CFS3
Nice! Didn't see this when originally screened.
I did see some of those glass fibre gate guardians probably made by that company, on a recent visit to Bentley Priory, now a museum...
...and a couple more at the 11 Group bunker at Uxbridge...
Nice! Didn't see this when originally screened.
I did see some of those glass fibre gate guardians probably made by that company, on a recent visit to Bentley Priory, now a museum...
...and a couple more at the 11 Group bunker at Uxbridge...
Some more favourites from Firepower...which incidentally is still available as a download on the A2A Sims store https://a2asimulations.com/product-category/cfs3/
(Luftwaffe aircraft feature the historical tail markings mod available from the CFS3 Netwings section of the Warbirds Library at Sim Outhouse)
...and some more Firepower firepower...
Havoc I Turbinblight practicing with Squadron Mates
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Makes you wonder what that would have looked like viewed from the ground in real life at the time?
John
(DR/ MAW/ ETO/ PTO Textures)
Keep it coming!
The Memphis Belle - first mission, November 7th, 1942
Some pics from the Belle's first operational sortie, as recreated by the Just Flight add-on
Our target is the U-boat pens in Brest. The 91st Bomb Group is putting up six aircraft plus one reserve, from each of the 322nd and 234th Bomb Squadrons, the latter being the Belle's outfit. They are probably the only friendly aircraft I will see on the mission, as we have no close escort.
Here I am on the runway at Bassingbourne. I seem to have stopped my engines after taxying out but that's easily remedied. I think JF''s Belle may include the so-called 'publicity markings added for the bomber's later tour of the US, but the differences are minor. JF has opted for the greener look visible in some of the many colour pics or footage taken for the Belle's wartime film; interpretations of this vary from greenish, to khaki, to the much browner shade featured in the Firepower Belle (which like the JF add-on, includes scripted missions recreating the bomber's operational career). I like the caps worn by the pilot, co-pilot and bombardier.
Take off was ponderous, and I didn't miss the trees by much. Climbing out is equally stately, as I struggle to find the sweet spot between angle and rate of climb. As far as the view is concerned, I had forgotten that the CFS3 winter terrain is a bit too snowbound for most of the season in NW Europe, but I'm just glad not to have flown into it!
After a while, I invoke the miracle of warp, which takes us onward and upward, above the clouds.
All seven of us are present and correct.
Those clouds are a problem. How we're going to locate the target in these conditions, let alone bomb it, I have no idea.
It's no consolation that the skies above are clear.
Anyway I included this pic mainly as it's similar to a sequence in William Wyler's wartime film!
...more to follow!
Here's the real thing, fully restored by the local museum.
The repaired / replaced anything that was functionally damaged by corrosion and neglect, but left all the wartime field repairs/patches intact.
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Beautiful! I watched a video on the restoration the other day; they chose to represent the Belle as at the end of her tour of ops, which I think was the right choice. They kept calling her an 'artifact', though; I hope she didn't hear them!
I'm basically following the headings given me by the navigator as represented by the bearings on the Tactical display. By now, we're over Brittany, confirmed by intermittent sight of wood- and farmland below.
There's not much else to do but plough on and hope for the best at the target, those U-boat pens. What damage the 500-pounders we're carrying will do them anyway, is a whole other question.
We reach what should be the Initial Point...
...and a gentle left-hand turn lines us up for the bomb run.
Bomb doors open! Now all we need is to be able to see what we're supposed to bomb. I could have dropped below the cloud, but medium level bombing isn't supposed to be what the 8th Air Force's B-17s do, is it?
Suddenly there's a distraction. Below and right an aircraft is going down, with another trailing him. I can't identify either aircraft; they're too far away.
No time for such things - somewhere just ahead is the target. But where?
...more to follow!
At last I see some coastline through a break in the clouds. Just I time! But the navigator/TAC doesn't seem to be sure if we're at the target, no matter which type is selected to display. Is that grey puff below flak? Where are the pens? We should be able to see some sort of installation - if it's there - but all I can see is coastline. The Jerries can't be that good at camouflage, surely?
