Official Historical Campaign "Ice Ring"

[BlackSix]

Historical Campaign "Ice Ring"

 

 

This new historical campaign is dedicated to the Soviet ground attack aviation regiments during one of the most intense episodes of the Battle of Stalingrad in December 1942. During this time-frame, Soviet command had to simultaneously solve several problems: disrupt enemy airborne re-supply operations, contain 284,000 German and Romanian troops who have been encircled, and repel a very dangerous counter-strike by the German 4th Panzer Army from the area of Kotelnikovo (Operation "Winter Storm").

You are expected to search and destroy German transport planes in the air, to strike at airfields and troops inside the cauldron, and to conduct reconnaissance along the Stalingrad front. At the final stage of the campaign you will take part in the hardest battles on the Myshkova River, which determined the outcome of the entire German counter-offensive and sealed the fate of the German army trapped near Stalingrad.

Time frame: November 29th - December 25th, 1942
Unit: 505th ShAP 226th ShAD
Available aircraft: IL-2 AM-38 (model 1942)
Duration: 15 missions
Average playtime: 7 hours
Author: Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov

This campaign requires IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad.

 

Buy this campaign on our webstore.

 

 

   

  

  

  

 

Player review by ShamrockOneFive

[40plus]

Very very much looking forward to this campaign! 

[busdriver]

@BlackSix hit a home run with this project. You will not be disappointed. I failed to record it, but I had the most satisfying air-to-air victory against a Ju-52. A long range shot from his dead six o'clock wrecked his flight controls causing it to pull up into continuous loops. The crew bailed out at the top, the Ju-52 impacted after its third loop. It was AWESOME!

[Tigre91]

Worth my money.

 

thanks!

[S10JlAbraxis]

I normally prefer fighter campaigns but have to say this is really well done and a lot of fun!  Highly recommended!

[sevenless]

Great stuff. It really shows what this game is all about. Close air support and tactical missions. Highly recommended!

 

Now we need a Fw-190 F3/G3, a 190 F8/G8 and a Henschel 129 campaign next ? and with BoN´s planned Typhoon of course some Falaise gap action.

 

I still think it is a pitty that the TC-Prokhorovka map isn´t used for CAS careers (Ju 87 G1) and campaigns so far. Maybe in the future... 

[Lusekofte]

Flew a couple of Icering missions. 
wonderful. I look forward to tomorrow flying next one

[Motherbrain]

[Tigre91]

Evolving weather is really amazing. 

 

I have just played 4 missions but I am loving it.  I didn't expect an il2 destroying ju-52,  and mission routes are better than longer ones in Sea Dragons. 

[Lusekofte]

3 hours ago, LF_Tigre91 said:

Evolving weather is really amazing. 

 

I have just played 4 missions but I am loving it.  I didn't expect an il2 destroying ju-52,  and mission routes are better than longer ones in Sea Dragons. 

Quite fun. I hit them with rockets. And flying between clouds looking for them was wonderful expirience. Beautiful. 
I would actually prefer longer routes in bad weather. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by 216th_LuseKofte

[jollyjack]

I bought Ice Ring pre-ordered, the key appears to be activated, but it's not installed on my PC with the 4.008 update download.

Edited July 9, 2020 by jollyjack

[BlackSix]

10 hours ago, jollyjack said:

I bought Ice Ring pre-ordered, the key appears to be activated, but it's not installed on my PC with the 4.008 update download.

Please, contact to our support

 https://il2sturmovik.com/support/

[Zeev]

Hi,

Just played 2 missions and I have enjoyed them.
 

I have a feedback, was not sure if I should post it here or in bugs forum.
In the first mission, it took me a while to turn the plane and taxi it to runway.

After aprox. 5 min the waypoint changed from takeoff to landing.
When I took off, it said "Takeoff successful" and proceeded the waypoints as should be.
In the mission area, the waypoint switched to red and I attacked and destroyed the plane with most of the vehicles, but the mission stayed "attack" and did not switch to the next waypoint.
So I stayed few more minutes shooting the same targets to ensure they are "dead", but they were already "dead" for a long time so I took the chance and got back home.
Only after I landed there was a text "mission successful".
Not a critical issue but it can be tweaked to be a better experiance.

Anyway, from the first two missions, good campaign.

[BlackSix]

28 minutes ago, Zeev said:

Hi,

Just played 2 missions and I have enjoyed them.
 

I have a feedback, was not sure if I should post it here or in bugs forum.
In the first mission, it took me a while to turn the plane and taxi it to runway.

After aprox. 5 min the waypoint changed from takeoff to landing.
When I took off, it said "Takeoff successful" and proceeded the waypoints as should be.
In the mission area, the waypoint switched to red and I attacked and destroyed the plane with most of the vehicles, but the mission stayed "attack" and did not switch to the next waypoint.
So I stayed few more minutes shooting the same targets to ensure they are "dead", but they were already "dead" for a long time so I took the chance and got back home.
Only after I landed there was a text "mission successful".
Not a critical issue but it can be tweaked to be a better experiance.

