A20 in BOBP

[TP_Tufty]

Is there a option to fly the A20 in single player career on the new BOBP maps?
I cant seem to get the option?

thanks.

Edited November 12, 2019 by TP_Tufty

[LukeFF]

No, there is not.

[TP_Tufty]

OK, thanks LukeFF.

Shame.

Patrick Wilson to the rescue again!

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by TP_Tufty

[BlackSix]

These planes have no British machine-guns and bombs. We believe that we can use them as AI aircraft since we really need additional bombers but we don't want to give them under the control of a player in this state. If a lot of complaints will be received, then perhaps the A-20 as well as our early Bf 109 G-6 will simply be removed from the BoBP career.

[Missionbug]

I think many hoped the A-20 would be available to fly in the BOBP career, there is nothing allied side as yet we can fly of this type and I for one could live with Russian weapons, call it reverse lend lease.

 

Seems odd that they did not use American or British arms in Russia, were they replaced before delivery or built from the outset to be fitted out after delivery?

 

Is there any possibility of the development team providing British/American guns and bombs for the A-20 at any time please for use on the Rhineland map?

 

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Missionbug

[BlackSix]

13 minutes ago, Missionbug said:

Is there any possibility of the development team providing British/American guns and bombs for the A-20 at any time please for use on the Rhineland map?

No, I already asked this question. And we didn't write the stories for these units.

[TP_Tufty]

Thanks for the info BlackSix.

There’s still lots to explore in the BOBP world career wise ?

[busdriver]

@Gambit21 will have a project (after completing his Thunderbolt campaign) using the A-20 in a night intruder role. The idea at present is single mission (like his immensely fun, endless U-2 mission) that has lots of randomness built in, making it a new experience each time you fly. The historical background is the 422nd NFS based at Florennes, Belgium was equipped with 7 war weary A-20s (cast off from squadrons transitioning to the A-26) in late October 1944 to supplement their lack of additional/attrition replacement P-61s. The 422nd crews had previously trained on A-20s. They became operational the first week of November 1944. These A-20s flew night intruder missions during the Battle of the Bulge into the new year. What is unclear from the available sources, is the exact model of A-20s they were given. There are contemporaneous pictures of glass nosed J & K models in black paint used for night intruders.

 

The sim currently has a glass nosed A-20...paint it black...viola...a stand in A-20 operating historically single ship from Florennes as a night intruder over the Rhineland. One of the workarounds will be not using the bomb bay because opening the doors turns on the tail light. So @TP_Tufty there is a project on the horizon. I'm really looking forward to it.

 

 

[Brano]

A20B's in VVS service (from BoK) have original equipment manufcaturer guns = american. There was no rational reason to dismantle perfectly functional weapons and replace them with smtg else. They can't carry american or british bombs, as their bomb bays were equipped with bombracks for domestic bombs. What they could carry was british naval mines.

[Missionbug]

Okay guys, thank you very much for the feedback, really appreciated.

 

Seems a shame not to use what is already there but if it is too difficult or time consuming to adapt or use the A-20 as is then I guess we are where we are unfortunately, as a single player who does not do online I would have thought it could be player choice to use it or not though as it does not/should not really bother other users.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Missionbug

[Brano]

For me, I wouldn't care much about having "soviet" A-20B in SP campaign in BoBP. Bombs are bombs. They do the same BADABOOM no matter which country they come from ?

[Gambit21]

If you guys like night missions, like the A-20, like the idea of a mission environment that if you have the time, lasts all night long, are going to like this little project.

 

Fly patrol/recon over the Bulge, locate a target and bomb the snot out of the Germans, come back and re-arm, do it again while your AI squadron-mates are doing the same on their own. Feel like penetrating all the way to an airfield near Bonn and risking night fighters? Go for it - one of the AI A-20’s is doing the same thing - you fly in on his wing if you want or go by yourself.

 

Should be something you guys haven’t experienced before in GB.

[cardboard_killer]

Well, we could simply point our head trackers to the instrument panel, and pretend it's too dark to see outside.. .

 

Just kidding!

[Missionbug]

The mission sounds very interesting Gambit21, for me though much too long, lucky if I can fly for a hour these days and that with the help of the auto stabilizer, I've become old and infirm already.

