Typhoon campaign is so boring…

[ubik_2008]

While the Tiffie is probably the most enjoyable plane of the collection, at least in my view, the associated Bodenplatte campaign is extremely dull and tedious. You get troops/artillery concentration attacks followed by vehicle column attacks followed by more of the same in an endless sequence of repetitive missions.

 

Therefore while we wait for some of the brilliant minds populating this community to come up with a worthy scripted fighter bomber campaign (hello @Gambit21), may I suggest that some of the following be considered by the devs if not too inconvenient or difficult to implement:

• Ship attacks. Tiffies were sent against passenger ships converted to military use
• HQ/buildings. Also true to history as we know
• Train busting, as opposed to railway station attacks which is the only departure seldom encountered from the dull sequence mentioned above
• Airports
• Bridges
• Fighter sweeps/bomber intercept. What’s wrong with that? After all the Typhoon was also a capable fighter with those 4 bada$$ cannons lol

 

What do you think?

[BlitzPig_EL]

What German bombers were there to intercept in late 1944/early 1945?  The Tiffy was Britain's primary ground attack aircraft, why should you expect to have anything but ground attack in it?

[Trooper117]

If you want fighter sweeps it would be much better to use the Tempest mate...

[Sandmarken]

All that stuff is in Patricks mission generator witch I have to say I enjoy way more than the original career mode. Its easy to use and answer many of the requests i see people ask for in the vanilla career. I sugest people give it a chanse ?

[justin_z3r0]

14 minutes ago, Sandmarken said:

All that stuff is in Patricks mission generator witch I have to say I enjoy way more than the original career mode. Its easy to use and answer many of the requests i see people ask for in the vanilla career. I sugest people give it a chanse ?

Absolutely agree. Give PWCG a try.

[Feathered_IV]

Flak suppression missions in support of medium bombers or other ground attack units would be good.  Especially with the Normandy expansion and V-1 sites. 

[Irishratticus72]

I use PWCG for BoS, FC, and RoF, it's literally the one program that has made me buy a lot of expansions and planes. 

[ubik_2008]

Well I knew I had to surrender to PWCG sooner or later. I was just hoping to buy me some more time.

So be it?

[Irishratticus72]

23 minutes ago, ubik_2008 said:

Well I knew I had to surrender to PWCG sooner or later. I was just hoping to buy me some more time.

So be it?

You won't regret it. 

[ubik_2008]

28 minutes ago, Irishratticus72 said:

You won't regret it. 

I have to trust a black cat owner. I have two myself?

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, ubik_2008 said:

While the Tiffie is probably the most enjoyable plane of the collection, at least in my view, the associated Bodenplatte campaign is extremely dull and tedious. You get troops/artillery concentration attacks followed by vehicle column attacks followed by more of the same in an endless sequence of repetitive missions.

 

Therefore while we wait for some of the brilliant minds populating this community to come up with a worthy scripted fighter bomber campaign (hello @Gambit21), may I suggest that some of the following be considered by the devs if not too inconvenient or difficult to implement:

• Ship attacks. Tiffies were sent against passenger ships converted to military use
• HQ/buildings. Also true to history as we know
• Train busting, as opposed to railway station attacks which is the only departure seldom encountered from the dull sequence mentioned above
• Airports
• Bridges
• Fighter sweeps/bomber intercept. What’s wrong with that? After all the Typhoon was also a capable fighter with those 4 bada$$ cannons lol

 

What do you think?

 

Each of the current Typhoon squadrons has missions assigned to them based on what they flew in reality and what is available to assign to them right now - all of their logbooks are easily accessible from the British National Archives. So, to go down your list:

 

Ship attacks - yes, would be good, but most of these were attacks on barges, not ships.

HQ/buildings - yes, very much so. It's a big gap in the mission set right now

Train busting - best covered by armed reconnaissance missions, which if if the mission editor is anything to go by, will come at some point (as would be shipping attacks)

Airfields - extremely, extremely, extremely rare in the fall of 1944 / spring of 1945. That's why you don't see many of them. They were generally avoided by the Allies for the same reasons they were generally avoided by the Germans - way too heavily defended to be worth the effort.

