The Spitfire XIV was intended as an interim replacement for the Spitfire VIII and IX until the Spitfire XVIII became available. It was based on the new Griffon engine which replaced the well proven Merlin. The first Griffon-engined marks such as the XII only had a single stage supercharger so were best at the lower levels, which proved the design had potential. The Griffon was updated with two stage superchargers which enabled a good high altitude performance which could match the latest enemy aircraft. Indeed, the XIV became the best high altitude RAF fighter in the last year of the war, with the Tempest V ruling the middle to low altitude ranges. As opposition was not often met in the higher levels later on, the XIV was regularly used on armed recon and proved itself very capable at the lower levels, although the in-line engine was more vulnerable than the Tempest’s Napier engine.
Download here:
https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=3051 957 Mark XIV were built, of which 430 were FRXIV armed recon versions. The latter received an extra fuel tank, an F24 camera, and later a cut down canopy for better rearward view. The c wing used four .303 inch mgs which were soon replaced by two .5 inch mgs, alongside the two 20mm Hispano cannon. Initially, only three RAF squadrons were equipped with the XIVc and were part of the Air Defence of Great Britain. They proved very successful in downing 368 V-1 doodlebugs. From September 1944 four Spitfire XIVe Squadrons joined the Second Tactical Air Force in Europe, at first in combating the Me262 jets. Two tactical recon squadrons replaced their old Mustangs with the Spitfire FRXIVe. In addition one Belgian and one Dutch squadron received the XIV.
Between January 1944 and May 1945 the XIV flew 22,800 sorties, downing 171 enemy aircraft and destroying hundreds of vehicles, tanks and trains. In this 25 mission campaign you will fly with 130 Squadron who downed 65 aircraft plus 13 V-1s. They flew around 2,850 sorties from 12th August 1944 until 5th May 1945. 23 aircraft were lost on operations plus two in accidents.
InstallationThis campaign was written and tested using the SAS BAT Mod Pack, available here at the SAS website:
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php?board=264.0It 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 Spitfire14.zip file to a temporary directory.
• Copy the decompressed Missions folder to your IL-2 1946 root folder.
• In the New Pilot Career page, choose RAF in the Air Force selection drop-down. Choose Spitfire XIV 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.
As in all of our campaigns, we make liberal use of Kurfurst’s mission templates, available at the Mission 4 Today site.
Author
Topic: The Fighting XIV - A Spitfire XIV campaign for BAT WAW (Read 1402 times)
