ETO Battle of Britain campaign Mark II

[33lima]

Ankor's shaders really set off and showcase the fine work of everyone who contributed content to CFS3 in general and to the ETO Expansion in particular. I think it looks great.



Trying not to dwell on admiring the scenery, I’m soon gaining height, levelling off at intervals to have a good look around, in case of marauding Huns. After getting attacked at our own airbase on the last show, well north of London, I realise the enemy must now have 109s based on captured airfields in the south of England. They could be anywhere around us.



All is clear, however, and I warp half-way to London for another check. Coming back out into real time, the outskirts of the capital are clearly visible ahead.



What difference can eight Spitfires make to the overall situation?



My incentive here is that the CFS3 campaign apparently extrapolates your squadron’s results to your side’s operations generally. I’ve not seen a huge amount of evidence for it so far, but that’s the theory. To the extent it works, this approach to campaigns is perhaps CFS3’s hidden gem, even if -as it's doing here - it can quickly hare off into the realms of alternative history. It’s the Battle of Britain, Jim, but not as we know it.

I come out of warp for good about twelve miles out and at twenty-one thousand, which seems consistently to put me a few thousand feet above the enemy. Which is no bad thing, though it does mean that you're liable to miss things down below, if you don't switch on the TAC from time to time. I remember that 249 Squadron's Tom Neil in 'Gun Button to Fire' records how frustrated they were once they moved south to Boscombe Down, flying around with little help from their Controller, often finding out later that the clear summer skies around them were full of enemies they never seemed to see. Missed interceptions may have happened a lot in real life, but they aren't much fun. Especially if your (lack of) success is what gets extrapolated.

At first, the skies around us this fine evening are clear, apart from some Bogies whose movements don’t seem threatening. I ignore them and press on, as they’re clearly not our target (no purple arrowhead indicator on the TAC, equivalent to information from the Controller in an air defence scenario).



Another check indicates our interception point is ahead and nearly quarter right, ten miles out. The Bogies have disappeared astern somewhere. By now, on our right, I can make out the prominent group of reservoirs to the west of London, and the Thames meandering its way across the capital from west to east, up ahead. Closer ahead are two airfields, the nearest one Northolt I believe.



But it’s Bandits not landmarks I came here to look for.

...to be continued!

[33lima]

As is my wont, I turn off the TAC again and start scanning visually. The airfield below is I think Hendon, scene of pre-war RAF flying displays which included sundry biplanes doing aerobatics and more warlike things like blowing up compounds occupied by recalcitrant Johnny Foreigners who refused to behave - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, the cynics amongst us might dare to think. Also just visible is the Isle of Dogs, hemmed in by the famous U-bend in the Thames.



If any of the boys are in a cynical frame of mind, they keep it to themselves and follow me dutifully into who knows what.


Another check indicates the Bandits are ahead and left, 5 miles out, just beyond the 4 mile range to which I just adjusted the TAC.



There they are! First one...



...then two groups. Which one should we attack? After some hesitation, thinking the ones ahead might be fighters and the ones behind, bombers, I decide to send most of the boys after the latter. I will remain aloft with the rest a little longer, in case there are indeed escorts in the vicinity.



Banking steeply right to look down, apart from the flashes of some explosions, all I can see are some distant little silhouettes, flitting along in the opposite direction, a few thousand feet lower. They could be Me110s, or perhaps Dorniers. I decide to go for them and order the rest of the boys to get stuck in



We’re all committed now, though against what exactly, I’m still not very clear.

...to be continued!

[33lima]

I spiral down and pick up on a distant, fast-moving aircraft. The TAC confirms there are many others around, but this is the only one I can see out in front and at my level.



It's only as I'm close to letting him have it that I realise that I'm chasing another Spitfire!



Checking behind , there’s a brief split-second of panic before it clicks that the two aircraft back there are also Spits.



Up ahead is another aircraft and this one’s definitely a Hun – an Me110, in fact.



The big Messerschmitt pulls up into a steep climb, starts a turn and then rolls over to go down again, but it doesn’t do him much good.