Bridges - need to be covered by bridge bombing missions, which I hope will come at some point (the current template needs to be modified to allow them to work with fighter-bombers)

Fighter sweeps / bomber intercept - Typhoons weren't intercepting bombers of any sort at this time, sorry.  Fighter sweeps were extremely rare, to the point of being almost nonexistent.

8 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

What German bombers were there to intercept in late 1944/early 1945?  The Tiffy was Britain's primary ground attack aircraft, why should you expect to have anything but ground attack in it?

 

Correct, there's not a single example I can find of Typhoons intercepting German bombers in that time frame - the only daylight bombers at that point were jets.

Edited June 28, 2021 by LukeFF

[ubik_2008]

Interesting points. 

 

However, as far as this one is concerned:

Ship attacks - yes, would be good, but most of these were attacks on barges, not ships.

we are aware of at least one sensational mission (Wikipedia): 

 

On 3 May 1945, the Cap Arcona, the SS Thielbek, and the Deutschland, large passenger ships in peacetime now in military service, were sunk in four attacks by RAF Hawker Typhoon 1Bs of No. 83 Group RAF, 2nd Tactical Air Force: the first by 184 Squadron, second by 198 Squadron led by Wing Commander John Robert Baldwin, the third by 263 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Martin T. S. Rumbold and the fourth by 197 Squadron led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding.

 

But apart from that, attacks on barges would be welcome I guess!

 

As to intercepting bombers I have to agree. It would be more appropriate to either refer to a scramble mission against FW-190 fighter bombers or to intercepting transport planes.

 

As a side note, it is quite ironic to observe that the Rheinland campaign bluntly misses the January 1, 1945 Operation Bodenplatte.

[LukeFF]

On 6/28/2021 at 2:20 PM, ubik_2008 said:

As a side note, it is quite ironic to observe that the Rhineland campaign bluntly misses the January 1, 1945 Operation Bodenplatte.

 

It doesn't - if a squadron took part in the days' events, they are depicted as best as possible, but in other cases it was just another day for the squadron in question. 

[Denum]

Well. Yeah 

 

The Tiff's role wasn't super glam in the war either. 

 

Alot of pilot's hated the plane 

 

 

[JG27_Steini]

On 6/28/2021 at 11:20 PM, ubik_2008 said:

As a side note, it is quite ironic to observe that the Rheinland campaign bluntly misses the January 1, 1945 Operation Bodenplatte.

 

The missions are generated. An "Operation Bodenplatte" mission would have been build up manually to make it historical accourate. The team wont change the generator for a single day in war. It is sad, but this is the way dynamic campaigns work. It would be cool to include manuall made missions into dynamic campaign. The game is called "Battle of Bodenplatte" and it has not a single adequate mission for this operation.

Edited June 30, 2021 by JG27_Steini

[Sandmarken]

14 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

The missions are generated. An "Operation Bodenplatte" mission would have been build up manually to make it historical accourate. The team wont change the generator for a single day in war. It is sad, but this is the way dynamic campaigns work. It would be cool to include manuall made missions into dynamic campaign. The game is called "Battle of Bodenplatte" and it has not a single adequate mission for this operation.

And yet pwcg does this with historical missions on days like boddenplatte. You are also able to tweek settings like how many enemies you wil meet in air and on ground. I like to make german fighters rare but give them lots of aa for what I find more historical corectness when flying an allied 44-45 campain ?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

32 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

The missions are generated. An "Operation Bodenplatte" mission would have been build up manually to make it historical accourate. The team wont change the generator for a single day in war. It is sad, but this is the way dynamic campaigns work. It would be cool to include manuall made missions into dynamic campaign. The game is called "Battle of Bodenplatte" and it has not a single adequate mission for this operation.

 

12 minutes ago, Sandmarken said:

And yet pwcg does this with historical missions on days like boddenplatte. You are also able to tweek settings like how many enemies you wil meet in air and on ground. I like to make german fighters rare but give them lots of aa for what I find more historical corectness when flying an allied 44-45 campain ?

