campaign "Nachtjagd": historical campaign

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Dear fellow virtual pilots and historical aviation enthusiasts,

It is with some pride that I announce the release of the first installment of what is one of the most ambitious campaigns ever released for IL2: Great Battles in terms of features. This short, fully historical campaign focuses on the German night-fighting efforts up until the pivotal date of 31-5-1942, and is planned to be extended at a later date with more missions featuring the rest of the war. As a first for the Great Battles series, this campaign features fully-voiced dynamic radio control, that guides you to the enemy using period-correct phraseology. These are not pre-scripted radio calls, but actual dynamic ones that react to the changing circumstances according to complex programmed logic! Other exciting new features include a runway lighting system, radio navigation beacons that you can tune into at will, and a working Lorenz blind landing system (last mission only).

Introduction:

Spoiler

The German Nachtjagd has always fascinated me. Perhaps it's because I grew up just a few kilometres from Deelen airfield, which was the headquarters of the German Nachtjagd efforts for especially the first few years of the war. Or perhaps because, even though the Germans are undoubtedly the "bad guys" of World War 2, there's something good and heroic about defending your people from devastating attacks. Or maybe because the combat itself still had some occasional chivalry in it, with some Nachtjäger crews consciously aiming for the outer engines, not because that was the most vulnerable spot but because that would give the bomber crew the best chance to survive the attack and bail out. Undoubtedly, having a background in electrical engineering, the use of exciting new radar technologies also plays a part.

In any case, I started working on this campaign more than 3 years ago, even before I found out I could create my own Flash Widgets. When I eventually did, it was a complete game changer in that it enabled me to write my own code, for some pretty complex game logic. Doing so was a huge job, taking hundreds of hours of my free time, even more so since I completely rewrote the codebase at least two times. Although I'm sure there are likely still some strange edge cases where you're guided in the wrong direction, as far as I was able to test the code works as intended now. In case you cannot find the target and want to blame the code, rest assured that real night fighting wasn't a walk in the park either and that for each successful interception, there were many failed ones!

Knowing that night fighting is not for everyone, I nevertheless hope you enjoy this campaign and I wish you success intercepting those damned Britons!

Features:

Spoiler

• Dynamically acting and fully-voiced ground control guidance that responds to player and enemy actions.
• Radio that can be tuned to different navigation beacons at will.
• Lorenz blind landing system (optional; last mission only).
• Custom key commands (modifiable) to control these new features.
• Darkened in-game maps, convenient for VR during dark nights.

Notes:

Spoiler

• Missions can be completed by either shooting down or critically damaging a bomber, and/or landing back at one of the listed airbases.
• In all except the second mission, enemy bombers keep coming at random intervals. If you like, you can keep patrolling rather than RTB.
• The Shift+1 and Shift+2 key combinations are used for starting certain widgets. If you've already mapped these to other commands, you can change the bindings through modifying data\swf\extensions\KeyListener\info.txt. In data\swf\extensions\KeyListener\README.txt, you'll find instructions on how to do so. You'll need to restart IL2 for the new bindings to load.
• The first mission doesn't yet feature the radar guidance, so don't feel underwhelmed 😉
• Reminder: the Bf-110's cannons can be re-loaded by the Bordfunker.
• If the image is too dark for you to spot the enemy bombers, you can tweak the gamma value in the graphics settings. Note that in real life, bombers were sometimes only spotted as close as 100 metres! If adjusting the gamma is not enough, I'm afraid this campaign is not for you.
• In real life, the Bordfunker handled navigation. This means that there's no shame in showing your location on the map; arguably it's even more realistic than handling navigation yourself. If you like a challenge (as I do), you should still be able to adequately pinpoint your position by triangulation; note that in many missions there are multiple navigation beacons for this purpose.