Breaking off to take stock, I turn on the TAC, just as one of the boys reports being hit. I can see little of what’s happening on the monitor. But the TAC - which displays what my pilot is able to see, if not identify – shows that the skies around are still filled with aeroplanes. On top of that, there’s a lot of bombing and/or shelling going on directly below; that much I can see with the Mark I Eyeball. Several explosions are blossoming on an airfield, RAF Hendon I believe. Bombs, artillery fire or both, it's hard to be sure. But then two or three bombers reveal themselves by tracking over the grassy airbase and I roll in after them.



At this point, as I later found out, the screenshot key stopped working without warning. A few minutes later, the sim completely locked up. In between, I attacked and destroyed a Ju88 and then went for a straggling flock of maybe half-a dozen Dorniers. I was then attacked by a couple of Me110s and took more hits, having already been caught by return fire from the bombers. A call for help was answered, but before it arrived, one wing was badly holed, leaving my kite wanting to roll to one side and really able to turn only in that direction. At one point, I nearly spun in, but managed to recover at low level.

Would I have got away with it? I’ll never know, because just then everything completely stopped!

This is the second or third time - not all in this campaign - that something like this lock-up ha**** me, each time preceded by screenshots stopping a few minutes before the end. Apart from frequent pausing to take pics, the only common factor I can think of is that I have recently had FRAPS running in the background, so I can easily get pics of briefings and debriefings, as well as of the action. Strange, as CFS3 is usually very stable for me. Anyway, we’ll see at what point the saved campaign picks up again. At the rate it’s going, we could be throwing in the towel, any time!

[Daiwilletti]

hi 33Lima, sometimes you can get an idea about crashes from the D3D8 log which is a txt file in the root of your install (A file associated with Ankor's shaders). I often get memory buffer overflows, leading to lock-up then crashes. The only reliable way to reduce them for me is to use an intermediate-sized scenerysheet and maybe back off scenery budgets a bit. I've tweaked a number of things which are memory-heavy and can back them off too.

The campaign mission outcome is influenced by successful missions, but in part the impact is determined by the die-roll following the mission, as described in the Campaign SDK. A little bit of individual skill, a little bit of luck. In the Documents/install/ *.cmpstat file, there is a successmod parameter which influences the die roll. It takes a couple of mission successes to turn positive if the successmod is negative. If the successmod is -20 (max negative), then even a good mission outcome may still leave the frontline moving backwards - a heavy burden for a small flight of men and AI to shoulder . . .

[33lima]

Thanks for that Daiwilletti. I ran CFS3 ETO again since to test out some A/C copied over from Firepower but will check that log if and when I have the same problem. The screenshots stopping before the lock-up does tend to suggest running out of memory (I have 8GB with background services fairly lean, and 1.5 of VRAM, but have texture and scenery budget files in the assets folder designed to push out the blurry terrain textures which I may need to back off a bit.

So fickle old Lady Luck plays a role in the campaign progression, which helps explain why one early reviewer complained that his success didn't seem to matter much. Fair enough I suppose. All the more reason that BoB campaigns need one of the tweaks you suggested to reduce the chance of the Germans invading before about mid-August to the level of 'Somebody got lost in the fog, rowed over to England, found everybody asleep and grabbed the keys of the kingdom'.

[rince33]

All the more reason that BoB campaigns need one of the tweaks you suggested to reduce the chance of the Germans invading before about mid-August to the level of 'Somebody got lost in the fog, rowed over to England, found everybody asleep and grabbed the keys of the kingdom'.

Second that, things do seem to happen too quickly, experiencing this in my stand alone install.

[33lima]

609 Squadron, Hinton-in-the-Hedges, evening, 19 July 1940 (replay)

For some reason, resuming after the lockup (using the auto-saved campaign file not the one I created manually, IIRC) the briefing picked up some minutes later in the evening, but not much. The Controller (me, picking which sector and target to go for) decides to order us up against enemy aircraft in the front-line sector we're doing well in, the square that's green.



The order to scramble - and get a move on, please - reaches me a I'm lounging about but ready to go, flying helmet and parachute and all. Not for me, slouching comfortably in a deck chair with my 'chute on the tailplane and my flying helmet in the cockpit.



We're soon our way, with one flight of four Spits already in the air and orbiting to our right as we leave the ground.



All is not well, though. I suddenly hear one of the others on the R/T, announcing he's been hit hard - which in CFS3 as we know, generally means got the chop. Has there been another pile-up on the runway behind me? Apparently not, although there is only one other Spit behind me, not another three. What the...



