F-51 / F-80C 10 Historical Scripted Campaign "Home by Christmas"

[MiGCap]

The flak missed me only very near.

@LukeFF is right, the flight has a high cruise speed. I suppose max continous and I had to use more power as I flew not that exact as the AI.

And I noticed that the number 4 followed the number 2 in formation. But as number 3 the player should be the section leader of the second two-ship in a four-ship flight and the number 4 should be his wingman.

[AndreiTomescu]

does anyone know why if running the engine at max during mission, not ingress, (was trying to get the upper hand on some Migs) i constantly get my engine on fire ? Certainly no flak hit. I had my tail sooo deep into China, i've passed both flak barriers.

[Jaegermeister]

20 hours ago, LukeFF said:

Just flew the first two missions as well.  Great job as always. But it does seem like the cruise speed is a little too high. Even at Max continuous power I could not keep up with my wingmen. 

I just went back and looked a that mission and as usual, you are correct, the cruise speed is set too high for the flight. Fortunately the other Mustang missions are correct. I am adding a correction to the other files I have already updated. I went ahead and edited the vehicles too.

Edited Saturday at 02:45 AM by Jaegermeister

[Jaegermeister]

3 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

does anyone know why if running the engine at max during mission, not ingress, (was trying to get the upper hand on some Migs) i constantly get my engine on fire ? Certainly no flak hit. I had my tail sooo deep into China, i've passed both flak barriers.

I would imagine your exhaust temperature got too high and damaged your tailpipe. If you look right above the fuel gauge I posted an image of earlier, you will see there is an exhaust temperature gauge with a green area you want to keep the temperature within.

[MiGCap]

Finished mission 3 and RTB'd alone, because the flight lead circled indefinitely, as You already told. I found that he circled very slow and that number 2 and 4 are very fast and never managed to come in formation. And the number 4 followed number 2 instead of me as number 3 (section lead). Nice fingertip, but with wrong position of number 4. Perhaps You should assign the player the number 2 as wingman of the lead, than it would be correct.

My bombs again missed, but I got a T-34 with a rocket and minor other stuff.

 

[AndreiTomescu]

43 minutes ago, MiGCap said:

but I got a T-34 with a rocket and minor other stuff.

THIS, is NOT minor !

It takes the right amount of patience, the finest skill, the rare coolness, the academic math knowledge, endless training, a heap of daring and best of luck to achieve this.

Also, I managed this once...... 🙂 .....

[MiGCap]

3 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

THIS, is NOT minor !

It takes the right amount of patience, the finest skill, the rare coolness, the academic math knowledge, endless training, a heap of daring and best of luck to achieve this.

Also, I managed this once...... 🙂 .....

Haha, I meant, I got minor stuff - a truck and a flak - beside the tank which was a HUGE success! 😉 (And luck hitting it … 😬)

[Juri_JS]

Translator Icon text on the map in mission 4.

[AndreiTomescu]

18 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

I would imagine your exhaust temperature got too high and damaged your tailpipe

As usual , you were right. Activated the water-methanol boost, forgot to switch off during chase, and got too hot on my tail.
The river cruise mission was excellent, full of hidden things. Funny, when the advanced controller announced the hidden boat, all my wingman jumped onto the one floating on the river, that I failed to see because I was searching for something. ....hidden!

Spoiler

So I found that from UNDER the bridge. All wrapped in weeds, sooo realistic! Had to put 3 rockets in it to actually sank it. Although i think I actually hit the metal bridge, that collapsed on the boat and sank it. Very realistic!

 

In a future update, may it be possible to have a bit of action/enemy even outside the mission area?

[Jaegermeister]

17 hours ago, MiGCap said:

 And the number 4 followed number 2 instead of me as number 3 (section lead). Nice fingertip, but with wrong position of number 4. Perhaps You should assign the player the number 2 as wingman of the lead, than it would be correct.

The fact that the finger 4 flight is incorrect is a hard coded formation problem and not something that I can correct in the mission editor. I have submitted at least 2 bug reports regarding this particular issue and hope that it will be addressed once the Devs begin to focus on small formation AI behavior. I have personally been bringing up this formation error for a long time.

There may be some merit in your suggestion to simply swap the call sign and label of number 2 and 3 positions. I will think about that.

Edited Saturday at 10:21 PM by Jaegermeister

[MiGCap]

Mission 4 was great - except the weather. 

@Juri_JS:  While attacking some of the AA posts, I was hit by the flak and one of my fuel tanks was damaged. So even the smaller calibres can be dangerous in this campaign. Thanks for self-sealing tanks, North American! 

 

[MiGCap]

One point: I thought it was required that I order the AI to attack as the flight lead, but the orders are already implemented in the mission, am I right?

