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

[Jaegermeister]

On 8/28/2026 at 3:37 AM, AndreiTomescu said:

Excellent representation on the incomplete/ambiguous info during the war, that caused friendly fire. 

As much as I know Jaegermeister's work, this was on purpose for sure. My take: it doesn't take fancy software features to depict something immersive, that changes the hole game, if you've got skill and talent.

I was not intentionally trying to make people bomb their own side, but that mission and a few others do demonstrate the difficulty of identifying the correct targets in close proximity to your own guys on the ground. I tried to give location cues wherever it was possible, with smoke and flares in various missions. It seems like the FAC in a Jeep on the top of the hill was not visible enough. Once the lead vehicles round the bend and start firing at enemy vehicles, it should be obvious who is who. I have also corrected the vehicles in the convoys, so when all the friendly trucks have white stars on them, that should help too. 

 

Edited August 29 by Jaegermeister

[MiGCap]

Mission 8: Missed the bridge narrowly with one bomb, wasted the second bomb on the first train (dropped too long), but hit the second one in the station with rockets:

Continuing next weekend.

[Uther]

I deliberately haven't started this campaign yet, although it looks very well done, and am still playing career mode. At this point is it just worth waiting for the next patch and hopefully this will be updated too?

[AndreiTomescu]

this campaign is very, very good. Career mode with P-80? I have tried. They are dropping like flyes. Here the Shooting Star AIs are performing excellent. 

Excepting some minor bugs, like the wingman do not return to base asap in one mission, and such. imho there is no need for update here. Unless @Jaegermeister wants to add a couple of missions... 🙂 

My take: wait for career to be optimized, since besides the Mustang, the rest of them are needy , and play this because it working almost flawless (i've said almost to silence the critical ones, imho it's excelent just like this)

Edit: one flaw: it's too short for my taste. 15 excellent missions, I was sad when it was over.

[Jaegermeister]

10 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

this campaign is very, very good. Career mode with P-80? I have tried. They are dropping like flyes. Here the Shooting Star AIs are performing excellent. 

Excepting some minor bugs, like the wingman do not return to base asap in one mission, and such. imho there is no need for update here. Unless @Jaegermeister wants to add a couple of missions... 🙂 

My take: wait for career to be optimized, since besides the Mustang, the rest of them are needy , and play this because it working almost flawless (i've said almost to silence the critical ones, imho it's excelent just like this)

Edit: one flaw: it's too short for my taste. 15 excellent missions, I was sad when it was over.

Thanks for the compliments. I appreciate it, and I am glad you enjoyed the campaign.

Corrections to all reported issues have been submitted, and are just pending the next game update. I don’t know exactly when that will be but it should be fairly soon. 

Although you are probably just joking about it being too short, the number of missions was determined for me by the reliable information that I could find and avoiding repetitive tasks. Anything more than 12 missions is a long campaign in my book.

There will be more scripted campaigns coming, and I am looking forward to working with Deck Ops. All of the carrier planes are extremely interesting to me, with the Panther and Banshee standing out as my first choices to focus on, but that is probably 5 or 6 months away. The FB bomber module may come out before the US Naval content, so we will see what that brings about.

In the mean time, I have been playing with MiG vs. Sabre missions to keep myself occupied and doing some early war “Honchos & Hot Shots” scenarios that may have some potential. Obviously that is the premier match up in Korea, so maybe I can figure out how to put that together with a cohesive story line. We’ll see I guess

[AndreiTomescu]

4 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

you are probably just joking about it being too shor

Yes, I am, obviously. 🙂 But it's true that I found this campaign very entertaining and diverse, thus regretting its ending. Also I found the campaign well balanced, with an accent on the difficult side, and the AI planes performing well. 

A big plus on the story also.

[AndreiTomescu]

6 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

how to put that together with a cohesive story line

The Hunters movie was really good, also in terms of combat story. Just a suggestion

[Jaegermeister]

On 9/3/2026 at 5:13 AM, AndreiTomescu said:

The Hunters movie was really good, also in terms of combat story. Just a suggestion

I actually just watched The Hunters again last week. It is an amusing story presenting the Hollywood version of real events. The politics of the time were obvious, with Casey Jones flying his 7-11 plane against the American Hot Shot aces that were mowing through inept Chinese pilots by the dozen. You might notice there were no Russian pilots portrayed in that movie. That was a huge government cover-up at the time, with pilots and Air Force personnel sworn to secrecy.

