Hi everybody,
This is my very first campaign. It was intended to be released by June, for the 75
th anniversary of the battle, but I started making modifications to Actors.ini of the map, then RL got in the middle and now, testing was taking too long, so I decided to release it as WIP.
Actually, the campaign is finished and playable, but probably you could test it and give me feed back about my rookie mistakes so I can improve my future campaigns.
You can download it here:
https://www.mediafire.com/?vkvcvu32vao4j04The download is a little heavy, since I included all the skins needed. You can, of course, fly it without installing them, but I don’t recommend it, because I didn’t use default markings for most of the planes, since as you know, SCW default markings in game are pure CRAP.
I paste the README here to let you have an idea of the plot, requirements, etc.
Liberate Huesca, 75
th Anniversary Edition, 1.0
Attack of the Spanish Republic on Huesca in June 1937
Type: 4-mission static campaign
Version: 1.0
Players country: Republican Spain
Players aircraft: Polikarpov R-Z (by DreamK), Polikarpov I-15 M22, Polikarpov I-16 type 5, Tupolev SB-2 100A
Map: ag-Aragon (by Agracier)
Author: Juanmalapuente
Requirements: See below
1. Description: This is a semi-historical, 4-mission static campaign, set in the Spanish Civil War during mid June 1937.
You are a Republican pilot participating in the biggest air offensive set up by the Republic so far.
I tried to keep it as historical as possible in what concerns to number and model of planes participating (strictly historical)
dates and daytime (s. h.), skins (most of them are historical), details of ground action…Of course, limitations of game and
my own knowledge are included, I hope historical feeling will be good anyway.
The Civil War has lasted almost a year by now. You are a pilot in the Republican Air Forces, taking part in the most organized assault
to the small City of Huesca, in June 1937. After 3 previous attempts to conquer it, Huesca is surrounded almost completely, except by
a narrow bottleneck around the road to Jaca. Now, fall of the important City of Bilbao, in Northern Front, to the Rebels is imminent.
To avoid it, the brand new Popular Army has organized the most serious attack on Huesca to divert troops to Aragonesse front.
Republican Air Forces, better equipped thanks to all the Russian aircraft, are essential in the plan.
You'll be flying four of the five aircraft types mainly used in the offensive, starting with Polikarpov R-Z, "Natacha" light bomber,
then I-15, "Chato" in bombing and straffing duties, also acting as fighter, I-16 "Mosca" escorting and dogfighting the enemy He-51 and CR-32
and finally, the fast bomber Tupolev SB-2 "Katiuska".
2. Difficulty: For the second and fourth missions, you'll need to keep engine overheat off, otherwise, AI R-5 will fall to ground after 15 minutes
(no matter speed input). Before starting the campaign, open the difficulty panel and set engine overheat off, I also recommend to set off
no external views (half of fun in this and many other campaigns is look at what’s happening out there. I also put several static cameras in
interesting points.) and instant success.
Recommended also to start as Teniente in Rank, otherwise, the automatic mission control will –automatically- change your position for taking off.
If you never flew a multi-engine bomber in realistic settings before, it has some tricks. You’ll need to assign keys in controls to select
every engine. Then, in game, after selecting an engine you’ll be able to start it and raise or low power %. Also important is a key to open
the bomb bay door, you have to open it before dropping your bombs.
Something that you need for several aircraft are control keys to block tail wheel and for separate breaks in left and right wheels. Some planes
have the awful habit to start rotating before taking off, even if engine is off (some bug I guess) you’ll need to keep a wheel or more blocked
while starting your engine or never will take off properly (sorry this is not exclusive of my campaign).
2. Requirements: This campaign has been built using the Dark Blue World (DBW) modpack, version 1.7. (It also works in UltraSpain RC4 and you
can try others)
If you want this campaign to work properly, you need:
Agracier’s Aragon map retextured version (you can do with the old version included in DBW 1.7, but retextured one is much better) Download it here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,24955.0.htmlIf you have UltraSpain, you'll need to activate this map opening All.ini, in maps folder, and adding the line:
ag_Aragon ag_Aragon/load.ini
It's already included, but you need to reactivate it, you can then add the retextured version, if you want.
Actors.ini included in this pack (inside ag_Aragon folder): this is a version of Actors.ini for ag_Aragon map essential for this campaign,
including modifications in several airdromes and all the trenches and fortifications system around Huesca. It’s heavier than original one,
but It’s worth it. If you want to come back to your original actors.ini after this campaign, just keep a backup of the original in a safe place.
