Thanks for your post, woofiedog, I'm happy that you enjoy this mod
Regarding the IL-2 freeze on nuke explosion, one thing which might be worth a try is adjusting several conf.ini parameters, e.g.:
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=1
This should (theoretically) limit the maximum number of sprites being used at the same time.
TexCompress=2
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1
This compresses the object's textures with only slightly quality loss. Both entries must be set like above.
The reason why these settings my help is that during the nuke explosion the number of particles (i.e. polygons, sprites, textures) raises dramatically and might exceed the limits of your graphics card. By limiting the number or sprites (first entry above) and reducing the memory consumption of textures, it might be possible to stay withing the limits of the graphics card.
Best regards - Mike