Train Busters (Ju-88 C-6)

[YoYo]

10 hours ago, 357th_KW said:

Are any of you seeing the bug where the locomotive will accelerate after rail cars have been damaged and disconnected?  I've seen some get fast enough to where they can outrun an aircraft.

Yes, known bug of IL-2 (not a campaign).

[jollyjack]

Tough sjait to find any train, without much pilot map info nor knowledge of city locations, but i got me a train in mission 3. The loc did not take off ....

When moving around in the semi-dark in the dark area i feel like the feller in this song below, but it's a great campaign.

 

https://youtu.be/ZGvgFW3JIek?feature=shared&t=7

[LukeFF]

Much better success tonight on mission #3: I found that if I placed the upper edge of the gunsight's ring (i.e., the 12 o'clock position) on the locomotive when releasing a string of four bombs, they would explode when the front of the train passed over them. That was with the 0.25-second release delay and the default bomb fuse timer. 

[LukeFF]

Finally made it to the last mission here, which yes, is not easy.

 

Spoiler

Is there any real way to avoid enemy fighters scrambling and attempting to shoot your plane down, or is that just to be expected with this mission?

 

But yes, great campaign! Nice to see content like this for the Ju 88 C-6. 

[Juri_JS]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

Is there any real way to avoid enemy fighters scrambling and attempting to shoot your plane down, or is that just to be expected with this mission?

 

Spoiler

Fighters will scramble from some airfields when you approach to less than 12 km, sometimes the distance is a little lower sometimes a little higher. So you have to keep a safe distance from airfields to avoid fighters. I think only in the last mission this isn't really possible because an airfield is near your mission target.

 

When fighters try to intercept you, it's best to run away. Because of the settings I've used, they should break off the chase relatively soon. Although this doesn't always work reliably.

 

Personally I did not have much luck trying to shot down AI fighters in the Ju-88 C-6, except when I surprise them during take-off. My most successful tactic is to escape at tree top altitude, this makes it difficult for the fighters to get into a firing position. Hiding in clouds doesn't really work for me most of the time, although the devs said repeatedly that it is possible.

 

Edited May 15, 2024 by Juri_JS

[LukeFF]

Appreciate it, thanks. 🫡 I'll just assume my guys escaped to the hills and made it back across the lines a few days later. 

 

(I did attempt to get away from the intercepting fighter in the last mission by diving to the ground, but he shot off part of my tail section controls). 

[Juri_JS]

26 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Appreciate it, thanks. 🫡 I'll just assume my guys escaped to the hills and made it back across the lines a few days later. 

 

(I did attempt to get away from the intercepting fighter in the last mission by diving to the ground, but he shot off part of my tail section controls). 

In the last mission, you can easily destroy the enemy fighter when he's still on the ground. 😉

[LukeFF]

36 minutes ago, Juri_JS said:

In the last mission, you can easily destroy the enemy fighter when he's still on the ground. 😉

 

Now you tell me! 😁

[YoYo]

And + something like new campaign but for Ju-88 A4 .

Edited May 16, 2024 by YoYo

[Juri_JS]

2 hours ago, YoYo said:

And + something like new campaign but for Ju-88 A4 .

Only if we get torpedos for the Ju-88 A4 and a Murmansk map. I am not a level bomber fan.

[YoYo]

On 5/16/2024 at 1:33 PM, Juri_JS said:

Only if we get torpedos for the Ju-88 A4 and a Murmansk map. I am not a level bomber fan.

 

But what about dive? 😄

[Juri_JS]

10 hours ago, YoYo said:

 

But what about dive? 😄

Actually in the past I thought about creating a Ju-88 A-4 dive bombing anti-shipping campaign on the Kuban map, but there are a number of problems. The biggest problem is, that the AI will only drop a single bomb during dive bombing attacks. The Pe-2 has the same issue.

Moreover we don't have the 20 mm gun for the Ju-88 A-4 that was often carried during such missions and also no dive bombing sight.

Edited May 18, 2024 by Juri_JS

[alpenspion]

Campaign complete! I love it! But it is too short 🙂 Can you make more Missions for this campaign please?  

[Juri_JS]

9 minutes ago, alpenspion said:

But it is too short 🙂 Can you make more Missions for this campaign please?  

Thanks to my job, my time for mission building is now very limited. Eight missions was all I could do. But most missions have several randomized elements, so it should be interesting to fly them more than once.

[alpenspion]

Thank you! 

[Juri_JS]

I've now also found the combat diary of III./ Kampfgeschwader 51 for 1942. Interestingly, my research showed, that when the unit received the first Ju-88 C-6s in August 1942, they were mainly used for anti-shipping strikes along the Black Sea coast and the Sea of Azov. The second most common mission type was weather reconnaissance prior to bombing raids against port cities like Tuapse, Sochi or Sukhumi.

 

Maybe an interesting topic for a prequel campaign? 🤔

 

 

[Sandmarken]

1 hour ago, Juri_JS said:

I've now also found the combat diary of III./ Kampfgeschwader 51 for 1942. Interestingly, my research showed, that when the unit received the first Ju-88 C-6s in August 1942, they were mainly used for anti-shipping strikes along the Black Sea coast and the Sea of Azov. The second most common mission type was weather reconnaissance prior to bombing raids against port cities like Tuapse, Sochi or Sukhumi.

 

Maybe an interesting topic for a prequel campaign? 🤔

 

 

That would be a great campaign! The kuban career does not give many naval attack missions!  Did the Soviet field a lot of bigger merchants or were they more those small motorboats? 

[Juri_JS]

1 minute ago, Sandmarken said:

That would be a great campaign! The kuban career does not give many naval attack missions!  Did the Soviet field a lot of bigger merchants or were they more those small motorboats? 

In the time frame I've researched, larger transport ships were usually only encountered southeast of Tuapse. In the Sea of Azow and between the Kerch Strait and Tuapse smaller coastal vessels below 2000 tons were much more common. Unfortunately we don't have such smaller ships in the game. What's also missing for the Soviet navy are smaller guard ships, patrol boats and mine sweepers, like the Mo-4 class.

[Sandmarken]

1 hour ago, Juri_JS said:

In the time frame I've researched, larger transport ships were usually only encountered southeast of Tuapse. In the Sea of Azow and between the Kerch Strait and Tuapse smaller coastal vessels below 2000 tons were much more common. Unfortunately we don't have such smaller ships in the game. What's also missing for the Soviet navy are smaller guard ships, patrol boats and mine sweepers, like the Mo-4 class.

Yes there is alot of seacraft that woud be good to have! In my IAR80 campaign research i found that the germans used alot of siebel ferries we also miss. I also wish we had simple fishing boats! 

 

It woud be cool to have a campaign where one woud attack crafts bigger than the smalest boats ingame. The flight to Tuapse from the kerch side is pretty long woud people want to fly the distance? They dont want to cross the channel 😬

Edited December 30, 2024 by Sandmarken

[Alan_Grey]

Done! Another great campaign! Thanks Juri_JS. The review in Czech only is here:

https://www.alan-grey-page.cz/recenze-train-busters-juri_js/