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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

Dear Pilots! SUMMER SALE HAS LAUNCHED! June 25th - July 9th 2019 In Official Webstore and on Steam Battle of Kuban = 50% Off (First time at this price) Battle of Stalingrad = 66% Off Battle of Moscow = 66% OFF All Collector Planes = 50% Off (Including the U-2VS) All Scripted Campaigns = 50% Off All Rise of Flight Content = 66% Off Cliffs of Dover BLITZ = 66% Off OFFICIAL WEBSTORE STEAM As usual, if you purchase a plane you already have you can send it as a Gift to a friend or squadron mate. 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. I recommend to buy it directly from the original webstore

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.

Hello everybody, The Spring ends soon, and we're preparing the next update for you. In the next 2-3 weeks, we plan to finish the testing of the new game version, which has started already - this week we started the beta testing of Flying Circus S.E.5a and Albatros D.5a and today we add T-34 UVZ mod. 1943 from Tank Crew project to it. And the next week the beta testing of the long-awaited Me 262 A for Battle of Bodenplatte will begin. For Bodenplatte we also have the Summer US pilot ready, German and British pilots will receive their summer outfits soon. We can show you the US one today: Jet engine Jumo-004B-1 for Me 262 A fighter/bomber is nearly finished - it is installed on the aircraft, its characteristics are set up and it is being tuned right now. For our project, we have chosen the updated variant of this engine which had a modified valve that made the throttle controls more trouble-proof. However, sharp throttle changes still can cause an engine fire, so it requires a degree of caution. Speaking of available modifications, this aircraft in the game will have the following ones: - EZ 42 gyro gunsight with automatic deflection calculation, - R4M unguided air-to-air rockets, 12 per mounting, - Armored pilot headrest, - Pilot back armor, - Removal of the gun mounting armor for making the aircraft less nose-heavy, - Removal of two Mk 108 guns, - Bomber variant capable of carrying two SC 250 or one SC 500 bombs. The list of this plane peculiarities includes the dangerous effect of Mach tuck at higher speeds that at first decreases its yaw stability. This yaw stability decrease not only makes the aircraft harder to handle but also warns the pilot of the increasing danger of an uncontrollable dive. The nose landing gear is omnidirectional and has additional brakes. While the plane is capable of reaching up to 837 kph near the ground it has good controllability at low speeds thanks to wing slats. It should be noted that the longitudinal center-of-gravity depends on the remaining fuel, ammo and modifications installed very heavily. For instance, if you remove the nose gun armor and two guns, it becomes so tail heavy with full tanks that it is dangerous to fly. Positive characteristics include good roll controls at any flight speed. All in all, the plane is going to be controversial, unusual and very interesting to fly: Next Flying Circus planes, S.E.5a and Albatros D.5a, are completely finished and are being tested at the moment. The new level of visual quality allows us to have a fresh look at the aircraft of the Great War - previously invisible details became apparent, the materials became more lifelike. We hope to be able to show you the first screenshots of the Arras map soon. Meanwhile, we started the work on the next pair of WWI planes we have to develop - Bristol Fighter and Halberstadt CL.II. Bristol Fighter was a general purpose frontline aircraft that served as fighter, light bomber and recon plane while Halberstadt CL.II was a specialized frontline attack aircraft, sometimes also used for recon. But today we can show you the screenshots of S.E.5a and Albatros D.5a: Tank Crew owners will also get much new stuff in this update - our partners from Digital Forms have finished the work on T-34-76 UVZ mod. 1943 and it will also be added to Early Access. There is much info on T-34 available, but some things can be repeated. Fast, maneuverable, with good armor and weapons - sloped angle armor made it only slightly less armored than heavier KV-1s. However, long 75 mm and 88 mm German guns in 1943 were very dangerous and this armor was no longer enough, so this means that T-34 crews need to rely on the main advantages of this tank - speed and mobility - even more. However, the new tank isn't the only addition to Tank Crew you'll get in the next update. We're currently testing the new, more detailed tank damage model. The damage sustained will be indicated on a special overlay toggled by Enter key and in the messages on the left of the screen. The following systems can be damaged: - Engine, - Cooling system (coolant leaks that eventually lead to an engine overheat and damage), - Oil tanks (oil leaks lead to fire danger), - Fuel tanks (fuel leaks also increase the danger of fire, more for gas engines and less for diesel ones), - Transmission and gearbox (longer gear shifting, inability to change the gear, complete transmission failure), - Steering (more difficult turning), - Electric system (inability to start the engine, inability to use powered turret traversing mechanism, internal and external lighting, radio), - The left part of the suspension and left track, - The right part of the suspension and right track, - Radio, - Main turret traverse mechanism, - Manual turret traverse mechanism, - Gun mounting, - Main gun, - Machine guns, - Crew. Of course, this feature is linked to another - the possibility of field repair. It is also being worked on and most of it will be usable for aircraft as well. The crew will be able to repair the tank systems in the field as long as the tank is not completely destroyed. In addition, the mission designer can add special repair