Our track seems right, out location seems right, but clearly something is wrong. To hell with it! I didn't come all this way to stooge around while the insidious sense of being lost grows and grows. Whatever is down there is going to be bombed!
I let fly as the sight touches the coast, about where any installations should be. The others drop on my lead. The airwaves fill with reports telling me so.
The pattern we achieve isn't too bad. I forgot to aim a little long, to allow for most of the bombs being dropped from behind. It probably doesn't matter much - it looks we're doing what they called tongue-in-cheek 'agricultural bombing'.
Shortly after turning from home, some 109s find us. At first they wheel and roll around. Then they start getting serious.
Our return fire looks pretty feeble, and the first Fort goes down. It's a sobering spectacle, even in a sim.
The B-17 behind on my left is next to go. One of his engines is shot clean out of its mounting.
I know it's the Belle's first effort and I'm seriously out of practice flying CFS3's bombers, but this isn't going too well, is it?
...more to follow!
Down goes the second Fortress.
The good news is that return fire knocks down one of the attackers. The remaining five B-17s plough on. My gunners cannot make verbal reports this being CFS3, so I turn on the TAC to keep track of the 109.
Here he comes again!
My own bomber's gunners haven't fired a round so I decide to see if I can do any better. The two problems with this are that it's hard to be at the right guns at the right time (as you have to cycle through them) and that when I leave the cockpit, the pilots put us into a dive.
For a while, the 109 orbits well above us, so high I can't elevate the top turret's .50 cals enough. I get off a few rounds when he goes low, then try to pick him up again from the ball turret. it's all a bit disorienting.
Eventually we descend below the cloud base and the 109 seems to lose interest. Perhaps you're supposed to engage an autopilot before leaving the cockpit, I've forgotten. This shouldn't really have happened!
Anyway, I get back into the cockpit and after levelling off, quit the mission at that point, rather than warp back to Bassingbourn and land. Thanks to sim-outhouser NSS, I had applied the FJ Belle-Firepower compatibility update, but I installed Firepower second, so perhaps I need to re-install the update to get the target re-appearing, I dunno - it correctly enabled both JF and FP Belles to co-exist, JF's Bassingbourn to work and both sets of Belle missions are now there. Or maybe I just got lost! Anyway I'll need a bit more practice before venturing out again in the Belle, of either brand!
Last edited by 33lima; June 20th, 2020 at 11:08.
The living legend MH434 in its natural element.
Love the Spitfire ! That addon for the B-17 by JF is the only thing i have missing for CFS3. Wonder if it still could be bought somewhere. Regards,Scott
The JF Belle CFS3 add-on seems commonly available on eBay of various locales, but no longer from Just Flight.Originally Posted by sixstrings5859
Speaking of bombers in add-ons, these pics are from a recent run-through of one of my most-played single missions in the old days, 'Cruiser Inlet Strike' made for the Do217M in Firepower. It's still a bit of a pain to fly along the Inlet of Death providing a nice target for flak on land or at sea or both, but it certainly looks a lot better with Ankor's shaders.
In we rumble, from low over the North Sea. We're carrying three torpedoes each, including one internally.
I know you're keen, but I wish you'd sit down for now - you're making me nervous!
I think I'll go a bit lower, just in case.
I'm glad we didn't come any closer to that little convoy; it looks to have warship escort, and we don't much care for naval flak.
Anyway, there's the inlet in question - the Humber Estuary, no less.
Won't be long now! I begin to recall long-forgotten memories of flak suddenly framing us as we run the gauntlet, but try to think of happier things.
...more to follow!
At full power now, we race in over the spit of land that separates the estuary from the North Sea.
My big, ungainly aircraft wants to climb, but rather than trimming her out, I put up with having to maintain forward pressure on the joystick. The idea is that this will reduce the likelihood of me inadvertently discovering if my Dornier makes a good speedboat.
