History and Background by LarsThe standard German defence fighter in 1943 was the cannon-armed Messerschmitt Bf109G6 Gustav along with the Fw190A5. The main Italian fighter had only machine gun armament which was not so effective against the latest Allied opponents, especially the four-engine bombers that roamed the Axis skies. More modern Italian fighters were being produced but in small numbers as the industry could not cope with the necessary large scale production. Therefore the Italian High Command turned to their Allies, the Germans, for reinforcements.
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Several Italian pilots were already familiar with the Bf109, having test flown earlier variants pre-war and during the Battle of Britain in 1940. Indeed, the Germans were very impressed by how quickly the Italians mastered the tricky ways of the Messer. After some delays the first 50 aircraft were sent by rail to central Italy in early 1943, followed later by another 40. Two gruppi, 150 and 3, were allocated to fly them, and after a brief training period were sent to Sicily in anticipation of the invasion. A few were given to the 4th Stormo to defend Rome.
Initially the pilots were reluctant to fly them as they had earlier training and combat experience in high manouevres but not ‘boom and zoom’ tactics but they soon appreciated that it was a more potent weapon that their own lighter armed fighters.
Nearly all the Bf109F4s and G2s supplied were written off in training. A few G4s reached the front line alongside the G6s. Both sub-types could use either a droptank or underwing cannon. The latter proved useful against the heavy bombers, although not so against enemy fighters unless they flew in front of the guns.
Many of the Bf109Gs were ex-Luftwaffe so were often worn out before they started. Besides being constantly under air attack which wiped out many before they could get airborne, there were troubles with both radio equipment and hydraulic systems. The mechanics were not given sufficient time to train on the technical maintenance so some removed vital parts that they thought took up too much weight! The lack of co-operation between the German and Italian Commands did not help solve matters. Many times the Italians had to watch the Germans take off and follow suit as they no access to the radar network.
InstallationThis campaign was written and tested using the SAS BAT Mod Pack, available here at the SAS.
It may work on other modded systems but the campaign uses Command and Control objects and Triggers, so many mission features would be lost or unworkable.
Extract the FOS-BF109.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 Regia Aeronautica in the Air Force selection drop-down. Choose Fire over Sicily Part 9: the Messerschmitt Bf 109G Gustav 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.
CreditsMany 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 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:
• Bf-109 – Fly by Shooter
• G55 - Stefano and Max the Hitman
• MC202 - abraxa and serval
• G50bis - Boelcke and stanislao
• Re2005 - sakai
• Re2001 – Metratron
• SM81 – Archie
And many thanks to Kurfurst for his mission templates. We use them extensively in all of our campaigns.
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Topic: Fire over Sicily Part 9: Bf-109G6 Gustav (Read 995 times)
