Thoughts on a potential future Commonwealth DLC

[Nearlymen]

I suppose I'd better say why I'm so interested in the Commonwealth aspect of the Korean war. Some years ago I did a lot of research into Fleet Air arms early involvement with HMS Triumph and it's aircraft, chatting to pilots, and digging up a lot of info on markings etc. Some of this information eventually came out direct from myself or via a 3rd party (a chap called Tony O'Toole) and was incorporated into many 1/48 and 1/72 Model Kits from Airfix, Special Hobby and others. If you ever see a model kit that features Dick Peters Seafire 47 VP480 180/P then that comes from chatting to Dick (who has sadly passed on now) and pics from his log book, with help from the Ken Bostock who worked in Ships stores on HMS Triumph. Probably though my Favourite involvement was with Special Hobby and their 1/48 Firefly Mk.1 kit with the four sets of markings included in it's Korean War release. We went to great lengths to ensure that it was correct in every detail for the 'Initial British Missions in Korea'  kits release. Box art for this model kit is attached. Incidently a lot of the info also ended up in numerous magazine articles and books. I would just clarify my involvement in these projects was the research, I didn't do the actual artwork and I didn't do the writing for the books etc.

 

 

Edited September 7 by Nearlymen

[PaperPilot]

I would like to see some British aircraft in IL-2 Korea. Thankfully we are getting the Sea Fury.

 

[Dash,Polder]

There is enough distinct types to justify and complete a whole separate add on, commonwealth rides have a lot of fans including me, it would rank this as the most complete air combat historical one war focused simulations ever released.  I hope this is selling well and more packs can be added giving the guys steady work and continued growth.  We get to reap the benefit in the end, win win. 

[Valis]

On 9/7/2026 at 6:45 AM, Nearlymen said:

I suppose I'd better say why I'm so interested in the Commonwealth aspect of the Korean war. Some years ago I did a lot of research into Fleet Air arms early involvement with HMS Triumph and it's aircraft, chatting to pilots, and digging up a lot of info on markings etc. Some of this information eventually came out direct from myself or via a 3rd party (a chap called Tony O'Toole) and was incorporated into many 1/48 and 1/72 Model Kits from Airfix, Special Hobby and others. If you ever see a model kit that features Dick Peters Seafire 47 VP480 180/P then that comes from chatting to Dick (who has sadly passed on now) and pics from his log book, with help from the Ken Bostock who worked in Ships stores on HMS Triumph. Probably though my Favourite involvement was with Special Hobby and their 1/48 Firefly Mk.1 kit with the four sets of markings included in it's Korean War release. We went to great lengths to ensure that it was correct in every detail for the 'Initial British Missions in Korea'  kits release. Box art for this model kit is attached. Incidently a lot of the info also ended up in numerous magazine articles and books. I would just clarify my involvement in these projects was the research, I didn't do the actual artwork and I didn't do the writing for the books etc.

 

 

Hopefully we'll see some serious sea...

[Husar]

 

8 hours ago, Valis said:

Hopefully we'll see some serious sea...

A realistic visualization of the Beaufort scale would be something I'd really like to see.

[Nearlymen]

Some photos of HMS Triumphs deployment you may find interesting.

Firefly Mk1's Bound for Korea, note the ASH Radar pod under the nose so this airframe was a NF1 and Part of 'Black' Flight.

Ian Berry beats up HMS Triumph flying lower than Deck Level !

Firefly Mk1 Wave off when landing.

Firefly Mk1 MB687 281/P comes to grief when landing, a write off and she was dumped over the side.

Edited September 13 by Nearlymen

[Nearlymen]

Some More HMS Triumph Deployment Pics.

Armed aircraft parked on Deck at Sea ready for ops. Note the Union Jack painted on Deck for Identification purposes.

Firefly Mk1 281 goes to Davy Jones Locker !

Jim Abrahams wheel collapse in Seafire 47 VP430 172/P. Note the two tone white tipped spinner a left over from an execise at RAF Sembawang. Also unusual placement of Roundel on underside wing tip.

Aircraft on Deck at Sassebo.

RAF Short Sunderland alongside HMS Triumph.

 

Edited September 12 by Nearlymen

[Nearlymen]

Even More Pics from HMS Triumphs Deployment.

Recon Photos taken from a Firefly Mk1 Armed Junks under Camo, Inchon and Kusan.

