IAR80

[Sandmarken]

Hello! Im working on something for the IAR80, but my two years of school german and no knowlege of romanian languave at all makes it difficult to find good source online. The campaign is set around spring 1943 in the area of the Kuban campaign with the arival of Grupul 4 and their IAR80Cs. If anyone has any good sources or interesting stories about this group and wants to share that woud be great! ? 

 

The campaigns goal is not to be 100% accurate to history but I want it to at least be inspired by the facts. The main goal is ofc for it to be interesting to play?

 

Thx! 

[Jaegermeister]

Good for you! I will dig up the information I found earlier and send it to you.

 

 

Edited March 20, 2024 by Jaegermeister

[AndreiTomescu]

Hello! I'm from Romania, and I have like tons of books about the romanian campaign, from 1938, towards Barbarossa, the fall of Odessa, the Stalingrad disaster, the Crimean retreat, ant to the bitter end.

A campaign with the IAR would be like a dream come true! ? Thank you! Thank you! I've tried to use the mission editor, but i'm sooo lame.....

Please, be more specific: what would you need?

-Background stories? written both in en and ro ?

Stories, yes, we can dig. with actual characters. My favorite is lt. Ioan Dobran, 13 confirmed kills. I have his journal. very detailed, day by day.

Myself being such a fool with the editor, i need more precise instructions: give  me this, give me that. and I'll happily do.

?

Edited March 20, 2024 by AndreiTomescu

[Sandmarken]

27 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

Good for you! I will dig up the information I found earlier and send it to you.

 

 

Thx alot that will be super helpfull! ?

1 minute ago, AndreiTomescu said:

Hello! I'm from Romania, and I have like tons of books about the romanian campaign, from 1938, towards Barbarossa, the fall of Odessa, ther Stalingrad disaster, the crimean retreat, ant to the bitter end.

A campaign with the IAR would be like a dream come true! ? Thank you! Thank you! I've tried to use the misson editor, but i'm sooo lame.....

Please, be more specific: what would you need?

-Background stories? written both in en and ro ?

Stories, yes, we can dig. with actual characters. My favourite is lt. Ioan Dobran, 13 confirmed kills. I have his journal. very detailed, day by day.

Myself being such a fool with the editor, i need more precise instructions: give  me this, give me that. and I'll happily do.

?

Hello! All types information is interesting!  Like what type of missions they flew, what the weather was like, how many flew in a mission for exampel. 

 

I actually woud like if someone will  test some my finished missions because its so hard to know how things actually plays out when you are in controll of everything. And if they are fun to play. 

If you want i can send you some of the in work/almost finished stuff. No pressure on what kind of feedback you give ofc ?

[Jaegermeister]

1 hour ago, Sandmarken said:

Thx alot that will be super helpfull! ?

Hello! All types information is interesting!  Like what type of missions they flew, what the weather was like, how many flew in a mission for exampel. 

 

I actually woud like if someone will  test some my finished missions because its so hard to know how things actually plays out when you are in controll of everything. And if they are fun to play. 

If you want i can send you some of the in work/almost finished stuff. No pressure on what kind of feedback you give ofc ?

 

I'll send you a PM 

[YoYo]

Fingers crossed for the campaign for IAR80 (as a bomber too).

[AndreiTomescu]

Gr 4 Vt. (=4th Jager group)

initially were equipped with PZL 11, then rashly converted to IAR 80 and sent to Crimea with incomplete training.

Most of their missions were:

-own convoy protection (most missions, usually fighting against Aircobra, Boston, DB-3 and IAK)

-enemy convoy attack (the germans forced eventually the pooor IAR-s to be equipped with bombs for that, the romanian pilots resented)

-permanent CAP (combat air patrol) usually a pair in the air between 13 hrs and 20 hrs

-main base at Yevpatoriya

-the Romanians were trained, from '39 onward by the germans: they flew in pair (a cell), 2 cells  a patrol, 3 patrols a escadrila, 3 escadrile a group.

-they were equipped with IAR 80 C. at least in the beginning. afterwards, due to heavy attrition, they took everything they could: IAR 81, 80A, 80B from the other grups which received 109G6 bought from germany, manufactured at Brasov, Ro, or second hand from De (F4&G2)

I found in a diary of a Romanian pilot that : the germans, disappointed with the poor performance of the IAR, wanted it to perform bomb/naval attacks. The 80 C had 2 cannons, but no bombs. The pilots were pretty scared of flying above the water, with no shoreline in sight. So, even that the mechanics studied the german bombs and tried to improvise some cradle to carry and launch them, they (the pilots) did their best to skip such missions.

Also I found that from the autumn '43 they used any IAR available, so included some 80A/81 in their group, but most leftovers were sent back home to home defense.

