This campaign follows the exploits of the Spanish Esquadrilla Azul, a volunteer squadron that fought against the Soviets on the Eastern front. Be sure to download both the campaign and skin folders.
Download campaign and PaintSchemes folders here:
https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=3219For convenience, here a second link for the
PaintSchemes folder only:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/oiitsr5mvkxmthj/Blue_Squadron_PaintSchemes_v2.zip/fileHistory and Background by LarsSpain’s Blue Squadron, aka Esquadrilla Azul, was formed in the same way that the Germans created the Legion Condor during the Spanish Civil War. The Germans rotated their aircrew so that many more than one unit gained combat experience and learned new techniques. In the same way, the Spaniards rotated five different squadrons to the Russian Front, usually with some pilots overlapping to help the new arrivals settle in.
Eventually Allied pressure forced the Spaniards to withdraw from Russia, else be drawn into WW2 on the Axis side. The aim of fighting had been to continue the battle against the Communists but on their home ground as a ‘return fight’ after beating them in the Civil War. Thus the squadron badge has the number 2 or II added to the three bird logo.
The Spanish army sent 18000 men as the Blue Division which fought on the Leningrad Front. The air contingent was recruited in order to directly support them, but to the initial disappointment of the pilots they were employed towards the Central Front during the Battle of Moscow, and the next contingents stayed in that area and were prominent in the later Battle of Kursk.
The participating pilots were all part of the Spanish Air Force, aka Ejercito del Aire Espanol. On the home front they were responsible for defending their air space from frequent intrusions by both Allied and Axis aircraft. Thus we begin the campaign with home defence. Mention should be also be made of Spaniards who flew with the Allies but that is another story.
There were many changes of base during the various tours so we have kept generally to the main airfields used. Different sources give different details but we hope we have done the units justice.
Combat records summary
1st Esquadrilla Azul aka 15 span./JG27
Aircraft Bf109E7B
Personnel 17 pilots (who had 79 kills between them from the SCW)
Central Russian Front September 1941 to January 1942. Battle of Moscow. Escorts, ground attack and free chase missions.
Flew 422 combat missions, had 94 air combats and destroyed 10 aircraft in the air plus 5 on the ground for the loss of 5 pilots.
2nd Esquadrilla Azul aka 15 span./JG51
Aircraft Bf109F2 and F4
Personnel 17 pilots (at least 24 kills from the SCW with some pilots fresh from training)
Central Russian Front June to December 1942. Free chase and escorts.
Flew 1312 combat missions, had 117 air combats and destroyed 13 aircraft but lost 3 pilots.
3rd Esquadrilla Azul aka 15 span/JG51
Aircraft Bf109F4 then Fw190A2
Personnel 19 pilots (I kill from the SCW plus veterans from SCW who never scored plus trainee pilots)
Central Russian Front December 1942 to July 1943. Free chase and escorts.
Flew 1718 combat missions, had 112 air combats and destroyed 62 aircraft but lost 5 pilots.
4th Esquadrilla Azul aka 15 span/JG51
Aircraft Fw190A2 and A3
Personnel 20 pilots (4 kills from SCW plus veterans and trainees)
Central Russian Front July 1943 to February 1944. Battle of Kursk. Free chase and escorts.
Flew 1918 combat missions, had 277 air combats and destroyed 74 aircraft for the loss of 7 pilots.
5th Esquadrilla Azul aka 15 span JG51
Aircraft Bf109G6
Personnel 19 pilots (4 veterans plus trainees)
Central Russian Front February to March 1944.
Flew 86 combat missions, had 6 air combats with no claims but one loss.
Thanks to Hans Werner Neulen and Jose Luis Gonzalez Serrano for the above statistics.
InstallationThis campaign was written and tested using the SAS BAT Mod Pack, available here at the SAS website:
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 without these features. In many cases, enemy aircraft and targets will not appear without these mods.
To install:
• Extract the Blue Squad.zip file and the Blue Squadron PaintSchemes zip file to a temporary directory and unzip them.
• Copy the decompressed Missions and PaintSchemes folders to your IL-2 1946 root folder.
• In the New Pilot Career page, choose Spain Nationalist in the Air Force selection drop-down.
• Choose Blue Squadron 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. As in all of our campaigns, we make liberal use of Kurfurst’s mission templates, available at the Mission 4 Today site.
We all know how valuable skins are to campaign building and enjoyment. Special thanks to Wolf44 who made many skins for us expressly for this campaign.
Known skin credits:
CR-32 juanmalapuenta
Bf-109 Dori, AG.skins
Fw-190 Wolf44
P-39 Goodwood
He-112 Wolf44
This campaign also uses skins from the BAT install and we do not know the author(s). If you spot a skin here that did not receive proper credit please let us know and we will rectify the oversight.
Author
Topic: The Blue Squadron (Esquadrilla Azul) - a Campaign for BAT WAW (Read 1346 times)