Seafire 47 take off, photo taken from the Island superstructure.

HMS Triumphs Sea Otter

[Dash,Polder]

Nothing says "Yank don't shoot me" as wearing their old war invasion stripes. 

[Avimimus]

My two pence on justifying the Seafire Fr.47:

Historical Overview: The Seafire served one tour in Korea with No.800 Squadron on the Colossus class light fleet carrier HMS Triumph. Because this is carrier based aircraft the fact that all of the airfields on the map were controlled by North Korea during much of the early war isn't a problem. When the war broke out they immediately diverted to become part of the first carrier strike in the Korean War. No.800 squadron ranged up and down both coasts of Korea conducting armed reconnaissance, monitoring port activity, and launching 115 ground strikes. This campaign reached a natural conclusion with No.800 squadron supporting the dramatic landings at Incheon.

So there is potential for a scripted prequel campaign featuring the Seafire prior to the main campaign.

[Nearlymen]

2 hours ago, Dash,Polder said:

Nothing says "Yank don't shoot me" as wearing their old war invasion stripes. 

800 Sqdn's only Seafire 47 combat loss........shot down by a B-29 Tailgunner...sigh ! Hence the re-adoption of the WW2 Era ID stripes for Commonwealth Carrier Aircraft.

[Mark_Krieger]

On 9/12/2026 at 12:58 AM, Valis said:

Hopefully we'll see some serious sea...

I think that the fact that the sea state affects the carrier is key. Anyway I don't know if it's necessary for the developers to simulate this level of roughness in wich operations would of course be cancelled.

[JG14_Jagr]

With the release of the templates we'll soon have F51 skins for the RAAF, the SAAF, and the RoKAF with proper markings very soon.  The SAAF transitioned right into the F86 so again, new markings on an F86 and they are represented in their jets soon hopefully.  The DLC Sea Fury will bring the Royal navy into the picture with a very iconic plane.  I doubt the Devs would invest in a UK CV at this point.  The RAF and CAF didn't deploy fighter squadrons.  The RAAF did operate Meteors which played a smallish role and if put into the game would fall between the F80 and F84 in terms of performance and be an excellent ground attack and opportunistic Air Defense fighter.  It might be worth developing the Meteor because I'm sure there are some Brit simmers who would play just to fly a well developed Sim version of that plane. But would the effort to make any other Commonwealth AC be worth it?  The Firefly or a Griffon Spitfire?  I doubt it.  We are already a niche of a niche within a niche as it is.  And I don't know what the sales have been but given the pitiful online numbers for such a great flight experience I don't know if they'll be able to invest in much other than the mainstream subjects.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Using multiplayer as a metric for judging success really gives a very narrow picture of actual sales and player numbers. The vast majority of players are offline, and in truth they always have been.

I was a very avid multiplayer guy in the old days of IL2, and I still have a soft spot for multiplayer, but you won't see me much at all there because I simply have no chance of survival against pilots who can see you from outer space and snipe you with no chance of reply.  Multiplayer has become so specialized, and so hard core, that an old guy like me is just cannon fodder.  This is not fun.  It's like showing up at an F1 race with a vintage Morgan race car.  No matter how good you are in that Morgan you don't have a chance.

Oh, and I want the Firefly, and I'm not British.  It will sell better than you think.

[Steini18778]

I do understand that you guy want new planes like the seafire, but do you think this will happen when the game will become more and more one sided? Dont get me wrong, i do think that selling special planes or one side DLC is ok, but will Korea still be a success with 12+ vs. 4 russian planes? Very bad for online game play.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Well, with the way things are currently, I'd say three or four UN planes about equals one Mig15bis.

Jokes aside, where does parity come into it?  The UN nations historically had many different aircraft types in theater, whereas the Red side had around six or seven combat types.

La 9

La 11

Yak 9

Mig15

Mig15bis

IL10

Tu2

And if you are feeling particularly suicidal, the Po.2.

This is how it was, putting an Esports spin on it has no place in a simulator.

