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Dear Friends, Today is a big day. IL-2 Sturmovik team is glad to report that after almost three years of development Battle of Normandy is out of Early Access and is officially released - 5.001 update is out! «You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.» Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. The official release also means that in addition to Battle of Normandy Premium Edition in our webstore there’s now Standard Edition without two Collector Planes - German jet bomber Arado Ar 234 and British fighter Spitfire Mk.XIV (they can be bought individually). On Steam the new module and its accompanying Collector Planes will appear in the coming weeks - please stay tuned while we work out the details. As usual, Battle of Normandy owners who have linked IL-2 and Steam accounts can access all the new content in the Steam version already. These years weren’t easy, but they were very interesting. During the development we have created many new technologies and approaches, did a lot of historical research, implemented new solutions. The last aircraft for Battle of Normandy were released in Early Access in August and today we add the last pieces - the map of the Northern France and Southern England, Pilot Career mode, Quick Mission Builder and Advanced Quick Mission Generator support for the new map. We have told about the Career mode and the new map in our recent Dev Blogs, but must point out again that they set the new record in terms of the work involved. New mission types, new airfield types, new airfields appearing on the map after D-Day - bringing their total amount to 100 airfields with historically accurate layouts! New objects created specially for the module - ships, ground vehicles, buildings, coastal defenses, V-1 buzzbombs and their launch positions, dozens of new aircraft paint schemes, etc. Battle of Normandy contains 10 player controllable aircraft (8 in the Standard Edition): - Hawker Typhoon Mk.Ib – British fighter/bomber, - North American P-51B-5 Mustang – American long range fighter, - Republic P-47D-22 Thunderbolt – American fighter/bomber, - Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6 Late – late version of the German fighter, - Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A-6 Würger - German fighter, - De Havilland Mosquito F.B. Mk.VI ser.2 – British twin engine fighter-bomber, - Messerschmitt Me 410 A-1 Hornisse – German twin engine fighter-bomber, - Junkers Ju 88 C-6 – German twin engine heavy fighter, - Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XIV – British fighter (Collector Plane included in the Premium Edition), - Arado Ar 234 B-2 Blitz – German twin engine jet bomber and recon aircraft (Collector Plane included in the Premium Edition). Each aircraft includes a slew of historically correct modifications - unlike other games where each modification would be counted as a separate aircraft model, in Great Battles you can freely select and combine them. For instance, Me-410 A-1 mentioned above has modifications that, when selected, make it a whole model lineup: 1. Me-410 A-1/U2, 2. Me-410 A-1/U4, 3. Me-410 B, 4. Me-410 B-2, 5. Me-410 B-2/U1, 6. Me-410 B-2/U2, 7. Me-410 B-2/U4, 8. Me-410 B-2/U4 field mod with four MG 151 guns. In addition to the all above, update 5.001 contains the results of the big work on the damage model improvements which are of course are applicable to all the modules as usual - as you can see in the long list below, it required many changes in various parts of the sim. The testing and tuning of these changes by beta-testers from the community took a lot of time. We think this is the big step forward for Great Battles series and hope you’ll enjoy it. There are many other fixes and improvements - for instance, the mission loading time has been reduced dramatically, several times less on some PC configurations! The pilot and tank crew AI got better, etc.: Main Features 1. All Battle of Normandy owners have access to Northern France and Southern England map in two variations (before and after the D-Day). As usual, in multiplayer mode the map can be accessed by all Great Battles players. 2. All Battle of Normandy owners have access to the mid-1944 Career mode (3 countries, 5 phases, 17 frontline states, 225 historical squadrons, 103 of them joinable by the player, many new mission types). 3. All Battle of Normandy owners have access to QMB and AQMG game modes on the new map for a quick action, also with many new mission types. 4. Numerous new aircraft paint schemes added, including different invasion stripes for various time periods of 1944. 5. PzKpfw IV Ausf.H. tank added (AI controlled). 6. Flakpanzer IV «Möbelwagen» SPAA added (AI controlled). 7. Gleaves-class destroyer added (AI controlled). 8. The loading speed of all missions on all Great Battles maps has been improved significantly. Damage Model Improvements 9. Aircraft DM: RHA equivalent of the aircraft skin has been reduced nearly three times to the previous (wrong) values. 10. Aircraft DM: an issue that made aircraft skin damage too severe for larger bombers and some fighters has been fixed. 