and ambulance tracks that accelerate this process both to single and multiplayer missions. Later, during Summer, we plan to add refueling and ammo trucks to replenish the fuel, oil, water and ammo reserves. And today we can show you the screens of the coming T-34-76 UVZ mod. 1943: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, The time flows and the Summer draws near, and we're another step closer to the release dates of our projects. For Bodenplatte, the biggest chunk of work to be done is the map. With first cities, settlements and airfields done, the work continues on placing the rest of them according to historical data. In the code, we have begun the long-awaited work on aircraft AI improvements: for instance, in the next update, we plan to release the improved formation logic. For Career mode, new squadron emblems, military ranks and awards for all three countries will be finished soon. P-38J-25 and Tempest Mk.V FM are in the works, while Me-262A jet fighter-bomber FM should be finished soon. Speaking of visual models, P-51D-15, P-38J-25, Tempest and B-25D are nearing completion and proceeding according to schedule. Of course, the new theatre of war requires new ground vehicle models too. Today we can show you the screenshots of another one - German Sd.Kfz. 7/1 halftrack with 20 mm Flak-Vierling 38 AA gun: For Flying Circus, the development of the Arras map (1918) continues, it will use the new art techniques being developed for 'Bodenplatte'. We should be able to show you the first screenshots of it in Summer, but today we have some new WWI aircraft cockpit screenshots, S.E.5a and Albatros D.Va. As you can see, the work on them is nearly complete and we plan to release them for Flying Circus owners before the end of this Spring: For Tank Crew, the work on enhancing the tank damage modeling is progressing well. Physical tank models now include many systems and their damage while visual models have many new animations and working instruments. The already released systems have their damage modeling improved and we have added simple GUI damage notifications for systems and crewmen. All significant events will be displayed in the 'technochat' (log) on screen. In May-June we plan to implement repairing, refueling and rearming (which later will be also applicable for aircraft). In the next update, we'll release the animated crews for PzKpfw. III Ausf. M and M4A2. Today we can show you the PzKpfw. III Ausf. M crew and PzKpfw. IV Ausf. G interior: And to finalize this Dev Blog we would like to show you the new promotional video for Battle of Stalingrad created by =HH=Pauk. It shows that the development of all of our projects doesn't stop on release date by all means and they are continuously developed and improved. Enjoy: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, As the development continues, we have new stuff to show you today. Let's begin with the Flying Circus project - together with our partners, we're finishing the next two planes: British S.E.5a made by Royal Aircraft Factory made and German Albatros D.Va made by Albatros Flugzeugwerke. S.E.5a combined all the main combat characteristics needed for a victory - speed, firepower and maneuverability. Its 8-cylinder 200 HP V8 Wolseley Viper engine enabled it to go up to 218 kph at the ground level. Its armament of two different machineguns was somewhat original - one forward firing 7.69 mm Vickers and one 7.69 mm magazine fed Lewis installed on a mount that made firing at the targets forward and above possible: Albatros D.Va was a symbol of the first half of WWI and its streamlined profile is easily identifiable. Powered by 6-cylinder 180 HP Mercedes D.IIIa engine and armed with two synchronized 7.92 mm Spandau LMGs 08/15, it had a completely rigid fuselage made of glued wood, which is now much easier to visualize in the sim thanks to the increased quality and complexity of 3D models: For Tank Crew project we're developing the interiors of the next two tanks together with our partners: PzKpfw. IV Ausf. G and T-34 made by UVZ factory at the beginning of 1943. In addition to these new tanks, the next big update will bring numerous additions to the tank system functionality and damage modeling. Today we can show you the renders of the new T-34 interior made by Uralvagonzavod. And finally, the news about our biggest project, Bodenplatte. At the moment, all buildings models for it are completed, including the unique historical ones, and most of them already have modeled damage. The work on the new AI-controlled ground vehicles required for this project has started. Of course, the development of the remaining aircraft is progressing at full speed. Today we can show you a couple of screenshots showing the building damage on the Bodenplatte map: And here's one of the new AI-controlled vehicles - Willys MB off-roader. You can see the increased level of detail we have set up for all new non-player controlled ground vehicles: You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, One week has passed since our previous Dev Diary and we have something new to show you once again. The rate of development is truly fantastic. Today we won't have so much text but will compensate it with WIP screenshots of two 'stars' of our Bodenplatte project. The first star of today's Blog is the British fighter Hawker Tempest Mk.V series 2. These planes played a significant role in the events of January 1st, 1945 - the units managed to take off in time when Luftwaffe attacked the Allied airfields during Bodenplatte operation. Tempests were equipped with some serious firepower - four 20mm Hispano guns - and achieved good speeds at lower altitudes, which was handy for a dogfight near the ground. The second aircraft we want to show you today is USAAF North American P-51D-15 Mustang, the most famous American fighter of WWII that was widely used in different theatres of war. To a