Historical justification and remarks:

Spoiler

General:

• Compromises have been made for both the player and AI aircraft. Of the historical targets, only the A-20 is available. The B-25 and B-26 function as stand-ins for Wellingtons, and Lancasters, Halifaxes and other types. The player aircraft should be the B, C and G4 rather than E2 and G2 versions of the Bf-110. The G4 is a three-crew version and should generally have "deer antler" radar antennas in the nose.
• For playability, enemy bombers usually arrive pretty quick. In reality, Nachtjagd was often hours of waiting without result, and many failed interceptions, for every bomber shot down.

Per-mission:

• 20/07/1940: Historical, flown by Oblt. Walter Ehle from 3./NJG1.
• 16/10/1940: Historical, flown by Ludwig Becker from 4./NJG1.
• 11/02/1941: Historical, flown by Lt. Leopold Fellerer from 5./NJG1.
• 18/08/1941: Historical, flown by Oblt. Wilhelm Dimter from Stab I./NJG1, among others.
• 31/05/1942: Historical, although this specific mission was actually flown from St. Trond (Oblt. Rolf Bokemeyer, 5./NJG1). The amount of especially bombers but also flak, searchlights, ground fires etc. has been severely reduced for performance reasons.

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Download:
Download from the following link:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/gu5ani5kknc9zhj/IL2_Nachtjagd_campaign_v20260514.zip/file

Install by unpacking and moving to the base directory of IL2 such that the folders "overlap"; i.e. the contents of the packed "data" folder should go into the contents of the "data" folder of your IL2 installation. Alternatively, you can use a mod manager such as JSGME.

There is also a manual, which is not required reading although it does give you some historical background on the various methods used, as well as list the terminology used. Once the campaign is extended with on-board radar, it will likely require reading the manual in order to successfully intercept aircraft.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank @kraut1 for helping me with the voice messages, and @Jaegermeister for playtesting! I'd also like to thank Hans-Martin (hamaha15) who helped me during the earlier stages of development, but who sadly passed away in October 2024. Rest in peace.
 

Let this campaign serve as a reminder that the deliberate bombing of civilian targets is a human tragedy that rarely - if ever - has the desired military effect, and let it stand as a monument to those around the world that have suffered and are suffering from these and similar barbaric monstrosities.

Edited May 17 by AEthelraedUnraed
Added screenshots

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Note that just because of the sheer amount of files that are involved - not just the ones that are shipped but also e.g. the ones containing the widget code that need to be compiled first - it's always possible I mistakenly forgot to include something. If you run into any errors, let me know!

[sandmarken]

Thx this one is going to be very interesting to try! 😄

[Nickkyboy99]

Any chance for the FuG 220? 😁

[Jaegermeister]

It’s a very interesting campaign with some innovative new features.Thanks for letting me test them, even if I didn’t find anything to fix! That is just a testament to your thorough work. 
 

For those that like flying at night, I think you have taken it to the next level here.

🥷

[Juri_JS]

No idea how you did it, but Himmelbett guidance works great. I didn't expect that this is possible in the game.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

8 hours ago, Nickkyboy99 said:

Any chance for the FuG 220? 😁

Actually, yes 🙂

Not in this campaign though. The follow-up will have the FuG 202 and 220, combined with the DuNaJa, Wilde Sau and Zahme Sau methods. The latter requires some minor tweaking, but the others are working as intended already. It'll be a whole different beast compared to Himmelbett. It's much more intensive in that you don't know the precise location of the bombers, while working with quirky radar sets. In the current campaign you don't really need to do any difficult radio navigation; the airfield and the target area are always equipped with radio beacons (as was the case historically). You can just fly directly from one beacon to another and it's fine. With Zahme Sau, you'll perform long-range cross-country flights in the dark chasing elusive targets and disorientation becomes a real issue. You really need those tunable beacons then.

Right now I'm fixing the issue of simulating a bomber stream of hundreds of aircraft, while you don't know where the player is. I have an idea that should work, but it requires hundreds of mission triggers so I'll first need to write some code to create those programmatically.

