Ideas for scripted campaign storylines: post yours here...

[heinkill]

A good scripted campaign can take months to make, and the process has to start with the right storyline. Historically based or alternate reality, first or third person, the rookie pilot taking his first training flight, or the hardened veteran transferred from the Battle of Britain to the Eastern Front...

 

Use this thread to try and point the devs in the direction of the campaign you would want to see!

 

(And don't post here if you are expecting royalties - if you want money for your idea, I suggest you get an agent and write to Jason direct!)

 

Cheers

 

Heinkill

[heinkill]

I'll start. This one is a little offbeat, just one I've always wanted to see.

 

White Lilly: a campaign based on the heroics of Lilya Litvyak

 

 

Background: Litvyak was a legendary Russian fighter pilot and ace who scored anywhere between 11 and 13 kills in 66 combat missions from Sept 1942 when she joined the 437 IAP at Stalingrad and August 1 1943 when she was shot down. Yes, I know that stretches the planned timelines for this sim,  but the map and aircraft set should be fine.

 

I'm sure not all my details below are accurate as there are conflicting historical references.

 

As most simmers are male, this campaign may have to be written from the point of view of her regimental commanders, Major M.S. Khovostnikov of the 437 IAP and Lev Shestakov of the 9th Guards vIAP and Nikolai Baranov of the 296 IAP. Algternatively, as Litvyak often flew with male wingmen or as wingman to male pilots, the story could be written from their POV.

 

Essential events for the plot:

 

- First combat flight, July 1942, Saratov, LaGG 3

 

- Transfer flight to Verkhnaia Akhtuba airfield, on the east bank of the Volga river, landing under attack.

 

- First 2 kills 13 September, one of the first women fighter pilots to shoot down an enemy fighter.

 

(From her wiki page: Her first kill was a Ju 88 which fell in flames from the sky after several bursts.

Then she shot a Bf 109 G-2 "Gustav" off the tail of her squadron commander, Raisa Beliaeva.^[17][18] The Bf 109 was piloted by a decorated pilot from the 4th Air Fleet commanded by General Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (a distant relative of the Red Baron)^[16] the 11-victory ace, three-time recipient of the Iron Cross,^[1] Staff Sergeant Erwin Maier of the 2nd Staffel ofJagdgeschwader 53. Maier parachuted from his aircraft, was captured by Soviet troops, and asked to see the Russian ace who had outflown him. When he was taken to stand in front of Litvyak, he thought he was being made the butt of a Soviet joke. It was not until Litvyak described each move of the dogfight to him in perfect detail that he knew he had been beaten by a woman pilot.^[19])

 

^{- 27 Sept Ju88 kill} 

 

^{- Transfer to 9th Guards vIAP  and her famous Number 32 Yak 1}

 

- Jan 43 Transfer to 296 IAP (later the 73 GvIAP, Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment) of Nikolai Baranov, of the 8th Air Army

 

- Feb 43 Awarded Red Star, promoted to Junior Lieutenant

 

- Selected in an elite group of pilots allowed to conduct okhotniki missions - free hunt

 

- Twice forced to land due to battle damage

 

- March 22 wounded in attack by 6 Yak 1s on staffel of Ju88s after downing a 109.

 

- While in 73 GvIAP flies as wingman to  Kapitan Alexei Frolovich Solomatin, with whom she falls in love

 

- May 21 during a training flight with a new flyer, Solomatin is killed in front of the whole regiment

 

- Litvyak now volunteers for constant combat missions, attacks heavily defended observation balloon May 43

 

- June 13, 1943, Litvyak was appointed flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron within 73rd GvIAP

 

- July 16, Litvyak and 6 Yaks enounter 30 bombers and 6 escort. Shoots down 1 bomber, belly lands, and wounded

 

- 19 and 21 July two more 109 kills

 

- Last mission 1 August 1943, IL2 escort mission jumped by a pair of 109s, and shot down by either Feldwebel Hans-J???

Edited December 18, 2012 by heinkill

[bolox]

Well the 'obvious' luftwaffe campaign would be JG3's role at Pitomik (imho)

 

from wikipedia...

 

When Russian forces encircled Stalingrad, the Geschwaderstab/JG 3 was transferred to Morozovskaya-????

[FlatSpinMan]

Funny - I was going to start a topic about this today myself. It should be handy for the Devs or indeed anyone thinking to make rheir own (if that becomes an option).

[FlatSpinMan]

Impressive person, wasn't she? As for POV, if I can imagine I'm a German WW1 pilot or a Japanese kamikaze pilot then I'm sure putting myself into a heroine's shoes shouldn't be too hard.

