Official Historical Campaign "Iron Wind"

[BlackSix]

 

Iron Wind

 

By the end of the summer of 1942, the balance on the Eastern Front had shifted back in favor of Nazi Germany and its allies. After inflicting several heavy defeats on the Red Army, the enemy advanced rapidly in an attempt to break through to the Caucasian oil fields and Stalingrad. On August 23, the forward troops of the XIV Panzer Corps of the 6th Field Army of Army Group "B" reached the northern outskirts of the city. A massive bombardment of Stalingrad began, while the German 4th Panzer Army fought its way from the southwest, smashing the defenses. The city seemed lost.

On August 19, the 287th Fighter Aviation Division arrived at the Stalingrad Front to join the 8th Air Army and arrange the repeated military tests of the newest La-5 fighters. As a senior pilot and then as a flight commander of the 27th Fighter Aviation Regiment, you will take part in the most intense and dramatic episodes of the defense of the city. The pilots of the 287th Aviation Division had to do battle with superior enemy forces from the very beginning in order pass the most difficult stage of the battle of Stalingrad with honor.

 

Timeframe: August 24th – October 28th, 1942
Unit: 27th IAP of 287th IAD
Available aircraft: La-5 series 8
Duration: 15 missions
Average playtime: 8 hours

Languages: English, Spanish and Russian

Author: Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov

 

This campaign requires IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad - Premium Edition or IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad and La-5 series 8 Collector Plane.

 

 

The story is based on the most up-to-date research and archives data and can be divided into three large parts. The beginning of the story centers around the Soviet command's first attempts to stop the enemy's breakthrough to the Volga River and repulse the devastating Luftwaffe bomber raids on Stalingrad in late August that razed the city to the ground.

 

 

The middle of the campaign is focused on the first German assault on the city during early Fall. Numerous air battles with Romanian I.A.R. 80-A and 80-B fighters are waiting for you: their massed use at the Stalingrad front started just at this time.

 

 

Then the story will move to October 1942. Having been promoted to the rank and the long-awaited position of a flight commander, you will take part in the decisive battles that unfolded during the third and final assault on Stalingrad launched by the enemy. The total lack of aircraft in the VVS regiments and the dominance of Luftwaffe in the air became a real test for Soviet pilots.

 

 

Special thanks to @E69_Cananas for translating the briefings into Spanish.

Special thanks to @DN308 for translating the briefings into French.

A huge and detailed review of the campaign by @ShamrockOneFive

 

Buy the campaign in our store

Buy the campaign on Steam

[Vishnu]

Woohoo! 

[Rudini]

Some promo:

 

Olt. Hermann Graf of 9./JG 52 made some 8 claims over 287 IAD La-5s in september 1942.

 

 

Some questions:

 

ive never played a scripted flying campaign, just played one scripted tank missions. but if the scripted flying campaigns are as good as the scripted tank missions, then its worth each cent.

 

So my question is, is the atmosphere and emersion feeling similar to the tank stuff?

- money is not the problem. problem is the time having fun instead of further vocational training, cause hard economical times are rolling towards germany nowadays, thanks to politics bonded to dangerous mindsets. one should invest in preparation.

another problem is spending 10+ hours in front of the computer at work, destroying eyesight - then, flying in the evening further hours at the computer is a luxury, regarding maintainig health.

 

another question:

regarding the second picture from above. the starting La-5s seem to start simultanously from the airfield.

are the ground movements in a scripted campaign scripted emersion-friendly?

i mean warmup, rolling to the runway or alarm start out of the boxes? same with landing in pairs.

 

thanks

 

Edited February 12 by Rudini

[Roover]

Hi guys.

 

Just a short word for those who are looking for quick action. This campaign is awesome.

 

Take off fast, gear up and get ready for action. So different than fly to point 2 and 3 and 4 and so on .. little action or no action .. back to base, or cover these slow bombers in and out and there you go, 45 min. and not much happening.

 

So if you got not much time to fly, try this one, fast pace action.

 

Have a good day all

[BlackSix]

9 hours ago, Rudini said:

So my question is, is the atmosphere and emersion feeling similar to the tank stuff?

 

another question:

regarding the second picture from above. the starting La-5s seem to start simultanously from the airfield.

are the ground movements in a scripted campaign scripted emersion-friendly?

i mean warmup, rolling to the runway or alarm start out of the boxes? same with landing in pairs.

 

1) Hello! Unfortunately I don't know what tank missions you are comparing with, there are both official campaigns (I also took part in their development) and many made by users. I can only tell you on what principles I create my missions.

