I don’t know if anyone finds these posts interesting, just let me know if you’re getting anything out of this or not.
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Yes this rules keep posting
My only real memory from my college flirtations with IL-2 were “cannons are amazing why would anyone ever put machineguns on a plane”
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Cannons are great, the main reason to go not-all-cannons is ammo capacity. It’s hard to carry enough rounds to last a sortie without completely overloading your flight characteristics with the weight.
12.7mm (2x UBS) is a nice compromise on some Soviet fighters of the era, but it’s more usual to see a ShKAS machine gun combined with a ShVAK 20mm cannon.
(The ShKAS uses the classic 7.62x54R round that you would use in e.g. a Mosin-Nagant, see below).
With the ShKAS, you have to be quite precise with the aim but it doesn’t take more than a few well-placed shots to take off someone’s tail control surfaces, at which point they are hard pressed to keep flying.
On armament generally, the other curious thing about Soviet fighters is they very rarely have wing-mounted guns. It means less firepower, but lower wing loading (you can roll faster in a dogfight, since all your weight is in the central axis). The MiG-3 could be equipped with wing-mounted gun pods but Soviet pilots hated the drag. Soviet crews often stripped the wing guns out of lend-lease aircraft.
To wrap up this interlude I direct you to the Yak-9T (for “tank”) which has the ShKAS but also a 37mm (!) cannon with 30 rounds. When it hits it hits.
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Yeah I remember .50 cal guns (rough analogue to those 12.7mm) being finally worth the weight. Rifle calibers are like trying to sneeze on enemy planes
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Here’s a great video showing off the MiG-3 with historical flavor, more of a short film than a gameplay vid. Great musical interlude at 8:50 and things start getting hairy around 25:00. You can see the wing-mounted 12.7mms as well, around 13:00.
I love how the MiG looks like a 60s muscle car with wings and guns, basically.
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well, instead of playing the game, I created this. It’s a map of my current PWCG campaign, MiG3Moscow. The Moscow front as of 3 Oct 1941.
Note particularly the skill disparity in pilots (historically accurate), and the listed historical aces. You can get a sense looking at this map how the Nazi aces scored so many aerial victories: shooting down 17 year olds in outdated planes fresh from training. Nothing would make me happier than to shoot one of these bastards down…
Gerhard Barkhorn (301 victories), Gunther Rall (275), Hermann Graf (212)
Arkady Kovacevic (20)
PWCG is neat in that it creates the opportunity to have these sort of air rivalries. For example by looking at the journal I can see that I downed 3 Ju 87’s from II./StG 2 on the last mission.
I hope this is of some interest, we may come back and refer to this as we progress throughout the campaign.
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Seconding this, I am absolutely loving what you are doing with this game!
I kinda wish i could get a flight stick easily, but i am not getting out too much milage (virtually as literally) of my wheel+racing seat, so i’ll stick to Ace Combat 5,6 and 7 I have on my list of to be cleared/replayed this year.
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Mig3Moscow Masterpost
[IL-2 GB: PWCG]
I’m going to use this post to ‘re-start’ and collect all the various posts I make for this campaign.
The date is October 1941. The situation, for the Soviet Union and the Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily (Soviet Air Force), is bleak. Since the Nazis invaded in the summer, the VVS has lost between 7,500 and 21,000 aircraft, many destroyed on the ground. Frustrated by their inferior aircraft and training, pilots have resorted to ramming the enemy out of the sky.
Now the Wehrmacht continues into Operation Typhoon: a ground-and-air assault on Moscow itself, through the cities of Vyazma and Bryansk. The Soviet people prepare to defend their land. Lenin’s body has been moved out of Moscow in event of its capture. Though depleted by the campaign, the Luftwaffe’s 2nd Air Fleet (Luftlotte 2) brings fighters of technical superiority, with much more experienced pilots. The VVS can only muster 400-odd fighter aircraft. It will take bravery to prevail. There is snow on the horizon.
In the motto of the 27th IAP, Za rodinu! For the Motherland!
Mission Log
Intro & Mission 1 - 1941-10-01
Campaign Map, Oct 1941
Interlude - The First Command
Mission 2 - 1941-10-03
Mission 3, “The High Flying Trio” - 1941-10-04
From here on out, I’m going to use in-flight recording and TacView to hopefully get some diagrams and video clips of gameplay. We’ll see how it goes.
