Monty27,
Your banner says "55 missions over Burma and China". What map are you using for the China based missions? The reason I ask is I've built a historical twelve mission multiplayer "AVG in Burma" campaign for UP 3.0 RC4 using the lower burma map, but I had to end the campaign because the AVG was eventually kicked out of Burma to Kunming, China and I have no map to continue with. The upper burma map was never finished.
Nice to read this topic, especially the comments about the C-47's. I have two interesting AVG mission stories that I'll post here as soon as I can find them.
Here's two interesting stories about C-47's in the AVG.
24 April 1942
A USAAF C-47, which had just delivered a load of fuel and ammunition for the AVG at Lashio, was intercepted on its return flight by a fighter identified as a 'Zero'. Captain Don Olds, the co-pilot, took the transport down to treetop height to frustrate the Japanese pilot's attacks, while Colonel Caleb Haynes went back down the fuselage to help other members of the crew attempt to ward off the attacks with sub-machine guns; on this occasion the aircraft managed to escape damage.
15 May 1942
During the night between 15 and 16 May a most unusual 'bomber' headed towards Hanoi; it was in fact a US Transport Command C-47, in the hands of Lieutenant William Grube. Aided and abetted by his co-pilot, Lieutenant Jack Krofoed, and accompanied by Lieutenant Dick Peret, AVG engineering officer, and Sergeant Roy Hoffman, the transport aircraft set out on its unauthorised bombing sortie against Hanoi, arriving over the city at about 04:00. On board were clusters of Chinese incendiary bombs, a few French 50 and 100 pounders and some Russian 250 lb bombs - all 'stolen' from the Chinese armoury at Kunming! The bombs had to be armed individually prior to being thrown or rolled out of the cabin door, as the aircraft circled over Hanoi at 11,000 feet! Running low on fuel as he struggled to find Kunming on the return flight, Grube was forced to feather one engine to save fuel before the airfield was sighted at 08:30.
Those are interesting accounts, thanks Winston.
To answer your map question: The 1st AVG bases at Baoshan and Kunming in China now fit really well into Agracier's Hankow map. The geography looks right, we have water and mountains where we want them, and it is China! Chris Blair's seminal work White Sun, Blue Sky is a well known and rightly well regarded Flying Tigers campaign. His rendition of the walled city of Kunming on the Balaton map, was my inspiration to create a similar layout on the much more appropriate Hankow map, plus a bit more traffic, people and AAA sites.
If you would like to download my missions and use the massively detailed scenery of Boashan and Kunming (city and airport) as templates for your own, please feel free to do so.
'Historical Accuracy' is also a very interesting topic, it really depends on your POV and what you want to achieve. I personally know many pilots and service personnell from WWII (fewer of them left now), Korea and Vietnam who would point out that NOTHING we do is strictly historically accurate. This is a flightsim, an interactive program. Just as Hiesenburg illustrated, once we are in there working the controls we are no longer an observer. We become part of the flight, and it ceases to be a historical account.
Still, some of those guys can be a bit crotchety! Thanks to projects like DBW we can depict, with a high degree of accuracy, the dates, times, places, aircraft, scenery, ground battles and weather and we can set the scene in its proper context. Then maybe, for a few minutes or hours, we can walk the footsteps of those who wrote history.
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Topic: DBW - The Flying Tigers - Special Edition (Read 59663 times)
