Official Free Historical Campaign "His Majesty's Griffons"

[BlackSix]

His Majesty's Griffons

Timeframe: January 1st – February 21st, 1945
Unit: No. 610 (County of Chester) Squadron RAF
Available aircraft: Spitfire Mk.XIV
Duration: 10 missions
Average playtime: 5 hours
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Simplified Chinese and Russian
Author: Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov

This free campaign requires IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte and IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Normandy - Premium Edition or IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte and collector plane Spitfire Mk.XIV. 

    

Historical Background
On December 16, 1944, the Germans went on the offensive in the Ardennes aiming to reach Antwerp, dividing the Allied troops and seizing their major supply port, and, eventually, defeat the 21st Army Group. Capitalizing on the surprise factor and dodgy weather and outnumbering the enemy, the Nazis managed to breach the defensive line of the US First Army in one go and advance 90 km by December 25. However, having lost much time on the siege of Saint-Vith and Bastogne and being almost out of fuel and ammunition, flanked by newly arrived British Second Army and US Third and Ninth Armies, the German charge ground to a halt just less than four miles short of the Meuse River.

On December 23, as the weather suddenly improved, the Allied Air Forces unleashed a full-scale offensive on the Nazi tank columns and supply lines and, thus, blitzed the enemy's strategy once and for all. Things changed most dramatically on December 26 as the US Third Army breached the Bastogne encirclement. That was followed by multiple separate battles and, finally, resulted in a large-scale Allied counter-offensive on January 3, 1945.

Despite all this, the Luftwaffe did not cancel the long-planned Operation Bodenplatte — a massive airstrike by over 1,000 piston-engined and jet fighter-bombers at the Allied airfields in Belgium, the Netherlands, and France slated for January 1, 1945.

  

Way back in late September 1944, the Royal Air Force's Fighter Command had to recall three Mustang squadrons of No. 122 Wing back to England to escort long-range bombers. As a replacement, the 2nd Tactical Air Force received five Tempest squadrons from the Air Defence of Great Britain. On top of that, Nos. 130 and 402 Squadrons equipped with Spitfire Mk.XIVs joined No. 125 Wing.

In early December 1944, the other three squadrons of Spitfire Mk.XIVs arrived on the mainland. No. 41 Squadron was based at Diest airfield (B-64) while Nos. 350 and 610 Squadrons were stationed in Evere (B-56) where they temporarily joined Canadian No. 127 Wing. At the end of the month, the 2nd Tactical Air Force decided to move Nos. 41, 130, 350, and 610 Squadrons as a single formation – No. 125 Wing – closer to the front lines. On December 31, the four units were successfully deployed to the USAAF's Ophoven airfield (Y-32) in eastern Belgium ready to be fully engaged in the Ardennes.

  

  

 

[Kubert]

I didn't play this campaign yet, but for some reason I have all missions unlocked. Even when I press Begin anew button. It was always like this for this campaign...nothing important, just want you to know.

[BlackSix]

I checked and can't confirm, unfortunately. If this is important to you, please contact support...

[IckyAtlas]

Where is this campaign to be downloaded?

I am a little lost with the new IL2 website and store.

[AndreiTomescu]

i think it is included in the game, if you have this: free campaign requires IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte and IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Normandy - Premium Edition or IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Bodenplatte and collector plane Spitfire Mk.XIV. 

[Zergling924]

Really fun campaign so far, I've completed 9 out of the 10 missions and it was my first introduction to the Spitfire series! What a beast of an aircraft and so far the campaign has been the perfect follow up to the campaign I had just finished (Lightning Strikes), being in the same general area and taking place pretty much right after the end of the Lightning Strikes campaign.

Question about mission 9 for @BlackSix:

Spoiler

Are the Ar 234s meant to be intercepted? I had remembered encountering Me 262s in mission 5 before that, and feeling frustrated that I didn't have the altitude or the speed to catch up to them even though I could clearly see their contrails from far away. I saw your comment on the old IL-2 forums saying that this was more or less an intentional design choice with that campaign mission which, although frustrating from a gameplay perspective, was a very cool historical aspect, which I think highlighted very well just how fast and untouchable these jets were and just why they were only vulnerable at take off and landing.

For mission 9, since the mission prompt hinted heavily at the Ar 234 making its appearance, I decided to keep higher than the posted altitude for the mission (keeping at 22k feet instead of 20k feet) so I'd have the altitude/speed to catch up to them this time. But I ended up being so high that I didn't end up seeing any of the jet planes in this mission since they were actually so much lower than where I was (at least, it seems that way from the replay footage I have). I ended up not joining one of the dogfights nearby me so that I'd have a better chance of maintaining the energy/altitude to intercept the Ar 234s, but then I was never was able to find them in mission anyways, only in the replay afterwards, so returned back to base empty handed with no kills after searching the area for another 10 minutes afterwards.

