I beat it by following some online advice, F-14 with 2x MLAA 1x SAA, and use MLAA for the transports, with the 4 MLAA shots you can take out two transports at a time, just be careful not to get the civilian jets in lock
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do any flight sims nowadays have good story mode? i hear good things about wings over flanders fields?
i finished project wingman finally. holy moly!! intense final boss fight there
my wrists are hurting but i bought Ace Combat 7 as well, and im excited to go back into conquest mode at some point
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hello…
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started a PW mercenary mode playthrough
fuck to mercenary mode holy shit. just scraping by with the F/S-15 just running away, flipping around with AOA module, launching MLAA and running away again
surely there is a better way
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have gone utterly mad and assigned myself the task of creating a flyable IL2 layout… on xbox controller
inspired by some hotas mappings i’ve gone with a Mode Switch button combo (LB+RB to switch between dogfighting and standard flight mode), and within each mode LB is a ‘flight’ modifier key and RB is a ‘fight’ modifier
so e.g.
LS = Roll/Pitch
RS = look around
LB+RS = Move Head / Zoom
[MODE 1] RB+RS = Gunsight Adjust
[MODE 2] LB+LS = Trim Roll/Pitch
i dunno, it’s an interesting challenge and relevant as long as my vkb stick is stuck in transit. it’s a shame this is a niche within a niche, because i think the need to buy a stick is a big impediment to getting started with these games
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I played IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad with my newfangled joystick and SmoothTrack ($10 app that does head tracking using your smartphone). It works pretty smooth albeit I have yet to configure the encoders as axes, which you can do using the VKB software I think.
On to the saga of…
STALINGRAD: VVS 273 IAP
First career mode flying the Yak-1 as part of the VVS 273 IAP (Soviet Air Force 273rd fighter air regiment), based out of the airfield at Srednyaya Akhtuba. It is August 1942 and the Germans are starting a dastardly pincer movement on Stalingrad.
And here’s little old us… the fightin’ 273rd!
My first pilot (a youthful delinquent) was immediately shot down and killed by a Bf109, so instead we play as our hero, comrade Junior Lieutenant Gerasim Zhdanov. Formerly a football poacher, he hopes to poach some Nazi victories over the Volga.
On August 23rd 1942, comrade Zhdanov arrives at the Stalingrad front. On August 24th, he covers himself in glory, receiving an “Aviation Badge” for having (almost) aviated.
8/24/42 –
Lieutenant Zhdanov’s first mission does not go well. He pushes the throttle to maximum, but his Yak-1 (series 69) immediately succumbs to massive engine torque and drags itself stage right off the runway into the grass. Pondering his next move, he decides to shut the engine off and call it a day.
8/25/42 –
Zhdanov’s second outing in the Yak is rather more successful. Slowly throttling up, he remembers to apply strong left rudder to counteract engine torque, and before he knows it his Bos grunniens is soaring southwards, following his flight and the brave Major Borisov, trying his best to match airspeed.
Soon, the 273 encounters a ragtag bunch of Nazi fighters. In the distance, Zhdanov is unable to make out who is who – how do pilots see anything this far away? His flight mates seem to be chasing after some enemies. In the whirlwind of throwing his craft into turns and climbs, he cottons on to one enemy fighter. As the enemy climbs into his gunsights, he lets loose a round – only to notice the red star on the fuselage. He’s damaged a squadmate! Hopefully the small trail of black smoke (indicating an oil fire) is less serious than it looks.
In the confusion, he receives a radio message that the mission objective (bomber intercept) was completed. Zhdanov turns north to return to base, overshoots the airfield by several kilometers, but by turns and careful consultation of a cockpit map is able to guide himself within visual range of Srednaya Akhtuba. Not knowing how to work the cockpit radio, he goes in for approach without informing air control of his landing intentions. Luckily, most of his squadmates have already come in for landing, and his own landing (much to the surprise of all) proceeds as planned. He even taxis off the runway into the grass so no one breaks their plane landing on his head! What a guy.