Also, a note about campaign settings: It struck me as odd to come across 4 un-escorted Stukas. I checked the campaign settings and the escort odds were set strangely low - only 40% odds that the Stukas would have escort. On advice of some folks on the Il-2 forums I bumped those settings up to 70-90%, as well as increasing the maximum number of escorts from 2 to 10. We’ll see if this has a major impact on performance, in which case I will drop the settings.In simple config I set Air Density = Low, Ground Density = High (to simulate the forward march of the Wehrmacht), and for Advanced config I highlighted the important settings below.
PWCG can create enough units to make a modern gaming CPU crawl, which means on my little i7-4710HQ I have to use some common sense.
Last we met our heroine Serzhant Natasha Stylova*, 27th IAP, she had heroically shot down three dive-bombers in her first sortie. Life is good for Natasha, until – her next mission.
*- I realize now that “Stylov” is a male patronymic surname instead of a female surname “Stylova”. I can’t change this in the campaign AFAIK, making Natasha extra trans.
(for reasons that will become clear, this section is written as a non-canon interlude)
Natasha prepared to taxi to the runway. It was the duo mission with Szt Golubtsov. She hadn’t flown with him before - then again, she hadn’t flown with most of 27 IAP. The mission seemed simple enough: egress into Nazi airspace in the vicinity of Kamenka, fight anything that fought back, and come home in one piece. She thought it was a bad idea to assign the two least experienced pilots in the squadron to hunt by themselves, but hey, what did she know? She just got here. I’m sure the comrade Major knows what he is doing. She and Szt Golubtsov could provide good cover for the sturmoviki of the 312 ShAP. It would be her first flight command.
But things started to go wrong right away.
She found herself in her MiG-3, looking across at Szt Golubtsov… comrade Golubtsov did not move. She engaged her engine, as if to signal him to do the same. Still motionless.
Engines, comrade! Follow my lead! Follow our mission! The Szt stared back blankly.
He seemed to keep staring, navigation lights lit like a beacon, as she taxied to the runway, took off, and began climbing. She could not lose sight of him motionless on the ground, even as she rose to 5km.She was most of the way to cruising altitude before she realized that she had forgotten to retract her landing gear. Perhaps, like Golubtsov, she too was rooted to the ground.
She was unsure what to do. Should she continue with the mission alone? What would the good Major want? Take off, Yuri! She fired off a green flare, as if he could hear her.
As she approached the turn into sector, below her flashed light off a wing, it seemed to her. Could it be…?
Yes, bombers!
Three?
Friendly? Enemy?She had to know. It seemed suicide, but she nosed down into a straight dive towards them.
She had only ever dreamed of flying a MiG this fast. The airspeed indicator went 500, 550, 600, 650… She realized she had to pull up. She pulled up.
The elevators weren’t responding.
Of course. Control authority was reduced at high airspeeds. Like a dive. She was nearing the dive speed limit of 750 km/h. She shot past the three bombers now, silver like fish. She could not make out their markings still.
The nose was coming up. But not fast enough.
The ground came closer, closer…She awoke with a start, sweating.
War is hell folks! And AI taxiing is broken on certain airfields. I’ll do a re-fly or maybe a regeneration of this mission.
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So after the ignominious crash in the last mission, I wanted to better learn the MiG-3, so as not to cover myself with shame. I looked up some videos… It’s a weird bird, unsuited to the typical low-altitude Eastern Front encounter. You can see why the USSR switched their engine factories to favor Il-2 production instead.[*]
Tips I gathered:
- Unlike the typical VVS “turn fighter” that wants to weave at low altitude and airspeed (LaGGs, Yaks), the MiG-3 game is about retaining high speed and energy state - it’s not a pure energy fighter, but more of one than any contemporaneous Soviet airplane. Try to keep your speed and altitude up, race through the enemy, and try not to get caught in a slow motion weaving dogfight where you bleed energy. That’s because…
- Retaining controllability is key to the MiG. The MiG loses the ability to manipulate its control surfaces when it’s not at its preferred speed, which I’m guessing is in the 350-450 kph range. At 270 kph (speeds more typical of a Yak), the rudder is micro-sensitive and the nose sways all over the place - the airplane is aerodynamically unstable and stalls easily. (I noticed this last mission, cruising at 300kph and 5km up, I was getting blown around by the wind.) The MiG has a high dive speed (600-700), but the faster you go the less your elevator reacts (see crash in previous mission).
- So the clever MiG pilot manipulates her speed in order to maintain her “sweet spot” – making high and wide turns instead of short tight ones, extending flaps to cut speed when diving and be able to pull up, and basically doing everything you can to maintain a load of distance and turning room from the target. It’s a chef’s knife, not a fish knife. You won’t have a ton of time on target so you have to make the best of the tracking shots you get.
