Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[vonofterdingen]

Historical Background
In October 1940 the Italians launched an attack on Greece believing it to be an easy conquest. Unluckily for them, the weather proved particularly bad which made the already poor roads difficult to traverse. The coastal ports to keep the Italian war machine supplied were limited in capacity which slowed their means of a strong advance. The Italian Navy was powerful but could not help with the inland operations. The strongest element of the invaders was their Air Force. The main units operated from the few airworthy bases in Albania, with further units flying from the east coast of Italy. However, even they were all hampered by the constant rain and snow and freezing temperatures. Both sides were reduced to flying only one or two days a week on average.

Download the campaign here: https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=3012


 
Despite being outnumbered, the Greeks made good use of the bad weather and mountainous terrain. It enabled them to slow then halt the struggling Italian forces. Air losses were heavy on both sides. In November 1940 welcome news arrived that reinforcements were on their way. The English RAF were sending bomber and fighter units, and the Yugoslavs were seconding some of their aircrew to boost personnel in the fight against the invaders. This enabled the Greeks, with renewed heart, to not only throw back the Italians but also occupy part of Albania. In order not to upset the German forces gathering in Bulgaria it was agreed the Allied forces would cover western Greece and the Greek forces would defend the eastern side. In April 1941 the German forces, in support of their Italian Ally,  swept through Yugoslavia and Greece and within two weeks had overwhelmed both countries.


 
In this campaign we have toned down the rain and poor weather, and leave it to those players who wish to suffer extreme conditions to alter the format. We originally intended to create campaigns for the PZL24, Gladiator, Bloch 151, and Potez 633, but the mountainous terrain caused us a few problems with AI behaviour. Many AI aircraft were crashing due to lack of climb ability in steep valleys. The Greek radio chat is also a mix of Greek and English but better than no Greek at all.


 
We decided therefore to combine into one longer 38 mission campaign, where you will fly the HS126A, Potez 633, PZL24F, PZL24G, Gladiator 2, and Bloch151.


 
Installation
This campaign was written and tested using the SAS BAT Mod Pack, which is available here at SAS.
https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=3012

It may work on other modded systems but the campaign uses particular aircraft, Command and Control objects and Triggers, so many mission features would be lost or unworkable.



Extract the GreekFire.zip file to a temporary directory.
•   Copy the decompressed Missions folder and the decompressed PaintSchemes folder to your IL-2 1946 root folder.
•   In the New Pilot Career page, choose Greece in the Air Force selection drop-down. Choose Greek Fire in the Career drop-down.
•   We recommend turning off No Instant Success for this campaign.
•   The campaign is designed to be compatible with any rank selection.
 
We also recommend installing WxTech’s PZL-24 gun sight fix. Lars found the issue during testing and WxTech had a fix almost immediately. Many thanks for that! Download WxTech’s fix here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,67975.0.html

Credits
Many thanks to the BAT team for developing, maintaining, and improving the BAT Modpack. This campaign uses Command and Control and Trigger functions that were recently added to BAT. We also use the Bloch 151 which is new to BAT version 4.2.1, and just in time!
Special thanks to WxTech for the PZL-24 site fix. Also a callout to Kurfurst, from whose mission templates we borrow heavily on a regular basis.



We also thank the skinners out there. They bring a lot of life and realism to IL-2 missions everywhere. We could not identify the originators of all the skins we used in this campaign, but these we know:
Avro Anson – Mission Bug (aka Pete)
Fairey Battle - Mission Bug (aka Pete)
Bloch 151- “Ru…”(the rest of the name is obscured)

Hs-126K6 patch

This link provides an update to two missions that use the Hs-126 in the Greek Air Force. Note, that in the testing Lars and I did we saw some odd AI behavior with this plane. We saw it briefly at the start of our tests and not since, but beware. If you run into trouble reinstall the original.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/22s7d8eoluaww7q/Hs-126K_Patch.zip/file

[WxTech]

Reduced-scale maps like this which nevertheless retain the actual terrain elevation can be prone to AI crashing into mountains. Just from the standpoint of aesthetics alone I find the scrunched together mountains, with their ridiculously steep slopes, to be not just comical, but off-putting. If I use such a map, I run the map_h.tga through Photoshop so as to scale down the elevations by about the same degree as the horizontal scaling. It looks more natural, and the AI has a fighting chance. I figure that if a map is acceptable at half scale in plan, it should be about as equally acceptable at similar scaling in the vertical. 

