Vazdushni na Negovo Velichestvo Voyski Royal Bulgarian Air Force
The Lions Symbolic War
aka The Pride of LionsDownload here:
https://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Downloads3&file=details&id=3237History and Background by LarsThe Tsar of Bulgaria wished to remain neutral in WW2 but was given a choice by the Germans. Join the Axis Tripartite or be occupied. The government chose the former on conditions. They would not join the invasions of neighbours Yugoslavia and Greece. They also declined to join the invasion of Russia, not so much for communist sympathies but for not wanting to fight fellow slavs. Thus the main role was home defence, with occasional mapping and anti-submarine duties.
The main fighter early on was the Avian B534 Dogan Hunting Hawk. This was used until 1943 as a fighter escort and interceptor, by which time it was totally outclassed and under-armed for modern air combat. The relatively well trained and eager young airmen were dubbed ‘Lions’ in the Press. There were never more than 160 of them.
In 1941 the Germans provided them with well used Bf109Es they called Strelas Arrows and later in 1943 with ex-French D520s which provided a main defence force. The Bf109Es were eventually supplanted by Bf109Gs, also called Strelas.
Initially the fighters patrolled their borders, intercepting the various Allied planes that crossed Bulgaria on their way to other countries. As the Germans moved in to Bulgaria in preparation for the invasion of Yugoslavia, the Allies bombed some Bulgarian cities through which German forces were driving. Small VnNVV units were sent to map the Aegean and Black Seas, hunting for Allied submarines along the way. Five subs were bombed but not hit.
As the German front line moved further away the VnNVV turned to home defence, especially defending the capital city Sofia. They also tackled small formations flying to and from Ploesti. As the bigger bomber formations tended to scatter on their way home they were easier pickings for the limited number of defending fighters.
In 1943 to 1944 the Allies made ten day and eight night raids on Sofia. The night raids were mainly by 205 Group RAF. The day raids were by the 12th and 15th USAAF units based in Italy.
Between March 1941 and August 1944 over 23000 Allied aircraft entered Bulgarian airspace. Some 1100 combat sorties were made by the defending fighters. They shot down between 56 and 100 aircraft and damaging over 80 more, mainly American. US records record the losses of 5 B24Ds, 3 B24Js, 4 B24Hs, 11 B24Gs, 7 B17Fs, 11 P38Gs, 2 P38Fs, and 3 P51Bs over Bulgaria but damaged aircraft may have crashed elsewhere. The Bulgarian losses were 27 fighters and 23 pilots killed.
Due to the large number of civilians killed in air raids the government was forced to change sides and join the Russians in fighting their former friends the Germans from September 1944 to wars end.
One particular mission is included. The fighter defence included the Avian 135 Swallow. It was a fighter pilot trainer and thought so difficult to fly that only instructors flew it. On 30th March 1944 four instructors took off to do their bit in defending the capital. The Swallows caught up with a lagging B17F trailing behind the main formation and managed to shoot it down. Most records claim it was a B24 but later records confirm it was a B17. We have included this mission as it was a one off and the plane and skins are happily available in BAT.
You will fly the Avia B534, Avia 135, Bf109E4, Bf109G2 Bf109G6, and D520.
We had a few problems with this set up. Von tested on his latest pc and I tested on my 13 year old Sony Vaio laptop with Windows 10. By running both we hope to cater for most players who use all sorts of computers. Normally it means scaling back on historical numbers for a start.
The beautiful map by agracier has a few hiccups such as the runway does not align with the flight circuits at the main base at Bolzurishte, with the AI planes landing short of the runway and bouncing along the grass. There is a lot of stutter if the numbers are large so we had to reduce them to flyable amounts. If you keep below X4 speed then you should be alright. I know some of you like to use the multi speed to enter combat sooner rather than later, and others like to take their time and enjoy the flight.
A Note on the Bulgarian Speech Pack
At this time, BAT comes with a Bulgarian speech pack but the game does not use it. The Bulgarian Speech Pack is actually part Dutch so we give you the option of using it or the stock Russian default speech pack. We assume the Bulgarian speech is not used for good reason. If this proves wrong we will make any necessary corrections. We’ve included files to activate the Bulgarian speech via JSGME if you want to try it yourself. See the installation section below for details
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 without these features. In many cases, enemy aircraft and targets will not appear without these mods.
To install:
• Extract the Lions.zip file to a temporary directory and unzip.
• Copy the decompressed Missions and PaintSchemes folders to your IL-2 1946 root folder.
• Optional: Copy the BATMODS folder to your IL-2 1946 root folder and activate the Bulgarian speech pack via JSGME.
• In the New Pilot Career page, choose Bulgaria in the Air Force selection drop-down.
• Choose Pride of Lions 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. Known skin credits:
Bf-109E Fly by Shooter
D520 Lepermagloire
Bf-109Gs VPMedia
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.
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Topic: The Pride of Lions - A Royal Bulgarian AF campaign for BAT (Read 280 times)