As @LukeFF already pointed out above, Bodenplatte *is* depicted in the career. I have flown it myself, and you can also look it up in the career files if you want.

[JG27_Steini]

34 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

 

As @LukeFF already pointed out above, Bodenplatte *is* depicted in the career. I have flown it myself, and you can also look it up in the career files if you want.

 

Are those missions special mission or are them just the generic ground attacks?

[41Sqn_Skipper]

16 minutes ago, JG27_Steini said:

 

Are those missions special mission or are them just the generic ground attacks?

 

IIRC on that day airfield attack missions are generated for the Luftwaffe. 

For a random/dynamic campaign that's actually pretty neat.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Just now, JG27_Steini said:

Are those missions special mission or are them just the generic ground attacks?

It's been a while, but I think it was an "airfield attack" with a rather large flight (or maybe even multiple ones). Which is exactly what it was.

[DFLion]

On 6/29/2021 at 7:20 AM, ubik_2008 said:

Interesting points. 

 

However, as far as this one is concerned:

Ship attacks - yes, would be good, but most of these were attacks on barges, not ships.

we are aware of at least one sensational mission (Wikipedia?

 

On 3 May 1945, the Cap Arcona, the SS Thielbek, and the Deutschland, large passenger ships in peacetime now in military service, were sunk in four attacks by RAF Hawker Typhoon 1Bs of No. 83 Group RAF, 2nd Tactical Air Force: the first by 184 Squadron, second by 198 Squadron led by Wing Commander John Robert Baldwin, the third by 263 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Martin T. S. Rumbold and the fourth by 197 Squadron led by Squadron Leader K. J. Harding.

 

But apart from that, attacks on barges would be welcome I guess!

 

As to intercepting bombers I have to agree. It would be more appropriate to either refer to a scramble mission against FW-190 fighter bombers or to intercepting transport planes.

 

As a side note, it is quite ironic to observe that the Rheinland campaign bluntly misses the January 1, 1945 Operation Bodenplatte.

I would like to weigh into this debate. I have been gradually making a series of historically accurate single missions on the Rhineland map which I'm hoping I can eventually combine into campaigns. One of these missions was 'Operation Bodenplatte' (Jan 1, 1945) from the Luftwaffe perspective - I will post this mission again shortly, updated to the latest game version.

ubik_2008 please play this mission and let me know what you think about it. What I was going to do with this mission was to redo it from an Allied perspective, bringing in Tempests, Typhoons and Spitfires defending the Luftwaffe attack. These missions take a lot of time to make which includes testing. I enjoy making them because I have been with IL2 Sturmovik right from the start (20 years ago) and have thoroughly enjoyed the progression of this great flight sim. LukeFF I have clearly got your message about Typhoon missions/campaigns.

DFLion

[ubik_2008]

2 hours ago, DFLion said:

ubik_2008 please play this mission and let me know what you think about it. What I was going to do with this mission was to redo it from an Allied perspective, bringing in Tempests, Typhoons and Spitfires defending the Luftwaffe attack. These missions take a lot of time to make which includes testing.

I will most certainly try it. I believe scripted campaigns and missions represent the most interesting experience in this sim - take the impressive "Hell Hawks over the Bulge" for instance.

 

Going back to 1-1-45 in the stock campaign, I confirm that it was skipped in my case for some unknown reason. Be it wrong squadron, wrong campaign speed or who knows why.

I am no expert at all in this respect, but since the stock campaign is set in stages with narrative interludes between them, why is it unfeasible to include a "milestone" mission between stages?

[AEthelraedUnraed]

42 minutes ago, ubik_2008 said:

Going back to 1-1-45 in the stock campaign, I confirm that it was skipped in my case for some unknown reason. Be it wrong squadron, wrong campaign speed or who knows why.

Yeah if you set the campaign speed to fast, I believe it only flies missions on 1/3rd of all the possible mission dates. It's possible that this happened in your case. Or indeed you may simply have chosen the wrong squadron.

