Downfall (Bf 109K4)

[ST_Catchov]

The only downside I see is that there can never be enough 109 campaigns.

[Marque]

Many thanks to Sandmarken and everyone who helped create the campaign!
I made a translation for the Russian-language forum and now I am happily playing the campaign myself.
What was it like for a Luftwaffe pilot in the last days of the war?
This thought does not leave me even when approaching the target and then when landing and always. What were they thinking about? It seems to me not about the power of the engine or guns. But "what will happen to us now?" "What will happen to my family?" "Are they alive?" I think the pilots were in a very gloomy mood.
Thanks again for immersing yourself in the last days of that war!
🙂
Good luck in your creative work! We will wait for more of your works! )

[Sandmarken]

Good that you found my decision to keep the mods and fuel open acceptable. I don't know if the Luftwaffe would fly around with half-empty tanks, but it's a way of showing that there was a dire fuel situation by that time.

2 hours ago, Marque said:

Many thanks to Sandmarken and everyone who helped create the campaign!
I made a translation for the Russian-language forum and now I am happily playing the campaign myself.
What was it like for a Luftwaffe pilot in the last days of the war?

I wanted to portray the feeling of hopelessness, a "what are we even fighting for?" feeling, flying over burning ruins of german cities. I've seen some interviews with late-war Luftwaffe pilots talking about how they were motivated by protecting friends and family from Allied bombing, even if they knew the war was lost. Intentionaly there is no "pilot story " to go along with the campaign. The player must think up their own! 

Edited April 1 by Sandmarken

[KodiakJac]

Hi guys,

 

This is the first time I've flown the K4, and the MW-50 is not working.  Tried re-starting the game, rebooting, everything, and the MW-50 is not working for me.  I'm cruising at about 250 mph with my flight never using Emergency and very little Combat Power until it's time to RTB to fight the Tempests (1st mission), and the moment I go to Emergency Power when I'm ready to engage I get the low pressure message and my throttle drops back to Combat Power (which is weird, too, as I thought I had the option of burning up my engine by running Emergency Power with low pressure in the MW-50).

 

The MW-50 has always worked for me in other 109s.  What's up?  Is anyone else having this problem?  The MW-50 is automated, so I can't think of anything I'm doing wrong.

 

Thanks!

 

[Sandmarken]

42 minutes ago, KodiakJac said:

Hi guys,

 

This is the first time I've flown the K4, and the MW-50 is not working.  Tried re-starting the game, rebooting, everything, and the MW-50 is not working for me.  I'm cruising at about 250 mph with my flight never using Emergency and very little Combat Power until it's time to RTB to fight the Tempests (1st mission), and the moment I go to Emergency Power when I'm ready to engage I get the low pressure message and my throttle drops back to Combat Power (which is weird, too, as I thought I had the option of burning up my engine by running Emergency Power with low pressure in the MW-50).

 

The MW-50 has always worked for me in other 109s.  What's up?  Is anyone else having this problem?  The MW-50 is automated, so I can't think of anything I'm doing wrong.

 

Thanks!

 

Are you flying in normal mode? The K4 will be in an emergency engine setting at around 76% throttle and will use up the timer. If you then go to full emergency, the automatic engine will probably throttle back to save the engine.

[Vendigo]

Because I use autopilot for long flights, I suspect the autopilot uses up the "turbo mode" during cruising or gaining altitude. Many times during dogfight I get the message "low pressure" then I scale the throttle down and then up again, and for some time no new "low pressure" message appears. 

[Sandmarken]

19 minutes ago, Vendigo said:

Because I use autopilot for long flights, I suspect the autopilot uses up the "turbo mode" during cruising or gaining altitude. Many times during dogfight I get the message "low pressure" then I scale the throttle down and then up again, and for some time no new "low pressure" message appears. 

I had to adjust some missions because of this. The AI seems to do a 100-0% throttle thing to adjust speed, which will use up the emergency mode. Of course, people will also get annoyed if I put the waypoints at too low a speed, as it will be hard to fly formation under 400 km/h. In mission two, the AI will use emergency power to climb but should pull back throttle to reset the engine timer at altitude before action.

[KodiakJac]

Ok, thanks for the feedback, guys!

 

I just flew Mission #1 again with Mods off to see if that would make a difference, but it didn't.  Although I did see more goofy behavior, I was able to use the MW-50 more than before.  I think it's as you say, I was using Autopilot during the first half of the mission, then turned it off when heading back to fight the Tempests, and I did get some MW-50 off and on.  Just really weird how it behaved.  And this is the first time I've flown the K4, so maybe it's just that I'm not used to its MW-50 idiosyncrasies.