- The aircraft will not save you. Contemporaneous Luftwaffe fighters (109s) have better climb rate, better turning ability, often better roll rate, and are certainly easier to use. The MiG’s best quality is surprise - both surprise in attacking an enemy unanticipated, and surprise in getting underestimated. It’s a good aircraft, not a better aircraft. So I have to know when to hold em and when to fold em / get out of Dodge.
I didn’t expect to, but the MiG is growing on me in a way the other VVS fighters haven’t. It’s a hard aircraft to characterize and to understand. I saw someone call it a “disobedient stallion” which seems to sum it up. Sort of like our heroine…
Mission 2 - The Slowdown (1943-10-03)
This is the mission where I realize the limits of my little 2015 laptop. Did I say PWCG could slow it to a crawl? Let’s proceed…
She looked with trepidation at the board. Szt Golubtsov… The dream was still strong in her mind. “Shouldn’t we bring another pilot?” Natasha had heard that other forces flew four-plane formations that seemed militarily superior to the old 3-man ‘Vic’ the VVS flew.
“Nah, you’ll have the 11 and 157 IAPs in sector to help out if things get hairy. Just stick with the Kapitan, he’ll know what to do.” Natasha made a note to ask for the dual-12.7mm machine guns just in case.
We’ve got an intercept mission, meaning we’re going to probably find some bombers with escorts. I’ve been told that bombers are the most CPU-intensive units in the game…
My takeoff is a little sketchy, but straightforward. Once again I find myself skimming the treetops on my way out. This airfield location is really not the best. I struggle to catch up to my flightmates Kulibin and Golubtsov.
Things look pretty nice up here at altitude… but formation flying is a full-time job. Constant adjustments of throttle, mixture, heading, and pitch; not to mention trim.
As we cross the front and come into sector, we hear squadron “Rook” engaging fighters. That’ll be the… well, I don’t remember what aircraft “Rook” flies. (If you don’t mind spoilers, you can scroll back to the campaign map.)
Hold on, there’s some fighting now at my 1 o’clock…
I think that’s a 109 on the left? Hard to make out these targets for the rookie Serzhant.
What is that? Elliptical wings but tail like a 109. The equivalent of WW2 Bigfoot. I keep seeing that shape and I can’t make it out worth a damn.
I keep seeing wing markings that remind me of the RAF roundel. It doesn’t make any sense… is that what the Italian MC.202 looks like? I don’t think so…
The action soon slows to a crawl - literally. The game is running at 45fps but the actual action itself seems to be running at 10% speed. I realize I may have made a mistake with my PWCG settings.
It turns out there’s quite a furball up here – there’s our flight “Guillemot”, “Rook”, “Swift” – that’s all the Allies accounted for – and then there’s definitely some Axis fighters that I can’t quite ID, as well as the bombers we came to intercept. The game may be running at 60 frames per minute but that doesn’t mean we can’t get stuck in as best we can.
(Actually, it’s quite a throwback to playing Combat Flight Simulator as a kid in the late 90s - my PC wasn’t good enough then either.)
I can’t seem to pick up speed no matter what I do. What’s going on?
Wait a minute… I still have my flaps and landing gear down, from takeoff. Whoops. Natasha wipes her brow and hopes no one mistook her MiG for a Stuka.
I get in some good shots but eventually decide this mission is unplayable. Time to RTB. Good luck, Golubtsov! I hear him shout after scoring a victory. Looks like he can fly after all.
I head back home to Sloboda, stopping to admire some fine Russian ground transport along the way.
Wait, where the hell is the aerodrome? I check my map. Yep, says it should be right here… all I see is trees.
Oh hold on… I see there’s a clearing on the other side of the forest. Cool, cool. It’s the fucking Secret Garden of airfields. The Luftwaffe will never find it, and neither will we!
Natasha gets her griping out of the way and finally puts her bird down. Only four bounces on the landing… is that better or worse than last time? As the saying goes, “any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”
Natasha lives to fight another day… and the AAR brings some good news as well.
Way to go Kap! That’s why they pay you the big bucks–
…we all make mistakes now and then.
o7 comrade - and that’s a 27 IAP MiG destroyed as well.
And as for Natashenka… Don’t look a gift medal in the mouth, that’s what I say.
It’s only afterwards I realize “Rook” is the Hawker Hurricanes in 157 IAP. British aircraft tend to have elliptical wings, like Soviet fighters and unlike the squarer wings of the Luftwaffe. This should have helped target identification, but actually ended up confusing me, because I knew it wasn’t Soviet, but it looked Soviet… I also think there was a problem with the custom skins, because Soviet Hurricanes didn’t have British markings - they had the red star like everything else.