While comrade Zhdanov flew his Yak like a shopping cart with a busted wheel, his comrades mixed it up with the Luftwaffe. Tuseev and Aleksandrov come in for special recognition, Aleksandrov having downed a Stuka, and both being wounded in action.
More to come…
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a short interlude – i adjusted my SmoothTrack curves using a preset from online (ctrl+f “IL-2 Smooth”) and bumped up some graphics settings. this game is really beautiful when it wants to be! I hopped in an LA-5FN and tooled around carrying out strafing attacks on some innocent trees. It really is so much easier to get a sense of low-altitude flying when you can move your head around. I eventually set her down with a bang in a nice grassy field and popped the canopy for some glamor shots.
anyways where were we…
buckle up kiddos, it’s time for
The Ignominious Life and Glorious Death of Gerasim Zhdanovich
8/26/42: No mission
Another flight of the 273rd has to cover some ground troops today, but Gerasim had the day off to daydream about scoring tap-ins against Spartak.
Wait a minute…
Bombers crossing the front lines means comrade Zhdanov is on the schedule after all. It looks like a medium-length trip to the bottom of the German pincer.
Comrade Zhdanov is once again slow to get into the air, but once up he admires the view of the clouds…
… He still struggles with formation flying.
Upon spotting our bomber targets, the comrade junior lieutenant realizes his vision is quite blurry. Maybe he should get new glasses / increase the graphics resolution. Upon closing, he realizes it’s a pair of Stukas. Lucky for him, they’re slow and bad at evading. He gets on one’s six and… fruitlessly empties his ammo and misses every shot. Maybe he needs more training.
Unless we want to go the battering ram route, it’s time to RTB.
… A prop strike is not the model landing, but that’s what you get when you do a 135 degree turn directly in front of the runway. Zhdanov writes “learn how to approach” on his hand while sitting in the open cockpit.
8/27/42
Zhdanov wakes early. His mission: to cover the river crossing of the 62nd Army deployed west of Stalingrad. It’s a beautiful morning to fly and he almost forgets his goal as he stares directly into the shimmering sun.
Where are we going again? Staring at the scenery, the lieutenant realizes he’s lost track of the rest of Stork flight. By dead reckoning (looking at the little airplane icon on his map) he makes his way to the approximate whereabouts of the river crossing.
Where is everybody? He spends a blinkered few minutes swiveling his head around his canopy while making banking turns above the river.
Oh, that’s them now. Zhdanov thinks he heard something on the radio about Bf109s. By glimpses, he sees two above the river, and a few of his squadmates… but by and by he realizes his squadmates have disappeared. By divine intuition (looking at the blue ‘enemy aircraft’ icon on his map) he realizes there’s a Bf109 on his tail, while his squadmates are bearing southeast, back to base.
Tracers fly by his wing, he panicks, and in attempting to evade at low altitude…
Next time I will try to do some training missions and adjust my joystick sensitivity. Spotting other aircraft in this game is Really Hard.
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I am learning…
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still playing IL-2, multiplayer moreso now, and settling on a key mapping… will post some screenshots later.
this is for the Yak/LA-5, work in progress.
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nothing to report except im improving at IL-2 gunnery with lots of practice in quick mission
using tips from this video. “Aim small miss small” is almost Zen
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Between
Aim small miss small
and
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
There’s definitely a market out there for manbunned new age life advice gun guy that I haven’t seen filled
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I mean that’s just BCT stuff so more the realm of a non extant(AFAIK) advice drill sergeant meme.
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some random screenshots idk if I posted.
I’ve been trying to focus on the Yak but the other day I flew the Il-2 in a very immersive server, ground attack in a full rainstorm and clouds at 600m
got shot up pretty good
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I need to play the real IL-2. I played the PS3 version about ten years ago with the flight stick and hotas thing thrustmaster released for the PS3 and it was pretty great. I’d recommend it as an introductory flight sim. I mostly played with the realistic flight model but I’m not sure if that is as realistic as the PC version’s.
