SIX! New planes for IL2-GB announced!

[PaperPilot]

On 4/11/2026 at 9:06 PM, Docholiday said:

YES     finaly a   A-20G !  😁

And with Torpedoes 😁 !     I hope the Version with the 6 Guns Nose will have the opportunity to use torpedoes too !

unfortunately  You did not mention a loadout with 4.5-inch (114 mm) M8 high-explosive rockets 😉     I know they were rarely used. 🫣

 (I think only in Pacific).

 

If somebody of our skinning artists could create a Beaufighter-hack-skin  (Strike wings in the north sea) the whole combination 

might somewhat alleviate the pain of not having a real Beaufighter.   😍 😂🤣

 

Doc

 

Hey, maybe one day we will get a Beaufighter Mk.VIc or Mk.X.

Edited April 13 by PaperPilot

[IckyAtlas]

Just a side note. In Korea there will be a B17 modeled, I do not remember if it will be flyable or not. Is it imaginable that the modeling, fm work etc.can be in a way with some adaptation work be made compatible with IL2 GB. The two technologies are different I know, but now that the Dev Team has shown they will keep supporting IL2 to the delight of many of us, maybe it is worth looking if this can be done. That would be just a WoW! moment.

[USSR]

Still no Me163 or He162.

Or a Polikarpov I-185 would be great, as that was a big hit in IL2:1946 and War Thunder 

[Enceladus828]

1 hour ago, USSR said:

Still no Me163 or He162.

Or a Polikarpov I-185 would be great, as that was a big hit in IL2:1946 and War Thunder 

The Me-163 would require a new pilot model because of the highly volatile and corrosive fuel it used, plus it barely saw action. The I-185 is a no since it was cancelled after 4 examples were made; the He-162 did see limited use but would require a map of Northern Germany to be made.

[LukeFF]

1. We have made no such announcement about a B-17.

2. Great Battles and Korea are two separate projects working on two different engines. There will be no cross-compatibility work done between the two, as we have stated before.

[Enceladus828]

Quote

1. We have made no such announcement about a B-17.

8 hours ago, IckyAtlas said:

In Korea there will be a B17 modeled, I do not remember if it will be flyable or not.

I think you're mistaking a B-17 for the B-29.

[PaperPilot]

We really should have an official wishlist thread for Great Battles, just to get ideas out of our systems. 

Edited April 13 by PaperPilot

[USSR]

7 hours ago, Enceladus828 said:

The Me-163 would require a new pilot model because of the highly volatile and corrosive fuel it used, plus it barely saw action. The I-185 is a no since it was cancelled after 4 examples were made; the He-162 did see limited use but would require a map of Northern Germany to be made.

It's a game. Not a super accurate historical polemic. 

Okay, I don't want it to go like WT, which is a joke designed to extract way too much money. But an Me163, 3 different He162s and a Horten Ho229, an experimental high speed Me262HG were playable aircraft in IL2:1946

[Enceladus828]

3 hours ago, USSR said:

It's a game. Not a super accurate historical polemic. 

Okay, I don't want it to go like WT, which is a joke designed to extract way too much money. But an Me163, 3 different He162s and a Horten Ho229, an experimental high speed Me262HG were playable aircraft in IL2:1946

Dude the developers have turned their attention towards IL-2 Korea with the only new planes coming to GBs being the bomber pack, P-39Q, P-47M and some Finnish aircraft. To my knowledge those are being made by 3rd party teams. Just because some what-if planes or very late war planes were in IL-2 1946 for hypothetical/alternative history scenarios doesn’t mean that they will automatically come to GBs.

I personally would rather see the Pe-3, Bf-110F-2 and some WW1 planes after the aforementioned aircraft that are coming.

[MDzmitry]

Ok, hear me out. What I'd want to see is not some new aircraft, but rather an actually stupid (from a business's perspective) idea of changing a present aircraft instead.