11. Aircraft DM: like the previously released change for larger caliber ammo, now all projectiles in the game loose integrity and stability after penetrating a significant armor thickness which affects their remaining ability to penetrate armor. 12. Aircraft DM: the relative speed of the target is correctly accounted for projectile penetrations calculations. 13. Aircraft DM: AP bullets and shells make slightly bigger holes in the airframe and aircraft skin. 14. Aircraft DM: powerful HE rounds explosions cause more damage to the airframe, aircraft skin and components. 15. Aircraft DM: small HE bullets cause less damage to aircraft skin. 16. Aircraft DM: it is now possible to damage radiators and fuel tanks when firing 7.62-7.92 rounds from more than 350 m distance. 17. Aircraft DM: bullets are less likely to ricochet from aircraft skin at low angles. 18. Aircraft DM: Bf 109 radiator collision model has been improved (previously its wrong shape could cause most smaller caliber bullets to ricochet when fired directly from behind). 19. Aircraft DM: the loss of the bullets energy hitting Bf 109 F-4 engine has been corrected. 20. Aircraft DM: an issue that caused bullets hitting Spitfire Mk.XIV MGs and guns to not lose energy has been fixed. 21. Aircraft DM: engine fire probability from bullet hits has been somewhat increased for WWI-era piston engines and jet engines. 22. Aircraft DM: engine fire probability from bullet hits has been reduced for WWII-era piston engines. 23. Aircraft DM: fuel tank fire probability from bullet hits has been reduced. 24. Aircraft DM: fuel tank fire and explosion probability from HE ammo hits has been reduced, now it depends on the HE power more. 25. Aircraft DM: it’s now harder to put out the fires by side-slip movement. 26. Aircraft DM: the several years old ‘crew health cheat’ (they required four point-blank 7.62 bullets in the torso or two in the head to be killed) has been removed. Now their ability to sustain damage is much more close to reality. 27. Crew DM: a random error that could cause a death from mild G-loads has been found and fixed, thus improving survivability rate during emergency landings. 28. Ballistics: ricochet tendency has been reduced somewhat. 29. Right wing MGs on P-51B can be correctly damaged. 30. P-51B and D fighters wings (middle-upper parts) can be correctly damaged. Me 410 Improvements 31. Me 410A-1: weapon panel placards corrected for WB 151 and MG 131 modifications. 32. Me 410A-1: missing rods from bomb doors to the forward window added. 33. Me 410 A-1: speed and timer gauges in the pilot’s cockpit corrected. 34. Me 410 A-1: altitude and speed gauges in the gunner’s cockpit corrected. 35. Me 410 A-1: bomb holders for 250 kg bombs and for SB 1000/410 look corrected. 36. Me 410 A-1: radiator fenders indicators light up when the cockpit light is turned on. 37. Me 410 A-1: the rear landing gear state affects air drag. 38. Me 410 A-1: technochat message warning about the gun overheating restored for the gunner. 39. Me 410 A-1: now the gunner can use the entire horizontal range of the guns for aiming. 40. Me-410 A-1: radiators can be correctly damaged by AP projectiles, resulting in coolant leaks. 41. Me 410A-1 intercept missions added to AQMG game mode. Tank Crew Improvements 42. M4A2, KV-1s, Pz.IV.G, Pz.V.D, Pz.VI.H1 hatches close when the turret blocks them. 43. The damage of the gun barrels base on Pz.III, Pz.IV and Pz.VI is calculated correctly when it is hit by fragments. 44. In multiplayer a guest gunner (who connected to someone else tank) won’t constantly hear the turret turning mechanism noise. 45. In multiplayer a tank owner won’t hear the gun or MG reloading sound when another player connected to his tank to the gunner or MG gunner station. 46. In multiplayer turning aircraft or tank turrets controlled by another player emit correct turning sounds. AI Improvements 47. AI controlled bombers keep formation a bit better during climb. 48. AI pilots will attempt to return to base in the event of an oil or coolant leak. 49. Me 410 pilots will correctly drop bombs in a deep dive. 50. Mosquito, Ju 88 C6 and Me 410 pilots will correctly drop underwing bombs. 51. Twin and 4x guns in AI controlled vehicles won’t judder during aiming. Other Improvements 52. Dropping an 1650 pounds bomb from Handley Page O/400 bomber won’t display an error. 53. A visual artifact in front of the right engine of Handley Page O/400 bomber has been removed. 54. An issue that caused guns and MGs to ‘float’ above certain breastwork has been fixed. 55. ‘No jamming’ difficulty option works correctly for aircraft turrets. 56. Me 410 is correctly counted in stats. 57. Visual bomb explosion effects has been corrected for cases when a bomb ricochets and goes off above the ground. 58. Proximity and CheckZone triggers in missions won’t erroneously count non-spawned and inactive objects. 59. External camera works correctly after flying beyond the map borders. 60. An issue that could lower the muzzle speed of an overheated MG before causing additional scattering of the fired bullets has been fixed. 61. Both P-47 have their idle engine RPM corrected (it was a bit too high potentially causing moving with brakes applied.