2 hours ago, Juri_JS said:

No idea how you did it, but Himmelbett guidance works great. I didn't expect that this is possible in the game.

Good to hear it works as intended 🙂 Now you know why it took me >4 years to create this campaign.

If anyone's interested, it's done through widgets, which are programmable. They have some limitations, but even so they enable quite a lot of functionality:

Spoiler

• Widgets are programmed in ActionScript 3, which is a lot like JavaScript.
• You can find them in the data/swf/extensions directory.
• The files are pre-compiled so you'll need a decompiler (I use JPEXS).
  • This also means that except function and class names, it's not really human-readable. Everything's just called var1, var2 etc.
• There is no documentation available whatsoever.
• You can only detect aircraft (no ground vehicles or scenery).
• You can only read their details, not write them (i.e. you cannot change their position etc.)
• Their information gets updated at intervals of around 4 to 5 seconds.
• Other functionality like chat messages or audio is available through wrappers to the underlying C++ code.
  • These are undocumented, but on request I can provide you with my own wrapper code, which should be easier to use.
• You can communicate from the widget to the mission by using the OnFlashDialogAction00 to 15 triggers.
• You cannot communicate data from the mission to the widget.
  • A workaround exists in that you can spawn a plane containing data in its name, then despawn it when the widget has detected it.
• Widgets can communicate to other widgets though.
  • This does mean that another workaround for mission->widget communication is to start a dedicated widget for the message you want to send.

[Koziolek]

20 hours ago, sandmarken said:

Thx this one is going to be very interesting to try! 😄

It will be interesting to see if I'm going to smash my VR set in frustration 🤣

[JollyJack]

Superb job ! Appreciated 👍

[JG4_Deciman]

WOW

You really finished it.

Great!!

RESPECT!!!

 

Deci

[Plurp]

Nicely done!  I have always enjoyed using the nav aids, being able to tune to the next station takes it to the next level. 

Impressive how quickly the controller updates you to get you to the target!

[taffy2]

Oh where are those Lancaster's and Halifax's when you need them !!!!!

[Eisbaer]

Thank you so much for this campaign, which was created with so much love and time. It's just so much fun to fly this campaign.
 

 

[sandmarken]

Mission two finished. Extremely impressive how the ground controller keeps in contact all the way until you make contact with the target. The conversation was without any flaw! 😁

Edited May 17 by sandmarken

[Jeronimo83]

I finished the second mission also. Loved it. Found the bombers with relative ease. I suffered a few rounds from the rear gunner of the bomber and didn't notice my coolant level dropping on engine nr 1. It seized, I feathered the propellor and considered landing at different field, but managed to bring her back to home base. I really like the runway lights, and how they turn on/off. One small question: is it possible to tune down a bit the brightness of the radio widget? 

Thanks for this great campaign full of new features.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

46 minutes ago, Jeronimo83 said:

One small question: is it possible to tune down a bit the brightness of the radio widget? 

Not automatically. Theoretically it should be possible but I simply don't have the time.

However, you can edit the texture yourself relatively easily. It's in data/swf/extensions/FuG10/main_i1.dds. Load it with your favourite image editor (I recommend GIMP, which is completely free yet extremely powerful) and darken it as much as you like.

[Jaegermeister]

16 hours ago, Jeronimo83 said:

One small question: is it possible to tune down a bit the brightness of the radio widget? 

 

15 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Not automatically. Theoretically it should be possible but I simply don't have the time.

However, you can edit the texture yourself relatively easily. It's in data/swf/extensions/FuG10/main_i1.dds. Load it with your favourite image editor (I recommend GIMP, which is completely free yet extremely powerful) and darken it as much as you like.

 

@Jeronimo83, here is a darkened file as described above, just in case you don't have Gimp. It is a great program for free! Back up your other file by renaming it, and put this one in it's place. Don't forget to edit the name so it matches the current file, then you should be good to go. 