I'm talking about turning Yak-9-1 into a Yak-9D. Nothing will need to be changed except for maximum fuel + modelling 2 more fuel tanks (+1 in each wing) and the visuals would only require moving the fuel tank caps further out from the cockpit. The reason is simple: that would just be a far more widespread version. For context, only 459 Yak-9 M-105PFs were produced. In comparison, 3058 Yak-9Ds were produced.

As it is, the current Yak-9-1 is practically identical to Yak-1B: they have similar armament, performance, visibility. They also fly in an approximately the same period (starting with Kuban + will appear in 1944 careers). It has no niche that it fills currently. Yak-9D meanwhile would provide a similar-performing fighter when having 50% of fuel, but also a fighter capable of covering far bigger distances when needed to (~1300 km maximum range, ~900km when flying at maximum speed). Something of a mix between a Yak and a Mustang.

[Flieger]

23 hours ago, Enceladus828 said:

the He-162 did see limited use but would require a map of Northern Germany to be made.

What Ta 152 bases are on the current maps?

[Docholiday]

On 4/13/2026 at 3:09 AM, PaperPilot said:

Hey, maybe one day we will get a Beaufighter Mk.VIc or Mk.X.

Unfortunately I have no realhope😔:

A Beaufighter has only 2 Cockpits 👍 BUT  the Game is really Dogfight heavy   and so  creating the Xth undervariant of a fighter who is already 5 times in the game is more likely.

 

Supercrate-variants who saw nearly no action during during the war sell better 😉.

 

After I heared there will be a A-20 with torpedoes I had a short glimps of hope   🤣😂🫣

 

Cheers

 

Doc

 

Already in IL-2 1946  I liked to mod  Beaufighters, Mosquitos to Costal command vrrsions 🤪

Edited April 16 by Docholiday

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Instead of complaining how we're not getting a 12th (!) Bf-109 or a Wunderwaffe that saw a grand total of 3 weeks of action off the in-game maps, one could also be happy about the fact that we're getting 5 new aircraft at all, for a game that is effectively end-of-life.

[PaperPilot]

10 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Instead of complaining how we're not getting a 12th (!) Bf-109 or a Wunderwaffe that saw a grand total of 3 weeks of action off the in-game maps, one could also be happy about the fact that we're getting 5 new aircraft at all, for a game that is effectively end-of-life.

That’s a good point, but I think if the dev team can spare anymore resources towards Great Battles these days, I think it should be on the Finnish Air Force and the Karelian division of the Soviet Air Force, as well as some Luftwaffe planes. This would help enrich the Leningrad map and the Finnish Virtual Pilots server experience. I shouldn’t go on, but I think it would be a good idea.

[Shinobimono]

15 часов назад, Docholiday сказал:

Supercrate-variants who saw nearly no action during during the war sell better 😉.

Jokes aside, I think that I-185 M-71 would sell at good enough rate. 😌 

Edited April 17 by Shinobimono

[MDzmitry]

1 час назад, Shinobimono сказал:

Jokes aside, I think that I-185 M-71 would sell at good enough rate. 😌 

Imagine the amount of complaints about engine handling if it really appeared in the game... 

[Shinobimono]

18 минут назад, BlitzPig_EL сказал:

I always fly with full engine management, no matter the aircraft type.

This has nothing to do with what I was discussing in the context of the I-185. Plus, when it comes to online gameplay in Il-2, servers usually put all players on equal footing.

6 минут назад, USSR сказал:

I didn't understand what they were saying in their millenial txt spk!

Ok, turn of the century. But actually it's bad for any game when it has small and non-growing/non-updating player base of gramps (for example by Steam' statistics for DCS last 24-hours peak is 1232 players, for Il-2 it's 382 players).

[MDzmitry]

4 часа назад, Shinobimono сказал:

I was having a conversation with someone else about handling the I-185' engine in the context of the game, where no systems are developed

To be fair I wasn't talking about the difficulty of engine handling, but rather its unreliability and temperature issues. You managed to turn it into a "game systems" talk.

Even with Il-2's simplified (compared to real life) performance and limitations, even M-71's temperature alone would bring a good portion of pilots to their knees (probably begging to return to the simpler La or Yak).