 

First of all, I try to make short missions so that the player spends as little time as possible flying to the target and gets into battle as quickly as possible. This does not destroy the historical accuracy in any way, since I initially choose for the campaigns those units that were based as close as possible to the combat zone.

The campaign also includes missions for reconnaissance, relocation, and escort, but all of them are no longer than 30 minutes.

 

Secondly, I spend at least half of the time when developing each mission on creating the "environment and atmosphere". Around the player there are always many transport and armored columns, trains are driving, groups of planes are flying on a mission or returning home. Along the front line you can see artillery batteries and ground troops firing. In the air there are many events that are not related to your task. All this creates the feeling that you are a small cog in the war and the world does not "revolve" around you.

 

2) The game has an unpleasant feature that if you go to the runway the wrong way, your wingmen will not be able to follow you and will not take off. To avoid this, the player must be the last wingman in a flight or in a group, but in this campaign you are the leader of a pair, and then a flight.

Also starting the engines and taxiing all the planes to the runway will greatly lengthen the beginning of the mission, which is contrary to my principles. And if you lose the mission and have to start all over again, it will turn into torture and waste your time.

That's why all missions in this campaign (except one where you have to take off alone) start right on the runway.

 

Anyway, you can run my free campaigns (Wings Over Caen, His Majesty's Griffons, Wind of Fury) and see how they work (but they have much longer flights due to the specifics of the Western Front).

[ColdArcher]

11 hours ago, Roover said:

Hi guys.

 

Just a short word for those who are looking for quick action. This campaign is awesome.

 

Take off fast, gear up and get ready for action. So different than fly to point 2 and 3 and 4 and so on .. little action or no action .. back to base, or cover these slow bombers in and out and there you go, 45 min. and not much happening.

 

So if you got not much time to fly, try this one, fast pace action.

 

Have a good day all

Love the campaign, La5 not so much.

[MarcoPegase44]

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Great campaign, always like flying the La-5 , but just one question , did the Germans make a habit of allowing their bombers to fly unescorted over the Stalingrad front ?

Missions one and two are a turkey shoot, so lets hope that the missions get a little more contested as the campaign progresses 

[BlackSix]

6 hours ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Great campaign, always like flying the La-5 , but just one question , did the Germans make a habit of allowing their bombers to fly unescorted over the Stalingrad front? Missions one and two are a turkey shoot, so lets hope that the missions get a little more contested as the campaign progresses 

Thank you) 

There were many reasons that led to this situation: 

1) as you know, even during the Battle of Britain, the Germans faced the fact that direct escort of bombers is not profitable, the fighters attached to them do not have a reserve of speed and altitude when meeting with interceptors. It is much more effective to send groups to clear the airspace ahead.

2) on the Eastern Front in the first two years of the war, the opposition of Soviet fighters was rather weak, and German bombers either flew without cover, or groups to clear the airspace were used

3) specifically at the end of August 1942 near Stalingrad, Soviet fighter and air defense aviation were suppressed, while German bombers were flying towards Stalingrad in a continuous stream and it was impossible and unnecessary to cover them all

4) the difficulty in the campaign should increase gradually, and the first 3-4 missions should be relatively easy

5) in the first two missions you can see German fighters that arrived in the target area first, but they were already engaged in combat with Soviet fighter patrols. Thus, your group is lucky at the beginning, it does not encounter cover and can immediately break through to air targets

[AEthelraedUnraed]

6 hours ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Great campaign, always like flying the La-5 , but just one question , did the Germans make a habit of allowing their bombers to fly unescorted over the Stalingrad front ?

Missions one and two are a turkey shoot, so lets hope that the missions get a little more contested as the campaign progresses 

See also this thread. Of III./KG 55 over Stalingrad, only 1/6th of all flights were attacked by enemy fighters, "of which only a few resulted in damage or losses with most being reported as unsuccessful." When the opposition is so light, there's little reason to spend precious resources on fighter cover and indeed, "[t]he reports don't mention friendly fighter cover very often."

[Vishnu]

Great campaign so far.   Really enjoying it.  