 

1 hour ago, ubik_2008 said:

I am no expert at all in this respect, but since the stock campaign is set in stages with narrative interludes between them, why is it unfeasible to include a "milestone" mission between stages?

It would IMHO certainly add value to have a single, handwritten mission as an introduction to each stage. However, the problem is the huge amount of different squadrons that the player can fly in. Essentially, the Devs would not just need to build a single mission but rather 30 missions or something, one for each playable squadron (or at least aircraft + airfield combination) there is.

 

I think their current solution for Bodenplatte is the best achievable one, i.e. it's dynamically created by the mission generator so ties in perfectly with the other dynamic missions. The downside is that it might get skipped. Perhaps it would be possible for the Devs to set certain dates to "unskippable"?

[LukeFF]

10 hours ago, 41Sqn_Skipper said:

IIRC on that day airfield attack missions are generated for the Luftwaffe. 

For a random/dynamic campaign that's actually pretty neat.

 

Correct, I've set it up so that if you're in a Luftwaffe unit that took part in Bodenplatte, your unit will be given an airifeld attack mission on January 1st in the morning hours. Once drop tanks are implemented, I'll update them again so that your loadout on that day will also include a drop tank.

[Q_Walker]

21 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

 

Correct, I've set it up so that if you're in a Luftwaffe unit that took part in Bodenplatte, your unit will be given an airifeld attack mission on January 1st in the morning hours. Once drop tanks are implemented, I'll update them again so that your loadout on that day will also include a drop tank.

That sounds great. If I could also ask on that topic, how will drop tanks be implemented to the Career as a whole, will they only be used when flights are long distances or will they be used in a variety of missions based on historical use? Also would drop tanks mainly be equipped during the Bodenplatte and upcoming Normandy campaigns?

[LukeFF]

12 minutes ago, Q_Walker said:

That sounds great. If I could also ask on that topic, how will drop tanks be implemented to the Career as a whole, will they only be used when flights are long distances or will they be used in a variety of missions based on historical use? Also would drop tanks mainly be equipped during the Bodenplatte and upcoming Normandy campaigns?

 

It's too early to say - VikS is the one who originates the coding for this sort of thing, so he might have a trick up his sleeve for telling the game when to add and when not to add a drop tank to the plane's loadout.

 

Otherwise, yes, you're probably mainly going to see them with the Normandy and Bodenplatte campaigns - most of the planes on the Eastern Front maps can manage to fly a full mission without needing external tanks.

[Gambit21]

On 6/28/2021 at 2:33 AM, ubik_2008 said:

Therefore while we wait for some of the brilliant minds populating this community to come up with a worthy scripted fighter bomber campaign (hello @Gambit21),

 

Well I figured that “Battle of Bodenplatte” should actually feature “Operation Bodenplatte” in it somewhere.

I know - call me strange.

 

I have no plans to build further content for IL2 at this juncture. Concentrating on other things - glad you enjoy Hell Hawks! 

 

 

 

 

[Thad]

10 minutes ago, Gambit21 said:

 

Well I figured that “Battle of Bodenplatte” should actually feature “Operation Bodenplatte” in it somewhere.

I know - call me strange.

 

I have no plans to build further content for IL2 at this juncture. Concentrating on other things - glad you enjoy Hell Hawks! 

 OK... you are strange. 

 

Furthermore, I appreciate your creative efforts for our community. Salute!

[Dutchvdm]

On 6/28/2021 at 9:38 PM, LukeFF said:

Airfields - extremely, extremely, extremely rare in the fall of 1944 / spring of 1945. That's why you don't see man of them. They were generally avoided by the Allies for the same reasons they were generally avoided by the Germans - way too heavily defended to be worth the effort.

 

Just a quick semi off-topic question. Does this only apply for the western front? During my Stalingrad SchG1 bf-109 campaign i have quite a few airfield attacks. Was this different on the eastern front? Or is it also time-period related?

 

Thanks.

