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[sputnikshock]

Kattegat Nights (3-mission nightfighting showcase pack)
v1.0

Aircraft: Ju 88G-6
Map: Denmark
Theme: Nightfighting
Date: December 1944



FEATURES

- 3 missions of increasing complexity
- Hopefully fun for both NF noobs and hardcore nightfighters
- Semi-historical: Based on eyewitness accounts, historic documents and extensive research.
  Some of the events in the missions actually took place at the mission's date, some of them took place in the same way as in the mission.
  Many are could have taken place in a similar way, and most are just completely fictional guesses centered around the more important (historically correct) operations.
- Fully (FMB-)populated Grove airfield, including night-lighting and historically correct AAA locations.
- Historical placement of radio beacons and radar stations. 


BACKGROUND & SETTING

December 1944. Denmark. Nights are quiet there, at least when compared to the Ardennes, where the Battle of the Bulge is raging. Most of
the allied bomber forces are employed in support of the fighting there. However, nightfighter groups stationed in Denmark still have to cope
with 'gardening', RAF Bomber Command's nightly minelaying operations off the coast of Denmark and northern Germany. While being important missions in their own right, they also serve the purpose to draw attention away from Bomber Command's major raids, which again are frequently routed through Danish airspace when bound for targets in the northeast of Germany. Thus, the continous presence of a minelaying force is an extremely valuable factor in keeping the Luftwaffe clueless about what might be coming and where.
In the light of this the Luftwaffe nightfighting force, although faced with a disastrous supply shortage, technical and numerical inferiority, and a war that it is loosing rapidly, cannot afford to not mobilize the little they have left and try to go after the 'gardeners'.
You are with I/NJG 3, which just moved to Grove airfield. Will you be able to catch a Lancaster or Halifax flying low above the water? Will you manage to be in the place at the right time? Can you make your Ju 88G-6 climb fast enough to catch that high-flying radar contact that your ground controller is about to loose? Will you run into a Mosquito trap? Can you cope with the frustration of flying in darkness for hours, not exactly knowing where you are and not knowing where your targets might be? ...

Mission 2&3 can be played multiple times I hope. Unless you look at them in FMB it shouldn't be too obvious what's going on and where.
Actually, the missions are all about situational awareness, which is hard to gain at night with limited information and realistic difficulty options enabled. There are decoys, spoofs and traps hidden in these missions. You might not find the target. Flying around searching - with nothing happening - is an integral part of nightfighting after all. You might find targets but it may not be the primary force. Things are not always as they seem. Maybe this is wishful thinking... Anyway, if you weren't successfull or have the feeling that this couldn't have been it, try again with a different strategy...or have a look at FMB and see what else was going on on the map. 


PURPOSE

1. - To be immersive and fun missions.
2. - To showcase a couple of mods and FMB nightfighter mission building.
3. - To illustrate the capabilities of Il-2 DBW as a nightfighting simulator, advertise its "realistic navigation" option and get more people interested in flying after Il-2 sunset in general.


REQUIREMENTS

Built and tested with DBW 1.6. Should work in newer versions as well. Not sure about older ones.
On top of DBW you still need these mods:

- Command&Control v2.0...............https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,16973.0.html
- Ju 88G-6 v1.4............................https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,23846.0.html
- Realistic Airfield Lighting...............https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,23695.0.html
- Wuerzburg-Riese + Freya radars....https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,24193.0.html

Please read the readme's if you haven't used these mods before or are unfamiliar with them (especially C&C).


INSTALLATION

Put the .mis and .ru_properties files in the mission folder of your choice.
Also, you have to copy the MWactors.static file that comes with the download into your [IL-2 DBW]\#DBW\MapMods\maps\rw32_Denmark folder. If you don't have a rw32_Denmark folder (which is most likely), you have to create it.
The new static file is necessary as it resolves a bug which will not allow runway lighting to be activated at Grove airfield (due to a runway conflict).


IMPORTANT

Should you want to open the missions in Full Mission Builder, make a copy of the .mis files first, and after saving in FMB open both the new and the original .mis file in a text editor and make sure that the [Mods] section at the end of the file is present. In case, just copy it from the original file and paste it into your edited one. Without the [Mods] section the missions will not work as intended!

Finally, if you are new to nightfighting or C&C objects, you should enable these settings in your "difficulty" tab.