 

EDIT*   I just gotta say the immersion in this one is topnotch!!! The amount of stuff going on in the background is amazing.   I truly feel like I'm at Stalingrad, trying to stop the Germans from taking the city.    The constant bomber streams,   convoys, trains...so cool.   Keep 'em coming @BlackSix

 

 

Edited February 14 by Vishnu

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Well I may have to eat my words saying in an earlier post that the first three missions were a turkey shoot but now in mission four I'm up against a lot of 109's at altitude  and I have been shoot down twice.  There always seems to be enemy fighters maneuvering to get on my tail and we must be outnumbered 3 to 1 

 

But shot down or not this a great campaign, many thanks to BlackSix  

[BlackSix]

Thank you all very much for the positive feedback, it really motivates me to continue working. I really want to finish one more campaign before the release of Korea)

 

1 hour ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Well I may have to eat my words saying in an earlier post that the first three missions were a turkey shoot but now in mission four I'm up against a lot of 109's at altitude  and I have been shoot down twice.  There always seems to be enemy fighters maneuvering to get on my tail and we must be outnumbered 3 to 1

There were situations when I flew to the battle site in this mission and most of the Germans were already destroyed. Fights between AI are always unpredictable, the mission can suddenly become both very easy and very difficult.
The main thing to remember is that you do not have to win all the air battles, sometimes it will be impossible, the main thing is to return home alive.

Good luck in the sky)

[Juri_JS]

18 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

Thank you all very much for the positive feedback, it really motivates me to continue working. I really want to finish one more campaign before the release of Korea.

Do you have plans for campaigns on Karelia and Odessa maps?

[BlackSix]

16 minutes ago, Juri_JS said:

Do you have plans for campaigns on Karelia and Odessa maps?

I'm interested in Odessa, but Normandy first and foremost))

I'll have to see how things go after Korea releases. I'm also really looking forward to making a Soviet campaign for the MiG-15.

[Juri_JS]

5 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

I'm interested in Odessa, but Normandy first and foremost))

Odessa 1941 or 1944?

[BlackSix]

24 minutes ago, Juri_JS said:

Odessa 1941 or 1944?

I haven't thought about it in detail. If I don't suddenly get an official task to make a free campaign for Odessa or Leningrad, then with 90% probability next year I'll work with Korea. If you've any plans for Odessa - feel free, please.

[Juri_JS]

42 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

If you've any plans for Odessa - feel free, please.

I've collected all the necessary sources for a May 1944 Bf-109 G-6 campaign on the Odessa map. I just hope I find the time for it.

[ColdArcher]

7 hours ago, BlackSix said:

I'm interested in Odessa, but Normandy first and foremost))

I'll have to see how things go after Korea releases. I'm also really looking forward to making a Soviet campaign for the MiG-15.

I have been hoping for some more late war soviet fighters(La7 & Yak 3) maybe we'll see them in Korea? Then move them over to a Great Battles map?

 

Edited February 15 by ColdArcher

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, ColdArcher said:

I have been hoping for some more late war soviet fighters(La7 & Yak 3) maybe we'll see them in Korea? Then move them over to a Great Battles map?

 

 

Korea content isn't going to be ported back to GB. 

 

The La-7 and Yak-3 are being made for the new module with Odessa and Karelia. 

[ColdArcher]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

Korea content isn't going to be ported back to GB. 

 

The La-7 and Yak-3 are being made for the new module with Odessa and Karelia. 

Love it!!

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Enjoying this campaign but I have reached now mission 10 [Cover at all costs]  escorted the ground attack force to their target and managed to down a I.A.R - 80 and then escorted the Sturmoviks back and then landed at my home air field, but I am not getting the mission completed message, so I shall have to fly it again, so before I do what am i doing wrong ?

 

Cheers

[BlackSix]

2 hours ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Enjoying this campaign but I have reached now mission 10 [Cover at all costs]  escorted the ground attack force to their target and managed to down a I.A.R - 80 and then escorted the Sturmoviks back and then landed at my home air field, but I am not getting the mission completed message, so I shall have to fly it again, so before I do what am i doing wrong ?

I'm very sorry that this happened. Just in case, I checked the mission in the editor again and launched it on autopilot. There is no error, the landing is counted, the mission is successfully completed. The problem can only arise in two cases: if the player returns to the airfield less than three minutes after takeoff or confuses the landing airfield (this is a very common mistake). Or it's some kind of unpredictable glitch((

I advise you to launch this mission again on autopilot and turn on time acceleration. You can also turn on invulnerability. Autopilot will successfully complete it and you will continue playing.

[taffy2jeffmorgan]

Thanks BlackSix, I shall just repeat the mission as normal and then see what happens, and then as a last resort I shall try what you have suggested.

 

Cheers

[Jaegermeister]

42 minutes ago, taffy2jeffmorgan said:

Thanks BlackSix, I shall just repeat the mission as normal and then see what happens, and then as a last resort I shall try what you have suggested.

