complex and difficult to produce objects in the entire history of our team. But the more difficult is the task the more interesting is the result. At the moment we plan to make all these four planes available to you in the next huge update at the end of September that will also bring the important new features we're working on at the moment. Here's the rundown on their current statuses: P-51D-15: cockpit texturing and flight model is in development. P-38J-25: cockpit texturing is nearly finished, the flight model is finished, it will go to beta testing soon. Tempest Mk.V ser.2: 3D model is finished, the flight model is nearly finished, it will go to beta testing soon as well. B-25D (Mitchell II): 3D model is finished, we’re working on the last bits of texturing and turret animations, the flight model is in development. The work on the Rhineland map for Bodenplatte is also progressing well and we'll show you some of it in one of the coming DDs. We're working on the new Career timeframe 'Battle of Rhineland' in parallel. Now let's list the features that are at the final stage of development at the moment: Switch to the newer F-MOD API version which we hope will fix the disappearing sounds issue right away or in the near future. An advanced model of pilot physiology that includes complex fatigue modeling that takes into account G-overload fatigue, overload frequency, alternation of positive and negative overloads, wounds, having a G-suit, lack of oxygen and oxygen supply system. The model will also simulate a loss of consciousness and ability to control an aircraft after experiencing too sharp or too severe overloads. The algorithms it is using are based on the research of various institutes. The introduction of this model is likely to change the flow of air combat, especially in multiplayer. However, those who find it too difficult and unfamiliar will be able to switch it off as realism option (it will also be a server setting). Air Marshal mode that is being developed especially for multiplayer will also enter the testing stage soon. When this happens, we'll dedicate a special DD to it. Improved AI maneuvering in a dogfight. Our new programmer is working on this (the recent formation keeping improvements are his work), but remember there is still a long way to go in this area. Improved visibility distance of planes and ships. The main difficulty in the development of this feature was making the dynamic objects show at great distances without a steady stream of data reporting their position and orientation. Another important thing is to model the lighting of the airplane even at long range - we discarded the idea of having just black dots at these distances, where the visibility of an object is determined by the position of the sun, brightness and hue of the sky, haze, etc. All this is impossible to model having only a black dot. The distant planes flying at high altitudes will have contrails and ships will have visible wakes. It is also important to have more or less equal terms for owners of different monitors. Having completed all these tasks, we'll increase the maximum visibility distance for planes and ships from 10 to 100 km and the resulting visibility distance will realistically correspond to the lighting and weather conditions. As you can see, the Bodenplatte project is at the final stage and nearing release. Numerous changes and additions to be seen in the final version are more or less close to being finished. Therefore, the update 3.102 included the content that was ready and a minimal amount of changes - at the final stage nothing should divert the team from the main target. We don't want our words to sound empty or unfounded, so today we can show you the in-game exterior shots of the P-38J-25 Collector Plane (that is included in Bodenplatte Premium, only version you can get at the moment), the cockpit of the British Tempest Mk.V ser.2 and the new German pilot in Summer 1944 uniform: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, We're glad to report that the new update containing three new war machines are out. The first one of them is Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf.G German medium tank for Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka project. It was one of the most commonly used German tanks and had an interesting mix of powerful weaponry and lacking armor, making its use in the sim somewhat peculiar. It also had an interesting feature - autonomous turret traverse mechanism powered by a dedicated petrol motor. The second one is the WWI RAF fighter bomber Bristol Fighter F.2B for Flying Circus - Volume 1 project. This airplane had good flight characteristics among the two-seaters, various armament and could perform a wide selection of tasks. Two modifications of this aircraft are included - with Falcon II and Falcon III engines. And the third one is another Flying Circus - Volume 1 aircraft - German WWI ground attack plane Halberstadt CL.II. This multifunctional machine had good defensive turret equipped with one or two Parabellum LMG 14 machine guns fed by large-capacity magazines. Halberstadt could have one or two forward-firing MGs and carry 12 kg and 50 kg bombs, camera for aerial recon and radio for aerial spotting. In addition to them, the update includes exterior textures in 4K quality for Bf 109 G-14 and Fw 190 A-3. There are also several important improvements in the full list of changes: 1. PzKpfw.IV Ausf.G is available to Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka owners; 2. Halberstadt CL.II (Mercedes D.IIIa (180 h.p.) and Mercedes D.IIIau (200 h.p.) modifications) is available to Flying Circus - volume 1 owners; 3. Bristol Fighter F2.B (Falcon II (255 h.p.) и Falcon III (285 h.p.) modifications) is available to Flying Circus - volume 1 owners; 4. Bf 109 G-14 has 4K exterior texturing made by Martin =ICDP= Catney; 5. Fw 190 A-3 has 4K exterior texturing made by Martin =ICDP= Catney; 6. User interface checkbox that disallows other players to occupy one of the stations of your tank in multiplayer works now; 7. Main tank gunfire sound won't be skipped while shooting at a maximum rate of fire; 8. Tank traverse systems on player controllable tanks can be damaged now; 9. Switching between main and backup gunsights on player controllable tanks happens correctly; 10. Chalk slopes on the Prokhorovka map won't visibly appear and disappear; 11. Forests on the Prokhorovka map won't visibly blink; 12. Looking at an aircraft mirror at certain view angles won't cause a severe performance drop that was noticeable at high visibility distance settings on low- and middle-end video cards; 13. Destroyed ground vehicles on the GUI map are semi-transparent; 14. Engine throttle control helper logic has been updated (previously it could limit the available engine power at high altitudes); 15. S.E.5, Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Dolphin ailerons buffeting amplitudes at higher flight speeds have been corrected. Please discuss the update in this thread.