 

M

[AEthelraedUnraed]

5 hours ago, I./ZG1_Dutchvdm said:

Just a quick semi off-topic question. Does this only apply for the western front? During my Stalingrad SchG1 bf-109 campaign i have quite a few airfield attacks. Was this different on the eastern front? Or is it also time-period related?

It's definitely time-period related. In fact, before the Blitz the Luftwaffe regularly attacked RAF airfields in Britain. It's probably location related as well, although I don't know how often they attacked Soviet airfields late in the war.

[LukeFF]

8 hours ago, I./ZG1_Dutchvdm said:

Just a quick semi off-topic question. Does this only apply for the western front? During my Stalingrad SchG1 bf-109 campaign i have quite a few airfield attacks. Was this different on the eastern front? Or is it also time-period related?

 

2 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

It's definitely time-period related. In fact, before the Blitz the Luftwaffe regularly attacked RAF airfields in Britain. It's probably location related as well, although I don't know how often they attacked Soviet airfields late in the war.

 

Yes, there are more airfield attacks on the Eastern Front maps, but compared to the other mission types they are still relatively more rare.

 

Also, in regards to Typhoons and airfield attack missions: there were certainly times when they attacked airfields while returning to base from their mission, but these weren't preplanned, "you will fly to this airfield and attack anything you see there" sorts of missions. In other words, they were targets of opportunity.

Edited July 1, 2021 by LukeFF

[ZachariasX]

23 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Also, in regards to Typhoons and airfield attack missions: there were certainly times when they attacked airfields while returning to base from their mission, but these weren't preplanned, "you will fly to this airfield and attack anything you see there" sorts of missions. In other words, they were targets of opportunity.

I thought airfields were bombed rather frequently and that anti-flak Typhoons would also be employed against thise targets, like flak towers etc.

 

How was that handled then?

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, ZachariasX said:

I thought airfields were bombed rather frequently and that anti-flak Typhoons would also be employed against thise targets, like flak towers etc.

 

How was that handled then?

 

They were attacked more frequently in the lead-up to the Normandy invasion, yes. I'd have to look at the logbooks to see how those missions were carried out.

[SYN_Ricky]

On 6/30/2021 at 4:34 AM, Denum said:

Well. Yeah 

 

The Tiff's role wasn't super glam in the war either. 

 

Alot of pilot's hated the plane 

 

 

 They hated the plane or the missions they had to fly with it?

[Denum]

I mean, doing nothing but ground attack would get old after a while. Especially when you're flying into AA all the time in a plane you didn't trust!

 

The tiffie killed more of her pilots then the enemy..

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Denum said:

The tiffie killed more of her pilots then the enemy..

 

I don't think that's the case - flak was the real killer of Typhoon pilots in 1944-45.

[PatrickAWlson]

7 hours ago, SYN_Ricky said:

 They hated the plane or the missions they had to fly with it?

 

My understanding is that it had some design flaws early on and was pretty crappy at altitude, so not well liked.   By Normandy it's reputation was better.  The design flaws had been taken care of.  It was still crappy at altitude but that was not its job.  

[SYN_Ricky]

1 hour ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

My understanding is that it had some design flaws early on and was pretty crappy at altitude, so not well liked.   By Normandy it's reputation was better.  The design flaws had been taken care of.  It was still crappy at altitude but that was not its job.  

I know they had to reinforce the tail structure after failures happened on early models. It had some success as a fighter against raiding FW-190 at low alt, but it's true it really came into it's own in the ground attack role. 

[Yak_Panther]

3 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

 

My understanding is that it had some design flaws early on and was pretty crappy at altitude, so not well liked.   By Normandy it's reputation was better.  The design flaws had been taken care of.  It was still crappy at altitude but that was not its job.  

The Typhoon had some design issues that were fixed as the years went on. The early Sabre engines was the cause of many of the issues. Besides the serious reliability issues.  The engine could catch fire during the start. The exhaust, carbon monoxide,  tended to enter the cockpit. The engine vibrated and shook excessively. The vibration was fixed with the introduction 4 blade propeller. The remedy for the exhaust issue was for the pilot to wear their oxygen mask at engine startup. It does not sound like a pleasant aircraft to fly even when it was working.