Sure enough, a glance to the right reveals a row of aircraft streaming straight at our other flight.



We've been hit by fighters on take off, all over again!

...to be continued!

[33lima]

I turn towards the developing dogfight on the right and order the boys in. By this time, the air defence people have woken up. There's still no sign of whoever it was on the R/T reporting getting shot down, but there's no time to worry about that now.



There's one! Movement, and his yellow motor cowling, give away the 109, who is slipping in underneath me.



By the time I've come around after him, the range has opened out, but he goes into a fast right-hander and I can cut across his turn.



I get a shock when I realise the Hun is after a Spitfire! He wastes no time and the Spit goes down burning, before I can get into range!



The 109's break takes him across my line of flight. As a result of this, he ends up flying through the hail of .303s which I throw into his path.



After a short chase I get behind him and settle his hash. Retribution is mine, this time!



But there's plenty more where he come from, whereas we have at least two less Spitfires than we started with.

...to be continued!

[Daiwilletti]

Thought I'd mention in this thread, for continuity, that further BoB campaign work has been done in the Pat's BoB install. I really hope you manage to eject the Hun from Blighty, 33Lima!

On re-reading this thread, I've taken notes about all the campaign issues mentioned, in the hopes of much improving a BoB campaign for Pat's BoB.

Another comment for future reference - for those souls who want to reverse ETO to it's original state after trying the Bob files, one thing that seems to happen is that there is a mismatch between the unlimitedpilots.xml file in the root install, and that in the AppData pathway. So after reverting to the stock ETO files, suggest deleting uisel.xml and unlimited pilots.xml, in the AppData pathway. These files rebuild when running ETO again.

But in the meantime, I'm hoping to hear how your campaign progresses, 33Lima!

[33lima]

Well the Mark II campaign play-through has served this purpose and I can eventually restore the ETO to its previous state, though I will keep some possibly many features like corrected service entry dates and the ability to choose a different aircraft in the ETO version of this campaign and its revised spawns.

Before then I just need to eject the invaders, or at least make them pay the heaviest possible price for their temerity!

[33lima]

Curving back towards the airfield after knocking down the 109, there's plenty of activity. I can't see what the Ack Ack's firing at, but closer in, there's three aircraft more of less in line astern, with another one turning in towards them.



Joining the party, I roll left after a 109 who is swooping on a Spitfire who's wheeling around just above the deck.



I quickly turn the tables and the hunter is now the hunted.



The 109 goes down in a gentle dive leaving a pale smoke trail. I break hard right to clear my tail before going for him again.



The 109 seems to be still under control. Is he going to need attacked again, or not? I wish he'd make up his mind!



...to be continued!

[33lima]

It looks like the answer is yes, the Hun will need attacked again. I give him another burst and he dips away, lower still...



...but again, he levels out and flies on. I swerve back and forth above him, fearing that he will spring back into life and play some dastardly Hunnish trick upon me.



I take care to stay above and behind him as I watch, just in case, and not wanting to give any of his friends too easy a target.



All remaining doubts evaporate when the 109 hits the ground and blows up. That's settled, then.



The only aircraft now in my vicinity is also flying away at low level. I open up the throttle again and race after him. You can't see him in the pic below, but he's there.



On the way, I get a surprise when someone goes drifting past and down, on the end of a parachute. Where did he come from? How long has he been doing that? I have no idea.



I fly on - I have a Hun to catch. At least, I think it's a Hun...


...to be continued!

[33lima]

The aircraft I'm chasing down turns out to be a Spitfire in distress. Serious distress.



It's not long before he too hits the deck and blows up. The good news is that the pilot gets out, Justin time by the look of how low his 'chute opens.



By this time, the fighting seems to have petered out and the Act Ack fire, died down. I gain some height and call the boys bacy. I get only two answers.



Sure enough, only two Spitfires form up on me.



I'm not totally sure now whether we really had the usual eight to begin with - I only saw six. As for the enemy, if I recall right, I got credited with three 109s. Even so, it's been a bad end to the day - heavy losses in the squadron and the ones we inflicted on the enemy, were not on the raid we were supposed to intercept. We got mugged at base by the 109s, again. At least we didn't also get grabbed by the memory buffers - or whatever it was caused the lock-up last time!

[Led Zeppelin]

I like the light of the last pic.