 

main_i1_dark.zip

 

Edited May 18 by Jaegermeister

[AEthelraedUnraed]

Good news; I think I've got the logic for bomber streams working. At least, a first test was successful. This makes it possible to "follow" a bomber stream along its planned route, while ensuring no more than 14 (adjustable) enemy bombers are active at a time. This is necessary for late-war "Zahme Sau" nightfighting, which was primarily based on radar-equipped nightfighters infiltrating the bomber stream.

This is a small snippet of the mission file. It's a good thing scripting languages exist 😅

[Ulricus]

@AEthelraedUnraed,

Thx for this campaign! Kraut1 had already given me a heads-up about it back when I was modding some EMG Nachtjagd missions using his maps and mods. 

After finishing your campaign, I'm deeply impressed by the new features (FuG10, Himmelbett, Lorenz - offering new flying oppertunities), as well as by your mission design (perfect maps, briefing narative, programming - as occasional ME user this triggers new ideas in me).

So I'm looking forward to your next immersive missions for this campaign.

Anecdote re. the first mission, which gave me a flashback: As teenager, I spent a long time at Borkenberge A/F with my father and his glider-pilot buddies. The forest treeline, where we we used to camp, was quite close to the runway. One day we heard a loud rattling noise in the forest - and suddenly a Blaník glider (nickname "Blechnik") shot out of the treetops! Nobody was harmed, when the pilot simply underestimates his approaching altitude! Exactly this happened to me when playing your first mission - and that was not my only mishap in this campaign (see above). 😉

Edited May 22 by Ulricus

[AEthelraedUnraed]

2 hours ago, Ulricus said:

Anecdote re. the first mission, which gave me a flashback: As teenager, I spent a long time at Borkenberge A/F with my father and his glider-pilot buddies. The forest treeline, where we we used to camp, was quite close to the runway. One day we heard a loud rattling noise in the forest - and suddenly a Blaník glider (nickname "Blechnik") shot out of the treetops! Nobody was harmed, when the pilot simply underestimates his approaching altitude! Exactly this happened to me when playing your first mission - and that was not my only mishap in this campaign (see above). 😉

That's wonderful! Borkenberge is indeed a challenging airfield to land at in the Bf-110 so I'm not surprised you hit a few trees. You can't come in too high or you'll run into the trees at the end of the runway.

The airfield seems to have some nice history as well. Adolf Galland apparently started his flying career there:

https://borkenberge.com/historie/

Of course I'm limited to the pre-existing models in IL2, but I've relied on the photographs of that site to re-create Borkenberge as well as I could.

[Nocke]

This is awesome, thank you, AethelredUnraed!
I had already basically given up on this, it became all a little boring after so many years - and here you come with a completely new gameplay!
Fantastic work.

[Hakman]

really nice campaign! 

Really good work good sir! Cant wait to see more stuff from you!

[sandmarken]

Finished it yesterday! A really impressive show! Nothing about this felt any other than an official part of the game 😁 cant wait for more! 

[Geleitzug]

This campaign is exactly what I was looking for since years, I tried yesterday the first mission and it is already really fantastic! The way how the searchlights react to the incoming bombers as well as the corresponding commands that guides you to the enemy planes makes it very immersive - this is absolute superb work and I am looking forward with highest excitement to the following missions as well as to the hopefully soon coming extension of this campaign with the FuG based missions. Thank you for all your effort, AethelredUnraed!

 

[Geleitzug]

 

First Mission, helle Nachtjagd, once detected by the night fighter commander the bombers will be illuminated by several searchlights - here a bomber is trapped by two ov erlapping searchlight beams and thus can easily be recognized

in consequence, when the ideal position was reached a short burst of the Bf110's MGs and cannons finally brought the enemy down...

Even though the flight was under some more brighter condition due to the full moon shining it was really hard to find the bombers unless they were illuminated by the search lights - conveys—at least to some extent—an impression of how difficult the night hunting must have been in those early days of the war without having the "helping eyes" of an onboard radar...

Edited May 27 by Geleitzug