[Dash,Polder]

I have a strong suspicion the strength in online play and VR performance are directly correlated, nearly all the guys I flew GB with regular were also VR users, now all but one have vanished, none made the leap, and he flies when he can every other week or so, too busy with work.  It was also a very bad time of year for a flight sim release in June, combine that with collapse in PC industry with four to five times the cost for top tier parts, if your desired component is even obtainable.  Luckily I did all my Korea update/grades last year, don't think I would do them if I had to now.  Just bad timing in hardening times for the many.  With the costs at this time I'm not trying to push or persuade anyone into jumping it, that is a big ask and there is no certainty it will perform satisfactory or acceptable, that's the truly sad part.

[Avimimus]

On 9/7/2026 at 6:45 AM, Nearlymen said:

I suppose I'd better say why I'm so interested in the Commonwealth aspect of the Korean war. Some years ago I did a lot of research into Fleet Air arms early involvement with HMS Triumph and it's aircraft, chatting to pilots, and digging up a lot of info on markings etc.

You should feel free to submit additional information to the developers. Even if the DLC2 doesn't come about - I'm sure they'd find it interesting. Let me know if you need any help submitting info.

[Hetstaine]

Great pic of Sergeant George Hale with his Meteor Mk 8 after a brush with MiG-15s over North Korea in March 1953. Hale scored several hits and is credited with one MiG probably destroyed and another damaged.

 

 

77 Squadron took a pounding though.. 

In three years of operations, 77 Squadron pilots flew almost 19,000 sorties and shot down five MiGs. Despite their successes, losses were heavy; 40 pilots were killed, seven were captured, and of the squadron's 90 Meteors, 54 were lost. 

 

The Gloster product would be an interesting addition although it doesn't offer anything more than the F80 or F84 can do, besides being a twin and carrying 4x20mm.

Edited September 16 by Hetstaine

[Kemnilov]

14.09.2026 в 19:02, Steini18778 сказал:

I do understand that you guy want new planes like the seafire, but do you think this will happen when the game will become more and more one sided? Dont get me wrong, i do think that selling special planes or one side DLC is ok, but will Korea still be a success with 12+ vs. 4 russian planes? Very bad for online game play.

I don't think that possible second DLC with british planes will be bad for online gameplay, because most players fly both sides. So, when they play blue, they will have more planes to fly, when they play red, they will have more variety of targets.

[AndreiTomescu]

5 hours ago, Kemnilov said:

will Korea still be a success with 12+ vs. 4 russian planes?

It's somehow the truth, actually. 

The communists has one and only planes provider : CCCP. And they really managed to simplify, unify, and thus have less types of airframes.

The UN, on the other hand, nope. Put on paper: UN planes models that took part in Korea vs Soviet ones. Actually Avimimus did.

[Avimimus]

Let's keep this thread on topic. We can discuss the implications of modelling a theatre where one side became largely restricted to a single type for daylight operations elsewhere - the same goes for discussing non-Commonwealth aircraft.

22 hours ago, Kemnilov said:

I don't think that possible second DLC with british planes will be bad for online gameplay, because most players fly both sides. So, when they play blue, they will have more planes to fly, when they play red, they will have more variety of targets.

There is a lot of merit to the idea of having a greater variety of targets.

[gecko]

On 9/14/2026 at 7:02 PM, Steini18778 said:

I do understand that you guy want new planes like the seafire, but do you think this will happen when the game will become more and more one sided? Dont get me wrong, i do think that selling special planes or one side DLC is ok, but will Korea still be a success with 12+ vs. 4 russian planes? Very bad for online game play.

There are two ways of think about this. Sure, you can come from an e-sports perspective and focus on balance, in which case Korea will never be balanced unless you cut out most of the UN side. Things seem thin on the red side.

On the other hand, having ALL of the key Red side aircraft represented from day one is huge. Flying from the UN side, any enemy aircraft you were likely to encounter historically is already in game, which is really great. From the Red side, your options of which of their historical operations you can participate in is largely complete. The only drawback is you don't yet have nearly as complete a line-up of historical opponents to fly against as you do flying for the other side. It's one reason why the naval focus of the DLC was a great choice, and it brings us back around to why it would be fantastic if the next one covered the Commonwealth. 

[snocc]

it would be really cool to see the RAF/commonwealth presence represented in korea, i kind of wished the firefly would've gotten to be on the carrier dlc alongside the sea fury

[Avimimus]

26 minutes ago, snocc said:

it would be really cool to see the RAF/commonwealth presence represented in korea, i kind of wished the firefly would've gotten to be on the carrier dlc alongside the sea fury

They do belong together ❤️ OTP