[Husar]

3 hours ago, MiGCap said:

One point: I thought it was required that I order the AI to attack as the flight lead, but the orders are already implemented in the mission, am I right?

I think yes, because I never gave them orders and they were attacking mission objective themselves.

[Jaegermeister]

7 hours ago, MiGCap said:

One point: I thought it was required that I order the AI to attack as the flight lead, but the orders are already implemented in the mission, am I right?

Typically there will be some type of attack order when you encounter targets. If you hear a radio message saying “ xxx flight, search for ground targets on your own”, or “xxx flight, vehicle spotted below” This would indicate your flight has been given an attack command. There are others for air targets and various specific situations like a FAC.

I would be very surprised if this does not happen in Career mode also, but I have not flown a lot of those so I am not sure. This has been the case since the early days of IL-2 Sturmovik

[MiGCap]

Thank You for clarification!

I flew nearly exclusively multiplayer in IL-2 for 20 years now, so I was unsure. 

 

[AndreiTomescu]

Eventually met the MIGs. At high altitude. It was just like meeting the Mustangs with a IAR80. The P-80 is the most awesome plane yet, but helpless agsinst MIGs, at least with me in the seat. Couldn't make them get low, either.... Now i see why they relegated it to ground attack. There it shines....

I saved my JATO rockets expecting this encounter. Didn't help a bit. Still a wingman reported a kill. Man, I would love to have that guy in my Career play.....

During loading/spawning the mig flight, the load got to 156%, and the gsme froze for about 2-3 secs , but didn't crash. Afterwards, everything went smooth.

[Jaegermeister]

2 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

Eventually met the MIGs. At high altitude. It was just like meeting the Mustangs with a IAR80. The P-80 is the most awesome plane yet, but helpless agsinst MIGs, at least with me in the seat. Couldn't make them get low, either.... Now i see why they relegated it to ground attack. There it shines....

I saved my JATO rockets expecting this encounter. Didn't help a bit. Still a wingman reported a kill. Man, I would love to have that guy in my Career play.....

You don't need the JATO rockets. When the MiGs eventually come down and start making passes at you, jettison your wing tip tanks and play turn fighter games. Eventually they will get in front of you and you can pull in behind them to get some shots off. Don't get in a hurry and go after them, you will never win. Let them come to you. 

2 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

During loading/spawning the mig flight, the load got to 156%, and the gsme froze for about 2-3 secs , but didn't crash. Afterwards, everything went smooth.

I have not had this happen, but I have made a lot more optimizations in an update that should be out soon. 

On 8/22/2026 at 1:03 AM, MiGCap said:

 And the number 4 followed number 2 instead of me as number 3 (section lead). Nice fingertip, but with wrong position of number 4. Perhaps You should assign the player the number 2 as wingman of the lead, than it would be correct.

I tried this and it creates problems with the taxi logic since is not in the correct order any more. In addition, there have been some changes in the fighter formation AI recently so I am just going to wait and see how it progresses before I make any formation assignment changes to compensate for a known bug.

[MiGCap]

2 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

I tried this and it creates problems with the taxi logic since is not in the correct order any more. In addition, there have been some changes in the fighter formation AI recently so I am just going to wait and see how it progresses before I make any formation assignment changes to compensate for a known bug.

I thought it over again by myself and already came to the same conclusion: You just can't only change the numbers. The problems start with taxiing and become worse on take-off. Sorry, military thinking: Take the most simple solution. 

Finished mission 5 and looking forward to next weekend, when F-80 flying started for me. 

And by the way: What a great looking landscape the developers have created, especially the winter one.

 

[AndreiTomescu]

7 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

have not had this happen, but I have made a lot more optimizations in an update that should be out soon.

wonderful, thank you! will do as you said (replay the mission after the update will be out. guess the load/freeze was also due to 7800x3d (yours) vs 9700x (mine). If Sandmarken gets to this mission before the update, we'll see if happends to him also (he has 7800x3d)

in rest the missions are superbly optimised, as i am able to keep 90 fps capped with no sweat (mine, the cpu does sweat sometimes, when reaching 83 degrees ! 🙂 )

4 hours ago, MiGCap said:

a great looking landscape the developers have created, especially the winter one

indeed. during the "boat in the bridge" mission, check out the landscape surrounding the hidden village, and the fact that the trees have different colours!!