To install my Actors.ini in DBW:
IL2/#DBW/mapmods/maps/ag_Aragon and let overwrite (backup original first).
To install it in UltraSpain:
UltraSpain/#UP#/STD/maps/ag_Aragon
For other versions of game, just try and see…
If you don’t want the retextured version of Aragon map (why not?) You can drop the folder included in this pack inside maps folder and It’ll work anyway.
If you have UltraSpain, for briefings to appear, you’ll need to open config.ini, search for locale= and change to locale=RU.
All needed aircraft are included in UltraSpain. For DBW, you need also DreamK’s Polikarpov R-Z, downloadable here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,26103.0.htmlAlso Dreamk's Heinkel He-46C1, that you can get here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,20345.0.htmland new CR-32 of Aviaskins (campaign can work also with the old franken but don’t do it, please) Downloadable here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,26353.0.html*If you want Gonvises Spanish Speech Pack for IL-2 (already included in UltraSpain, optional anyway), you can download it here:
http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads&file=details&id=42293. Other changes to improve the experience: If you don’t speak Spanish, you’ll need subtitles, but I strongly recommend not using them in any mission,
since they are definitive immersion killers. For this campaign, you’ll have moments of 10 lines of subtitles, covering your screen. That’s annoying.
To eliminate subtitles, open conf.ini in your main game folder, under (Arcade) you’ll find NoSubtitles=0, change to NoSubtitles=1. If you want, you
can turn it back to 0 for other occasion.
The only plane equipped with radio in this campaign was SB-2. I recommend for immersion to turn off also chattering the same way as subtitles: in conf.ini,
under (Arcade), you have NoChatter=0, change to NoChatter=1 for the 3 first missions and change back to =0 for the 4th one.
I strongly recommend doing this for any plane not equipped with radio. You’ll be alone with your engine and all the other battle sounds; you can swear as
a real pilot if you miss human voice, ha, ha.
4. How to install Campaign: Drop Liberate_Huesca folder inside \Missions\Campaign\ES\.
If you don’t have ES and SP campaign folders (already included in UltraSpain), you can get them here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,25931.0.html5. Skins: Included in this campaign are skins. These skins and the original templates were made by: Nachprod/Murdoc, Imme, Archie, Agracier, Phasmid, HK,
and myself, Juanmalapuente and some others unidentified but also great skinners. As Poltava always says: Thanks guys! Without skinners no campaigns!
6. How to install skins: Unzip the skins folder in this download and drop the content in your game skins folder, following this path:
"IL-2\PaintSchemes\Skins. Let it to combine and overwrite if asked, that’s all.
Probably you have already most of them if you’re another SCW freak, but some are new.
7. Literature: For this particular campaign, a great source of inspiration was “Some Still Live”, written by Frank Tinker a year after participating in
this offensive, months before his death. George Orwell (author of 1984 and Animal Farm) fought in Huesca a couple of months before this offensive and
describes it and the daily living in trenches in “Homage to Catalonia”. Also in English is “The Last Mile to Huesca” Diary of the volunteer Australian nurse
in Republican side, Agnes Hogdson. If you read Spanish, a good source of info is “La Guerra Civil en Aragón, Aviación”, by José J. Arilla.
For French readers, you also have Patrick Laureau’s “L’Aviation Republicaine Espagnole (1936-1939), or dozens of articles and books by Juan Arraez.
Of course, you also have other English written books, such as Jesus Salas Larrazabal’s "Air War over Spain", "Spanish Civil War Air Forces" by
Christopher Shores, Rafael A Permuy’s “Air War over Spain” and “Spanish Republican Aces”, Laureau’s “Condor, the Luftwaffe in Spain”, Miranda & Mercado’s
“World Aviation in Spain” “Wings over Spain” by Emiliani Ghergo and the most reliable source on SCW aircraft History:
Gerald Howson’s “Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War”.
My Special Thanks to:
Agracier for his great map and advice using map maker version.
Poltava for his great knowledge of good campaign making…Hell this readme-first template is his, ha, ha.
Dreamk, SASteam and all the other modders, skinners, and rest of people making all this IL2 wonderful virtual world possible.
And now, some pics, as usual:
I’m afraid I made a too long post, sorry for that. Enjoy and let me know what would you improve.