degree, its exceptional range and altitude capabilities made the deep bombing raids over Germany possible. Mustangs had good overall maneuverability and climb rate, while their six .50 cal M2 Browning machineguns allowed them to engage any air targets. A Mustang could also carry bombs and rockets, making it a fighter/bomber. It should be noted that while many Mustangs still exist around the world, including airworthy ones, most of them are combinations of different modifications, including post-WWII ones. Therefore we're spending a lot of time researching tech schematics, spare parts catalogs, and similar documents to make sure the final result will be as authentic as possible. And to finish today's blog, here are WIP screenshots of the next Flying Circus plane - Fokker D.VIIF. This Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte late WWI fighter has been equipped with a great engine for its time, BMW D.IIIa, that gave it an advantage over Allied fighters at high altitudes. Coupled with good maneuverability, it made Fokker D.VIIF a very dangerous adversary. You can discuss the news in this thread

Dear friends, The Spring has come and in today's Dev Blog, after some delay, we're returning to our main project - Bodenplatte. This delay in the news has been caused by the fact that during the Winter all the work on this project was made at a deep level - it was hard to make a screenshot of something - but it was a hard work nevertheless. This was known beforehand and planned this way. If you were following us for some time, you may recall that such visible pauses in the development news in the middle of a development cycle happened in all our previous projects and are a result of the effective work and division of labor. But today we finally have some intermediate results to show, and there a lot of them. First, we can disclose more details about the map of the project. Previously we mentioned only its size and location, but today we can tell you more information. There will be more than 200 settlements of various sizes. Air forces of the opposing forces will take off from more than 100 airfields. The total length of all roads will exceed 20000 km. The reachable zone of the map is 129859 square kilometers (400.8 x 324 km) while the entire map is 176947 square km (460.8 x 384 km). The preliminary list of the cities we plan to have ready at the time of release follows: Antwerp The Hauge Liege Frankfurt am Main Dortmund Münster Cologne (Köln) Bonn Gent Rotterdam Charleroi Amsterdam Düsseldorf Aachen Bruxelles Arnhem Duisburg Essen Apeldoorn Maastricht Again, if you have followed our development before, you may notice that the parameters of the new map are breaking the record once again. This is also the first map to be released with all four seasons simultaneously - a hard challenge for the entire team. To be able to complete the project before the set deadline without compromising quality, our Lead Map Artist Evgeny Isaev has found new methods of development and large cities creation. Also, Evgeny has designed artistic approaches that will not simply repeat the visual quality of the previous maps but will also give players a new visual feel that is characteristic for flying over Western Europe. But enough words, it is time to show you something new - on these screenshots you can see the central areas of Bruxelles, Liege, and Köln: But these map development news are not the only ones we have. We can show you the progress we have made on the three coming planes: P-38J-25 heavy fighter, B-25 heavy bomber (AI only), and Me 262 A jet fighter. For the first one of them, P-38J-25, we have used a new approach of creating the exterior and interior 3D models in parallel, not subsequently - at the early stage the model is divided into exterior and interior parts and the coordinates of their seams are stored, then both models are being worked on simultaneously to be connected back at the final step. This aircraft, of course, is unbelievable, what can we say - it's a legend: The B-25 bomber will be AI-only in this project, but we'll try to make its exterior 3D and physical model at the same quality level as our player controllable aircraft. First, this is important for those who will be attacking or defending these planes in the Career mode, campaigns, single scenarios and Coop multiplayer. Second, who knows - perhaps a possibility to make it flyable will reveal itself in the future: The exterior 3D model of Me 262 A "Schwalbe" is completely done, including the official skins. The interior (cockpit) model is almost done (currently the artists are working on its texturing), while our engineers are working on its FM and the physical model of a jet engine. When you look at this legendary aircraft, you can't help but think that it was ahead of its time: To finish today's Dev Blog, we would like to congratulate the beautiful half of humanity on the coming holiday - International Women's Day. Dear girls, be happy! You can discuss the news in this thread

Salute, comrade pilots! For some time, we have not covered the work being done in our aviation workshop, giving the news platform to armored vehicle enthusiasts. But today it is time to return to the planes. And I will tell you what our engineering team is working on now. At this time our software engineers are simultaneously developing three legendary airplanes: the P-51D Mustang, the Fw-190 D-9 Dora and the Me-262 Schwalbe, which is the first jet airplane in the "IL-2: Great Battles" series. Undoubtedly, all these airplanes stand out from the rest of the plane-set in terms of their excellent speed characteristics. And as usual making a virtual copy of a new airplane to our stable brings new challenges and tasks we must perform. For example, the Me-262 is the first aircraft in our project with a swept wing. It would seem that the difference is not very big, but this circumstance