Hello everybody, This time we'll start with a small release. As we said before, we began working together with Mikhail =HH=Pauk Zemskov who makes great gameplay videos. The first fruit of this cooperation has been presented to you in April in Dev Blog #222 - that video was dedicated to our first WWII project - Battle of Stalingrad. And today we present you his second work - Battle of Moscow. As always, =HH=Pauk captured the spirit of the project, its vibe, very well. See for yourself: In the meantime, the Bodenplatte release comes closer and closer. We told about the work we're doing at this stage in our previous Dev Blog, and today we want to show you some visual results - it is better to see once than to hear a thousand words. Even better - to see in the sim engine already. The hero of the day is the British fighter Hawker Tempest Mk.V series 2. It turned out to be very complex and simultaneously very interesting to recreate - like all British flying machines which were always famous for their distinctness and original design decisions: As always, we constantly update our previous releases. As part of our plan to have all the aircraft in 4K eventually, Fw 190 A-3 Collector Plane for Battle of Stalingrad will be available in 4K in the next update thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney: Now let's move to the news about our other projects. Scenario campaigns for Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka are nearly finished, soon we'll record the voices for them and start their beta testing. Our partner Digital Forms is finishing the interior of Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G and it's beta testing will start this weekend: Flying Circus is also moving forward: Halberstadt CL.II and Bristol Fighter F.2B airplanes have their cockpits finished and they are going to this beta too. All in all, we progress in all directions and the closer the development is to the release the more interesting details about the coming additions we can tell you. You can discuss the news in this thread

225 Dear friends, The Summer is in full swing and we're working on finishing the Bodenplatte project. P-51D, P-38J, B-25 and Tempest 3D models are nearing completion, their textures are being made right now. Today we can show you the cockpit of Hawker Tempest Mk.V: As we announced before, all Bodenplatte planes will have 4K external textures. Here are Bf 109 G-14 shots that show the texturing made by Martin =ICDP= Catney: In addition to the models, we're working on the important features like more detailed pilot's physiology effects. Fatigue caused by a high G stress, (in)ability to bail out and other such things. After that, we'll get to repairing, refueling and refitting the aircraft on the ground. At the moment we're moving to a newer FMOD version and our sound designer converts all the sounds to the newer sound engine. The main result of this work should be a fix of the disappearing sounds issue after playing for a while that was caused by having too many of them. We also started the research on making the aircraft and ships visible from several times farther distances. This task is very complex since it involves many various parts of the project - we can't make it at the cost of a significant performance loss in the graphics and network subsystems. The work on the Bodenplatte map is nearing completion and we'll be able to show you the screenshots showing the result of this tremendous work soon. This also means we started the work on the Career mode for it that will be called Battle of Rheinland. Starting on September 17th, 1944 and ending on April 1st, 1945, it will include several new mission types characteristic for this timeframe on the Western front. All the required information - squadron histories and emblems, pilot biographies, awards, news, etc. - was accumulated with the help from our community members and we're very grateful to those who participated in this task. Another important thing we must tell you is that American, British and German infantrymen models for Bodenplatte project are finished - they will man the guns, drive the vehicles and appear as airfield personnel. And here's the model of the Royal Air Force pilot for Summer of 1944: Now let's talk about other our projects. For Tank Crew, the next update will bring Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G that has autonomous electric turret turn mechanism for instance. And in September we plan to release the two scenario campaigns for Tank Crew - Breaking Point and Last Chance, telling about the fighting near Prokhorovka. Players will be able to participate in the battle from both sides. Today we can show you the title art for these campaigns that were created using in-game tank models and the screenshots of Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G in the sim. The next update is planned to include two - actually four - new aircraft for Flying Circus - Halberstadt CL.II, Halberstadt CL.IIau, Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 2, Bristol Fighter F2 Falcon 3. After that, to complete this project we'll have to release Amiens-Arras-Lille map that will come with improved visual models for ground vehicles. Here are the screenshots of the coming planes: You can discuss the news in this thread