No Icons
Realistic Navigation
No Map Icons
No Player Map Icon
No Minimap Path


DOWNLOAD

https://www.mediafire.com/?lbngdu5xgdgqx2l


Lotsa reading for just 3 missions... Now enjoy your flight.

[santobr]

Wow! Awesome job! Thank you!



santobr.

[OberstDanjeje]

Yes, awesome, thanks

[SAS~Poltava]

First rate this. Thanks!

[sputnikshock]

Thanks Poltava!

Flew one of the missions yesterday night, inbound to a radar station as Naxos picks up an emission. I level off at 2000m in thick clouds, reluctant to climb further, just in case a bomber might go for another H2S navigation snapshot. Coming into range of a Würzburg station they have vectors for me right away. Turning towards the target, starting to climb to 2500m. Still in the clouds, it's a bumpy ride, and she's going fast. Easy on the throttles, I know I will be on a reciprocal heading. RO picks up a return on the FuG220, dead ahead, slightly below, range one thousand meters. I trim her level, still soaked in clouds. Then just in the same moment as I pop out into a whole in the clouds, a Lancaster's nose is filling my screen! No time to even push on the stick. He's zapping past above me, clearing my vertical stabilizer by maybe half a propeller width!!! 

I hit pause for an external view. Scary sight, the two planes stacked and inches away from each other, mine being completely hidden under the Lanc when viewed from above. As I hit Printscreen game freezes...CTD...
Calculated relative passing speed was around 800kph TAS.

[BT~Tarik]

Ok I tried the first mission today (the transfer), but somehow I cannot switch to any beacon (nothing happens if I press the keys), and the runway lights/FIDO don't work either...I was just above the airfield and asked for them several times but nothing happened...

But the flares seemed tow work, I saw it several times.

[sputnikshock]

Concerning beacons, could this be the cause of trouble:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,20351.348.html post#349
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,20723.msg223703.html#msg223703

Concenring rwy lights: You did install the new static file for the denmark map, right? Please double check if it's in the right folder.
You can also check with FMB if it's being read by the game. Load Denmark map and zoom to Grove. There should be only one runway with runway symbols on each end (the static file removes these from the parallel runway in the northen airfield dispersal area).

[BT~Tarik]

Will try to disable this classfile and see.

For the runway lights, they do show up in FMB. And I did install the new static file, only one runway symbol on each end as you said.
The only thing I didnt install was the all.ini, I opened in winmerge and saw that it was identical to mine (except two maps that I installed previously).

Oh and btw the .mis doesnt seem to have any [Mods] section at all, even in the zip...which I left untouched. The other two have one.

[sputnikshock]

Looks like there is nothing wrong with your install. The first mission doesn't have a [Mods] section. Also the all.ini is the standard DBW1.6 all.ini, which shouldn't be in the zip at all. Sorry, my mistake.

Just to be 100% sure about the map, this is what it should look like in terms of Grove runways.


Can you try and make a quick test mission in FMB on this map, with a few blue army lights (lighttype 1, 2, 3 or 4) and a blue player plane,and check if runway lights will be turned on for you?
The decisive part is: After asking for runway lights, do you get any text or voice reply? Should be "vitamine", "affirmative", "roger" etc, but could be a number (which is a bug that seems to happen under certain conditions, but is really only a wrong reply. Lights will be turned on anyway).
If this is the case (=you do get some sort of reply), try placing a few lights outside of the airfield perimeter (on the extended rwy centerline just left of the right edge of the above picture would be a good spot) and see if these will be turned on.
If you don't get ANY reply (voice and text) to your runway lights request, you are facing the infamous mysterious runway lights bug...until now, to my knowledge noone has found out what causes it. I do suspect though it is related to runway/airfield setup in the static file of a map.
Please let me know your test goes. Might be that you are about to find an important piece of that puzzle.

sputnik

[BT~Tarik]

Its not an air.ini included, but all.ini (for the maps).

Yes thats how the airfield looks. Will try a test mission on it later, but I already tested on another map and there it worked.

And yes the GC responds "Vitamine" if I ask for them.

[OberstDanjeje]

Saturday I did the first 2 mission, it was my first real fly since almost 2 years, very nice, but damn, the night it's very black

It was very hard take off in the second mission.

Very nice

[sputnikshock]

I meant all.ini. Was a bit tired, sorry. Corrected my last post.
Ok, if you get "vitamine" that's very good. Because then I am pretty sure it's not the classic runway lights bug.