[FlyingsCool]

What a great story... Any chance you might compile the mission reports into a book when you're done?

I'm on the edge of my seat over the invasion of Britain... Wish there was something I could do to help...

[33lima]

Thanks for the comments! I hadn't thought of compiling the posts but I might do that, when I'm done...something new and it would mean I have a copy all in one place, available to anyone else who wants one. It would still be the same text, written as a player who's into the subject and wants to convey the experience and the fun he's having - which I hope comes across. More creative, novelesque-type stuff I can do, but it's more demanding and just not my preferred style.

The one thing I would say is that any cliff-hanger element is down to the CFS3 campaign engine. I disliked it stock, as it had just plain daft stuff like German shipping freely plying the channel in daylight, but designed better, it has its advantages over a more fixed, historical storyline.

And yes the lighting in the ETO can be quite beautiful in early mornings or later in the evenings.

[FlyingsCool]

Thanks for the comments! I hadn't thought of compiling the posts but I might do that, when I'm done...something new and it would mean I have a copy all in one place, available to anyone else who wants one. It would still be the same text, written as a player who's into the subject and wants to convey the experience and the fun he's having - which I hope comes across. More creative, novelesque-type stuff I can do, but it's more demanding and just not my preferred style.

The one thing I would say is that any cliff-hanger element is down to the CFS3 campaign engine. I disliked it stock, as it had just plain daft stuff like German shipping freely plying the channel in daylight, but designed better, it has its advantages over a more fixed, historical storyline.

And yes the lighting in the ETO can be quite beautiful in early mornings or later in the evenings.

That'd be great! I will say I am enthralled. And, yes, I like the fact that it started from a historical point, and continues to use historical squadrons, etc., but that the story can go anywhere from there. Really great job.

[33lima]

609 Squadron, Hinton-in-the-Hedges, morning, 20 July 1940

The Controller has been paying attention to the numbers associated with the front-line squares and decides to have us intercept a priority (3-star) raid in sector N18, where those numbers show that compared to the Axis, we the Allies have more than double the...whatever it is, in that square. Personally, I think he's mis-reading the numbers and hasn't read the manual. Overall...I might be wrong, but it looks like we've at least stabilised the front, if not begun to push back the Huns in the Southampton sector..



As I'm already wearing my 'chute and flying helmet, I have time to check my map before I jump off my crates and rush over to my waiting aircraft.



I can see that the weather has taken a turn for the worse, as I lead my flight of four off to meet the others, who are already orbiting the airfield.



A quick check reveals another small group of aircraft is also nearby. Looking up, I can just about see three tiny specks flitting across the sky. They're showing no signs of hostility; in fact they, too, are Spitfires. As I can't officially identify them, I judge from their inaction that they're not a threat - and they're certainly not our target...



...so on we fly, swinging around to the south-east and passing our base on the left as we go.



How many of us will return remains to be seen, but at least this time, there are no 109s jumping us, in our own back yard!

...to be continued!

[33lima]

I warp about half-way to the target area and as usual, come out just above twenty thousand. We're above the clouds but there's a lot of them around. A quick check with the Controller/TAC establishes that we are on our own, although I don't think that precludes Huns lurking unseen in or behind those clouds. In real life of course, inland we're relying on sightings plotted by the ground posts of the Observer Corps, RDF/radar looking only out to sea. By now possibly we have mobile units inland, replacing the ones lost to the invasion.



I try to resume warping, but can't. I know that legs in scripted mission routes can be set to non-warpable, but this is a campaign. Is the enemy near? If they are, I can't see them, only our own Spitfires.



Soon enough I find I'm able to warp again and do so, coming out about a few miles short. There are now some Bogies to our right rear, but I'm more interested in the purple arrowhead-shaped confirmation that our target is six miles ahead, slightly left.



I bank right and take a look down at the Bogies. I can't make them out against the ground but they're well below and don't seem to be showing any interest in us.



It seems only second later that 'our' raid comes into sight and I immediately order in the boys. I see no escorts so twist down after them myself, partially blacking out as I go. I can still make out what looks like Dorniers crossing from left to right and Spitfires dropping onto them like birds of prey.



Yes, they're Dorniers all right, maybe half-a-dozen, rather spread out and being harried by the boys.



Time to get stuck in myself!

...to be continued!

[33lima]

As I come around, the squadron claims its first victory of the day!