One setting I had to tweak was ammo though. Without infinite ammo I don’t think I would have hit anything before running out. I think I may have enabled a radar as well 
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yeah the trick with saving ammo is really “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” i.e. focus on getting good tracking shots within 400m of the target, as opposed to snapshots or spray n’ pray
i still regularly run out of ammo but i’m improving
if you have a PC joystick, definitely recommend Battle of Stalingrad! can fully recommend the vkb gladiator
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Air to ground I was even worse. There were some forced air to ground missions that I had to turn on the infinite respawns for infinite kamakazi of ground targets until they were all dead. Other than that I felt that I got the basics down on the rest of the game.
This is the one I have for ps3. Works on pc as well:
Not the highest build quality but it was pretty decent.
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Would folks be interested if I started up a Pat Wilson’s Campaign Generator career and wrote up the results? PWCG is a third-party add-on that generates missions and tracks pilots, kills, campaign progress and so on.
PWCG is a career mode. It has been under development since 2009, starting with RoF and then moving to BoS and FC. PWCG offers unrivaled variation in missions for Great Battles series of flight simulators. When you create a PWCG campaign you create a small world where things happen with and without you.
Enemy flights move without being on the map. Years ago I developed the concept of virtual waypoints. This allows AI flights to move along their mission path without spawning. Enemy flights are not just sitting in a spot waiting for you to come to them.
With PWCG every mission is based on ground activity, so every mission is tied to the world. You can feel that. Planes don’t just conveniently appear for you to shoot at. They are doing something. PWCG ground activity includes small battles, large battles with upwards of 50 tanks, trains, transport convoys, river and sea shipping, and more. In the battles one side is really attacking the other. They are not just targets. They are trying to do something.
PWCG tracks every pilot and every airplane. A complex human and aircraft replacement algorithm transitions replacements into a depot and then to squadrons. Delays in replacement are explicitly coded. The result is that temporary shortages are felt.
AI pilots improve over time. This applies to all AI pilots, not just your squadron mates. Losing a good pilot causes him to be replaced with a raw replacement.
There is a world outside of your missions. This is one of the most complex aspects of PWCG. When you submit a combat report the whole world turns. AI pilots not involved in the mission go through simulated activity, so they might score a victory or be killed without being in your mission. When you go on leave the same algorithm is is used to simulate activity while you are gone. The rate of losses has a lot of detail behind it. Some unit types incur greater losses than others. Inexperienced pilots are more likely to be lost than experienced ones. Lots of data goes into this. I have written a simulator that tells me how any pilots are lost over the course of a campaign and compared that with historical results to ensure that it is realistic.
… etc etc, it all seems quite promising from a single player perspective.
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The real Pat Wilson Campaign Generator begins now!
I strike forth with PWCG, the third-party add-on that claims the title of “best WW2 flight sim single-player experience.” Is it? Let’s see…
Here is our dear flight, the 27th IAD out of Sloboda, and our hero Natasha Stylov flying the classic MiG-3 ser.24. (I prefer the version with dual 12.7mm machine guns in the nose)
For whatever reason, there is no “Female voice” option for MiG pilots, which is nice for me since Natasha is canonically a trans woman.
[Natasha can sustain major wounds but is prevented from dying for the course of this career – death flag set to no – but major injuries can necessitate months of injury leave. Realistically, any accident that looks deadly I will just re-fly the mission anyway, so at least I’ll be cheating death more honestly.]
can we appreciate how good the MiG looks in the 27th IAD squadron markings? ZA RODINU – "For the Motherland!"
Our first mission: a quick border incursion to look for trouble and see what we can rustle up. It is October 1941 and we are launching from the Sloboda aerodrome, about 180km southwest of Moscow.