Anyway, from the first two missions, good campaign.

Yes, I understood this situation. The logic of the mission is not designed for how long you remained at the airfield. 5 minutes after the mission start and the take-off of the player, the airfield switches to landing if the player is nearby. When you took off, 5 minutes have already passed and you received a command to land. After that everything in your flight worked a little differently than it should.

I’ll rebuild the logic a bit so that this does not happen anymore, thanks.

[BlackSix]

A large-scale campaign review by @ShamrockOneFive

https://stormbirds.blog/2020/07/10/ice-ring-scripted-campaign-for-il-2-offers-plenty-of-variety/

[dburne]

55 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

A large-scale campaign review by @ShamrockOneFive

https://stormbirds.blog/2020/07/10/ice-ring-scripted-campaign-for-il-2-offers-plenty-of-variety/

 

 

Great review!

[Missionbug]

Shamrock always provides a very good review of whatever he is writing about so this is another superb effort on his part for what I have always found to be a excellent series of campaigns from BlackSix.

 

I have difficulty using my hands and arms for any length of time these days so his campaigns give me the opportunity to actually put a little time into the game as mission length is reasonable, besides the short flights involved scripted campaigns always were my favoured way of using both the old and new IL-2 series of simulations so for me the in house campaigns are always a must buy, I have never been disappointed so far.

 

Managed to make a start on this latest addition last night, flew the first two missions at various times during the night and enjoyed getting back into my favoured mud mover.

 

 

Thank you very much for your work BlackSix , really appreciated.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

 

 

[BlackSix]

54 minutes ago, Missionbug said:

I have difficulty using my hands and arms for any length of time these days so his campaigns give me the opportunity to actually put a little time into the game as mission length is reasonable, besides the short flights involved scripted campaigns always were my favoured way of using both the old and new IL-2 series of simulations so for me the in house campaigns are always a must buy, I have never been disappointed so far.

 

Managed to make a start on this latest addition last night, flew the first two missions at various times during the night and enjoyed getting back into my favoured mud mover.

 

 

Thank you very much for your work BlackSix , really appreciated.

 

Take care and be safe.

 

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

Thanks! I also prefer short routes and a lot of action and try to be guided by this rule when creating missions.

[Zeev]

5 hours ago, BlackSix said:

Yes, I understood this situation. The logic of the mission is not designed for how long you remained at the airfield. 5 minutes after the mission start and the take-off of the player, the airfield switches to landing if the player is nearby. When you took off, 5 minutes have already passed and you received a command to land. After that everything in your flight worked a little differently than it should.

I’ll rebuild the logic a bit so that this does not happen anymore, thanks.

Thanks ?

[jollyjack]

On 7/9/2020 at 10:38 PM, BlackSix said:

Please, contact to our support

 https://il2sturmovik.com/support/

 

Thanks for the campaign, i just found it, after deleting the update folder it was there after launcher boot, but it's not in the campaign folder.

In which GTP file is it hidden?

No time yet to try now, building a game PC for someone, and as always this takes more time than expected.

[Rjel]

Saving the campaigns for later this year. So little to do once fall turns to winter. Looking forward to experiencing the fruits of the author's hard labors.

[LukeFF]

I just finished up this campaign this past weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. All of the missions really make it feel like a war is going on around you - the airfields are filled with a rich variety of parked planes and vehicles, planes are coming and going on various missions, vehicle convoys can be seen on the roads, tracers from ground fire crisscross the front lines, etc. Flying ground attack missions has always been my favorite thing to do in flight sims, and this campaign does a great job with that - plus, getting to fly transport intercept missions is a really neat change of pace.

[unlikely_spider]

2 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

I just finished up this campaign this past weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it. All of the missions really make it feel like a war is going on around you - the airfields are filled with a rich variety of parked planes and vehicles, planes are coming and going on various missions, vehicle convoys can be seen on the roads, tracers from ground fire crisscross the front lines, etc. Flying ground attack missions has always been my favorite thing to do in flight sims, and this campaign does a great job with that - plus, getting to fly transport intercept missions is a really neat change of pace.

Agreed - there was so much going on around the area. This campaign really felt like being in the infamous pocket battles around Stalingrad during that horrible time. I don't fly the IL-2 much but was completely engrossed in this campaign.

[Guest deleted@134347]

Just got the campaign today and flew my first mission.  After playing IL2 for some 1,500 odd hours on MP servers and suffering from the continuous "when will I get bounced?" anxiety I finally decided to try out the campaign on the ultimate hardcore: no techno chat, no markers,  nothing. 

Man. 

This campaign brings out the much necessary change of pace and outstanding immersion in VR.

Flying at dusk,  in the snowfall,  under a 400m cloud cover,  looking for the downed ju52 while using nothing but the flight map,  heading,  advised speed and the clock,  it almost feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. And it feels freaking awesome because I'm not alone. I'm surrounded by the ground troops gun fire, the menacing AA from the nearby artillery and the enemy airfield, a passing column of trucks and all other little details planted at the scene.