Dear Friends, Autumn has arrived in Moscow and Las Vegas and even thought the air temperature is dropping, our work pace is heating up fast. Work on our new cloud tech continues and is making rapid progress. We will make many different “cloud patterns” over time as we mentioned previously, but right now we are trying to create some quality cloud designs that we can put into Beta testing and fulfill the minimum designs needed to get you up and flying with them sooner rather than later. Please enjoy these screenshots and prepare to get lost in them! Work on the forthcoming P-51B continues and I really wanted to show you a shot of the cockpit with textures, but they aren’t quite ready for public viewing yet. But rest assured that the P-51B work is going hot and heavy. I am “encouraging” Mike as much as possible to get her done. So, we can’t show you the P-51B cockpit at the moment, but how about some shots of the Mosquito instead! As you can see, it’s taking shape and looking nice! Like our other British birds this one also has a busy cockpit that when finished will be nothing but Royal Air Force awesomeness! Testing on the new AQMG is progressing well and it should be released in our next update as mentioned last week. The Breguet 14 is also entering its final stages of tweaking before release as well. Work on the next update overall is going quite well so we expect a smooth release of 4.605 this month as planned. There has also been some good news with some research endeavors Jason has working on. If all goes well It may bring a new warbird to our skies. One that many of you have asked for. Stay tuned for more on that. And as mentioned by Jason in his recent Briefing Room post we have two Collector Tanks being worked on by our friends at DigitalForms and we will announce those very soon. Enjoy! The Sturmovik Team

Dear friends, Today we'll continue to show you the progress of the aircraft currently in development. The hero of the day is two-seater this time, twin-engine fighter/bomber De Havilland Mosquito F.B.Mk.VI Series II we're making for Battle of Normandy. This famous and popular WWII British RAF plane had an unusual and distinct look (well, the same can be said about most British aircraft). But it's interesting not only because of its appearance - it reached high speeds in its class despite being partly wooden. Moreover, it kept its high-speed capability even when carrying bombs thanks to the internal bomb bay. 2000 pounds of bombs, four 20mm guns and four 7.69mm MGs the Mosquito carried made him a dangerous adversary for the enemy. In our sim, there will be additional weapon modifications available - eight RP-3 unguided rockets and 57mm anti-tank gun (!). Here are the first 3D renders of this bird of prey at its current development stage: The recently announced player controllable mobile AA guns are also showing good progress. Along with the work on their visual models, we're improving the realistic physics model of the wheeled ground vehicles movement even more. And don't forget about their crews as well:

I just found out about the Sea Mosquito, a carrier capable Mosquito variant, while search for some info on WWII twin engine aircraft earlier today. I found this blog post "The de Havilland Sea Mosquito" that talks about it. I did not see it in the downloads section and a search of the forum for "Sea Mosquito" turned up nothing. I was wondering if the Mosquito team would be interested in creating the de Havilland Sea Mosquito? Below is a quote of a segment of the blog post linked above.