 

 The reliability problems were also compounded by secondary safety design issues. The early aircraft had cockpits with a door that was difficult to open during bailout. This was fixed with the introduction of the sliding bubble canopy. If the landing gear could not be lowered, belly landings were considered dangerous too. In these instances, the large propeller had a tendency to dig into the soft ground that the RAF used as airfields. This often flipped the plane over killing the pilot.

 

2 hours ago, SYN_Ricky said:

I know they had to reinforce the tail structure after failures happened on early models. It had some success as a fighter against raiding FW-190 at low alt, but it's true it really came into it's own in the ground attack role. 

 Early in it's deployment there were serious issues with the Typhoon's tail. There were numerous instances of the tail and the aircraft breaking up in both dives and in level flight. The breakup was sudden and catastrophic. Only one pilot survived this type of breakup. Initially, the issue was thought to be related to the strength of the tail. Though flight testing should no serious defects with the tail's strength, the tail of the aircraft was reinforced with external braces anyway. Even with the strengthening, the problem persisted.   

 

The breakup issue was also though to be caused by flutter. The issue was eventually traced to external mass balance of the elevator. Deformation of the mass balance could result in forced vibrations leading to resonance. Resulting in catastrophic destruction of the aircraft even in cruse conditions.  The mass balance was eventually changed and the problem largely fixed. Though the reinforcement bracing on the tail was still kept on modified aircraft.  The Typhoon also received the enlarged tail of the Tempest. Which increased directional (yaw) stability in takeoff and flight. 

 

While it's widely know that compressibility and mach effects limited the Typhoon's performance. They also reduced the aircraft's handling qualities. Around mach .6 the aircraft had a tendency to nose down. If there was enough altitude, the drag would increase during the dive, eventually slowing the aircraft to where control could be regained. The addition drag of the rocket racks tended to prevent this problem though.  

 

 

sources:

"Typhoon and Tempest At War", Reed and Beamont.

 

"Flying To The Limit", Peter Caygill.

https://books.google.com/books?id=NFTEPiyEiSsC&lpg=PA74&ots=RPRsrkNMO-&dq

 

ARC 2222, "Research on High Speed Aerodynamics at the Royal Aircraft Establishment from 1942 to 1945"

https://reports.aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/handle/1826.2/3233

 

ARC: 2121: Fuselage Vertical Bending  - Elevator Flutter on the Typhoon.

https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015022484938?urlappend=%3Bseq=395

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2021 by Yak_Panther

[Denum]

8 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

I don't think that's the case - flak was the real killer of Typhoon pilots in 1944-45.

It still killed a shocking amount of its pilots 

 

Was cruising through some data and 

1. 41-42; 15 losses to engine failure; 3 losses to structural failure; 1 loss to carbon monoxide poisoning

2. 43; 21 losses to engine failure; 5 losses to structural failure

3. 43; 20 losses to engine failure; 4 losses to structural failure

4. 43; 13 losses to engine failure; 2 losses to structural failure

5. 43; 8 losses to engine failure; 2 losses to structural failure

6. 43; 9 losses to engine failure

7. 44; 21 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to structural failure

8. 44; 17 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to structural failure

9. 44; 8 losses to engine failure

10. 44; 7 losses to engine failure

11. 44; 9 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to engine failure

12. 44; 10 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to engine failure

12a. 44; 13 losses to engine failure

14. 44-45; 4 losses to engine failure

15. 45; 28 losses to engine failure

16. 45; 15 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to structural failure

17. 45; 27 losses to engine failure; 1 loss to structural failure

18. 45; 18 losses to engine failure; 2 losses to structural failure

 

So something like 250 planes that they know of.

 

The aircraft gained such a reputation that German shoulders would straight up abandon their positions. 

 

The RAF scrapped every single one after also. 

 

I'm over exaggerating a little bit 

 

But it's certainly not hard to see where the distaste came from. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Denum