Dedicated Interceptor Sq. in Career Mode

[Jomastah]

Hi everyone, I couldn’t find any specific info anywhere so I thought I might ask around here.

 

Recently I found the II./JG 26 on Normandy (preparing for the invasion start time) and I really enjoy the fast pace style of plying in that squadron. Every(!) mission is: Get out in your FW 190 (a6/a8), intercept enemy Bombers, all really close to the home base. So you get up, after five minutes you shoot down some B25s or A20s, mingle with the fighter escort and get back home for Sauerkraut and medals. I usually play with PWCG but this one is really fun. Due to its fast pace nature and I kinda enjoy not having to deal with switching between PWCG and the game for a change and since all the missions are action packed 15-20 minute flights it almost feels like a whole different game mode. 

 

Now I wonder if someone can tell me if there are other Squads in the base game Career, that are pure interceptors, with such short range targets? Preferably on different maps and from different sides? I could imagine that most air services on most maps would have at least some dedicated interceptor squads. 

If anybody knows one, I’d love to hear about it. (Otherwise I’ll have to start a career in every possible squad in the game and see for my self, wich sounds tedious at best.)

 

Thanks in advance, I hope this is the right place in the forum and that I didn’t over look that exact topic anywhere. 

[Skycat1969]

In the career you refer to, you'll relocate inland for D-Day and then you will be will assigned long distance ground attack missions to the beachhead area. The heavy use of static objects, smoke, and AA fire during the invasion made my game stutter in VR. As the campaign continues the missions will become more challenging to complete because the Allies now have airfields on the continent and you'll have to fight interceptors as you approach your objective.

[Jomastah]

Probably a good thing you clarified this. I knew that D-Day changes the way things work, but reading my post it could occur to people, that it’s 100% intercepts, for the whole time. Wich it isn’t, but for my intent it is 100% for long enough. And yes the stutter during d day is harsh indeed. 

But I like the part until D-Day a lot, because it’s so different and fast paced for a long span of time. And it makes me wonder if there is something else where you have this long string of pure interceptions. With different planes and so on.

Like I said, I usually play PWCG careers, since you can scale down the ground objects for performance, enjoy the added realism (skins, names, etc), skip the missions you don’t want to fly (looking at you escort transports)and so on, it’s just better in many ways and I know I could just load up PWCG and just create intercepts in almost any fighter squad, but I enjoy and prefer the easy access of the stock career for this kind of stuff. It’s more like a pause from my main careers but better than just flying quick missions, since you still have progression. 

 

So if you’d know another squad (not with FW a6/a8, preferably with british or american planes) that does a big chunk of purely (or mostly) interceptions, I’d very much appreciate to learn about it  Even tho it might be just for one chapter(?) of the career. After some days I like flying more complex missions again anyway. 

 

 

[Yogiflight]

23 minutes ago, Jomastah said:

So if you’d know another squad (not with FW a6/a8, preferably with british or american planes) that does a big chunk of purely (or mostly) interceptions, I’d very much appreciate to learn about it

In the Rhineland career Kommando Nowotny is flying purely intercept missions with the Me 262. The distances are longer and you have to deal with lots of clouds in some missions, but I found it very enjoyable. Downside, the AI is pretty stupid in flying the Me 262, so don't count on them.

On the Kuban map you can fly purely intercept missions with the Bf 110 G2. Again, distances are larger than you experienced with the JG 26 and dealing with the enemy fighters is more challenging than with the FW 190 or the Me 262. In that career you don't only intercept bombers, but mainly Il 2s and sometimes bombers.

And if you like flying the Bf 110 G2 and are interested in flying it at night, I recommend Juri's scripted campaign 'Night fighters over the Kuban'. It is a lot of fun intercepting Pe-2s, A-20s and U-2s at night. Hmm, weren't there also Il-2s and B-25s? I think so.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Yogiflight

[Jomastah]

Thanks a lot Yogi! That’s the spirit! ? 

 

 

Does anyone know some allied squads like that as well? 

[Jomastah]

I’m pretty sure, that, some time ago, I flew for a soviet interceptor squad. But I don’t remember on which map, nor what plane it was. But I’m pretty sure it was a collector’s plane, since it was after I grabbed a lot of them really cheap in a sale. But most of the planes I bought that day have been soviet and I tried all of them in the first career I could find. Also, since I died rather quickly, it could just have been a coincidence to have three or four intercepts in a row. For example I had streaks of two or three days intercepting attackers and bombers in JG52 on the BOS map. And this is definitely not a pure interceptor squad.

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, Jomastah said:

I’m pretty sure, that, some time ago, I flew for a soviet interceptor squad.

Wasn't the Yak-9T equipped with the large gun for bomber intercepting? IIRC @LukeFF posted that some weeks ago, when a player asked about ground attack missions for it in career mode.

[LukeFF]

7 minutes ago, Yogiflight said:

Wasn't the Yak-9T equipped with the large gun for bomber intercepting? IIRC @LukeFF posted that some weeks ago, when a player asked about ground attack missions for it in career mode.

 

Funny you mention that - I was just reading last week in Black Cross / Red Star Volume 5 about how (according to Bergstrom) the Yak-9T regiments deployed to Kursk were employed in the anti-tank role. So, now the picture is even more muddier. ? 