Edited yesterday at 08:41 AM by AndreiTomescu
7800x3d, actually

[sandmarken]

13 minutes ago, AndreiTomescu said:

If Sandmarken gets to this mission before the update, we'll see if happends to him also (he has 9800x3d)

I have the 7800X3D 😅 

I had no freezes during the mission, but the CPU was definitely the bottleneck when it came to FPS. I actually made a log with Adrenalin for this mission that I uploaded into the pro version of Gemini (I can access it with my work account). It came back with the conclusion that the CPU, even if not showing more than 50-60% workload, is probably maxing out a couple of cores, and that is what's holding me back, at least.

Edited yesterday at 08:18 AM by sandmarken

[AndreiTomescu]

28 minutes ago, sandmarken said:

I have the 7800X3D

That one. Yes, i knew, typo. So it's clearly then that on a x3d cpu there are no issues. Thx!

[AndreiTomescu]

Blinding the dragon.

This misson was sooo good, so cinematic, that deserves a little story. 

First of all, the night landscape, the lights and even the illuminated runway are pixel-blowing. I would have said something even better, that implies also something to be blown, but that job might have got me banned. Really, incredible scenery and details, like steps over GB while doing a night job with the Mosquito or the 110. There's little comparison.

[AndreiTomescu]

At first i thought:  sir, this was actually a Mustang job. The total fuel taken would suffice 100 km LESS than the total run to the target, not to mention searching for it, finding it, doing 1-2 attack runs, and any other events (like a punctured fuel tank, which actually did). The very low altitude makes fuel consumption even worse in a jet. However, i kept the pipe temp at 400 celsius, (now i fear this pipe temp alot, since those fires) thus about 9000 rpm on the engine, 69% throttle that being. and the speed kept at near 300 mph, full load, with very good fuel consumption (reached the target with about 1700 liters remaining)

@Jaegermeister: why such a low altitude till jumping over the sea ? Could the radars actually detect us ?

As the sun was rising, besides the wonderful view i have noticed that my AI wingmen started to have trouble in keeping that low altitude/low throttle setting. Quite easy to explain: they probably were Spitfire pilots back in GB !

Had to call them back from time to time, especially since they had a tendency to go higher.

Finally jumped over water at about 50 meters or less. Towards the coast of France? Nope, that's another story. Towards some modern, state-of-the-art technology called. RADAR. Yes, i also guess the machine got its name from the little guy from M.A.S.H.  Actually probably i've flown over Dr Pierce on egress.

A BoB on this engine i guess will be awesome.....

Stay low, guys! Not a chance. Chickens. On an island corner some AAA batteries opened fire on them. Missed, but what if they alerted the radar station ?

[AndreiTomescu]

After some islands hopping, found that little town nearing the radar facilities. First bomb went wide, had a bit late launch. Guess i've changed the ecosistem a bit, with all those dead fish. Hard turn and the second obliterated EVERYTHING. Radar facilities, trucks, ammo boxes, machine gun, but the house still standing. I thought i had seen a second radar antenna on a little tiny island nearby, so as my high and late wingman announced that they were "arming rockets" (for what? rats hunting?) decided to go and take a look, since i still had about 1500 of fuel. WHAT? Tank damage? Yep, i had that also. Still, the island was somehow on the way out.....

As I was unhappily circling the island, up high, in the sky, where the sailors rarely try, i saw 2 little "V". Silver -gray. Hey, this is not OK ! Knowing from the previous encounter that any chance to do some dirty dancing with them means dirty low, low I go, but the fat Vs refused to get "feet wet" and so we went towards home......which i've reached surprisingly well with 900 liters of fuel still available.

Finally , a big "thank you " for the master Jaegmeister , for this superb mission. And a foto for mamma:

[Jaegermeister]

5 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

@Jaegermeister: why such a low altitude till jumping over the sea ? Could the radars actually detect us ?

...I have noticed that my AI wingmen started to have trouble in keeping that low altitude/low throttle setting. 

...Had to call them back from time to time, especially since they had a tendency to go higher.

...Finally jumped over water at about 50 meters or less.

...but what if they alerted the radar station ?

The briefing mentions that you should stay below 2,000 feet. The 2nd waypoint altitude is set at 600 meters from the airfield to the coast (1,968 feet) and drops to 250 meters across the Yellow Sea and back to the coast. That is the lowest altitude that the AI will currently maintain at sea level.  If you were down at 50 meters over the water, it is no wonder that your wingmen were not staying down there with you. 🤔

Whenever you attack a radar station designed to detect enemy aircraft it is a good idea to stay as low as possible and approach from behind a small land mass like an island so they don't know you are coming. Do you want all of the AAA pointed right at you with fingers poised on the trigger when you appear out of the rising sun?

I would also guess that the first phone call from the radar station when they were attacked was to signal the alert flight at Antung Airbase and send up interceptors. Once you were rid of your ordnance and drop tanks, that would have been a good opportunity to put a couple of red stars on the side of your plane.