[jollyjack]

All in all, Sandmarken did a hell of a job. Compliments, and thanks ! 

 

PS here's the campaign as JSGME file, just unzip in your mods folder: 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cr18aa57su5aj17/-_Sandmarken_K4_Rheinland_Campaign.zip/file

 

Edited April 1 by jollyjack

[Aapje]

6 hours ago, Sandmarken said:

I wanted to portray the feeling of hopelessness, a "what are we even fighting for?" feeling, flying over burning ruins of german cities. I've seen some interviews with late-war Luftwaffe pilots talking about how they were motivated by protecting friends and family from Allied bombing, even if they knew the war was lost. Intentionaly there is no "pilot story " to go along with the campaign. The player must think up their own! 

 

There was a very good video on this a few days ago, showing that POWs generally did not have these feelings of gloom. Instead, they, being mostly young guys, saw it as an exciting sport and were content with their planes, considering them well-matched with to opposition. They generally didn't concern themselves very much with the bigger picture, and when they did, they sometimes believed the propaganda about the wunderwaffen (jets) that would turn the tide.

 

Also, they mostly seemed to be delusional about the hopelessness of their cause and not aware of the true might of the forces they are up against. Typically, they seemed to have gotten a bit of a reality check when observing the situation on the other side, as a POW.

 

Note that interviews about people's mental state and beliefs tend to rapidly become less accurate once people leave that situation. The human mind deceives itself into believing it is rational and objective, while the reality is that people construct a narrative for navigating life in the moment.  Their narrative is not intended as a historically accurate description of (past) reality, but a tool to protect one's ego and to allow one to behave in ways that make a person reach their goals.

 

So they tend to make trivial mistakes, like thinking that they cannot have believed propaganda (because obviously they are impervious to propaganda, being rational and objective). So if they learn that something was propaganda after the fact, they tend to 'backdate' that belief to the past, and tend to think that they disbelieved that propaganda in the past, when they did not.

 

Furthermore, people tend to align their narrative with what is socially acceptable or even better, socially rewarded, so of course they come up with narratives like that they were doing it for their family and friends, rather than that they believed in the cause or didn't think about it. But the more socially acceptable/rewarded a narrative is, the more doubtful it is, that it is actual the (whole) truth.

 

 

Edited April 1 by Aapje

[Sandmarken]

Very interesting @Aapje I'll sure have a look at that video!

 

 

It is very hard to research things like the morale of pilots. I guess it's both very individual and also I do not think a 1945 Luftwaffe pilot always could or would talk freely even after capture. What I saw that was interesting but cannot find again was a list of pilots who in March-April 45 would volunteer for transfer to jet fighter squadrons. The author of the source pointed out that almost no JG 26 pilot was interested, arguing this unit had high morale and actually saw some success even this late in the war, being prioritized with resources and pilots.

 

For Jg27 more pilot wanted the transfer. But for what motivation the source said nothing about. 

Edited April 1 by Sandmarken

[AndreiTomescu]

On 4/1/2025 at 12:08 AM, KodiakJac said:

Wonderful campaign design philosophy!

yes, ant not only related to the presets. very iteresting fact : playing each mission several times i've tried different approaches (to try and trigger different reactions). and the missions are scripted somehow that allows very different outcomes. It's a kind of....replayability that makes the campaign more interesting, especially for me because i'm not a fan of this timeframe for the choosen side (axis)

On 4/1/2025 at 8:58 AM, KodiakJac said:

and the MW-50 is not working.

the methanol tank is empty. late war shortage, maybe....

actually found the cause: the mechanic was from my neighbourhood, and he stole the methanol for selling it on the black market. buh, bad habits....:)

Edited April 2 by AndreiTomescu
found the reason :)

[jollyjack]

Same, especially regrading the 'good' guys buying it ..

 

[Aapje]

@Sandmarken

 

I would think that POW interviews would actually be one of the most reliable ways to do research, as the interviews are in private, they have no direct fear of their words impacting their (social) status among their community, yet they have had only minimal information that would shift their beliefs.

 

It seems more reliable than interviewing them while they were still in their unit, and have to fear their social status among their peers or punishment by command; or long after the fact, when they had too much time to change their narrative based on lots of new information.

 

Quote

The author of the source pointed out that almost no JG 26 pilot was interested, arguing this unit had high morale and actually saw some success even this late in the war, being prioritized with resources and pilots.