Beating up the enemy after dark, in Prangster's Mosquito campaign for IL-2! To adapt the 'Redneck's' line in the movie 'Outpost', you can say what you like about Hermann Goering, but he had style...and a perhaps characteristically brutal but effective way with words. Of all the pithy statements attributed to 'der Dicke', as the rotund Reichsmarschall was unceremoniously nicknamed, one I like best concerns his opinion of the 'Wooden Wonder' - the justly-famous DeHavilland DH98 Mosquito. Of this superlative aeroplane, Goering is said to have remarked: 'In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I'm going to buy a British radio set - then at least I'll own something that has always worked.' It's said (eg in Crowood's Me262 history) that - far from having been forced into development as a bomber by Hitlerian ineptitude - the famous German jet fighter was heavily marketed by Willy Messerschmitt as a multi-role plane from the outset. And that this was partly in an effort to cash in on widespread German recognition of the Mosquito's success as a very fast warplane which excelled at many roles: fighter, night bomber, precision day bomber, fighter bomber, night fighter, anti-shipping, reconnaisance. Whatever Messerschmitt's motivation, the Mosquito is one of those aircraft which, as the saying goes, looked right and was right. It also sounds pretty good: A little while back, my plan to feature comparative Mosquito mission reports in a few different sims didn't get beyond CFS2 add-on 'Mosquito Squadron' when my graphics card failed. Restored by heating it to re-flow possible failed soldered connections, I can pick that up now. So it's time for 'Mosquito Squadron' again; this time not the CFS2 add-on but Prangster's mini-campaign of that name, available for IL-2 over at that peerless resource for all things Sturmovik, Mission4Today: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=1172 I was especially interested in flying the included Amiens Prison raid in IL-2, by way of comparison with the CFS2 equivalent. But that will come later. This report is on the first mission in Prangster's campaign. Intriguingly, this is for a night intruder mission, which I knew Mossies flew in 1944 around the time of the Normandy landings. Some of these operations are described by participants, in Osprey/del Prado's 'Mosquitos of World War 2', a good basic source. One of the units flying these missions in 1944 was the Royal New Zealand Air Force's 487 Squadron, squadron code 'EG', assigned to the RAF's 140 Wing, No. 2 Group, in the famous Second Tactical Air Force (2nd TAF). And this is the very squadron featured in this campaign! Go, Kiwis! Night intruder missions were a new departure for me. I knew they had earlier been flown by black-painted Hurricanes and Bostons, stooging around in the dark, low over enemy-occupied France and basically shooting up anything that looked like it needed shooting up. Now, I was going to attempt this in a Mosquito...a virtual one of course but the darkness would be real enough. So with the room light turned off and illumination provided from a light outside filtering through a partly-open door - the better to be able to make out detail on a dark screen yet see a little of my keyboard - I braced myself for a new simualtion experience. Here's the mission brief. I have to say that it is short but exceptionally good. Mission objectives and important parameters are clearly stated and appended to this is some immersive, realistic extra, military-looking stuff, starting with a met report from the meterolo...meteriolo...you know, those weathermen chappies. From what I remember, this is the original IL-2 Normandy 'map', which I think came with the Aces Expansion Pack or thereabouts. No South of England provided. So I'm taking off from a small island where no land should be, out in the English Channel and quite close to the French coast. But I for one much prefer this to an air start. And the island is a reasonable substitute for Thorney Island on the southern coast of England further north, at which Mossies were really based at this time. Though it's February 1944 and D-Day is still four months away, knowing what's coming I can read off from the map and savour all those names about to become famous on The Longest Day...Pointe du Hoc, Ouistreham, Courselles-sur-Mer and all the rest. In short, on this sortie I must fly west at low level and orbit at the enemy airfield near Valognes, knocking down any Gerries silly or unfortunate enough to be caught in the circuit there. Then I fly south for a bit, clobbering all and sundry ground transport as I go. If I can see any. It being dark, this doesn't seem very likely. How on earth will I manage? I have no idea. But there's one way to find out... I started the mission. Here I am in the cockpit...and in the dark. At least it's a moonlit night. When you're out and about in the countryside, away from the city lights and relying on just the Mark 1 Eyeball suitably dark-adapted, you appreciate the massive difference between visibility on a moonlit night, compared to a truly dark, overcast one. This was bad, but it wasn't impossible. At least I could see my immediate surroundings and most important of all, a horizon. So I had at least a sporting chance of getting airborne...and maybe even staying there. So far, so good. Switching to the external view, I had a look around. Against the lighter sky to the west, I could at least see my own aircraft, on its own as this is a solo mission. Our little island base seemed quite well-appointed and the flarepath was nicely illuminated for my takeoff. Feeling a little less uncomfortable, I called up the 'mini-map' and oriented myself. Sad to say, I completely forgot about using my own cockpit, navigation or landing lights. Not enough training in night flying, was my excuse. What are they thinking, throwing people like me to the lions, on operations like this, that we're completely untrained for? Feeling still slightly peeved, I started humming to myself that old airman's refrain...all together, now: 'I didn't want to join the Air Force I didn't want my b*****ks shot away I'd rather hang around Piccadilly Underground Living off the earnings of a high-born lady.' Not much hope of that now...maybe later, if I make it back and that transfer to a training unit comes through. Oh well, nothing else for it, but back to the night's business. I started up, checked my controls, set flaps two notches down and opened the throttle. Very slowly. This seemed to have the desired effect in minimising swing. Keeping well between the rows of lights either side of the long runway, I lifted off and climbed away. Early days yet but so far, still so good. Maybe I'd do alright at this night intruder lark, after all. ...to be continued!