It was interesting to watch the Sabres and the Thunderstreaks in action, so it was worth it just for that. I am guessing Dutch was based on Gabbey Gabreski, but that’s just my take on it.

I would prefer to do something presenting a first person view of how the events really played out, as opposed to the standard narrative that everyone thinks is true. Some of Captain Jack’s observations were included to add that perspective, instead of just repeating someone else’s fictional story.

@Aapje made some good points in another thread when he stated that taking experiences of various pilots and combining historical events with a fictional story line is a good approach. That is exactly what I do (or try to do) in many of my campaigns.Lightning Strikes, Overlord, the Odessa campaigns and Home by Christmas are all examples of that. I would think a MiG vs Sabre duo would work the same way. On the up side, in this case the MiG 15s and F86s were actually opposing each other on a regular basis, so the exact same mission could be flown from both sides. With the Odessa campaigns, that was not possible without making up events that did not really happen.

I don’t know what is planned in the way of other Scripted Campaigns from the Developers right now, but that might also make a difference as to whether I try to do anything with it or not.

 

On 9/3/2026 at 3:16 AM, AndreiTomescu said:

Yes, I am, obviously. 🙂 But it's true that I found this campaign very entertaining and diverse, thus regretting its ending. Also I found the campaign well balanced, with an accent on the difficult side, and the AI planes performing well. 

A big plus on the story also.

You are correct, I decided that since it’s a whole new playing field, I would stop babying everyone and make you actually survive 4 minutes in the combat zone to pass the mission, LOL

 

Edited September 5 by Jaegermeister

[LukeFF]

Just flew the first jet mission in the attack on the airfield. Excellent ambiance all around. 👍

I don't know if I was being too conservative with the throttle, but it seemed like my wingmen were in a hurry to get to the target again.😄 It probably took me 10-15 minutes to catch up with them. Otherwise, great job! I just need to work on my attack runs on airfields and take more time to line things up correctly. 

[MiGCap]

Mission 9: SEAD of Sinuiju air base.

There were a few MiGs from Antung coming over the Yalu but they stayed high and of course I didn’t go after them in a climb with a F-80. They circled while the eight F-80s did their work against the flak. Two of my wingmen violated Chinese airspace. And I over-G’d my jet on one of the gun runs. 🙄

Observations: The group flight lead Hawk 1 didn’t call to RTB so I stayed with my flight too long in the area. The AI didn’t respond to my command to join up in formation so at the end I set course for home and had to go high and slow to conserve fuel. AI followed me but the bastards didn’t trust my fuel consumption maths and landed on alternate airfields on the way back (😠). I made it but it was a night landing. Runway had lights but taxiways not so I taxied to the end of the runway to find an intersection. Engine shut-off at parking spot with 2 miles flight distance left on the counter (😬).

Oh, and interestingly my formation lights went on automatically when it became too dark but those of my wingman stayed off, shouldn’t it be the other way round?

All in all, great mission, it lasts 1:45 hours (I fly all the missions without teleporting, one can practice formation flying and it is very immersive. And the view is great!).

 

Town of Sinuiju in the background.

 

Edited September 4 by MiGCap
Typo

[AndreiTomescu]

15 hours ago, MiGCap said:

Two of my wingmen violated Chinese airspace

I surely was one of them... sorry boss, just wanted to see the price of rice there.... 

[MiGCap]

Mission 10: A nice, shorter (one hour plus), not very dangerous mission in good weather over a nice snow-covered Korea - I nearly got Christmas feelings! 😄

Hit the boat under the bridge, what the hell did You load into it, @Jaegermeister? It blew up like a gas tank! 😳

But after over-G‘ing my bird in the last mission I this time cocked up the landing: Too slow at the end, hard impact and the jet veered off the runway into the tent area, knocking down a soldier with the wing at the stop. Will bring him a beer in the medical facility after I had the for sure very awkward conversation with the squadron leader about the damaged airplane behind me …

 

Edited September 5 by MiGCap

[AndreiTomescu]

3 hours ago, MiGCap said:

what the hell did You load into i

I have activated that info regarding what you damage/destroy when you hit something, so I can tell you: ammo boxes.

