Official Historical Campaign "Steel Birds"

[Sandmarken]

Just finished this great campaign! Thanks, it had very interesting missions and cool backstories. This one became one of my favorites.🙂

[BlackSix]

8 hours ago, Sandmarken said:

Just finished this great campaign! Thanks, it had very interesting missions and cool backstories. This one became one of my favorites.🙂

Thanks!

[BlackSix]

Campaign update in version 6.001:

- campaign reworked for the current version of the game; 

- small issues fixed; 

- Li-2 transports added.

[Kubert]

I played 6 missions of this campaign, then died and decided to not continue. It's frontline density is too much for my obsolete GTX 1660ti. I had stutters over the front line and I felt how GPU is sweating. Is this a case only because Steel Birds is ground attack campaign, or also newer fighter campaigns like Iron Wind, Sky Nomads, His Majesty's Griffons have such frontline density? I suppose this will be also the case for Overlord and Wings Over Caen.

 

As for missions themselves...in all 6 I played, there was a truck standing in the middle of southern "runway". Does he have any purpose, or he shouldn't be here?

[BlackSix]

On 8/2/2025 at 11:52 AM, Kubert said:

I played 6 missions of this campaign, then died and decided to not continue. It's frontline density is too much for my obsolete GTX 1660ti. I had stutters over the front line and I felt how GPU is sweating. Is this a case only because Steel Birds is ground attack campaign, or also newer fighter campaigns like Iron Wind, Sky Nomads, His Majesty's Griffons have such frontline density? I suppose this will be also the case for Overlord and Wings Over Caen.

I'm very sorry that this campaign is not working well for you. The 1660ti could not boast of performance already at the time of release in 2019, and now it is certainly not enough for a normal game. I can also assume that you have an outdated CPU installed, and this is a much more serious problem, since the fighting ground vehicles create a load on the CPU, and not on the video card.

 

Steel Birds has undergone several stages of optimization and reductions in the number of ground and air units, but it still has the largest number of objects on the battlefield of all my campaigns. I have never repeated this again.

 

Please, check how the 5th mission works for you (flight from Kerch to Anapa). There are no fighting ground vehicles, but a lot of aircraft, and all my other campaigns will work the same way on your PC. Once again, I'm very sorry that you have such a situation...

 

On 8/2/2025 at 11:52 AM, Kubert said:

As for missions themselves...in all 6 I played, there was a truck standing in the middle of southern "runway". Does he have any purpose, or he shouldn't be here?

This truck is needed to launch flares for aircraft taking off from the southern runway.

 

[Kubert]

46 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

The 1660ti could not boast of performance already at the time of release in 2019, and now it is certainly not enough for a normal game.

For its price it is very solid GPU. Especially when playing only at 1080p.  Surprised me more than once with what it can handle, but yeah...it won't last forever.

 

46 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

I can also assume that you have an outdated CPU installed, and this is a much more serious problem,

CPU is i5-12400. Not extremely old generation, but it is middle class of it. 

 

46 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

Steel Birds has undergone several stages of optimization and reductions in the number of ground and air units, but it still has the largest number of objects on the battlefield of all my campaigns. I have never repeated this again.

Even compared to Wing Over Caen? It looks very crowded as well and it is also ground attack campaign. 

 

46 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

Please, check how the 5th mission works for you (flight from Kerch to Anapa). There are no fighting ground vehicles, but a lot of aircraft, and all my other campaigns will work the same way on your PC. Once again, I'm very sorry that you have such a situation...

5th was fine.  Then, I complete other campaigns first...and come back to this one after an upgrade. Maybe in 1-2 years. It can wait in backlog for a time. Thanks for the information.

 

46 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

This truck is needed to launch flares for aircraft taking off from the southern runway.

Interesting. I never searched where a flare comes from. 

Edited August 3 by Kubert

[BlackSix]

4 hours ago, Kubert said:

CPU is i5-12400. Not extremely old generation, but it is middle class of it. 

I guess that's ok, sorry for assuming. I started creating a campaign on i7-6700 and finished it on i7-10700.

 

4 hours ago, Kubert said:

Even compared to Wing Over Caen? It looks very crowded as well and it is also ground attack campaign. 

There was not a single complaint about performance, I specifically reread the entire thread)) 

But the Normandy map itself can be more demanding on a PC

[Kubert]

I'll try Wings Over Caen probably this or next month and let you now. In the worst case scenario it will be waiting together with Steel Birds for PC upgrade. Not a big deal.