As recommended in the briefing, I try not to get too close to the land, where there are nasty people who would do bad things to us. Soon, we pass two ships on our right and I expect to attract some unpleasantness. But either we're out of range, or they're unarmed.
The inlet meanders left and right as inlets are apt to do, and I adjust my course accordingly.
We seem to have got away with it so far, but I know it's too good to last much longer!
...more to follow!
Another pair of ships looms up ahead and left. As it happens, these two will have a crack at our three Dorniers as we whizz past. But I'm more interested in the larger ship I can now see near the shoreline beyond them. Target in sight, I fancy!
We storm through the flak and press ever lower to the water.
A few twists and turns later, bomb-bay doors open, and it's torpedos los! Relieved of their burden,I waste no time in banking right, away from the flak being thrown up by the big cruiser.
I'm relieved to escape, but puzzled by the lack of waterspouts. Where oh where have my little tin fish gone? I didn't think it was possible to miss, but I seem to have managed it.
If I'd been Guy Gibson, I'd have orbited the target to draw the flak while the others attacked. But something seems to have gone wrong there, and I'm in no mood to be shot down for nothing. So away I go. En route, I try to duck between the two ships which shot at us as we came in, and are now doing the same, going out.
This works, much to my surprise. But the land gunners seem to have woken up and we are heavily shelled on the way out. In the end I try to climb above it, which of course does not work. But I finally make it into the clear, where my two flight-mates will later rejoin me.
Well that was interesting. Not terribly profitable, but interesting!
Hi 33 Lima, are you using the combined effects.xml package? I'm wondering if a FP torpedo effect is missing. What is the name of the weapons/torpedo xdp? I will look up the effects line in the xdp and see if all the effects have been translated across to the combined effects.xml.
By the way, I've got a Firepower Do-217m1u2 damage profile by 46th Designs floating around, if you want it.
That's interesting.
What's the 'combined effects package'? If not part of FP I don't think I'm using it. I do have Abacus Mossie, JF Belle and FP in the same install (latter added last) which is what I had years back without incident.
I understand that FP installs new effects. I don't remember an option to install them or not, when installing, so assume the FP effects are there! The effects.xml in my FP install has numerous mentions of Shockwave plus it seems to list the effects in all the torpedo .xdp files (a_torpedo, a_torpedo_d, g_torpedo, g_torpedo_d). So it looks to be the FP effects.xml.
Perhaps my torps just ended up in the mud at the bottom of the anchorage, as I wasn't too particular about my speed when I dropped them - though I don't recall CFS3 being too fussy about that.
It's a great pity CFS3 doesn't allow anti-ship missions in QC; a training mission would be next best, which I can't find but I suppose could try to make.
http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...1&linkid=23722
This package consists of:
1. A combined effects.xml which will work across different installs of CFS3. The effects.xml is arranged alphabetically. Majormagee has put an enormous amount of painstaking effort tracking down some elusive abnormalities in effects.
Old/obsolete and unused effects are retained, but have an "x" or a "y" at the end of their name.
2. A set of textures (pathway your root cfs3install/effects/fxtextures) is provided to ensure that all effects will render/display.
3. A combined sounds.xml file, which will work across cfs3 installs. This file represents a large amount of work by Majormagee.
4. A few sound files to populate the sound environment, e.g. flak.
5. A set of effects for TOW
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Thanks for that MajorMagee. Pretty sure I don't have that. Looks like I should have!
Anyway my abilities with torpedoes may be at fault. FP training mission Instant Action 3 is an anti-ship job in Do217s...
..and this time the results were more apparent, both my flight-mates' hits...
...and my own, this strike being mine.
This is a nice model but to my opinion, the Do217-E or the He177A are far superior, either in term of 3D or skin.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
www3.telus.net/murrdaka/
Looks like it has mirrored swastikas too
John
(DR/ MAW/ ETO/ PTO Textures)
Keep it coming!
Suicide Run - Just For Fun
US Army, Major, Ret.
Service To The Line,
On The Line,
On Time
US Army Ordnance Corps.
Early Emil:
Dogfight Double - Spitfire I & He 111H
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