required us to refine the aerodynamics calculation technology. The result of this work will be more accurate characteristics of the stability and controllability of the airplane in lateral movement, which sweep has a significant impact. Daniel has already mentioned about a turbojet engine in the previous diaries, and now work on the Jumo-004B model is in full swing. A dynamic model of the turbo-compressor was assembled, and now work is underway on the engine's thrust, heat and fuel-flow characteristics. Virtually each of the above airplanes required us to make improvements in the models of units and on-board equipment. For example, this is a powerful developed wing mechanization, including slats across the whole wingspan of the Schwalbe, a new gunsight that the Dora and the Schwalbe will receive - they will be the first German airplanes in our project with a gyro gunsight. There is also an automated control of radiators and superchargers on the Mustang. I should note that the P-51D and Me-262 have a sensitive center of gravity when heavily loaded with fuel and ordinance. For example, the Mustang had such a small reserve of longitudinal stability with full fuel tanks that the pilot flight manual instructed pilots to avoid aerobatics with full fuel tanks because of the risk of stall and spin. This quirk of the P-51D will be present in our simulator. In addition, two new biplanes for the Flying Circus project have entered the “factory testing” stage. These are the legendary Fokker D7 and Sopwith Dolphin, whose 3D models were revamped by our partner Ugra-Media. This stage involves a large number of in-game tests that we perform before giving the airplanes to beta testers. And for such tests, we use special developer tools that allow us to quickly check various animations, visualization of damage models, operation of instruments and visual effects, such as smoke, fires, dust from under the wheels and others. Today I would like to show you a short video with one of these tests. In this video you can see an in-game test (conducted at a special test base on a distant secret island) where the animation of the landing gear damage was checked. I recorded this video in the fall while working on the implementation of the Sopwith Camel to our project. Often, working on "serious games" we forget that our work is also fun. In this video I just wanted to have some fun with my colleagues, to cheer them up after a period of hard work. So today, my colleagues and I decided that maybe it is a good idea to share this video to you. If it evokes a smile on your face - well, then I recorded it not in vain. If you like it, it may possible that we will show you some more in-game tests that our very serious engineers do: And finally, since we have touched on our Flying Circus project, we would like to show you a series of screenshots from the Arras map which our partners at Ugra-Media are actively working on. In these screenshots you can see the step forward in visualization of the map compared to our previous Great War simulation. Plus, here are the first in-game screenshots of the re-furbished Sopwith Dolphin and Fokker D.VII cockpits which are coming soon: Fly for fun! You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, Before we return to telling about the Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus in our DDs, today we'd like to tell you more about Tank Crew. The most important thing is that we prepare the next big update that will include two new tanks, M4A2 "Sherman" and Panzerkampfwagen III Ausführung M, that were used in Kursk area and the map of the southern part of the Kursk salient made for joint ground and air warfare. But of course, we work not only on the new content. The main areas of the Tank Crew development at this moment are: 1. Improving the damage and armor-projectile interaction model both for the player controlled tanks we're making for Tank Crew and the other objects. Several consequent updates for the sim we released this month contained most part of this work, but this was only a part and we continue. Ricochet modeling will be improved and 'simple', non-player controllable, vehicles will get even more detailed armor (which will be noticeable especially when you attack them from the air). We're beginning the work on the detailed systems of the player controllable tanks (fuel, electric, transmission, cooling, etc.) which will allow for more variable and realistic damage of Tank Crew vehicles. We also plan to make them repairable in the field. 2. Developing and expanding the tank and tank platoon commander functionality. The basic commander functionality is done - a commander can give all the orders we planned for this stage of development in relation to the current position, target, firing, maneuvering and some additional commands that make the playing experience more diverse. A commander will be able to give orders to other players in his tank in multiplayer and to AI crewmen alike. It looks like the commander role will be the most interesting one. 3. Developing AI for crew members. Again, the basic functionality is done and now detailed tanks controlled by AI can follow the orders that can be specified in a mission like the simple AI vehicles always did. This means that detailed tanks can be fully used in a mission scenario. Now we begin the work on implementing the functionality that will make possible for a player to give orders to crewmen of his tank and other tanks in his platoon. We hope to have this functionality mostly done by the end of Spring and release it into Tank Crew Early Access. 