Official Free Scripted Campaign "Lightning Strikes!"

[Jaegermeister]

Free 25 mission historical Scripted Campaign "Lightning Strikes" for the P-38 J-25 Lightning

 

 

About The Campaign:

The 370th Fighter Group was formed by a cadre of flight instructors in 1943 who felt that they could be more useful to the American war effort by flying in combat than they were as instructors. They were constituted in July 1943 and trained on P-47 Thunderbolts in the ground attack role. They deployed to England in early 1944 and were re-equipped with the twin engine P-38 Lightning as part of the IX Tactical Air Force. They entered combat in May 1944 and crossed the English Channel on ground attack and escort missions in preparation for D-Day. Just over 2 weeks after the invasion began, the 370th moved to Cardonville, France in support of the ground forces fighting their way east. They were active in the Battle of Saint Lo and helped devastate German troops in the Falaise Pocket. After moving briefly back to England to support Operation Market Garden, the 370th was well blooded and in need of replacements. In late September, 1944 those replacements were selected from the Ground Attack pilot pool awaiting assignment. After arrival in New York, there was a 2 week crossing of the North Atlantic on an overcrowded troop ship, and a very long train ride across Great Britain. Then another ship ride across the English Channel and a miserable week bouncing in the back of a Deuce and a Half through the mud of central France. With very little except a change of clothes and a wet bag of flight gear, the new replacements arrived in Florennes, Belgium for duty on the front line with the 370th Fighter Group.

In this campaign you will fly your Lightning during the Battle of the Bulge from Florennes airfield on a mix of precision daylight tactical bombing and fighter patrol missions. You will fly as a novice pilot, a wingman and eventually lead a flight in combat. The 370th Fighter Group was very active during this critical campaign, which provides a rich history to represent in IL-2 Great Battles.

This is a historically based campaign depicting real events; however, some small details have been altered to improve the player’s experience. The Lightning was a long-range fighter-bomber capable of flying for up to 3 hours without refueling, so some of these missions are relatively long. Unfortunately, if we want to relive the experiences of this time the player will have to endure the same long waits for short action packed encounters just like the US Army Air Corps pilots did back in 1944.

In recent patches custom ground textures, unique radio calls, and authentic plane liveries have been included with this campaign and there is no need for a separate skin download as mentioned in the older discussion thread.

 

 Timeframe: October 1st, 1944 through January 1st, 1945

Unit: 485th Squadron, 370th Fighter Group, USAAF

Aircraft: P-38 J-25 Lightning

Duration: 25 Missions

Average Playtime: 22 Hours

Languages: Chinese, English, French, German, Polish, Russian, Spanish

Author: James =Jaegermeister= Yarbrough

 

If you own the P-38 Lightning collector plane, this campaign is already available in you Campaigns section and was included for free with the purchase.

Here is a link to the discussion thread in the old IL-2 Great Battles forum

Lightning Strikes Scripted Campaign Discussion

 

 

Edited January 13 by Jaegermeister

[Zergling924]

I was playing through mission 22 of the Lightning Strikes P-38 campaign where you land and rearm before heading back out to the action, and I went to the appropriate area and started the rearming process. I restarted my engine and saw that only 5 out of my 6 bombs were reloaded, so I shut the engine off again so I could complete the rearming process. But when I tried rearming (R ctrl A which had worked just seconds before), nothing happened. Then when I tried restarting the engine again, nothing happened. All of the other controls seemed to work (flight surfaces, I was even able to drop the bombs that had reloaded onto the ground). After dropping all the bombs again, the rearming still did not respond.

Weird, because this was literally the first time this has ever happened to me and I've used this rearming mechanic in the game many times before without any issue and was able to restart the engine and take off again without problems (albeit in other missions, not this one).

Is this a known issue? Was kind of a downer because I was pumped to go back out into the action but instead had to just end the mission there because the game wasn't responding as it should have.

Unfortunately I didn't have any clues from technochat as to what might have been happening since I don't play with it on for the added realism. Kind of wish that we had an in game ability to toggle it on and off for situations like this after the mission has already started.

[Jaegermeister]

@Zergling924

This is the first time I have heard of any issues with rearming other than the plane jumping up in the air when it is repaired.

The feature to rearm, take off and make another attack was not originally in the mission and I just added it recently, so I have not seen any comments on that until now. You could try re-flying the missions and see what happens the next time around to see if it is a bug or just a one time loading error.

Also thanks for reminding me to update this thread...

 

Edited January 13 by Jaegermeister

[Paddlefoot]

Jaegermeister…are you planning anymore P-38 campaigns in the future? This here is one my favorite , thank you so much for it.

[CatteMoto]

I love the P-38. Excited to try this campaign out soon. Thank you!

[Jaegermeister]

7 hours ago, Paddlefoot said:

Jaegermeister…are you planning anymore P-38 campaigns in the future? This here is one my favorite , thank you so much for it.

You are welcome! I have no plans to revisit the P-38, but it was always one of my favorite planes to fly. The 370th is well represented in the Career section of the Normandy module, so repeating that experience just to lend a more historical experience might not be worth the time it would take to put it together. That would be the only possible scenario I see for it in future projects.

 

48 minutes ago, CatteMoto said:

I love the P-38. Excited to try this campaign out soon. Thank you!

Well good luck with it. It is a complicated plane to fly, but well worth the effort. Once you learn its strengths, there is nothing that can beat it.

 

Edited March 17 by Jaegermeister

[MADLOU]

On 3/16/2026 at 11:28 PM, Jaegermeister said:

You are welcome! I have no plans to revisit the P-38, but it was always one of my favorite planes to fly. The 370th is well represented in the Career section of the Normandy module, so repeating that experience just to lend a more historical experience might not be worth the time it would take to put it together. That would be the only possible scenario I see for it in future projects.

 

Well good luck with it. It is a complicated plane to fly, but well worth the effort. Once you learn its strengths, there is nothing that can beat it.

 

I also love the P38 and your campaign.  Wish there were more P38 campaigns.

[sandmarken]

9 minutes ago, MADLOU said:

I also love the P38 and your campaign.  Wish there were more P38 campaigns.

Wasn't the P-38 used pretty extensively in the recon role? I enjoyed a lot the recon campaign for the Bf 109 G-6. An Allied recon campaign leading up to the Normandy landing would be pretty cool!

[JMax]

On 3/18/2026 at 3:17 AM, MADLOU said:

I also love the P38 and your campaign.  Wish there were more P38 campaigns.

I agree.The P38 is a lot of fun.