 

That seems to be a case of jumping to a conclusion. There can be all kinds of reasons why people volunteer or not. For example, if a person that people look up to and want to imitate, volunteers, that can result in many doing the same. And similar if such a person decides not to volunteer.

 

There is no reason why this has to be linked to morale. Here is the text of the book, btw:

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/102432025/The-JG26-War-Diary-Vol-2-1943-1945

[AndreiTomescu]

In Romania in '44, before switching sides to the Allies, and under a tremendous allied bombardament, with the soviet armies advancing inside ro territory, the morale of the pilots was....very realistic. meaning down. doomed.

On the epic and final sortie of romanian fighters against american bombers, in 18th august 1944, 13 G6 vs about 400 Mustangs and bombers, the general orderd the fighters to scramble "only by volunteer decision".

All remaining pilots (13) from the 7th fighter group asked the commander (cpt Serbanescu,47 confirmed kills) what to do. And he said that they shoud climb, make a high speed strifing, and then scatter, so that they would make their presence felt. He said "sa nu zica nimenea ca suntem un sat fara caini" that is "for nobody to be able to say we're a village without dogs". It's a saying.....

He never returned from that mission. One pilot turned back before the encounter, accusing lack of oxigen. The others "met their fate in the skyes". Just like in Sandmarken's last mission.

So the morale was realistically low, but the sense of duty and especially the sense of bond between the pilots was compensating.

[Sandmarken]

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

That seems to be a case of jumping to a conclusion. There can be all kinds of reasons why people volunteer or not. For example, if a person that people look up to and want to imitate, volunteers, that can result in many doing the same. And similar if such a person decides not to volunteer.

I will see if I can find the source again. He or she might have more evidence than I remember.

 

 

The interview about moral I saw I think was given by Adolf Galland.

 

 

Again, this is hard to research and can also be a bit political, so I found it best to keep the campaign without any form of pilot narrative. 

[AndreiTomescu]

regarding the reasons for fighting in such difficult odds (i would say it in medical terms, "terminal condition") they are vast and diverse. and ultimately, individual. Another great aspect of this campaign is its loosness regarding what and who we imagine are. our character in the story. Sandmarken's decision (which i didn'n endorse al start) to leave the campaign void of any story (i LOVE stories) is wise and gives us a better opportunity to enjoy this tremendously entertaining campaign.

Although the story from "War in the channel" is awesome. (i'm not mentioning "the little brother" because that would make me subjective! :))

P.S. a campaign that stirrs a bit of emotion and rises questions about an individual's choises and motivations is definetly a deep one. high above point and shoot. spray and pray.

Edited April 1 by AndreiTomescu

[Vishnu]

Thanks so much for this...I'm enjoying all the hard work people put into these campaigns.  Adds so much to the immersion factor.  Woot!

[Sandmarken]

2 hours ago, Vishnu said:

Thanks so much for this...I'm enjoying all the hard work people put into these campaigns.  Adds so much to the immersion factor.  Woot!

Thanks! I enjoy the editor a lot, but I wish making campaigns wasn't so time-consuming. I have many ideas I probably will never have the time to do. 😄

[Calos_01]

I´m just several missions into this campaign and I can see you have made it again. It´s great, immersive, not easy. I selfishly wish you had more time to make campaigns. Thank´s a lot! 

[JMax]

Looking forward to this campaign. Thanks Sandmarken. 'War in the Channel' was fantastic'.  😎

[alpenspion]

What a great campaign! Just finished it! I'm so excited to see a German campaign at the end of the war. Keep it up!

[durruti]

Great! A very nice, immersive campaign for the end of the war for the German side!

Thank you for your great work, I had a lot of fun playing through it.

 

I also took the liberty of translating the campaign into German; the files are attached.

 

 

Downfall-ger.zip

[Sandmarken]

Thank you @durruti! I will update the campaign with the german translation as soon as i get the time! 🙂

[infame_27]

Amazin Campaign! I recently finished the last mission and I have to say this is probably the best scripted campaign I have played so far! The campaign truly makes you feel the hoplessness of the situation german pilots faced in the last few weeks of the war. 

[Sandmarken]

7 minutes ago, infame_27 said:

Amazin Campaign! I recently finished the last mission and I have to say this is probably the best scripted campaign I have played so far! The campaign truly makes you feel the hoplessness of the situation german pilots faced in the last few weeks of the war. 

Happy you liked it! There are many good ones, so if this is your favorite, it's an honor! 😃