4. Developing the scenario campaigns which should carry out the main idea of the project - let you experience not the fictional gladiator-like balanced tank duels, but the tank warfare of July 1943 with its balance of power and technical characteristics of the armored vehicles involved. Moreover, we'll try to show the historical events since the scenarios will be based on the tour of duty of the units that participated in these events. Later we'll tell you more about these scenarios. All this - detailed, true to history tank models including interiors with crews, the historical map with variable detail level, buildings with detailed damage modeling, realistic movement kinematics, improved tank damage modeling, detailed weaponry, all important crew roles, especially the commander one, acting as a part of a tank platoon, history-based and educational scenario campaigns telling about the major event of WWII, ability to control one tank with several people in multiplayer - all this combined should give you the new experience and impression you can't get anywhere else. To make this DD less dry, our studio and our partners Digital Forms prepared several WIP screenshots for you that show what will be released in the next big update: The map of the southern part of the Kursk salient you'll see in the game. The zone containing detailed buildings developed for tank warfare and scenario campaigns in the historical events of Clash of Prokhorovka project is marked inside (106x106 km, the detailed zone is 19х23 km): KV-1S crew: PzKpfw III Ausf.M impact shot demonstrating the improved damage modeling with certain parts detaching: M4A2 "Sherman" interior renders: PzKpfw III Ausf.M interior renders: You can discuss the news in this thread

Good day my friends, part 1 of 4 of a great Interview is released on Stormbirds. Im proud to see the interest in il2 is growing in our community. So let me present you some great new infos about this great Adventure, called Il2. Best regards Martin It’s my great pleasure to introduce a four part series featuring two members of the 1C Game Studios team: Jason Williams and Daniel Tuseev. Jason Williams is President of 777 Studios and Executive Producer at 1C Game Studios and hardly needs introduction to regular readers of this blog. Jason’s one of the driving forces behind the current direction of the IL-2: Great Battles Series and a frequent presence in the community. Daniel Tuseev has been a Project Manager and is currently the Technical Producer at 1C Game Studios and has been involved with the IL-2: Great Battles Series stretching back to the very beginning of the project. This first part of this interview is focused on IL-2: Great Battles in 2019 with questions on everything from hardware and VR to new content and new features for the series. There are three more parts planned on specific topics covering everything from IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte, Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka, and Flying Circus Vol 1. We’re also going to talk about the future of the series so look out for follow up segments coming in the next few weeks! Part one: The IL-2: Great Battles Series in 2019 Let’s start by talking about your history with flight sims. How long have you been involved with flight sims and what were some of your old favourites? Jason Williams: “Oh wow…this could be a long answer, but I’ll try to give a short one. My first exposure to a proper flight-sim was F-15E Strike Fighter at a friend’s house when I was a kid. I think it was on an IBM PC with a monochrome screen. A computer teacher of mine also demonstrated the very first MS Flight Simulator in class one day. That was 7th or 8th grade. Later in the early 90’s my uncle had one of the first Falcon games. Then my family got a 386 PC and I played F-117 Stealth Fighter which I got as a Christmas present. In college I bought my first PC and started playing other sims/games including all the titles in the Jane’s series like ATF, USNF, Longbow, WWII, IAF etc. and anything else that piqued my interest including European Air War. In 1997 I worked as a legislative intern at the state capital building. All the staff was invited to the Governor’s mansion for a big party. They would be hob-knobbing with the Governor and other powerful political people who could give them jobs after graduation. I was like meh… I want to go home and play my sims. After college I played Jane’s USAF and then Falcon 4.0 quite heavily. I also played Flanker a bit, but it didn’t grab me like Falcon did. I remember sitting in a cubicle at a big law firm I worked at in Silicon Valley just day dreaming about going home and playing my sims. Then in 2001 I dove into the original Sturmovik and that was a life changing event for me. My passion for the hobby became an obsession.” Daniel Tuseev: “While my Grandfather was an aerospace engineer in USSR (he have participated in S-75/SA-2 SAM and “Shkval” torpedo development) and I’ve spend many time in talks with him about aviation in times even before school – aviation is my hobby and my love as far as I can remember myself. Flight sims was my first love in gaming from the moment I’ve received my first Sega Mega Drive. My first sims were F-117, LHX, Janes ATF. And always I’d love not only just to play them, but to investigate the sim world, do something unplanned, study how the things works. My first “adult love” in flight-simming was Flanker 1.0. I’ve decided to study for an aviation engineer while I’ve played it. This game have allowed me to start to understand how the combat aviation works. After that, when I’ve started my study in Moscow Aviation Institute, I’ve spend many times in study of aviation in LO:MAC and MSFS. These days were awesome.” The IL-2: Great Battles Series has expanded in scale and scope significantly over the last two years bringing a lot of new ways to play. What are some of the standout new features that you think are drawing new players into the series and at the same time satisfying the veterans of the series? Jason: “I think our move to abandon the original design and go back to the classic formula of QMB, SP and MP content without unlock gimmicks has helped and the addition