All in all, 3,000 Hurricanes were delivered to the USSR via lend-lease. They were used to greatest effect in the Arctic, in the defense of Murmansk; the RAF’s 151 Wing was deployed there to train Soviet pilots on the fighter. Soviet pilots, hated the plane.
‘The aircraft is fine; it’s metal, so it won’t catch fire. You can shoot from it. But instead of manoeuvrability and speed – you’ll have to use your Russian wits!’
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I’ve reduced the game and campaign settings a boatload (720p and reduced AI density), which should improve performance a lot but may make my screenshots less pretty. oh well. this is the 2015 laptop life… daydreaming about a 9600k/3070 build.
You are totally gonna be one of those people who spends $3000 to play one game and I’m so proud
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not really a campaign post but I have been thinking about what aircraft I want my pilot to fly through the course of the war, to give an interesting experience. to switch aircraft I’ll either have to transfer squadrons or take whatever my squadron refits to.
Moscow 1941: MiG-3 (currently)
Stalingrad 1942: Yak-1 ser.69, LaGG-3, or stay on the MiG
Kuban 1943: Yak-7B or P-39
originally I thought Yak for Stalingrad but LaGG-3 would be more in the spirit of the whole underdog thing. I mean they’re all underdogs, but the LaGG is weirder. Underpowered (“an unpleasant customer!”) but with a high roll rate and silly armament. You can fit a 37mm cannon on it, my god.
I mused a little about the Yak-1 as compared to the MiG:
Coming from the MiG, the Yak-1 is an interesting beast - a supremely stable so-called “turn fighter” that maintains controllability at almost all speeds. It won’t outrun or catch up to a MiG (or any German plane), but it will out-turn them all day at low altitude. The danger, though, is that this breeds bad habits in the pilot. Energy Management or Energy Maneuverability (E-M) is the footsies of the air combat world - the fundamental skill is to maintain better actual and potential speed & turn than your opponent. The Yak will lull you into sleep with its deceptively easy turning, engine and radiator management - and you’ll find yourself making pretty little dime-circle-turns above the trees until you suddenly fall out of the sky and realize you’ve been bleeding airspeed until the airplane stalled. Fly the Yak if you want to have a good time, but try switching off with a so-called ‘energy fighter’ to learn what you’re not learning.
I think I’m going to stay away from the collector planes for this run, except maybe the La-5FN. It’s basically the Magikarp-to-Gyrados evolution of the LaGG-3, which Lavochkin made in a hut by an airfield in Winter 1941. Also got some historical interest as some of the best VVS aces flew it.
The P-39 also has historical interest as it was perhaps more beloved by VVS pilots than the USAAF which built it. It also looks kind of dinky. “im baby” (with a 37mm in the nose)
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Mission 3 - The High Flying Trio (1943-10-04)
Szt Natasha having won the Order of the Red Star on her last sortie, I decided to look it up:
The Order of the Red Star was awarded to [Soviet Army, Navy, KGB, NKVD, border security, MVD, etc etc]:
- for personal courage and bravery in battle, for the excellent organization and leadership in combat that contributed to the success of our troops;
- for successful operations of military units and formations which resulted in the enemy suffering considerable casualties or damage;
- for outstanding service in ensuring public safety and the security of the State Border …
- for courage and valour displayed during the performance of military duties, or, in circumstances involving a risk to life;
- for exemplary performance of special command tasks and other outstanding deeds committed in peacetime;
- for great contribution in maintaining the high combat readiness of troops…
[etc etc etc]- for merit in strengthening the defence capabilities of the socialist community.
So basically, given to everybody for everything. They gave out 3.8 million of these so they weren’t too special. That said, only one other pilot in the regiment has one.
Here’s the board before our next mission. Keeping in mind that every mission we fly after mission 1 counts for 3. Like in Madden or NBA 2k, we have to shorten the game clock to make our score make sense, otherwise we’ll end up with 1000 points.
Intercepting bombers, surely escorted, flying out with the LT alone? Uh, Major… I don’t know about this…
If I get the good future Hero of the Soviet Union comrade Arkady Fedorovich killed in action, I’m liable to create some sort of time paradox. Maybe this is what creates the Wolfenstein universe. I don’t think PWCG makes him invincible like Sgt Johnson in Halo 1.