[Shinobimono]

1 час назад, MDzmitry сказал:

To be fair

Do you have the report on the combat tests of the M-71 engined I-185? I don't think so.

Also, just like you write about the "horrible" behavior of the Me-210A, forgetting that the production aircraft underwent a series of design changes (yes, they didn’t solve all the issues, but it was no longer a prototype).

I also remind you about the problems with the M-82 engine. Where are they in the game? Where are the assembly issues of Soviet aircraft from the early years of the war?

Absurd for the sake of absurdi. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

Edited April 18 by Shinobimono

[MDzmitry]

39 минут назад, Shinobimono сказал:

Do you have the report on the combat tests of the M-71 engined I-185? I don't think so.

I have read positive reviews of the I-185, and then there is additional context: 

• Only 4 I-185s took part in field trials, of which 2 were with M-82 and 2 with M-71.
• They were forbidden from flying above enemy territory and engaging in dogfights
• The flights had to be conducted at speed close to maximum (500-550 kmph) and the specific altitude of 3000-4000m.

There's also the fact of M-71 never becoming a properly functional engine, with every trial having either engine changes, sometimes multiple, or outright failures which resulted in forced landings or crashes. The aircraft was designed, redesigned and tested multiple times over for 3 years and all it could show was not even a handful of precision-built prototypes. Now project this onto the reality of the Soviet aircraft production.

1 час назад, Shinobimono сказал:

I also remind you about the problems with the M-82 engine.

Comparing apples to oranges here. A barely functional non-production engine against an engine plagued with problems typical for war-time production with a similar % of production affected.

1 час назад, Shinobimono сказал:

Where are they in the game? Where are the assembly issues of Soviet aircraft from the early years of the war?

In the same "out of scope" angle of game development as any other kind of assembly issues, the only exception being ones that left a long-lasting effect (see DB 605 and its Notleistung limitations debates on various forums). Doesn't change the fact that, unlike aforementioned issues, it was less likely to find a functional M-71 rather than a malfunctioning one.

1 час назад, Shinobimono сказал:

Absurd for the sake of absurdi.

And you continue to pick fights with strangers online for fighting's sake, or maybe to entertain your own ego. Speaking of entertainment, it's neither fun nor really useful for me personally, so I'd like to see no further continuation of this charade unless it's actually productive information. 

Thank you for your time

[Shinobimono]

56 минут назад, MDzmitry сказал:

I have read positive reviews of the I-185, and then there is additional context

So, in short, you don't know nothing aside the publicly available information. M-71 didn't became a serial engine because no serial production aircraft were launched.

1 час назад, MDzmitry сказал:

it's neither fun nor really useful for me personally

At first then don't write trivial comments and don't start the fight. 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

[MDzmitry]

9 часов назад, Shinobimono сказал:

M-71 didn't became a serial engine because no serial production aircraft were launched.

The absurdity of this statement aside, lack of serial aircraft didn't stop them from producing M-82. Let me tell you a secret: had there been a "serial" M-71 the design bureaus would have received an order to produce prototypes with it, the same as aforementioned M-82.

On 13.05.1941 M-82 was ordered into mass production, in this very order Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Polikarpov and Yakovlev were told to produce prototypes with this engine in the span of June-September and to begin trials of said designs. In July Gudkov and Ilyushin also received similar orders as well as trials of M-82-engined TB-7, DB-3F and Aircraft "103" (future Tu-2) started.

So, the spring of 1942 comes, M-82 is in production, and the situation is as follows: there's only 1 serial aircraft flying with it (Su-2, with a grand total of 58 M-82-engined Sukhois), 1 design which accomplished trials but was deemed unnecessary (Il-2 M-82) and 7 prototypes at different stages of testing or outright abandoned (MiG-9, Gu-82, Yak-7 M-82, I-185 M-82, plus aforementioned 3 bombers).

Yet, the engine is kept in production and designs continue to be developed. 

