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[Fresco23]

On December 12, 1937, Japanese commanders received orders to begin at once the bombing of "any and all" shipping on the Yangtze river. One of these was the U.S.S. Panay, a flat bottomed river gunboat tasked with defense of American property and lives. During an attack by Japanese aircraft, she was struck by at least two bombs, and strafed repeatedly. She sank just South of Nanking on the Yangtze river.

My goal is to finish up a single mission which accurately captures the feel and scale of this small but important event. Players will pilot B4Y Jean or D1A Susie aircraft. This mission is intended for use in 4.12.2, and WILL require a few mods to be installed, a list of which I shall provide once finished.

 









My shots are themed and arranged to resemble the footage of the bombing as captured by newsreel photographers on that day.

       While I found more than one source saying that the only aircraft involved were A4N fighters, and B4Y Bombers, an eye witness account was very clear that the first wave of bombers was a wedge formation of three twin engine aircraft, which made a single pass striking the Panay, and then left, followed by a wave of single engine bombers. These single engine craft were possibly the B4Y visible later in the footage, however the same eyewitness stated that the single engine aircraft attacked in a dive, which could indicate that they may have been D1A Susie dive bombers. Both B4Y and D1A aircraft were used extensively in the region. Both may have been present during this event. In the footage, one aircraft appears(to me) to be the larger B4Y with its wide wingspan. Several smaller biplanes are seen in the footage, and these are likely the A4N fighters, as they strafe the Panay and other vessels near her.

       Also, interestingly enough, there is one sequence in the film where very clear footage is seen of a low flying A5M Claude, and while no sources, nor eye witnesses say that A5Ms were present, the profile in the footage in unmistakable. I also checked the production record, and it indicates that the A5M was indeed in production by early 1937, and was deployed in the region by this date, so I have included it in my pictures, and they will be in the mission.

       For the formation of twin engine craft, any information on what these may have been will be welcome. I know that both Fiat BR.20 purchased from Italy, and Ki-21 Sally aircraft were used in this conflict, but neither would become available until mid 1938. I have it narrowed down to two possible aircraft. If there are others, please let me know. Also, if these seem correct to any of you, and since neither of these exist in IL-2(to my knowledge) I don't really have any ideas on what to use in their place and I welcome any and all suggestions for stand in aircraft.

Mitsubishi Ki-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Ki-1
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_mitsubishi_ki-1.html

Mitsubishi Ki-2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Ki-2
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_mitsubishi_ki-2.html

Also, for now I used the "Gunboat 1" vessel from the steamship pack, but a more appropriate vessel might be available that I didn't know about. If anyone has any ideas I welcome them.

Here is footage of the incident, attack beginning at 3:50 on the video.


And here, a website dedicated to the incident and its history, and to those who were killed that day.
http://www.usspanay.org/attacked.shtml

[Fresco23]

I have a question. I used a stock map here, but I have now dl'ed and installed a retextured version.

I have been told that I can make the mission use the new map by opening the .mis file and editing it there to cause the loading of a different map, to save having to rebuild the mission. 

Is this ok to open .mis with notepad?

[kukulo]

Some days ago found some info here: http://www.combinedfleet.com/Panay_t.htm

[SAS~Tom2]

Not to overpost kukulo's post with historic info...as for missions, I think you can rename the load section and use old missions if no major static ini changes as for takeoff and landing points etc/airbases/roads/routes where made.

 
E.g. the old MTO Quick missions notoriously seem to not work well with redko's MTO repaint map (size change there thus some missions float in the water e.g. or start far offset).
If all is the same, missions changes are no problem.-

[Fresco23]

Thank you kukulo! Very useful info! I will put it to good use!

Tom, I have tried adjusting the load.ini. This works for a fresh map, but with completed missions, I just get a black background in the editor when I try to load them..   I'll try again though.