 

The A-20 though does need love and to be used so any missions in the European theater will be welcome, so go for it.

 

The type essentially flew right from the start of the war, first in French hands and then with the RAF and USAF et al taking the war across the Channel and carried on through WWII until late on so for a mission/campaign builder there should be plenty of material available to produce some thing special.

 

I tried to fly your A-20 campaign again once the bugs had been removed first time around, unfortunately the CTD issue reared its ugly head again during the harbour attack, third/fourth mission in I think so it looks like I am destined never to fly that one right through so anything else would be most welcome especially in Europe, such a lovely map.

 

Take care.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Gambit21]

24 minutes ago, Missionbug said:

The mission sounds very interesting Gambit21, for me though much too long, lucky if I can fly for a hour these days and that with the help of the auto stabilizer, I've become old and infirm already.

 

The A-20 though does need love and to be used so any missions in the European theater will be welcome, so go for it.

 

 

@Missionbug   Pete - you don’t have to fly for hours/multiple sorties...you can fly 1 and quit if you want.

 

Do you have a crash dump from the A-20 campaign that you can send me?

Edited November 12, 2019 by Gambit21

[Missionbug]

Hello Gambit21, these days the shorter the mission the better for me I think so it is good to know this will not entail very long flights unless you feel up to it.

 

The CTD was a few weeks ago now so more than likely anything on that is long gone as I have tried a few different missions since, the JM U-2 mission was the last CTD I had but even that will most likely be history now never to be recovered unless I fly it again, once tried so many times hoping that after after each update things would be alright I just give up and move on.

 

Maybe a delete and reinstall of the game might help but there is nothing more annoying than going through that only to find things still give issues, I do not have the will anymore, once I would have hunted down problems and sorted it, just cannot be bothered anymore sorry to say.

 

Take care.

 

 

Wishing you all the best, Pete.

[busdriver]

2 hours ago, Missionbug said:

The mission sounds very interesting Gambit21, for me though much too long, lucky if I can fly for a hour these days and that with the help of the auto stabilizer...

 

If you take a quick look at the map, Florennes is only 20 km from the closest German advance on Christmas 1944. Bastogne is only 80 km. If the mission is set to December 24th, you wouldn't need to fly for hours.

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by busdriver

[Gambit21]

Yep...that's some good fun right there.

@busdriver - crap, I think the AI A-20's open their bay doors even when dropping just external bombs. I need to double check that.

Not a huge deal, but we'd rather not look and see some dummy's lights on 14 clicks away as he's supposedly sneakily bombing Krauts.

[busdriver]

1 minute ago, Gambit21 said:

Yep...that's some good fun right there.

@busdriver - crap, I think the AI A-20's open their bay doors even when dropping just external bombs. I need to double check that.

Not a huge deal, but we'd rather not look and see some dummy's lights on 14 clicks away as he's supposedly sneakily bombing Krauts.

 

Perhaps one of the guys that does Mods can figure out a mod to disable the tail light (or change it to black). Thinking outside the container.

[Missionbug]

Okay busdriver, I am in, the beauty of this particular series is that most of the time you are close to the front, who needs large formations that take hours to climb up high and then half your life time to go there and back, if you get back that is and do not have to start again.

 

Twenty minutes there and back is long enough, even I can manage that, especially if you have had a few beers.

 

This lights on thing is strange, why would a combat aircraft light itself up before releasing the bombs, is that a bug?

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Missionbug

[Gambit21]

3 minutes ago, Missionbug said:

Okay busdriver, I am in, the beauty of this particular series is that most of the time you are close to the front, who needs large formations that take hours to climb up high and then half your life time to go there and back, if you get back that is and do not have to start again.

 

Twenty minutes there and back is long enough, even I can manage that, especially if you have had a few beers.

 

This lights on thing is strange, why would a combat aircraft light itself up before releasing the bombs, is that a bug?

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

 

It might not, I need to verify.

Please get me that crash dump if you can.

[busdriver]

4 hours ago, Missionbug said:

This lights on thing is strange, why would a combat aircraft light itself up before releasing the bombs, is that a bug?