Update 3.101 Dear friends, Today we have finished another huge update and it is already available to you. It includes the new war machines you can control - jet fighter/bomber Me 262 A Schwalbe for Bodenplatte, Т-34-76 made by UVZ factory in early 1943 for Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka and airplanes S.E.5a and Albatros D.Va for Flying Circus - Volume I. Upping the exterior textures to 4К quality level for Bf 109 F-4 and Fw 190 A-8 are another neat feature, as well as adding visible crews to player controllable Pz.III Ausf.M and M4A2. All VR users get the long-awaited fix of an aircraft propeller that looked distorted with VR reprojection turned on. There are many changes in aircraft and ground AI. The level of detail of player controllable tank systems and their damage model is nearly final. And as usual, there are many improvements in FM and aircraft systems modeling. IL-2 Sturmovik team wishes you nice summer weather and enjoyable flying in our sim! Main features 1. Jet fighter-bomber Me 262 A "Schwalbe" is now available for all owners of "Battle of Bodenplatte"; 2. Albatros D.Va is now available for all owners of "Flying Circus"; 3. S.E.5a is now available for all owners of "Flying Circus"; 4. T-34-76 UVZ made in early 1943 is now available for all owners of "Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka" (includes crew); 5. Bf 109 F-4 exterior textures are now available in 4К quality, including damage, thanks to =BlackHellHound1=; 6. Fw 190 A-8 exterior textures are now available in 4К quality, including damage, thanks to =ICDP=; 7. Crew models added to M4A2; 8. Crew models added to Pz.III Ausf.M; 9. In VR, active reprojection won't cause a rotating propeller to flicker; 10. The game launcher (non-Steam version) now offers more options (enabling or disabling VR, 4K textures, GUI autoscale and mods); AI improvements 11. AI fighters may cancel the attack run when hit by a bomber gunner fire; 12. AI fighters aim better when engaging a straight flying target; 13. AI fighters open fire earlier when engaging a straight flying target; 14. AI fighters maneuver more carefully when covering bombers; 15. AI keeps the formation much better; 16. AI ground attack planes and fighters RTB if they have no ammo for forward-firing armament left; 17. AI bombers open bomb bay doors during the bombing run only if there are bombs inside; 18. AI bombers won't open bomb bay doors during the route by mistake; 19. AI won't attempt to land on tank spawn points in multiplayer in case of an emergency; 20. AI gunners fire only at targets selected as 'Engageable' (Mission Editor parameter); 21. AI guns and tanks aim in a more realistic way, there is a slight fire delay after aiming and before re-engaging; 22. Driveable tanks controlled by AI keep formation better, including cases of losing one or more tanks of a platoon; 23. Ground AI can set and keep User Formation by mission command (current relative position of vehicles in the group); 24. Ground AI has three new formations: line left, line right, centered line (relative to the group leader); 25. Ground AI now correctly selects and uses APHE ammo (it used only AP ammo before); 26. Ground AI won't fire at crewmen escaping from friendly vehicles; New features for player controllable tanks 27. It's possible to limit the maximal gear by X and Z key; 28. Enter key invokes the damage control overlay; 29. Headlights state, engine damage and overheat, low oil pressure and battery charge, maximal selected gear limit are shown in the quick info interface panel; 30. Lots of instruments and controls are now animated: odometers, service meters, engine revolutions counters, ignition switches, starter buttons, oil temperature indicators, amperemeters, voltmeters, fire detection lamps, radio tuning dials, parking brake handles, turret locks; 31. Transmission damage affects the changing of gears, they become harder or impossible to switch; 32. Oil system damage causes engine damage at a progressing rate; 33. Cooling system damage affects oil and cylinder heads cooling effectiveness; 34. Electrical system damage affects the functionality of lighting, powered turret traverse and engine starter; 35. Engines have a heat model that is affected by damage; 36. Cold engine yields less power until it heats up; 37. An engine with overheated oil or cylinder heads accumulates damage fast; 38. 