Then again, this could be a never-again chance to network and try to secure my place in the post-Stalin VVS. (thinking)
You can never have enough climb waypoints, I guess. They have us running intercept while the army pushes into Gzhatsk. No other Red squadrons flying, though. Strange. As usual I expect we won’t get to Patrol Waypoint 2 before we find trouble - in this case, German bombers.
This is where I’m going to do a dirty bit of strategery - I know we need more experienced pilots to accompany us. Who better than the regiment commander, Maj Yurakin? (I’m hoping he gets onto his 5th kill - I hear aces get a burst of confidence a.k.a. upgraded AI competency.) Nobody networks like Natasha.
It’ll be a high stakes mission if one of these two goes down.
We’ve also given word to the mechanics to fit the other two with dual ShVAKs.
A total of 72 aircraft mounted a pair of 20 mm ShVAK cannon… A wide variety of armaments were experimented with by various units at the requests of their pilots or to make up shortages.[wiki]
And here… we… go!
Wait, a night mission!? I didn’t sign up for - hold on I guess it’s dawn. Time for another sketchy takeoff over the trees, this time without being able to see the trees.
Nice chance to show off the instrument lighting.
Wind is vicious up here. I’m on 75% left rudder trim and it’s just about holding it steady, but the nose is going back and forth like crazy. Doesn’t help that we’re climbing at 270kph, not an ideal speed for MiG control stability (even if it is the best climb speed).
I didn’t realize how high this mission was taking us. I’ve never been up past 7k. The wind really settled down up here too - scaling back my rudder trim to keep the little ball in the turn/slip indicator centered.
Worth noting that I think the AI climbs on boost power when they really shouldn’t be - but no matter how much I leaned the mixture, I couldn’t avoid spewing this black smoke out the back. Comes with the height. Nearing 8km…
And there’s 8km. Cruising altitude for this flight was right around 8500 meters, 28000 feet. Notice the contrails being left by my flightmates.
Time to patrol. For bombers.
… Not much up here. Daylight starts coming from the east.
"Did you all hear the one about the Yak pilot who got kicked out of the Monopoly game?
… He kept taking extra turns!" Silence.
Wait a minute, that’s a thing isn’t it? Radio silence? Natasha wonders if this networking event is a bust.
And there’s the sun. Time now 6:45am per the cockpit clock, flight time 30 min. And now the game looks proper beautiful.
I finally realize why I can’t catch up with my flightmates - my wheels. Doy…
And with that taken care of, it’s time to do some proper formation flying. While we wait for those bombers.
I think that one’s the money shot.
Suddenly my homies peel off. Where you going, homies?
Wait, that’s all our patrol waypoints done. Time to RTB. I get a kick out of the Major requesting landing approach and flashing lights from 8km up.
I don’t know how they plan on reducing altitude, but for my part I start making big lazy circles down. Where’s the airfield… oh, right under me.
When you’re 8km high, you’re hard pressed to bleed enough speed to land, but I manage it with just a prop strike. No biggie, the mechanics need something to do.
Well, command says there were bombers, even if we didn’t see them. So there you go. Nothing wrong with a peaceful flight and a safe landing. And a new guy.
Sorry for the image overload yall, I just thought this mission was really pretty. I’ll try to exercise restraint the next time.
I took a lot of pictures to show off how pretty it was, but unfortunately the game’s screenshot button captures BMP which means I had to batch convert to JPG. I had to go to some pains to preserve the deep-blue-black of the sky. Lesson learned.
Next time on MiG3Moscow…
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found a nice youtube channel for warbird history - “Military Aviation History”. IL-2 has just one Italian fighter modeled (the MC.202) so I found this video interesting.
(this guy has a pretty detailed video about Luftwaffe war crimes so he seems like one of the good ones, as far as “German guys too into WW2” go)
Sidenote but i didn’t realize so much weird shit happened in Italy post-1943. So the Allies invaded Sicily, the fascist council overthrew Mussolini and signed an armistice with the Allies? but then Germany invaded most of Italy and freed Mussolini? and then created a second fascist state that waged civil war and stuck around until unseated by partisans and Allies in 1945? I dunno why but I don’t really remember learning any of this, I thought Mussolini was just sort of in charge until the end.
I learned this because it turns out the MC.202 was also flown by the Co-Belligerent Air Force (Royalist South Italy) in the Balkans from 1943-45. Two Italian air forces on opposite sides, planned to never fly against one another.
truly baffling to see an Italian P-51D
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Italy fought itself more than the Allies
Italy be Italying
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dcs does ace combat
getting a kick out of this thread. but I gotta say, natasha needs to invest in a sticky note to help with her landing gear problem
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“GEAR UP !” is now included prominently in my takeoff notes
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