354th Fighter Group in WWII released

[Captain Kurt]

Finally!

This work has been a painstaking year and a half in the making. My objective was to recreate 354^th Fighter Group’s wartime experience both visually and as close to the historical record as possible. Almost all of the missions are recreations of the actual missions the 354^th Fighter Group flew. A few are meant to recreate what were common experiences for the pilots of the Group.

There are 2 tours of duty to fly. I would have liked to make it a continuous campaign, but CFS2 will not allow that. Either you would have been sent home for excessive losses (CFS2 considers 20 wingmen lost as excessive), and/or the game seems to lock up around 85 missions and I could not find a way around either of these shortcomings.

Tours of duty seemed a logical way to handle it as the real pilots rotated out, tour expired at 300 hours, and some elected to return for a second tour after 30 days leave in the USA. The first tour covers December 1943 to June 1944 – England and the 8^th Air Force bomber offensive to D-Day. The second tour covers June 1944 to May 1945 - from the Group’s move to France following D-Day on to Germany and VE day.

The campaign was designed to utilize the recently available CFS2 European Theater scenery add-ons from Rhumbaflappy, Sander de Cocq, Achim27619, Ettico, and other talented designers which thoroughly transform CFS2 into a Europe of the 1940’s. This campaign will require a new dedicated install for a European Theater CFS2 in order to use these additions.

As most of you know, I created a number of updated aircraft, and other custom add-ons to make this an immersive experience.

It is a pretty complex install but I have made it as simple as possible. There is a lot to it so although I have tested the install a couple of times, I would appreciate the report of any problems or confusion my instructions may have caused so I can fix 'em.


Attachment 57595

[Rami]

Kurt,

Ordinarily, I'd be the first to install and test, but I will leave that to others this time. I know that your dedication has created an outstanding product, and I will be interested to see how others do getting it installed. I will look forward to installing it and examining it soon. In the meantime, congratulations, and it is now approved and in the download queue for all!

[Captain Kurt]

Thanks Andrew. I had originally thought to ask you to test the install before I finalized the upload, but didn't out of respect for you, dealing with the problems you must at the moment. My thoughts and prayers are with you.


And by the way, the ETO installation for this campaign is virtually identical to the RAMI ETO installation, with some scenery additions specific to the 354th campaign. Fully compatible with all your ETO campaign theaters.

[Jagdflieger]

Thanks Captain Kurt! Magnificent work of art and historical tour de force.

[watchdog22]

Thank you for your magnificent Opus. Downloading now and will install ASAP!

[Finn]

Thank you! Yet another masterpiece.
Finn

[John Pirnie]

Finally!

This work has been a painstaking year and a half in the making. My objective was to recreate 354^th Fighter Group’s wartime experience both visually and as close to the historical record as possible. Almost all of the missions are recreations of the actual missions the 354^th Fighter Group flew. A few are meant to recreate what were common experiences for the pilots of the Group.

There are 2 tours of duty to fly. I would have liked to make it a continuous campaign, but CFS2 will not allow that. Either you would have been sent home for excessive losses (CFS2 considers 20 wingmen lost as excessive), and/or the game seems to lock up around 85 missions and I could not find a way around either of these shortcomings.

Tours of duty seemed a logical way to handle it as the real pilots rotated out, tour expired at 300 hours, and some elected to return for a second tour after 30 days leave in the USA. The first tour covers December 1943 to June 1944 – England and the 8^th Air Force bomber offensive to D-Day. The second tour covers June 1944 to May 1945 - from the Group’s move to France following D-Day on to Germany and VE day.

The campaign was designed to utilize the recently available CFS2 European Theater scenery add-ons from Rhumbaflappy, Sander de Cocq, Achim27619, Ettico, and other talented designers which thoroughly transform CFS2 into a Europe of the 1940’s. This campaign will require a new dedicated install for a European Theater CFS2 in order to use these additions.

As most of you know, I created a number of updated aircraft, and other custom add-ons to make this an immersive experience.

It is a pretty complex install but I have made it as simple as possible. There is a lot to it so although I have tested the install a couple of times, I would appreciate the report of any problems or confusion my instructions may have caused so I can fix 'em.


Attachment 57595

Yhank you so much for your hard work.
JP

[PomBee]

Superb work, CK. I'll make up a copy of CFS2 just for this.

Thank you,

PomBee.

[skylane]

Thank you very much, captain!
I´ll download it right away!

[skylane]

Kurt, I have a question regarding the scenery download: The installation readme says to download the JHS varios fields II.
However, all the German, French and English fields in this packsge are already included in the updated JHS fields for these countries. Only one Russian field is in addition to those.
Should I install the Varios airfields anyway? Will there be any conflicts with the other scenery?

[Captain Kurt]

Hi Skylane,

I think you should be able to skip the various 2 file. My install has the older Achim packages, and they don't overlap with the various 2 package. Be sure you delete the various 2 entry in the CFS2 Settings if you don't install it.

[Rami]

Good evening,

Yes, the Belgian/Dutch, German, English, and French North bases cover all the bases in the various fields I and II packages, with the exception of Yagodnik, which is now in the JHS_RUS package.

[watchdog22]

I have finally gathered all the required parts together and have completed the first 3 missions without any more pop ups. Well done! The P-51B Mustang does seem rather twitchy though, must just be my flying There was a problem with the bombers in mission 2 colliding, 16 out of the 32 were lost this way. None were lost from collision in Mis 3 though, anyone else notice this phenomenon?

[arfyhun]

Greetings all,
I am presently downloading Captain Kurt's mouth-watering 354th. Campaign but I have noticed a labelling error in the write-up.
The pointer to the scenery file: 'JHS_BENL.zip' is actually pointing to; 'JHS_various_fields_II.zip'. 'JHS_various_fields_II.zip' is pointed to itself correctly.

I have tried to find 'JHS_BENL.zip' on Simout but I have yet to find it. Don't panic boys & girls, I will find it in my own good time, I just wish to highlight the small glitch.

Hope you don't mind folks.

Best to all,

Graham Sullivan. London.

[Devildog73]

Graham,
That is one of Achim's releases. http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...1&pp=15&sort=U