 

Great campaign.  Great new way to play this awesome game!  Thank you,  guys! 

[jollyjack]

Ice Ring, well made  and i enjoyed the first 4 so far. I practiced strafing quite a bit it in the past, and latter seems hardly possible since 4.000.

What remains is Ju52 turkey shooting, got 14 in one mission. (I found a way to unlock the game-start weapon choices a little bit, but i won't expose this as some protected campaign makers might not appreciate that.)

 

Things as direct spot-on rocket hits show no damage to a ground target like a moving vehicle column or a tank. Though bombs work OK in alike situations.

With Sea Dragons IL2 rockets are quite effective against ships however, even against Nazi u-boats.

 

Is there something amiss with the damage model regarding strafing especially? It worked quite better in older game versions it seems.

 

I understand that campaign builders want to keep their tricks and inventions for themselves, as it must be a lot of work to test and try out a campaign generally.

But in this case i would have liked to edit at least the player plane's capabilities,  or tryout an i16, a Yak1, 9T, or a Mig3 instead in this mission set for strafing, alas not possible.

 

But if you like a good IL2 campaign Ice Ring is a good one, Sea Dragons too; both won't take hours before any action starts.

I like Kuban Havoc too, but it sometimes takes a quite bit of flying time before there's action, i still have to find the time finish it.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by jollyjack

[BlackSix]

Thanks a lot for your feedback guys!

I'll do my best to keep and enhance this battlefield atmosphere in the upcoming Fw 190 ground-attack campaign.

 

20 minutes ago, jollyjack said:

Things as direct spot-on rocket hits show no damage to a ground target like a moving vehicle column or a tank. Though bombs work OK in alike situations.

With Sea Dragons IL2 rockets are quite effective against ships however, even against Nazi u-boats.

Is there something amiss with the damage model regarding strafing especially? It worked quite better in older game versions it seems.

Campaign creators cannot influence these parameters, this applies to the entire game as a whole, not a specific campaign, and it is advisable to discuss this elsewhere.

[jollyjack]

I'll support you by buying it, in hopes strafing is 'easier' by then.

Now with Tigers and Shermans in TC: who's going to make a bank robbing scenario?  Complete with the speaker and mediafiles?

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by jollyjack

[busdriver]

7 hours ago, jollyjack said:

Things as direct spot-on rocket hits show no damage to a ground target like a moving vehicle column or a tank.

 

I do not have the same experience. A direct hit with a rocket works against moving convoys of trucks/half-tracks. It appears the lethal radius of the warhead against soft sided vehicles is very small...tiny...as in it must be a direct hit.

 

As they say in the business (any business)...a professional doesn't blame his tools.

[[LeLv34]Lykurgos88]

This campaign is practically so essential, that it should have been included with the original IL2: Battle of Stalingrad release. Might have helped with the original reviews.

 

Still, better late than never. I liked that the player has a chance to try out both a tail gunner option and heavier 132 mm rockets during the later missions of the campaign. The early missions with Ju-52 hunts were a pleasant surprise too. Missions were varied, and the text story was a joy to follow.

 

The only criticism I have is with the AI cruising speed. This is not however the caused by the campaign, but rather the game engine. AI flies _very_ slowly when cruising, and it is a shame that teammembers get left behind when using normal "Continuous power" settings  (Throttle 100%, RPM 89%, Mixture 50%). This was a problem in the Kuban "Sea Dragons" campaign also.

 

Nevertheless, great job! This is the kind of content, that gets new players to the sim!

 

 

[Swing]

In the Box, I bought it just now 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Swing

[BlackSix]

Now Ice Ring campaign is available in the French language thanks to our community member @DN308

Also I'd like to thank the guys who worked on Chinese localization and @E69_Cananas for translating into Spanish.

[DN308]

Many thanks to let me work with you 

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Hi All, Just about to purchase and download " Ice Ring " but before I do, I would just like to know if it is still flyable after the last update [ 4.501 ]

 

Cheers

[Gambit21]

3 hours ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Hi All, Just about to purchase and download " Ice Ring " but before I do, I would just like to know if it is still flyable after the last update [ 4.501 ]

 

Cheers

 

Why wouldn't it be?

Yes it is.

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Thanks Gambit.

[TAIPAN_]

33 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Why wouldn't it be?

 

 

Some might be used to "the other sim" where even the training missions break after a patch

[jollyjack]

Icering is worth it, well made. Runs finr in 4.501; I only got three levels done, can't find the time yet, but i plan for today.

Alas messing with missions in the ME is also fun ...

[King_Franky]

Thank you BlackSix for this great Campaign!

Finished it some days ago nearly in a row.

Sorry, I'm short with words, need to start a second round now. ?

[BlackSix]

Thank you, guys! The development of new Fw 190 campaigns is in full swing, I spend all my free time on it)

[BlackSix]

Ice Ring campaign is available on Steam from today

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1494300/2/