of great new content like Kuban and other improvements in the graphics department and good VR support. The Career has also been a popular addition. The big survey we did a couple months ago helped to clarify what attracts virtual pilots to our sim. It’s a wide mix of things that bring people in, but we got some useful data. Thanks to all who took it seriously and participated.” Daniel: “I’m sure that the reason is consistent with the fast evolution of the project. We have performed several huge steps forward like switching to X64, moving to DX11, VR support, several major improvements in aeroplane physics and damage model, improvements of landscape model, adding Career, Cooperative and Scenario Campaigns game modes. All this was done so rapidly and with so good result that this have really addicted players attention and interest. Plus huge changes in gaming strategy – moving back from leveling system to classic sim gameplay – it is also have bring many positive from our community.” What kinds of improvements are you hoping to see from PC hardware (GPUs, joysticks, etc.) that might make your job easier? Jason: “Good question. Better VR goggles are on everyone’s list and I’d like to see large monitors with higher refresh rates for a reasonable price. How about a 32, 35 or 43 inch 4K 240hz monitor that is not just a stripped down television? And the video card prices are ridiculously high. There are a few joystick makers that really could benefit from committing to the North American market in a more serious way. All of their supply problems could be solved by now and sales would be enormous relatively speaking. The creativity is there that is for sure, just not the business vision. I have some experience in this department, which I won’t get into, but until they move west in a more serious manner their ability to grow will be limited and supply will continue to be an issue. I don’t want to see Thrustmaster be so dominant in this space forever simply due to supply and logistics issues.” Daniel: “IMO one of the great misses on controllers market is lack of medium-cost reliable joysticks and rudder pedals with force feedback. In previous times there was a great choose of FFB joysticks on the market – now we have too lack of it. Of course it would be great to have 4K VR devices with wide field of view which will allow you to use your peripheral vision. Also, I believe that there will become a time when 6-D moving seat platforms combined with VR will be standardized and will have acceptable cost to be widely used in flight-simming. So as you see – all my dreams are around player sensoring and feedback systems.” VR has become a selling point for serious combat simulators like IL-2. What do you see in the future for VR? Jason: “I predict higher res units, but difficulties with framerates. I hope, hope, hope there are some tricks we can use to boost framerates at higher resolutions.” Daniel: “As I’ve said above – for VR it is very important to have wider field of view which will allow you to full-use of peripheral vision. Also, virtual gloves technology is a great perspective.” Are there areas where you’d like to improve performance or add additional features to VR within IL-2? Jason: “The key to VR nirvana is higher FPS at a higher resolution. How we get there is still a bit unknown. With a custom engine like ours and a small team, solutions take longer to figure out.” Daniel: “I’d like one day to have VR gloves support in IL-2. It is the main one.” The team has been implementing new network related code over the last few patches. Are there plans to keep working on that area? How difficult is it to find and fix some of the issues that players have reported over the years? Jason: “Yes, but it’s difficult. We have a small team as everyone knows and re-writing and improving netcode is pretty complex. Our only option is incremental changes, gather feedback and then tweak more or dump the changes. It’s not ideal, but it’s what we are forced to do. We agree it can be better and we are working slowly, but surely in that direction.” Daniel: “Yes, we will not stop our work on that issue. It is very difficult area for debugging because most of the issues which we have fixed and improved I the recent past are related to situation of high population of game server. This fact has put serious restrictions on variety of methods which you may use for investigation and debug. In these circumstances the statistics and analysis become the main tool of the finding the reasons, this why these issues can’t be improved rapidly and requires time for develop.” The issue of cheating occasionally comes up (and has again recently) in the IL-2 multiplayer community. What is the team doing to try and prevent some of these efforts? What can the community do to help report the few that decide to cheat? Jason: “First, if we see concrete evidence of cheating, we ban the player, which we have done already to some. Second, we have built some experimental tools to try and stop more advanced cheating, but they need more testing. And finally, we have already plugged some exploits that most of the public didn’t even know about. Cheaters are assholes who don’t just stumble upon cheats. They create them and it forces us too divert resources to that instead of building the product you want. And “off the shelf” anti-cheat tools don’t necessarily work in a custom engine like ours. Remember, we have a custom engine built from scratch. I hate this subject with a passion because it’s complete intentionally caused destruction of our product. It’s malicious and wrong. Just play the game fair and square.” Daniel: “While flight sim with complex flight model and 80+ players on one game server can’t be developed in the way of shooter (where all physics, weapons and damage are calculated on game server) – this problem can’t be solved “once and forever”. In this case it always will