[vonofterdingen]

Personally I didn't find the vertical terrain to be all that off-putting. Some of the peaks seem a bit too sharp but otherwise I find that I have really enjoyed the views. We took some extra care setting mountain area waypoints but that's best practice on any mountainous map.

[WxTech]

Indeed, the AI problems arise when runways lie in deep, confining valleys and such, and the planes are doing their landing thing. And yes, in this older mountain terrain, where peaks are not so high to begin with, the slope steepness is not made as horrible as for, e.g., the PNG-42 map. THAT one's a doozie!   

[Vampire_pilot]

Very nice one!
I made a Greek campaign of much smaller degree myslef some time ago and I ma curious about this one.

We also recommend installing WxTech’s PZL-24 gun sight fix. Lars found the issue during testing and WxTech had a fix almost immediately. Many thanks for that! Download WxTech’s fix here:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,67975.0.html

This mod should be part of regular BAT 4.2.1 anyway.

[Mission_bug]

Hello guys, thank you very much for the campaign, really appreciated.

Following the Hs-126 mission I made some changes to the cockpit to improve the rearward view for the pilot,
it should help you get away from those pesky Italian fighters in the mountains:

https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,66578.msg744950.html#msg744950


Just one comment if I may, there is a Greek version of the Hs-126 as part of the pack that has twin nose guns and
a whole array of Greek specific bombs made by Dreamk.



Take care and be safe.


Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[vonofterdingen]

First of all, Pete, thanks a million for the Greek skins that we use extensively in the campaign. Same for this cockpit change. I don't know how you find the time to do all the good work that you do.

Looking through the post you cite, I am unsure of how to reference the twin gun Greek version of the Hs-126. Currently, we use this version in BAT:  Class air.Hs126A_1 which is on your air.ini list for the mod. I think this mod is already in BAT and we are using it, but I am unsure whether we are using the correct iteration.

[Mission_bug]

Hello vonofterdingen, glad the skins and cockpit change were to your liking.

I really should have done some more for the Hs-126, it used the original export camouflage at first and then moved on to the Green/Brown upper scheme later, sadly I have little info on the Greek machines but I could at least do a early scheme with insignia, we will see.

Each of the three versions are listed in WAW together under 'Stukaageshwader',  you want the Hs126K_6 for Greece:

Hs126A_1                                 air.Hs126A_1                           2 NOINFO   g01     SUMMER
Hs126A_1_Spats                           air.Hs126A_1_Spats                     2 NOINFO   g01     SUMMER
Hs126K_6                                 air.Hs126K_6                           2 NOINFO   g01     SUMMER


I just started the camapaign again and the improved visibility helps, I even shot one down, my wing man not so good though.


Take care and be safe.

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[vonofterdingen]

Glad you are enjoying this Pete. We are currently putting together a patch to update the campaign to use the Hs126K-6 for the Greek units. Should have it available for download in the next 24 hours or so. Sorry about your wingman. Too much ouzo, do you think?

[vonofterdingen]

We are going to need a little more time on the patch. Lars and I are getting different AI behavior from the K-6 model and we need to get it sorted.

[Mission_bug]

Hello guys, yes definately too much Ouzo, I tried it myself many years ago, never again.

I flew the mission again and I enjoyed having the better view, those mountains are BIG.   I think even now there are issues in mountainous areas for the AI, we can fly as we want but the AI does not have that luxury, anyway, since I finished I have been trying to sort out the canopy for the external  view and getting nowhere fast so even though I hoped to have it uploaded by now it was not to be, I won't go into details but it has been a pain.

From a mission building perspective I would say go with what you are comfortable with, the mod has had so many alterations during its lifetime that it will I am sure have a few issues.

Take care and be safe.

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[vonofterdingen]

Hey Pete, glad to see that you are enjoying this. We have added a patch download that will add the K-6 version of the Hs-126 to the appropriate missions. The download link is at the bottom of the first post.

I also added a mild warning that we had some trouble with it at the beginning of our tests, but it seems fine now. If anyone runs into trouble with the patch let us know and we will get it sorted.