[Hotaru_Ito]

There are some PVO (air defense) regiments in Moscow, like the 736th and 126th, that get a decent number of interception missions. They don't fly them exclusively, but they do enough that if you started as commander, you could pick and choose your missions to fly only intercepts. Might be some on the Stalingrad and Kuban campaigns too, but my Soviet pilots have a hard time making it that far so I wouldn't really know.

 

There aren't likely to be any in Normandy and Rhineland because--apart from Steinbock and Bodenplatte--the Luftwaffe was mostly on the defensive by that time, so there wouldn't be many bombers for the Allies to intercept. However, there are some Tempest and Mosquito units in Normandy that do lots of V-1 intercept missions after D-Day. Two I've flown with are 3 Squadron with the Tempest and 605 Squadron with the Mosquito.

[Yogiflight]

3 hours ago, LukeFF said:

the Yak-9T regiments deployed to Kursk were employed in the anti-tank role. So, now the picture is even more muddier. ? 

 

Well, I think they simply did what the Luftwaffe did aswell, they took what they had. Destroying tanks was the main gole, so take what has a big gun and try to destroy them. And a Yak-9 is much faster than an Il-2, so harder to intercept.

[Jomastah]

20 hours ago, Hotaru_Ito said:

There aren't likely to be any in Normandy and Rhineland because--apart from Steinbock and Bodenplatte--the Luftwaffe was mostly on the defensive by that time

makes sense.  thanks for your input:)

Edited June 6, 2023 by Jomastah

[Jomastah]

And while we are at it, here’s a different question, does anybody know some squadrons that do anti shipping? either axis or allied, PWCG or stock career. I found some in PWCG (or edited it in the squad files?) but in the stock game I never had an anti shipping mission in careers. Just with quick missions (and as I understand it there is a scripted campaign, but I haven’t really looked into them yet, but for some of the ww1 ones.) 

 

Or if you have a favourite squad in the career (for any reason) I’d love to learn about it.

 

Have a nice day:)

[LukeFF]

24 minutes ago, Jomastah said:

And while we are at it, here’s a different question, does anybody know some squadrons that do anti shipping? either axis or allied, PWCG or stock career. I found some in PWCG (or edited it in the squad files?) but in the stock game I never had an anti shipping mission in careers. Just with quick missions (and as I understand it there is a scripted campaign, but I haven’t really looked into them yet, but for some of the ww1 ones.) 

 

Or if you have a favourite squad in the career (for any reason) I’d love to learn about it.

 

Have a nice day:)

 

At this point, the only anti-shipping missions in the stock career mode right now are on the German side during the D-Day landings, where you can attack landing craft and destroyers approaching the Normandy coastline. 

[Jomastah]

thank you:) sadly D-Day does to my frame-rate roughly what it did to the german occupation ? So I stick to quick missions for a quick fix.

 

 

 

Speaking of D-Day, there is an amazing 24h hour by hour documentary out since today on the “World war two” youtube channel (they cover ww2 weekly, over the whole course of six years, sort of like a news show, and did the same thing for ww1 on a channel called “the great war”, I can highly recommend it.)

 

 

[Jomastah]

On 6/5/2023 at 9:30 PM, Hotaru_Ito said:

if you started as commander, you could pick and choose your missions

hey thanks for that info. I always started lowest rank to work my way up but never reached command status, just an occasional flight lead position. I didn’t even know that you can pick and choose missions as commander, I always thought you’d just be flight leader by default ? but this info is a game changer for me (quiet literally) being able to skip “escort transporter” missions makes the stock career so much better. The main reason why I liked the thought of pure intercept squads so much was that I don’t have to escort slow planes across friendly territory for an hour without ever meeting an enemy. (I have msfs for joyriding purposes) 

 

Thank you so very much for that info! 

 

 

 

 

 

[50-Cal_Predator]

On 6/4/2023 at 4:06 PM, Jomastah said:

Probably a good thing you clarified this. I knew that D-Day changes the way things work, but reading my post it could occur to people, that it’s 100% intercepts, for the whole time. Wich it isn’t, but for my intent it is 100% for long enough. And yes the stutter during d day is harsh indeed. 

But I like the part until D-Day a lot, because it’s so different and fast paced for a long span of time. And it makes me wonder if there is something else where you have this long string of pure interceptions. With different planes and so on.

Like I said, I usually play PWCG careers, since you can scale down the ground objects for performance, enjoy the added realism (skins, names, etc), skip the missions you don’t want to fly (looking at you escort transports)and so on, it’s just better in many ways and I know I could just load up PWCG and just create intercepts in almost any fighter squad, but I enjoy and prefer the easy access of the stock career for this kind of stuff. It’s more like a pause from my main careers but better than just flying quick missions, since you still have progression. 

 

So if you’d know another squad (not with FW a6/a8, preferably with british or american planes) that does a big chunk of purely (or mostly) interceptions, I’d very much appreciate to learn about it  Even tho it might be just for one chapter(?) of the career. After some days I like flying more complex missions again anyway. 

 

 

I know that in the game's pilot career Autumn 1944 Rhineland map there are several RAF+RCAF Spitfire IX squadrons stationed near Grave and Volkel in Holland that have pretty short missions, probably a lot of armed recon missions (patrol essentially). On the Normandy map, I would assume the Spitfire squadrons that are located in Normandy would also have pretty short missions as well.