south korean airforce South Korean Airforce - where is it?

[JollyJack]

South Korean Airforce - small but seems missing alltogether ! https://mikesresearch.com/2022/11/27/south-korean-air-force-1950-53/ 

[Swoose]

I loved the war movie Battle Hymn starring Rock Hudson as Dean Hess, a USAF officer helping the fledgling ROK Air Force with F-51s as well as aiding Korean War orphans.

[PaperPilot]

4 hours ago, JollyJack said:

South Korean Airforce - small but seems missing alltogether ! https://mikesresearch.com/2022/11/27/south-korean-air-force-1950-53/ 

Syngman Rhee, the president of South Korea at the time, wanted to invade North Korea before the North could invade the South. The Americans knew this, and didn't want to risk a third world war with the Soviets and the Chinese, so they heavily restricted South Korea's Air Force to a few dozen trainers and no combat-ready aircraft. 

That is why there is no sign of the ROKAF in the game. But...

What if they did a hypothetical Second Korean War dlc that occured just a few years later, like if there was a conflict breaking out in January 1958 and ended in December 1959? That was when the US deployed nuclear weapons to South Korea, and when a South Korean DC-3 airliner was hijacked and Syngman Rhee's regime retaliated by executing suspected communist agents in South Korea, and threatened to invade North Korea. 

How would it work? It would have to be an ahistorial dlc, which I suspect would be outside of IL-2's game play philosophy of recreating history as exact as possible in career mode. However, it would have to be plausible as though it did happen. The IL-2 dev team would need to put in aircraft that most likely would have been present in this conflict, use estimated guesswork on what air war tactics would have evolved since the First Korean War, and be able to guess how the demilitarized border between the North and the South would have changed. Since both sides would have been totally prepared to strike each other, there would be no blitzkrieg-like invasion, and more of a military stalemate where the frontline changed little from the interwar borders. 

North Korea/Chinese/Soviet Aircraft

• An-2 
• IL-28
• MiG-17
• MiG-19

South Korea/US Aircraft

• B-57 Canberra
• F-86D
• F-94C
• F-100 Super Sabre

[Juri_JS]

It would be a shame if the ROKAF doesn't get added. It's history is really interesting, although the information available in English about the missions flown by Korean pilots is rather limited. Apparently their F-51 equipped units were quite successful in the ground attack role once they became fully combat ready in late 1951. The ROKAF's main base was K-18 Gangneung, that is on the map, therefore missions for it's Mustang units would be possible.

For more detailed information I suggest this dissertation by Lt. General Chintae So:

https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/2926907/482081.pdf

[Justicier10-7]

I'm sure the devs want ROKAF represented in the game, I think it's just a matter of getting historical references and data, and some additional time, to be able to integrate them into the campaign.

Personally, I'm hoping that the southern part of the Korea map will be modeled eventually, so that the entirety of the war, with its insane shifting of the front lines at the beginning, can be experienced. And to that point... that would also be a great time to add in ROKAF as well! It would be kinda cool to start the ROKAF career mode a little differently than the others, as a new trainee, and have a handful of "familiarization" or ferry flights based out of K-2 Taegu Airbase, before getting thrown into direct combat with USAF instructors flying as your wing leads. This also presents an opportunity to add the "Non-commander" career mode many have wanted... essentially experiencing career mode starting in the 51st Provisional Squadron "Bout One" project as a rookie pilot 😉

Edited Wednesday at 04:37 AM by Justicier10-7

[JollyJack]

I tried adding a mission country bloc in mission countries....... that did not work; i wanted to add a South Kores coalition. 

Weird is that the countries are un-editable, and named wrong here reragrding Eastern and Western, as the actual map location is about Asia. 

Imperialists, Commies, Nationalists, Reds, Democrats, Ugly, Bad, Good. Counties involved: South Korea, Ausies, Canadians. 

In DCS you can pile up red and blue coalitions of any country killing each other. Its a game after all.

Edited yesterday at 01:04 PM by JollyJack