 

Cheers

 

Sometimes if you make a particularly hard landing or have damage it is counted as an emergency landing or crash even though your plane appears intact. This may have an effect if the primary goal is Landing.

[BlackSix]

44 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

Sometimes if you make a particularly hard landing or have damage it is counted as an emergency landing or crash even though your plane appears intact. This may have an effect if the primary goal is Landing.

I allow very hard landings, if a player crashes in the airfield area, the landing will be counted.

But yes, you are right, something can go wrong here, I didn't think about it before.

[Jaegermeister]

26 minutes ago, BlackSix said:

I allow very hard landings, if a player crashes in the airfield area, the landing will be counted.

But yes, you are right, something can go wrong here, I didn't think about it before.

 

I believe an emergency landing counts as a crash, so you should have it covered.

 

I use "on stationary and alive" in a complex trigger zone surrounding the airport, activating the complex trigger by the player onPlaneCrashed event.

[BlackSix]

Review of the first three campaign missions by @ShamrockOneFive

[Vishnu]

I'm absolutely loving this campaign!

 

But, I do have one suggestion.    There is soooo much going on in this campaign.   AI missions, ground action, convoys etc, which adds life to the map,  but the La-5 has such a limited amount of ammo.  I just finished the behind the lines mission, where you cover the railway and take down JU88C's.   It would be nice to be able to land and get more ammo/repairs!   I feel like I'm leaving so much unfinished, when I RTB because I'm out of ammo.   

 

It's a shame to have @BlackSix do all this work, and we can't land, reload and take off to continue to defend the Motherland!   (I personally would love this feature added to all the campaigns if possible)

 

Great campaign, nonetheless!

Edited March 1 by Vishnu

[BlackSix]

13 hours ago, Vishnu said:

I'm absolutely loving this campaign!

 

But, I do have one suggestion.    There is soooo much going on in this campaign.   AI missions, ground action, convoys etc, which adds life to the map,  but the La-5 has such a limited amount of ammo.  I just finished the behind the lines mission, where you cover the railway and take down JU88C's.   It would be nice to be able to land and get more ammo/repairs!   I feel like I'm leaving so much unfinished, when I RTB because I'm out of ammo.   

 

It's a shame to have @BlackSix do all this work, and we can't land, reload and take off to continue to defend the Motherland!   (I personally would love this feature added to all the campaigns if possible)

 

Great campaign, nonetheless!

Thank you very much for your feedback!

 

I suppose that this could have happened in the chaos of the first days of the war, but in general, Soviet pilots had no independence and could not make repeat sorties, with the exception of squadron leaders or regiment commanders (but they tried not to fly missions at all).

 

After landing, it was mandatory to report the results of the flight to your commander and receive from him the task for the next sortie. Refueling and oil filling (in conditions of a constant shortage of fuel tankers at the airfield), replenishing the ammunition, inspecting the aircraft for damage took at least 30-40 minutes, which makes this function completely pointless if we want to get closer to any realism.

 

Yes, the missions are filled with objects and other aircraft and I assume that after a successful completion of the flight, the player may want to replay it, leaving the main task aside and doing something else.

[Mike2945]

Having recently bought this campaign, unfortunately the game is crashing to desktop every time I try to take off with the following message:

'Can Not Open Effect graphics\effects\arm\smallbombssurface.epl'

I have deleted all MODS, and checked the integrity of my game files twice, but this hasn't solved the problem.  I'd be grateful for any advice - I'm keen to play what appears to be an excellent campaign!

Mike

[BlackSix]

4 hours ago, Mike2945 said:

Having recently bought this campaign, unfortunately the game is crashing to desktop every time I try to take off with the following message:

'Can Not Open Effect graphics\effects\arm\smallbombssurface.epl'

I have deleted all MODS, and checked the integrity of my game files twice, but this hasn't solved the problem.  I'd be grateful for any advice - I'm keen to play what appears to be an excellent campaign!

I'm very sorry that this happened. Try to talk to tech support. This is some very specific problem that hasn't appeared for anyone else yet.

https://il2sturmovik.com/support/request/

[AEthelraedUnraed]

10 hours ago, Mike2945 said:

Having recently bought this campaign, unfortunately the game is crashing to desktop every time I try to take off with the following message:

'Can Not Open Effect graphics\effects\arm\smallbombssurface.epl'

I have deleted all MODS, and checked the integrity of my game files twice, but this hasn't solved the problem.  I'd be grateful for any advice - I'm keen to play what appears to be an excellent campaign!