Defending the Reich...with a difference! This mission report is designed to showcase another IL-2 Reich Defence campaign: this time FlatSpinMan's 'Luftwaffe Pilot - Defence of the Reich 1943', available over at Mission4Today, here: http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=3856 As the campaign description says, "Fly as Willi Jedermann as he attempts to save the Fatherland from the murderous waves of Allied bombers. Over 20 missions flying for JG1 and JG 11 in their titanic struggle against the Allied behemoths. Get a taste of the spectacle, excitement and terror of the most massive aerial combats in history." I was so pleased with the experience afforded by Boelcke's similarly-themed campaign that I thought I'd try a second one. This report is the result. As to the significance of the title - and no prizes for spotting that it was the closing line from that memorable 1960s air war movie, '633 Squadron' - well, the connection will become apparent, very shortly! The first mission in the campaign came as a bit of a surprise. As you can see from the 'blurb' above, the campaign was billed as flying with Jagdgeschwader 1 and Jagdgeschwader 11 (the latter being spun off from JG1 to bolster defences in northern Germany and the Baltic coast area) so I was rather surprised to find my first mission involved flying for JG5 'Eismeer'. That unit's traditional stomping ground, as its name suggests, was Scandinavia. I neglected to take a screenshot of the briefing but the mission seemed to involve a transit flight, with myself and my wingman flying off to join my new unit. The map in question looked to be of Finland's Baltic coast [edit - I checked and it's actually Norway's west coast, which is fine]. My mount was a Bf109G2 and following the instructions in the briefing, I had selected a JG5 skin, which came with the skin pack which the campaign's download page recommends you install as well as the campaign. That's me, in Yellow 4. Evidently my pilot had previously served with the Kondor Legion in the Spanish Civil War; at least, I assume that's the reason for the small Spanish Nationalist air force insignia, on my fuselage to the rear of the cross. The badge on the cowling is, of course, JG5's. It's a nice skin, with 74+75 upper surfaces and 76 below, and the fuselage sides mottled in 02 and 70 - textbook stuff, and the wing camouflage pattern is also a common factory standard for the time. Nice job. ...and yes, the mission was an air start. Most of this campaign's missions are, apparently. Personally, I prefer to start 'on the deck' but with IL2 not having a magic 'warp' or 'go to next encounter' facility, I can understand why the designer decided to spare us the long climb to altitude with which your average Reichs Defence sortie would otherwise have started. In my previous, somewhat sporadic flying with IL-2, I never got out of the habit of flying with the map screen set to display my course and icons for other planes, including enemies. I generally prefer to minimise my reliance on such things. But given the IL-2 on-screen 'kneeboard' map is quite small and covers a limited field (even zoomed well out) I'm inclined not to baulk at using it both for navigation and to identify foes. I don't use the equivalent facility in First Eagles or Rise of Flight, for example, but in WW2, with fighters commonly flying with the assistance of ground-based controllers using radar and other aids, I consider the IL-2 map with icons on is a reasonable supplement to the sim's ground controller, who when asked, seems only able to give you an enemy force's bearing, not its course, composition or most importantly, height - European Air War was much better in that regard. Anyway, I was understandably curious to find out whether or not my transit flight was going to be uneventful. So I turned on the map...and there they were! But what were they? And what were they up to? One way to find out...I slammed the throttle forward, turned onto an intercept course, and started gaining some height. ...to be continued!