Maybe it'd be a good change to have a "radio transmission" inform the player of the appearance of the Ar 234 over Nijmegen with its heading, like we had for mission 5. That would at least allow the player to have a fighting chance of knowing where they might pop up.

 

[BlackSix]

13 hours ago, Zergling924 said:

Really fun campaign so far, I've completed 9 out of the 10 missions and it was my first introduction to the Spitfire series! What a beast of an aircraft and so far the campaign has been the perfect follow up to the campaign I had just finished (Lightning Strikes), being in the same general area and taking place pretty much right after the end of the Lightning Strikes campaign.

Thanks!

13 hours ago, Zergling924 said:

Question about mission 9 for @BlackSix:

  Hide contents

Are the Ar 234s meant to be intercepted? I had remembered encountering Me 262s in mission 5 before that, and feeling frustrated that I didn't have the altitude or the speed to catch up to them even though I could clearly see their contrails from far away. I saw your comment on the old IL-2 forums saying that this was more or less an intentional design choice with that campaign mission which, although frustrating from a gameplay perspective, was a very cool historical aspect, which I think highlighted very well just how fast and untouchable these jets were and just why they were only vulnerable at take off and landing.

For mission 9, since the mission prompt hinted heavily at the Ar 234 making its appearance, I decided to keep higher than the posted altitude for the mission (keeping at 22k feet instead of 20k feet) so I'd have the altitude/speed to catch up to them this time. But I ended up being so high that I didn't end up seeing any of the jet planes in this mission since they were actually so much lower than where I was (at least, it seems that way from the replay footage I have). I ended up not joining one of the dogfights nearby me so that I'd have a better chance of maintaining the energy/altitude to intercept the Ar 234s, but then I was never was able to find them in mission anyways, only in the replay afterwards, so returned back to base empty handed with no kills after searching the area for another 10 minutes afterwards.

Maybe it'd be a good change to have a "radio transmission" inform the player of the appearance of the Ar 234 over Nijmegen with its heading, like we had for mission 5. That would at least allow the player to have a fighting chance of knowing where they might pop up.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, this campaign was made a long time ago, and I can't remember what outcome I expected from the player. Here are the actual descriptions of this episode; most likely, you shouldn't catch these three Arados.

 

 

[Zergling924]

Thanks for the reply @BlackSix, that's super interesting to read what the pilots on that day actually saw. I've always wondered how close these campaigns are to the actual records, and I didn't realize that you had crafted them based directly on first hand accounts. That's amazing. I'd love to look more into these historical accounts to figure out how my campaign experience for each mission stacks up against what the squadron actually experienced!

For mission 10:

Spoiler

I actually completed it just today, and for all my frustration in not being able to catch the Me 262s in prior missions, the last mission was so, so satisfying. The enemy Me 262s practically fell into a meat grinder against the Spitfires since most attempted to turn fight instead of boom and zoom, and I managed to bring down several of them. I know some of this might just be the limitation of the IL-2 enemy AI, but I also do wonder how much of their flying could also be consistent with Me 262 pilots at the time still being somewhat new to using the plane and not fully understanding its strengths/weaknesses. Did Squadron 610 also encounter a group of Me 262s that day attempting to intercept the B-25 bombing run on Weeze?

 

[BlackSix]

 

7 hours ago, Zergling924 said:

Thanks for the reply @BlackSix, that's super interesting to read what the pilots on that day actually saw. I've always wondered how close these campaigns are to the actual records, and I didn't realize that you had crafted them based directly on first hand accounts. That's amazing. I'd love to look more into these historical accounts to figure out how my campaign experience for each mission stacks up against what the squadron actually experienced!

For mission 10:

  Hide contents

I actually completed it just today, and for all my frustration in not being able to catch the Me 262s in prior missions, the last mission was so, so satisfying. The enemy Me 262s practically fell into a meat grinder against the Spitfires since most attempted to turn fight instead of boom and zoom, and I managed to bring down several of them. I know some of this might just be the limitation of the IL-2 enemy AI, but I also do wonder how much of their flying could also be consistent with Me 262 pilots at the time still being somewhat new to using the plane and not fully understanding its strengths/weaknesses. Did Squadron 610 also encounter a group of Me 262s that day attempting to intercept the B-25 bombing run on Weeze?

Spoiler

I made it specially so that it would be easy for you to fight this battle, since these Me 262s are bombers, not fighters, and they are piloted by former bomber pilots.

In reality, this battle never happened. The squadron received a warning about enemy jets, but the encounter never took place. I, however, arranged for the German bombers to accidentally cross paths with your group.