My first pass is a rather clumsy one. I roll out a bit too close to the left rear Dornier, and am able to give him only a quick squirt, taking some hits from return fire...



...before switching targets to the one ahead.



Got him! No doubt at all about that one!



This seems to be going quite well for us! Time to see who else's day I can spoil.



...to be continued!

[33lima]

For my next trick, I decide to attack a vic of Dorniers that is already receiving attention from another Spitfire. While all this is happening, as usual I'm ordering anyone who reports they are rejoining back into the fray. There's plenty to do, as a fighter leader in CFS3.



The Huns have unwisely spread out so I'm able to make an attack on a bomber on his own.



My firing pass leaves him doing down with his wings full of holes and a large chunk missing from his port elevator.


At his point, a fighter turns into me aggressively. It's a 109! I throw a shower of .303s into his path and as he flies through it, I notices he's a 109C, a refugee from the Spanish Civil War! That'll be another aircraft I need to set not to spawn, or perhaps set its service end date to the end of that earlier war, in April 1939.



I let the 109 go and take the opportunity to attack another bomber. It's these fellows we were sent here to get and we do need to do them as much damage as possible to guarantee a successful mission, which in turn will contribute to pushing back the enemy on the ground. I hope!



Before I can set up for another pass, that Spanish 109 appears again. He obviously doesn't appreciate that Franco remained neutral during World War 2!



The 109 looks to be streaming glycol from our earlier encounter. Time to finish the job!

...to be continued!

[33lima]

My Merlin has several hundred HP more than the 109's Junkers Jumo and I don't have much difficulty getting onto his tail and letting him have it.



There he goes! And he doesn't pull out.



Suddenly, rounds tear into me from behind. While I've been watching the Hun go down, one of his friends has caught me dead to rights!



I think, no worries, I'll just use my Spit's superior power and agility to get out of his line of fire. But my wings are full of holes and his next burst settles the matter.



Time to get out! But I can't, and am carried down to destruction in my blazing Spitfire!

About this time, the mission, but not the sim, appeared to crash. Strange. The debriefing appeared as usual, crediting us with a success, and myself with surviving my own crash.



I think the latter is down to a mistake in my briefing mod, which treats a crash as just a crash, as distinct from the 'you have been killed' result. Something else I need to look at.

At any rate, my pilot is credited with two Dorniers and that 109C shot down. Ominously, however, it gets my fate right!



I'll check out later whether, contrary to appearances, the apparent mission crash saved my pilot from certain death and I'm able to resume the campaign without 'resurrecting' him with a previous save - watch this space!

[MajorMagee]

What the Armada failed to do, the Spanish Nationalists finally accomplished?

[33lima]

Looks like it The Air Ministry will have to send a real stinker of a telegram to Madrid.

[33lima]

609 Squadron, Hinton-in-the-Hedges, morning, 21 July 1940
　
My demise on the last show seems not to have prevented the campaign being autosaved with a live pilot, so I decide to take advantage. The time has moved on about an hour - I didn't realise this will happen while staring at the briefing map if you don't use the 'Pause' control. While doing so, I notice that the enemy now has a foothold in East Anglia.


　
Anyhow, to balance out my resurrection a little, I quit the proffered mission and allow the campaign time to advance, which it does, to the morning of the 21st. I decide to repeat our previous mission to map sector N18 - and to be a little more careful, this time. I have already edited the .xdp file for the Spanish 109C to there won't be any more international incidents.

The map tells me that the enemy has enlarged his bridgehead to the west of Southampton, but otherwise little has changed on the ground.

I get airborne without incident into rather clearer skies than yesterday's. As you can see, I've got the canopy open. This was specified practice for both take-off and landing. You can't really do it properly in this Spitfire, since the little cockpit door on the port side opens fully, immediately after the hood. In real life, this door was supposed to be set in the 'partly open' position for take-off and landing, open just enough to block the canopy rail, so that the hood would not slide shut 'in the event of a mishap' as the Pilot's Notes delicately put it.



By the time I've closed the canopy (and the door) I've also realised that our four other Spitfires aren't the only aircraft already in the circuit.


　
I turn tightly to the right and look back. A bunch of Me110s, shrouded by Ack Ack bursts, is charging us down!



Mugged on take-off - here we go again!

...to be continued!