be a competition of the sword and the shield. And as you know, sword is always is on the step ahead. But in combine with administrative methods we doing good job in moderating such cases. Also, of course we work on methods of cheating detection and cheating prevention – but methods which we’re using can’t be told to outside because this will give new arms to hands of cheaters. So what I can really say – we continue our work on that.” The ‘Havoc over the Kuban’ campaign is the first community created Scripted Campaign sold on the IL-2 store. Are more campaigns like that planned in the future? Jason: “Yes, I hope so, but the quality needs to be there. That can be hard to judge sometimes and Scripted Campaigns take a long time to test and development can take a while. But I have two more that I know will happen, but for now I’m taking a break from greenlighting any more. And don’t forget there are some AWESOME free ones out there posted on our forum. Check them out! Some very talented mission makers in our community.” Daniel: “Of course. The main reason of developing the Scripted Campaign game mode was to open the way for community to develop to distribute their result to players. Also, we are working closely with guys from community who doing really serious job on campaigns development helping them sometimes with advices and sometimes with specific changes in the game.” The U-2VS was the first aircraft developed by a third-party developer. Are there plans to continue with that model in the future? Related question: Is the Li-2 (or C-47/DC-3) still planned? Jason: “Yes, that is correct. The U-2VS was built by our friends at Yugra Media. They have a contract to build the Li-2 and maybe a C-47 if that works out, but we’re a long way from that at the moment. The U-2 was a very intensive process that took more of our own time than we had hoped. I’m still hopeful the Li-2 will happen as planned, but until I know for sure I can’t say more. Yugra is also making our Flying Circus planes and they are still learning how to make them efficiently and with high quality. Making planes from scratch or revising older ones up to our standards is a challenge even for an experienced team like Yugra. But they are making real strides. And don’t forget our tanks are made by DigitalForms and that was an entirely new type of machine to for us to support technically and gameplay wise. Daniel, Mike and Sergey have done a tremendous job making tanks possible along with DigitalForms who are giving it there all. It’s been fun to watch the progress.” Daniel: “Yes it is. We working hard to open our doors for everyone who is capable and interested to create content for IL-2 Great Battles. At the moment we have two studios in collaboration with us, we hope that after time it will be more. So, anyone who interested and capable in this – contact to us, we waiting for you. Of course, it is still requiring some work from our side because control, implementation and physics model development is on our side anyway, but this is means that anyone can be calm about quality and accuracy of the result.” Fans of the series have also wondered about future Collector Planes that continue to add to the Eastern Front experience (the Yak-9/9T, IL-4, Tu-2, I-153, Hs123, Bf110F and others come up frequently), are there any plans to do those or work with a third-party team to build those in the future? Jason: “Probably not third party for any of those. Those would be best built by us due to the subject matter. We do hope to make more collector planes in the future and we still like the Eastern Front. I’d like to see all those planes flying one day. Out of all of those the Yak-9T would be the most likely one.” Daniel: “At the moment only ideas are kicked around, it is too early to say what exactly we or our partners will do next. But yes, some of these planes are inside of the circle of possible variants.” You’ve talked about building an Air (and Ground) Marshal feature for a couple of years. How is the planning for that mode coming along and what are you hoping players will be able to get out of having a feature like that once it’s complete? Jason: “We’re in the initial stages of development now. We’ve agreed to a design and begun optimizations of the GUI which was needed before we start the main building process. The design, if it works, has been improved from my early concept into a really neat system. Our hope is that it will make MP more interesting and increase teamwork as it was in real life. It will be an optional feature for servers if they don’t like it. It could be a game-changer for online wars and all forms of MP if the community takes such a feature seriously and tries to fly like a real coordinated air force.” Daniel: “Marshall mode design is established and it is already in development. It will be a huge gameplay feature, comparable to Career by complexity of development. If everything will be good – this feature will be done before release of Bodenplatte. This feature also requires many GUI based improvements and optimizations, some of them you will see in 3.010 as a “bonus” from Marshall mode development which is still in progress. In result players on populated multiplayer game servers will have a new layer of gameplay and cooperation. First of all – this feature should bring an obvious and dynamically changed vision to each player of what multiplayer mission objectives are and what is the player coalition strategy and current tactical tasks. Also, it should bring a new proximity to immersion of real aerial battle to the players.” You’re currently working with Pat Wilson and his PWCG software to add a co-op career experience for players but you’ve also talked about building the IL-2 Career mode into Co-op as well. Is that a long range goal or something you’re hoping to add in 2019? Jason: “No, it’s a long-range goal for us. Pat is a very smart guy and