 

Not a bug. The light should illuminate briefly when bombs are "pickled." I am unaware of the ability in the sim to turn down the light intensity, thus my desire to have a mod to disable it (as if turning the intensity all the way down). This reference is from an A model manual. We have a B model in game.

 

 

In game there are two lights back there. A white light when the bomb bay doors open, and the red pickle light. If you don't open the bomb bay doors you still get the red pickle light. In MP the white light is like a homing beacon (visible for miles in daytime conditions).

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by busdriver

[Missionbug]

Thank you very much for that busdriver, really appreciated, just shows the amount of detail these guys add to the sim, I learn something new all the time.

 

It makes sense in many ways as it avoided any problems as it was clear to all what was happening as the bombs were dropped, however, no matter how brief

it was it must have looked like the sky lit up to anyone in the vicinity and made the flights vulnerable, look at navigation lights as aircraft pass in the night

sky, clearly visible from a long way.

 

You would think some kind of audible tone in the headset would have been better with lead activating a signal for all.

 

Maybe for MP the development team could have things adjusted for you guys somehow, make a report and see what happens, if they are aware it is a issue they

might do something.

 

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Missionbug

[Missionbug]

20 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Please get me that crash dump if you can.

 

 

I tried last night to replay the mission but the site was failing to update, I realised today why, another fix patch.

 

Anyway, sorry I digress, played the mission tonight and all was well this time around, fortunately/unfortunately depending on your view.

 

The mission was 0.3, Northwest of Anapa, the crash last time happened while attacking the two ships in the harbour, tried the same thing this time but managed to complete the mission, not sure where that leaves us, did the last few patches fix things or could the way I flew it have set of different triggers this time?

 

I only ever delved into the mission editor once and that was in R.O.F. I made a take off, circuit and landing mission, that was as far as I got, it made my head hurt, so unfortunately I do not know how much of events in the mission are pilot related or not, maybe I had a mod activated last time that caused a issue.

 

Next time I have a CTD in any mission I will try to remember to save it that way it saves any problems later, sorry for the trouble.

 

Hopefully I can continue on with playing the whole campaign again without any further incident.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Lusekofte]

I personally can not understand why we could not make the A 20 we have into a English version Boston. 
there should not be a bigger issue than changing the mg on the defensive side. 
I guess it is not as simple as I think, but it should be far eadier than making new turrets

[Gambit21]

Sometimes you just need to use what you have, suspend disbelief a little, and not get all the dither about a missing detail.

 

Thus 9th AF A-20’s are coming to BobP soon (ish)

[sevenless]

On 11/12/2019 at 9:46 AM, TP_Tufty said:

Is there a option to fly the A20 in single player career on the new BOBP maps?
I cant seem to get the option?

thanks.

 

You need a mod for that. Someone has to integrate the A20 in a P47 or P38 squadron. Then you can use the plane in SP career. At present all bomber squadrons (B-25 and A20) are AI squadrons.

[LizLemon]

The A-20 is already using US M-2s. Swappin ghte bombs out is easy enough.

[ShamrockOneFive]

On 11/12/2019 at 4:10 AM, BlackSix said:

These planes have no British machine-guns and bombs. We believe that we can use them as AI aircraft since we really need additional bombers but we don't want to give them under the control of a player in this state. If a lot of complaints will be received, then perhaps the A-20 as well as our early Bf 109 G-6 will simply be removed from the BoBP career.

 

I like having them in for extra variety in Career mode so I do hope they stay. Also the RAF skin, though a simple thing, has been quite nice to have added to the mix.

 

Not single player but recently I flew with a large mixed formation and all of us flying A-20's had the RAF skin on. It looked awesome!

 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

PWCG lets you fly A20s for the Americans in BOBP.

[sevenless]

29 minutes ago, PatrickAWlson said:

PWCG lets you fly A20s for the Americans in BOBP.

 

They should hire you to drive the SP careers. Seriously, you are doing a top job with PWCG. My pals and I can´t appreciate it enough!

[Hoss]

You can also fly them on the Rhineland map with SYN_Vander's mission generator too I believe............. I can't get away from the dang P-38 long enough to look...

 

Hoss