Mike

Can you check in File Explorer if that file exists there and if so, delete it?

[Jaegermeister]

12 hours ago, Mike2945 said:

Having recently bought this campaign, unfortunately the game is crashing to desktop every time I try to take off with the following message:

'Can Not Open Effect graphics\effects\arm\smallbombssurface.epl'

I have deleted all MODS, and checked the integrity of my game files twice, but this hasn't solved the problem.  I'd be grateful for any advice - I'm keen to play what appears to be an excellent campaign!

Mike

 

I checked the file location graphics\effects\arm\xxx.epl and that is not a standard game file. It appears you have a mod that has not been completely uninstalled.

[Mike2945]

I've found copies of the offending files in some Mods and deleted them but I'm still crashing with the same message.  Not sure how the camaign could have been 'infected' along the way.  File explorer found the files in the Mods (which I've deleted - both the individual files and the complete Mods) so there's no evidence of similar fies anywhere in my game.  Where are the official campaign files kept? I can't find them in my game to see whether they've 'transferred across' (by what process I wouldn't know, but I've run out of ideas!)

Mike

[AEthelraedUnraed]

I agree that the issue is almost certainly a corrupted mod. Perhaps it was corrupted to start with, perhaps it got corrupted with an update, but at the very least it's corrupted now. The good news is that it's most likely possible to fix this without requiring a re-installation; the bad news is that this will probably break any missions/campaigns/other mods that require the corrupted mod.

 

1 hour ago, Mike2945 said:

File explorer found the files in the Mods (which I've deleted - both the individual files and the complete Mods) so there's no evidence of similar fies anywhere in my game.

It doesn't matter whether or not the files are in the Mods folder, as long as they are not inside the data directory. So that would be [IL2 installation dir]\data\graphics\effects\arm\smallbombssurface.epl. I just checked, and there are no unpacked effects files by default, so just delete the entire effects folder to be sure ([IL2 installation dir]\data\graphics\effects).

 

It just occurred to me that the issue can also be in the file that references these effects. These would most likely be in the \data\LuaScripts directory. I just checked, and the only default files/folders that should be in this directory are CBalancer.cfg, soundengine.cfg and the snapviews folder (including its contents). If there are any other files/folders here, delete them.

 

This should remove any conflicted files and hopefully solve your problem, but as noted above this might break any other 3rd party downloaded campaigns/missions etc. if these require the corrupted mod to be installed.

[Mike2945]

Thank you Black Six, Jaegermeister and AEthelraedUnread for your rapid responses.  Deleting the complete effects and luascripts files, and re-uploading seems to have done the trick!  Two missions in, and thoroughly enjoying this very immersive campaign!

[T24_Martin]

Great campaign! Thank you so much!

 

Just a quick question... I don't remember the number but it is one of the four last missons. you are at 3000m above Stalingrad and a formation of Ju88 with BF109 is attacking the city. Most of the red planes are just flying in formation and do not attack or evade. So in a few seconds I am the only one left and get atttacked by many 109s. I had a similar behavior in previous missons. The AI wingman are not reacting to the events. Is this normal and based on the AI?

[BlackSix]

On 3/23/2025 at 2:48 PM, T24_Martin said:

Great campaign! Thank you so much!

Thanks!

 

On 3/23/2025 at 2:48 PM, T24_Martin said:

Just a quick question... I don't remember the number but it is one of the four last missons. you are at 3000m above Stalingrad and a formation of Ju88 with BF109 is attacking the city. Most of the red planes are just flying in formation and do not attack or evade. So in a few seconds I am the only one left and get atttacked by many 109s. I had a similar behavior in previous missons. The AI wingman are not reacting to the events. Is this normal and based on the AI?

Most likely this is the 13th mission. After your arrival in the combat zone, your flight receives the task of attacking any air targets in the area and immediately finds itself engaged in combat with a low-altitude flight of 109s. After that, 109s that cover the Ju 88s still appear. Attempts to get out of this battle to attack other targets and give new commands to wingmen will lead to nothing, unfortunately, this is an unpleasant feature of the current AI. I don't recommend giving any commands to wingmen after you see the red marker (i.e. the flight has received the task), the AI will not do anything after that.

[BlackSix]

A huge and detailed review of the campaign by @ShamrockOneFive

 

I also plan to make a small campaign update, which will appear in the next patch. There will be a difficulty adjustment, a French localization and another small surprise.