I can't restrain myself from telling that i think that this campaign will be a blast. Of course i'm suuper excited because it's with the IAR, but from all sources available (and there are a lot, really a lot of books about the exploits of the Romanian Royal Aeronautics, all in romanian language, i'm afraid) Sandmarken (already proven as a great mission creator -try "War in the channel, Hurricane IIB") is making a history accurate campaign.

Edited March 29, 2024 by AndreiTomescu

[AndreiTomescu]

IMHO, the journals are the most authentic and accurate and immersive source of info about things that happend sooo many years ago. And there are the journals of Dobran, Greceanu, DiCesare, Agarici and audio records and notes from many others like Vizanti, Cantacuzino,Rosariu etc

Edited March 29, 2024 by AndreiTomescu

[Sandmarken]

On 3/29/2024 at 8:23 AM, YoYo said:

Fingers crossed for the campaign for IAR80 (as a bomber too).

I'm already making it. With great help, I hope this will be an interesting one. The group seen in this campaign, the 4th, only had the IAR 80C with a 20mm cannon that could not carry bombs. As you can see from Andrei's source, this frustrated the Germans, who wanted the Romanians to use it as an attack airplane since it was lacking compared to what it was facing (mostly US imports like the P-39 and A-20).) 

Edited April 18, 2024 by Sandmarken

[YoYo]

2 minutes ago, Sandmarken said:

Im already making it. ? with great help I hope this will be an interesting one. The group seen in this campaign the 4th only had the iar80c with 20mm cannon that coud not carry bombs. As you see of Andreis source this frustrated the germans who wanted the romanians to use it as an attack airplane since it was lacking compared to whar it was facing. (Mostly US imports like the P39 and A20) 

 

Thx! Which map? Stalingrad maybe?

[AndreiTomescu]

42 minutes ago, YoYo said:

Stalingrad maybe?

Kuban.

At Stalingrad the Romanian IAR was still holding his own against russian planes. IAR's old "friend" from Odessa the I-16 was still up in the air and the ro aircraft could tackle with it easily.  Also YAk1, LAGG5, were fine aircraft, but the IAR was able to cope.

In Kuban however, the IAR was really at a great technical disadvantage, especially against those western imported aircraft (Aircobra, Hurricane, Spits, Boston) not to mention the new Soviet models.

  Also, at Stalingrad we had our best pilots there. In Kuban those from the best who survived, the aces, were flying 109G, (7th/9th) for a while included in the Udet flotilla but with Romanian markings, and the rest of the ro aircraft, that's the IAR , were flown by less experienced or even fresh from training. To be mentioned that the bombing ro units (Stukas, Hs129, Ju 88, etc) were flown by veterans, cause there weren't trained other bomber pilots, cause they hadn't much supplementary aircraft.

To be mentioned the case of 8th Vt (8th fighter grouo) equipped with IAR 80, which was transformed almost over night into ground attack and received Hs129. And they were pretty successful. 

Edited March 29, 2024 by AndreiTomescu

[CzechTexan]

On 3/29/2024 at 5:02 AM, AndreiTomescu said:

Kuban.

At Stalingrad the Romanian IAR was still holding his own against russian planes. IAR's old "friend" from Odessa the I-16 was still up in the air and the ro aircraft could tackle with it easily.  Also YAk1, LAGG5, were fine aircraft, but the IAR was able to cope.

In Kuban however, the IAR was really at a great technical disadvantage, especially against those western imported aircraft (Aircobra, Hurricane, Spits, Boston) not to mention the new Soviet models.

  Also, at Stalingrad we had our best pilots there. In Kuban those from the best who survived, the aces, were flying 109G, (7th/9th) for a while included in the Udet flotilla but with Romanian markings, and the rest of the ro aircraft, that's the IAR , were flown by less experienced or even fresh from training. To be mentioned that the bombing ro units (Stukas, Hs129, Ju 88, etc) were flown by veterans, cause there weren't trained other bomber pilots, cause they hadn't much supplementary aircraft.

To be mentioned the case of 8th Vt (8th fighter grouo) equipped with IAR 80, which was transformed almost over night into ground attack and received Hs129. And they were pretty successful. 

Andrei, 

I am thinking about making an Allied and Axis campaign on the Stalingrad map.  I will make the Allied campaign first.  I need to gather information first.

Can you give more specific information about the Romanians at Stalingrad?  Dates, Airfields, types of missions?

[Jaegermeister]

On 8/20/2024 at 10:40 PM, CzechTexan said:

Andrei, 

I am thinking about making an Allied and Axis campaign on the Stalingrad map.  I will make the Allied campaign first.  I need to gather information first.

Can you give more specific information about the Romanians at Stalingrad?  Dates, Airfields, types of missions?

If you open the single IAR80 mission included under Single Missions, it will give you a good bit of that information in the briefing. The units in that mission are in the correct places and time. If you can get a record of specific mission details, that could make a great Scripted Campaign