 

Addition: this whole idea of "serial aircraft first, engine second" made me remember the only other buffoon to share a similar idea - the legendary (infamous) Silvansky. His quote was "Самолёт важнее мотора", and the context is that he requested changes to M-88's construction... to accommodate longer landing gear of his prototype.
God, I love how ridiculous his whole story is.

Скрытый текст

Sorry for the footage being WT, but this is the most entertaining retelling of it. For English audience look up "I-220" or "Silvansky's Fighter".

 

Edited April 19 by MDzmitry

[Shinobimono]

2 часа назад, MDzmitry сказал:

The absurdity of this statement aside, lack of serial aircraft didn't stop them from producing M-82. Let me tell you a secret: had there been a "serial" M-71 the design bureaus would have received an order to produce prototypes with it, the same as aforementioned M-82.

There were M-71 engined prototypes, not only I-185. How many of them saw the mass-production anyhow? Zero. Only La-7 was already in production, but lack of M-71 lead trials to nowhere.

ASh-82 from same design bureau was a step forward for soviets, of course it was launched; no closure counterpart was available at this time. So why M-71 wasn't put in the production two years later? Maybe it’s because for the Soviet wartime industry putting into production was no easy task? 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

1 hour ago, Shinobimono said:

That's what I have said. Only some basic components of the powerplant. [...] And when we had a leak in some tank, all the fuel oozed through it.

I wasn't responding to your comments about the M-82. Nor did I say that IL2 perfectly simulates the fuel system. I was responding to the implication that the amount of buttons a flight sim has, is indicative of whether or not certain systems are modeled. That is clearly not the case. Taking a look at the interactable buttons available in IL2, one might conclude it does not have a fuel system at all. In fact, for all its current shortcomings, IL2 has a working multi-tank system with fuel cutoff valves, fuel selector valves and fuel gauge switches. It just doesn't expose any of those to the player.

It's very easy to say "Sim X has a certain system modeled and Sim Y hasn't because Sim X has a button while Sim Y doesn't", but that isn't always correct. You can have a clickable button that doesn't do a thing, while you can equally have a very detailed system with simplified user interactions.

2 hours ago, Shinobimono said:

Thus, this is a system that has a clear impact on the flight model due to forces and moments, but as a technical "device", it is inconsistent, made of triggers or something similar.

Let me tell you a secret. Even the most hard-core study sim uses simplified systems. And for good reason. You'd need a second GPU just to handle the aerodynamics calculations, and a third one for the engine thermodynamics. Hell, have you ever seen the mess of integrals and curls that are involved in something as everyday as electrical systems (noting that Maxwell's equations are themselves simplifications of quantum mechanics)? If you want to do it properly, you need a supercomputer just to simulate a light bulb switching on. I challenge you to find a single flight simulator that is not "inconsistent, made of triggers or something similar".

Yes, IL2 currently has more simplifications than some of its competitors, and less simplifications than others. Does that make it a better or worse flight sim? No. It makes it a different flight sim. For normal flight operations, you don't need all those different systems they've simplified away. With the relative simplicity of WW1 and WW2 aircraft systems, you don't even need any of the left-out buttons during 99% of emergencies. Granted, the lack of self-sealing fuel tanks in IL2 is sorely missed, but this happens to be something that isn't even controlled by a button at all.

In Korea, based on the Devs' comments, we get similar simplified user interactions as currently, while almost all systems are highly detailed. See their Brief Room Ep.23 for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrqXaLlOeFc

 

(Also, TIL that the P-38 in IL2 has hydraulic aileron boosters that can be damaged, accordingly affecting performance. Another excellent example of under-the-hood systems that are certainly well-modeled even though they're not exposed to the player.)

[IckyAtlas]

On 4/13/2026 at 8:25 PM, Enceladus828 said:

I think you're mistaking a B-17 for the B-29.

Oups!! True. My fault here. As both are quad motor bombers my brain hallucinated. Now you know that I am an AI avatar.

It solves by the way the cross-compatibility issue. There were no B29s flying on the Eastern front that I know.