[csThor]

To further what Bolox said:

 

It was 6./StG 2 - or at least part of it - that operated from Pitomnik as "Stuka Sonderstaffel" until January 17 1943. For a static campaign, however, StG 77 would be better as it was not as drastically affected by the soviet attacks as for example II./StG 1 and II./StG 2 (which both were scattered by soviet tanks and had to be rebuilt).

[GustavEicken]

Wow she is pretty impressive. I would love to fly a campaign about her.

Edited December 19, 2012 by Eicken

[Juri_JS]

At the moment I am working on a historical mission pack for Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik for Il-2 Sturmovik 1946, which I had already started before BoS was announced. I am trying to make it as historical accurate as possible and it will be based on mission reports I found in the literature and the data in the official victory claim and loss lists of JG 3.
If the mission editor allows it, I will try to redo it in BoS.

 

 

@csThor

Do you know where I can find more information about the "Stuka Sonderstaffel"?

[csThor]

Unfortunately no ... I've only found references to its existence but not more.

[heinkill]

They might not be popular with the Russian public, but a campaign or campaigns based on the three JG3 'Centurians' could also work.

 

- Hauptmann Wolf Dietrich Wilcke: 118 kills out of Geschwaderstab's total of 189. Became acting Kommodore, Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, retired from active combat August 1942

- Oberleutnant Victor Bauer: Staffel kapitan 9/JG3, Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, 102 kills by July 1942, transferred to a training unit, survived the war.

- Hauptmann Kurt Br???

[csThor]

The issue with the german aces is that the concentration of these veterans largely happened before October 1942. The chosen timeframe seriously limits the operations possible - hence my initial surprise that the latter phase was to be depicted in BoS and not the timeframe from late July on.

[Juri_JS]

Another problem is that we will have no German airfields outside the Stalingrad pocket on the map that is planned for BoS after December 1942. Morozovskaya and Tatsinskaya were lost in late December during Operation Little Saturn. After December missions were flown from airfields outside the area of the BoS map, for example Novocherkassk, Salsk or Sverovo. This will further limit the number of possible campaigns.

[Eagle1291]

I personally would like to see an IL-2 campaign as well as maybe a German attack or bomber pilot since there are very few people who will build those types of missions from a community stand point.  I also like the White Lily idea but I personally think it would be best to represent one of her friends in the mission (not her boyfriend) and have him somewhat in her squadron slowly working up the ranks himself if there is a historical pilot that fits that part.

[Juri_JS]

Because of the map and the time periode planned for BoS, my suggestion would be a campaign based on the experiences of Kurt Ebener from 4./JG 3. He is one of the less well known German aces (57 victory claims in total), but he was the only pilot who fought for a whole month in Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik between 16 December 1942 and 15 January 1943. During this time he scored more than 30 victories. One of the reasons why Ebener volunteered for the Platzschutzstaffel was that his older brother commanded an anti-tank company inside the Stalingrad pocket and was fatally wounded on 10 January 1943, this would certainly make a dramatic background story.  
Moreover Ebener wrote a combat diary during this time, which would be a good source for creating the missions. His notes were never published, but I have seen parts quoted by other authors, so I guess it might be possible to get them somewhere.

http://www.luftwaffe.cz/ebener.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Ebener

Edited December 28, 2012 by Juri_JS

[heinkill]

OK, had a new idea.

 

How about a storyline inspired by the Enemy at the Gates scenario - instead of two snipers facing off against each other you have two aces.

 

If you are flying for the VVS, it is a Russian pilot who becomes an ace throughout the campaign...as he builds his score, there are newspaper articles about him,

 

 

...but he also sees newspaper articles from the German luftwaffe magazine Der Adler about an ace on the other side who is also racking up the kills. They both fight in parallel, but do not meet face to face...finally the Russian ace is told by his command to send a challenge to the German ace and meet him in face to face combat.

 

In the final mission, he sends the challenge, the German accepts and...well it could go a lot of ways: German ambush, 1-1 duel, Russian ambush etc

 

If you are flying from the German side there would need to be a different twist so that it was not exactly the same - perhaps as an ace you could be competing internally against other Luftwaffe Aces, ranking your kills against theirs, but also getting reports from the Russian armed forces propaganda about a new ace on their side...then finally you get the same challenge, to bring down the new Russian ace.

 

H

[Juri_JS]

I have released the historical Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik mission pack I mentioned above. Maybe it can be a small inspiration for the developers. The discussion thread is here:
http://forum.il2sturmovik.net/topic/422-platzschutzstaffel-pitomnik-mission-pack-for-il-2-sturmovik-1946/

I did a lot of research while building the missions. If the BoS developers need any information concerning Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik, they can contact me.

[[CV]Biggs]

Did Hans Ulrich Rudel fly during the Stalingrad campaign?  If so, maybe some missions involving him.

[csThor]

Given Rudel's political views I'd rather not depict his career.