Re-starting with CFS3 to re-fight WW2's most famous air battle!



Over the last few years, I’ve been in the habit of posting illustrated mission reports from various sims. Mostly, these have been on the CombatAce forums, but more recently, mainly on SimHQ, since that’s where most players seem to hang out for the sims I’ve been playing most, of late - Battle of Britain II and more recently, Wings over the Reich.

The subject of this series of reports - which will be as long as my pilot survives and my interest lasts - is another Battle of Britain campaign, but this time in CFS3 - the ETO expansion, to be precise. Sim-outhouse being where most CFS3 players hang out and where most content is available - a fact I’ve mentioned when posting CFS3 ETO screenies on SimHQ - this seemed to be the most fitting place to post it.

You can now skip to the next screenshots, if you don’t want to read the further preliminary ramblings which follow!

I was spurred into flying CFS3 again after seeing MajorMagee’s SimHQ pics of the superb Spit II package. The first campaign I decided to try out was one I downloaded some time back - IIRC from MRJMAINT’s site. I decided to play it because (a) I already had it installed and (b) it’s for the Battle of Britain, my main current interest. TBH I’m not sure if the spawn selector is working right/as recommended but I’ll see how it flies with the set-up I have now.

The Battle of Britain probably lends itself quite well to a campaign based on scripted missions, but this one uses the CFS3 campaign engine, which as regular players will know is an ambitious but strange sort of semi-wargame thing. You are allocated to a squadron which has a long list of pilots, but with no logbook and little real sense of either pilot or unit identity. At the start of each mission in the campaign, you click on a front-line sector on the world-class-awful CFS3 map (long overdue a mod?). You are then presented with a choice of missions from a fixed range of types, each with a repetitive and generic briefing. The art of the DIY campaign-maker is likely to ensure you are shown only mission types which fit the scenario – eg flying for Fighter Command in the Battle, interceptions and not against ships or ground targets. This leaves you making a choice as to which frontline sector you fly to. The front line itself is in the middle of the English Channel at the start of the campaign. This is fine for the ‘Convoys’ phase of the Battle, July-August, but I’m not sure how it will work later, when we could and should be intercepting raids almost anywhere near and over Southern England.

Anyway, my pilot is allocated to a Wing I never heard off and it takes a bit more poking around to establish that we’re with 17 Squadron, flying Hurricanes. I’m glad to see I’ve been given an authentic skin which has the correct ‘squadron code’ ID letters, JX. We’re based at RAF North Weald, to the north-east of London and it’s 10 July 1940, the date later adopted in Britain for the start of the Battle. Having clicked on the nearest frontline map square, quite a long way to the south, I’m told I’m leading the usual CFS3 flight of eight aircraft on an interception mission. We're starting at the unearthly hour of 03:50. I know it's the summer time and the days are long, but this is ridiculous!

Off we go! Despite being the leader, I’m in the middle of the pack on the grass airfield – maybe something to do with the fact that four of your flight can be aloft and awaiting you, in the usual CFS3 mission, but are starting on the ground ahead of my foursome, this time. Landing lights come on as the Hurricanes ahead of me begin to roll.



There’s much more swing to the right than other sim Hurricanes I’ve flown lately, and quite a bit of virtual left flying boot is needed on take-off. Which is in a northerly direction, so a 180 degree turn will soon be needed. Anyway I'm quickly airborne and climbing up through a light rain shower in fairly overcast conditions. The sun is just beginning to peek over the eastern horizon.



Still climbing, I start a gentle turn around onto a southerly heading.



I tootle along for a while as the others form up, then decide to use CFS3’s ultra-fast-forward version of warp – having turned on the map so as to be able to time my exit. When I do so, well out over the Channel and close to the ‘target’, I find myself at over twenty thousand feet. I remember hating this effect playing CFS3 of old, often flying anti-ship missions and having to lose many thousands of feet on coming out of warp. I often put up with flying in real time, so as to be able to come in at wave-top height and pretend I’m foxing the enemy radars on the way.

Not a problem today, since height is your friend on an interception mission. But I must try to remember which file to hack to make formations closer. Even fighters look too far apart and that’s for finger four, not the closer RAF fighter formations of 1940. Or day bomber formations throughout the war, for that matter. I recall formations could get very unstable, if you over-tweaked this setting.

Given the lack of ground controller interaction, CFS3’s TAC is a useful way of getting basic updates on the enemy, and I turn this on - to find the display is already cluttered. The Huns are here!

Before I can get ‘eyes on’ in the cloudy conditions, enemy aircraft rush into and then through our formation! The fight is on!




...to be continued!