PWCG has created some other Allied missions that will be occurring in the same region as us – a bombing run of Pe-2’s, a Ground Attack by the US-made lend-lease aircraft the P-40E Kittyhawk, and a bomber intercept by the Minions of VVS fighters, the I-16.
Taking off in the MiG freakin sucks. It’s worth remembering that like all World War 2 frontline fighters, this is basically a Rolls Royce engine strapped to a model airplane. The MiG has a deadly combo of intense rightward engine torque and a tailwheel that automatically unlocks when you apply more than 40% rudder (say, left rudder as one might do to compensate for engine torque). As you throttle up and the machine gains speed, you’re constantly riding that line of accidentally letting the tailwheel unlock, doing your best shopping cart impression and setting off an irretrievable ground loop (usually crashing into the nearest hangar or bale of hay).
This isn’t as bad as it could be - other contemporaneous fighters like the LaGG-3 have no way to lock the tailwheel, meaning every takeoff you hold full back on the stick and pray the wheel stays put - but it also isn’t as good as a Yak where you have a simple button called “Lock Tailwheel”.
Engine torque also means as soon as you clear the ground on takeoff, your right wing dips and you’re praying to god you don’t just hit the floor. They say the most dangerous time to be in a MiG-3 is takeoff, and the second most dangerous is landing.
Anyways, my point is, here’s my first successful takeoff, on my second try, doing a sideways-skipping-stone across the runway and barely clearing the trees. It’s common to bounce on landing, but have you ever heard of a pilot bouncing the takeoff?
There’s my flight up ahead. I was generally impressed by how they stuck to the waypoints. It really makes the most of the AI’s skill in flying in formation. I am significantly less skilled at this. I may have done the Jersey Slide sideways right through the middle, nearly hitting my teammates once or twice.
Pretty soon after crossing the front, we spotted some bogeys… are those… yep, fixed landing gear, they’re Stukas. 4 of them in formation, returning from a bombing run without escort… tsk tsk. My teammates go in for a couple of ineffectual strafing runs. I however, prefer to take it slow and steady. Closer, closer…
The reason you don’t fly in tight formation while getting attacked – I strafe each Stuka in turn, doing critical damage to 3 of them. #3 goes up in a ball of fire which was quite nice to see – didn’t get a screenshot sadly. The dual 12.7mms do work.
One nice thing about this campaign generator is, my AI teammates attacked the wounded Stukas quite intelligently and savagely. MiGs on wounded Ju87s is like… I dunno, some predator-prey metaphor. Anyways I expended all my ammo and eventually had to RTB. Meanwhile ground AA (“ack-ack”) shoots at my teammates.
Here’s the Sloboda aerodrome… basically a big round field with theoretically some runways in the middle. I wasn’t quite sure what to aim for when landing so I did my best.
As always I bounced the landing, but really the approach speed is half the work. I’ve learned that as long as you do your best to emulate a classic 4-leg landing pattern, you’ll have ample opportunity to get your speed down and your angle correct.
Time for the After Action Report… Oh yeah I have to claim my victories. Ehhh I’m gonna claim all of them.
Only three kills awarded, whoops. last one must have slinked off. can’t get anything past those bean counters at the airfield.
gasp a medal, for me!? (I think this is maybe just my default ‘pilot’s wings,’ nothing special.)
Until next time…
Some other odds and ends… from the campaign generator you can get intel on the other units virtually ‘stationed’ in the area. I’m determined to kill those bastards in Jagdgruppe 51…
And you can even see the supplies of each service in the area - how many planes of each type. My understanding is that the “emergency resupply” button restocks everyone just in case the skies are running low of targets.
The last thing is a mission log of some sort – the other missions that were in the area, and whether or not you encountered them. You can see the Stuka mission I intercept, although I’m not sure about the others. I noticed a train going by below me, so maybe ground targets will feature more heavily in future.
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