[Jaegermeister]

On 9/4/2026 at 3:24 AM, LukeFF said:

I don't know if I was being too conservative with the throttle, but it seemed like my wingmen were in a hurry to get to the target again.😄 It probably took me 10-15 minutes to catch up with them. Otherwise, great job! I just need to work on my attack runs on airfields and take more time to line things up correctly. 

@LukeFF, I appreciate the feedback. I have recalculated the waypoint speeds in an effort to find out what the problem is, and I found that predicting maximum speed is more complicated than I thought.

I have come up with a spreadsheet to determine different airspeed readings at altitude based on speed and air temperature at ground level. Hopefully this will allow me to predict what speed to set for waypoints without guessing and having to repeatedly use trial and error to get the planes to fly under max power settings.

I should be able to determining the aircraft speed at ground level in a certain configuration or loadout, and then use the chart to calculate the speed difference at altitude. All I still have to do is figure out what number is being used by the waypoints, LOL.

 

Spoiler

Edit... It turns out that indicated airspeed in kph at waypoint altitude works out just fine.

I made some adjustments to the table for the game calculations which appear to be based on something in between rule of thumb and calculated true airspeed.  

Edited September 8 by Jaegermeister

[MiGCap]

In formation enroute, I have to keep the bird at 482/483mph to stay, that's around 92%. For some pics I flew close to the lead but I must admit it is very difficult for me to hold this position for long in the F-80 without overshooting or lagging back constantly. These early jet engines are so slowly in response compared with piston engines.

 

Edited September 7 by MiGCap

[Jaegermeister]

28 minutes ago, MiGCap said:

In formation enroute, I have to keep the bird at 482/483mph to stay, that's around 92%. For some pics I flew close to the lead but I must admit it is very difficult for me to hold this position for long in the F-80 without overshooting or lagging back constantly. These early jet engines are so slowly in response compared with piston engines.

 

Not sure what mission that is, but it looks like you are pretty low, and 90% power to stay in formation should be just fine. Falling behind the leader at 100% power at 20k to 30k feet is the problem I was referring to above. There is also another issue involved where if you move out of position on the leader's wing, he will vary his speed if the "wait for wingmen" formation option is applied. Moving out of position also makes the other wingmen do weird things at the moment.

I will do some more tests with the F-80 tomorrow and see how it compares to the waypoint settings, but there are a few issues involved. At first glance it appears to be an issue with converting kilometers per hour IAS to knots/miles per hour TAS in the AI programming. If that is the case,  the higher the altitude the more you will notice it. I could be completely wrong and it is something else that I have not considered yet.

It should only be noticeable when you are a wingman, and I already corrected the Mustang waypoint speeds.

Nice Screenshot BTW... 😎

[MiGCap]

That was mission 8 and the altitude was 4000ft.

I just flew mission 11 (the bomber escort) and there we were up to 24.000ft. I barely could kept up with the lead formation at 100% but when we reached the bombers we had to throttle down anyway so I didn't regard that as a problem.

But I noticed another point: It would be great if You could assign the home base a frequency so that one can use the radio compass for RTB.

[Jaegermeister]

16 hours ago, MiGCap said:

It would be great if You could assign the home base a frequency so that one can use the radio compass for RTB.

I can do that, but it won't happen right away. I may have to update the F-80 waypoint speeds anyway since I just opened a new can of worms there.

I looked it up and it appears that the Communications Service Command had mobile radio homing devices in use at Kimpo during that time, set up as non directional homing beacons. I never made the NDBs near the airfield active since they were abandoned various times, but I will place mobile units on the airfield so a flight can use the signal to return to home base from relatively close range. The transmitters should be able to reach out 100 miles at high level and maybe 50 miles for lower level flights. I'm not sure how much use it will be, but it won't take long to add it in. If I have to do another revision for the waypoints, why not?

[MiGCap]

Don‘t do it if it is too much effort, it was just a suggestion.