'Warmed up engine' option is valid for tanks too; 39. Fuel or oil leak could lead to a fire that can kill the crew and cause the ammo detonation; 40. In case of fire, the crew uses fire extinguishers if there are any left. It takes up to 2 seconds using automatic fire extinguishers and up 5 seconds using regular ones; 41. Damaged suspension springs or torsions can become lame; 42. If the coolant is boiling, there is a visible vapor exhaust from radiators; 43. A damaged engine can fill the tank interior with smoke; 44. Firing the gun and MGs can obscure vision in the tank interior; 45. Crew clothes, faces, hands, etc. can become dirty from smoke; 46. The turret traverse speed decreases with the inclination of the tank, it may be impossible to turn the turret at a high inclination angle; 47. The driver instruments functioning was updated; 48. Powered (electric) turret traverse mechanism added to KV-1s and Т-34-76-UVZ-1943 with the manual traverse as the backup one. The powered traverse mechanism won't work if it is damaged, there is no power or the engine is off; 49. Powered (hydraulic) turret traverse mechanism added to M4A2 and PzKpfw. VI Ausf. H-1 with the manual traverse as the backup one. The powered traverse mechanism won't work if it is damaged or the engine is off; 50. Backup (pneumatic) engine starter added to KV-1s and Т-34-76-UVZ-1943 that is used if there is no power; 51. Additional (panoramic) gunsight added to KV-1s and Т-34-76-UVZ-1943; 52. Backup gunsight (iron sights) added to Pz.III Ausf.M; 53. The shaft between the flywheel clutch and the gearbox on M4A2 is correctly animated; 54. Pz.III Ausf.M brake drums are correctly animated; 55. Pz.VI Ausf.H1 engine cooling fans are correctly animated; 56. Tanks won't 'jump' on rubble left from destroyed buildings; 57. A rare issue that could cause a still functioning tank to appear destroyed, but with functioning turret has been fixed; 58. A rare issue that could cause a still functioning track to appear destroyed has been fixed; 59. A small visual issue (grey square near the gun gunsight) has been fixed for Pz.III Ausf.M and Pz.VI Ausf.H1; 60. KV-1s paint color has been corrected; 61. The motion of a damaged right track of Pz.III Ausf.M has been corrected; New features in aircraft physics, systems and animations 62. Infinitely firing aircraft of other players shouldn't randomly appear in multiplayer anymore; 63. Additional steps were taken that should eliminate a rare problem of another player plane being invisible before opening fire; 64. PTAB sub-munitions effect on ground targets has been corrected; 65. Damage calculations for AP, APHE and HEAT aircraft-launched rockets have been significantly improved; 66. Physical models of all aircraft engines have been revised, many rare bugs were found and fixed; 67. A rare issue that could crash the sim when all fuel was spent (or leaked away) on Ju-88 and He-111 H6/H16 has been fixed; 68. A rare issue in P-47 turbocharger that could crash the sim was found and fixed; 69. The error that caused the Flying Circus aircraft propellers to have more power than RoF ones has been found and fixed. The notable difference was found at lower flight speeds, but additional research showed that this error made during porting of RoF planes to Flying Circus more or less affected all flight characteristics of the Flying Circus aircraft. In this update this error is fixed, so flight characteristics of all Flying Circus planes fully correspond to RoF before update 1.034. You can see the updated flight characteristics of Albatros D.Va and S.E.5a in their in-game descriptions, while updated descriptions for other Flying Circus aircraft will follow in the next update when we redo all the required measurements; 70. All aircraft: when starting or shutting down the engine with all three difficulty options "Cruise control", "Throttle auto limit" and "Engine auto control" turned off you need to move the engine controls during the startup or shutdown procedure yourself; 71. All aircraft: wind noise sound with jettisoned or broken canopy won't disappear at 720 kph and higher speeds; 72. All aircraft: new technochat message informs the player about the engine failure (when it shuts off by itself without player or throttle limiter input); 73. All aircraft: new technochat message informs the player that the engine start command is ignored if the startup requirements are not met; 74. Fw-190 D9 and Me 262 A: there is a tip in chat clarifying that the engine throttle is blocked from moving to cutoff position when the engine is on; 75. Sopwith Camel and Sopwith Dolphin skid steering animations were corrected; 76. Weight values listed for all large gunsights of Flying Circus planes and for the camera on SPAD XIII.C1 have been corrected; 77. Weight values listed for additional Lewis MGs on Sopwith Dolphin have been corrected, speed loss information added; 78. Moving horizontal stabilizers control levers or wheels can be heard; 79. When an engine is turned off, the motion speed of a throttle lever with engine helpers turned on has been increased (it is now the same as its motion speed with engine helpers turned off); 80. In multiplayer, you can hear the engine starter of another player. Because of the huge amount of changes, the track and mission format was changed. If you're an author of a custom mission or campaign, you need to resave your creation (it can be done quickly using 'Convert missions to binary in folder' in the Mission editor). Please discuss the update in this thread.