when he said he could do this in a reasonable time frame I jumped at the chance to have him try and I’m confident he will succeed. For us to do it inside the game will take some serious time and right now we have other goals and things to build for MP. Fingers crossed Pat hits a home run with his implementation. Remember he has been working with his code for years now which is different than how we work. Sometimes, it takes one guy with a singular vision and a lot of time to build something super special. “ Daniel: “It is a long-range goal as Jason has stated. Our engine is designed around a central core and different modes of gameplay all share the same basic architecture, so different features of SP and MP can share things to make such hybrid features possible. It will be mostly a question of lobby and GUI design when we eventually focus on such a feature.” Improving the multiplayer lobby is one of the goals that you’re hoping to tackle this year and you’ve previously said that it won’t be easy. What kinds of features are you hoping to have and how much of a challenge is it to build this in? Jason: “I can’t say right now what the exact shape it will take. Obviously, people want chat and a lobby of some kind. Everyone remembers old Hyperlobby and how that worked. So, something that can make match-making easier, but with features users want. We haven’t sat down to draw a final design yet, but that time is coming soon. We briefly mapped it out over a year ago, but it was just to understand the resources we would need to do it. And yes, everything about MP is difficult. A very tough crowd to please. “ Daniel: “While exact design is in development now, now I can only say what we want to have there. We supposing to have common chat, chat rooms, friends, server pre-start lobby where players will bring together and start server when they will be ready and so on.” The team is going to be very busy building a lot of previously announced content in 2019. Are there any surprises we should be watching out for this year? Jason: “Mmmm… if I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise? Time will tell if there are any surprises. Right now, I don’t know of any… or do I. Hmmmm………” Daniel: “I think you will have some.” Three more parts coming I hope everyone enjoyed reading part one of my interview with Jason Williams and Daniel Tuseev. The next three parts are currently in the works and I hope to be able to share them with you very soon! Original link: https://stormbirds.blog/2019/02/06/part-1-an-interview-with-jason-williams-and-daniel-tuseev-il-2-great-battles-series/?fbclid=IwAR3xdunpO0sDtf0I6iG6DQEOB71I6yU_meKoSGH1aI5_4d-6A86CPFCeMBk

Hello friends, This week was a hard one - we had to let you play during the weekend without problems, so we released another update that continued the work started in 3.010. The majority of the changes are in the GUI and are required for the new Marschal multiplayer mode that is coming this Spring and will concentrate on the interaction with the map. Other important improvements were made for tank weapons and damage calcualtions. We hope that now the basic damage model is adequate and we'll start working on more particular tasks in the tank systems and combat damage department next week. This week we finished the map of the Southern part of the Kursk salient while two next tanks, M4A2 and PzKpfw III Ausf.M, will follow soon. The new tanks and the map will be released into Tank Crew Early Access after beta testing. Today we can show you the first in-game screenshots of them taken near Prokhorovka: You can discuss the news in this thread

Hello everybody, The year has just begun, but we're already preparing the new update for you. Version 3.010 will be focused on improving the functionality of several modules of the sim and some of the changes are long-awaited and important. In the meantime, the work on all the Early Access projects progresses according to the schedule and many new things will be ready shortly after 3.010 release, in Q1 2019. Our map designers are finishing the map of the Southern Kursk salient that includes Prokhorovka. As we announced before, it will utilize the higher detailed landscape wireframe and higher detailed buildings damage. When it is finished, the work on the scenario campaigns for "Clash at Prokhorovka" will begin. The campaigns will recreate the large scale historical events of July 1943 to the South-West of Prokhorovka. Today we can show you several screenshots of this map: We plan to show you the new tanks soon - M4A2 Sherman, Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf.M (to be released at the end of the Winter) and T-34 mod. 1943 and PzKpfw IV Ausf.G (to be released at the beginning of Spring). We also started the implementation of the major feature - animated tank crewmen. This is a very laborious and time-consuming task since each tank has 4-5 crewmen and each one of them has his own unique pose and animations (many can also lean out of their hatches). This forced us to find new technical approaches for character animation that open new prospects not only for the Tank Crew but also other projects: For "Flying Circus" project we're making the map of 100 km front line near Arras (Spring 1918). It will be made using the same techniques we're using for the creation of the large Bodenplatte project map, so it should also be a step forward visually. Here are first in-game screenshots of Sopwith Dolphin and Fokker D.VII which will be ready soon: For our main project, Bodenplatte, we're preparing the next wave of the new aircraft. FMs for P-51D, Fw 190 D-9 and Me 262 A-1/2 are already in the works, while artists create 3D models of Hawker Tempest Mk.V, P-38J-25, P-51D-15, Me 262 A-1/2 and B-25 Mitchell-II (non-playable). Here are some screenshots of Me 262 A-1/2 (its paint schemes and cockpit are nearly ready): You can discuss the news in this thread