We have the radio compass in the COMBAT BOX multiplayer server (full real) and it is a nice helper when You finished Your task and want to get home after dodging enemy aircraft and finally end up in a complete different part of the map as planned. 😄

[MiGCap]

Mission 11: one hour 43 minutes - I like these long lasting flights! Okay, one have time when retired. 

Fired my guns at a MiG, but didn't hit - these guys were too fast.

 

 

My observations: I was the only one who dropped my (nearly empty) wing tanks for the fight, all other AI/escort F-80s didn't. Why?

And my wingman "Queen 3" refused to part from the fight even as the bombers long left the area, I also tried to get him into formation via the command menu, but he preferred to stay, get shot down and become PoW. 🙄 The others followed me.

Trivia: 18 B-29s for the two Sinuiju bridges! On a good day in multiplayer on COMBAT BOX I crack both bridges with a single F-80 and two 1000lbs bombs by sneaking in and also leaving via the Chinese territory and returning over the sea without getting harmed. I must admit, Your scenario is far more historical accurate! 

 

Edit: And I had to change the tail code of the player's aircraft as the assigned #175 was still at maintenance after my forced landing in mission 10. Chose my personal mount #613 which I use in MP. 

 

Edited September 9 by MiGCap

[sandmarken]

Can someone explain what I did wrong here? After doing the time skip, I often get a warning for fuel starvation and the engine dies after a while, even though there is no fuel problem and the tanks, including the drop tanks, are almost full. If I turn on the autopilot, it fixes the issue until I start flying myself again. I haven't seen this outside of the campaign.

[AndreiTomescu]

Huh...never happened to me, but i don't use time skip either. For what plane? the f-80 ? i've got fuel starvation twice, but after hard G maneuvers, especially vertical climb.

Maybe it's something with the manual management of fuel tanks? but that's not implemented yet. after turning off autopilot, the fuel issue reappears ? 

[Jaegermeister]

1 hour ago, sandmarken said:

Can someone explain what I did wrong here? After doing the time skip, I often get a warning for fuel starvation and the engine dies after a while, even though there is no fuel problem and the tanks, including the drop tanks, are almost full. If I turn on the autopilot, it fixes the issue until I start flying myself again. I haven't seen this outside of the campaign.

It has nothing to do directly with time skip, it is due to the low external temperature. I believe It was -20 or -30 degrees F. at the time at ground level. I only reduced the temperature to -10 degrees C. to minimize the effect of fuel thickening at cold temperatures. If you either go higher, or reduce the rpm to 80%-90% it will remedy the fuel starvation problem.

Didn't you read your manual about low temperature operations in theatre?

 

On 9/8/2026 at 10:03 PM, MiGCap said:

Fired my guns at a MiG, but didn't hit - these guys were too fast.

It looks like you were plenty close to me, I would say it's a gunnery issue... 

 

On 9/8/2026 at 10:03 PM, MiGCap said:

My observations: I was the only one who dropped my (nearly empty) wing tanks for the fight, all other AI/escort F-80s didn't. Why?

 

They don't like to drop tanks, even when ordered through the radio menu. I have placed a Force Complete High with "Emergency Stores Jettison" MCU before the attack commands, but it does not always work.

[MiGCap]

2 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

It looks like you were plenty close to me, I would say it's a gunnery issue... 

That was a screenshot using the telelens function to enhance dramatic ...  My shots didn't reach him actually.

But You are right, I am a lousy air-to-air gunner. 

[sandmarken]

7 hours ago, Jaegermeister said:

It has nothing to do directly with time skip, it is due to the low external temperature. I believe It was -20 or -30 degrees F. at the time at ground level. I only reduced the temperature to -10 degrees C. to minimize the effect of fuel thickening at cold temperatures. If you either go higher, or reduce the rpm to 80%-90% it will remedy the fuel starvation problem.

Didn't you read your manual about low temperature operations in theatre?

Thanks! This must be it. I knew it was an issue, but I had no idea cold weather would actually affect the engine in-game!

I have come all the way through the campaign and really enjoyed it! Thank you for making it!

Spoiler

I was hoping to see more action above Chosin Reservoir, but I guess you are saving it for a Corsair campaign.😁