Dev's Diary...

[Phantom88 3,284]

Hey everybody! 

 

We hope you are hanging in there and staying healthy! While we're stuck inside our homes trying not to get sick I thought you'd enjoy some footage of our improved airframe damage model in action. These clips show how our wings are much stronger than before and how our improved damage calculations cause a myriad of failures that can bring down a plane, or in some cases, maybe allow you to limp home. Please note that the engine damage was turned off for this video as we are currently concerned with the airframe and how it behaves. Remember just because a plane takes a physical beating, doesn't mean all the systems are functioning. A knocked out plane may keep flying for a little while, but it is likely not going to make it home or stay controllable. My point is don't get too hung up on some of these planes surviving multiple HE hits. One good placed burst and your day is likely ruined, but your wings should not fold like a bad poker hand. Larger planes and historically tougher planes now have a better personality to match their reputation. 

I pieced this video together in a hurry, so the commentary may not be the best and some of my American humor may get lost in translation. I hope you enjoy this little distraction during this crazy time. Our airframe damage improvements will be in the next update before the end of March.

 

Edited March 20, 2020 by Phantom88

[Phantom88 3,284]

Hello everybody,

 

In spite of the serious events happening in the world, the time flows and it looks like we adapted to the new work conditions. The work processes are set up and we continue at the usual rate. Since we plan to release important renderer improvements in late Spring, we set the workflow to develop the short and long term tasks simultaneously. We'll tell you about what will be released in Summer a bit later, while today we'll concentrate on the coming update 4.005. =AnPetrovich= and =Jason_Williams= told you about the main feature of this update earlier - reworked, improved and advanced damage model of the airframe - but it is not the only huge change that it will include.

 

Speaking of the battle damage modeling, another very important change is the improved frag and blast damage calculations throughout the entire sim. Thanks to the fresh look and research input by our partners at Digital Forms, which make the visual models of the Tank Crew vehicles, we were able to bring the fragments damage calculations to the new level of complexity.

 

Generally speaking, the calculations of the damage incurred by munition fragments became less abstract. The new model is universal for all munition types. The calculations of the warhead fragmentation are more life-like and give the initial speed, mass, and size of the fragments. New progressive methods of modeling their speed decrease use the integration of their movement.

 

The calculations of the penetration ability of the combined HE and frag damage is also less abstract. Instead of using an empirical parameter, the system now uses the speed, mass, and size of a fragment to model a penetration and the massed impact in case of a near explosion is also modeled. Since the calculations of the penetration ability and the energy of fragments were changed, the excessive effectiveness of the bombs against armored targets at large distances has been reduced. The penetration ability of the fragments created by shells containing a small amount of explosives relative to their overall mass was also reduced because of the same reason.

 

The blast damage calculations use a more accurate power law depending on the distance to the blast center. The damage inflicted by a blast and its ability to break through an armor sheet now drops as the distance increases faster than before, but became much more powerful at very short distances. It also should be noted that engines, drivetrains, reduction gearboxes, ammo racks and other large pieces of equipment now have their own hard casings modeled where applicable and they can protect them from some damage.

 

The visual and audio representation of the damage is also updated. The additional causes of the unhearable hits in multiplayer have been found and fixed, new sounds were added for ricochets while the existing hit and explosion sounds were improved.

 

In general, the update 4.005 once again is going to be one of the biggest in the history of our project, its change list contains more than 90 items already. It will bring not only the damage model improvements of course - the new content we told you before, many improvements and fixes for the aircraft and player controllable tanks, audio improvements for various in-game objects and more and more. The sim will be more accessible to the larger audience thanks to the additional language as well.

 

Our team hopes that the update 4.005 will be welcomed by you, our players, and will raise the quality level of our sim to the next level. To finish today's diary, let's add some nice pictures to the mix - this time they are the Yak-9 cockpit shots captured in the game. Its texturing is nearly final while the development of its FM is progressing at a full speed. We hope it will be available to you in early Summer.

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

1m

 

247

Hello everybody,

The weather in Moscow isn’t really fitting for April, but these times it doesn’t make a big difference; we’re continuing the work on the project. The 4.005 beta testing is nearly finished, and soon you’ll see by yourself what all the latest DDs were about. So today we’ll tell you a bit about the current work that will yield more distant results. We have mentioned before that we’re working on moving the graphics engine to Deferred rendering and now this process gives good results. The main goal in implementing this renderer is to open new visual possibilities while keeping the current level of performance and not making it worse. Till the recent time, we could only hope that having both options is possible at all, while our Lead Programmer Sergey Vorsin was working confidently and his task is nearly finished. We have managed to keep the general level of performance during this transition intact and we already can show you one of the possibilities this technology opens for our sim.

The first visual bonus that comes from Deferred Shading is the dramatic improvement of the quality of the reflections on various surfaces. While the existing reflection system was progressive for its time, today the standards are upped. For instance, its issues include too much bloom in reflections from various aircraft surfaces, the lack of diffusion of the reflections - they should be softer and more natural-looking. The new tech makes this possible, resulting in more realistic visuals. Here are a couple of screenshots showing this:

But the improvements are not limited to the existing reflections on the external model of an aircraft. Now a feature that was requested by the community for a long time becomes technically possible - reflections in the canopy and instrument glass. In other games this effect is imitated using a prepared or generated texture which is rendered on the glass surfaces without following the laws of optics. Deferred Shading allows us to create complex and optically correct reflections in the cockpit. They depend on the external lighting and environment of course, the camera position in the cockpit and other factors. It’s clear that the best way to show you this new effect would be a video, but it will be ready later - we’re still working on this new reflection effect. Today we can show you a couple of screenshots that demonstrate this effect in general though:

The work on the new pilot models we announced earlier for Battle of Moscow, Battle of Stalingrad and Battle of Kuban continues as well. Earlier we published the WIP images of the new Soviet pilot in Summer uniform without textures that weren’t ready, but now we have the completed models both in Summer and Winter uniforms and for early and late war timeframes as well. At the moment we’re working on the animations for the new models for all Soviet aircraft in the project - and started the work on the new German pilot model of the early war.

To finish today’s Dev Blog we want to present you the new work of =HH=Pauk, this time he created the new promo video for Flying Circus. We think the author has managed to the feel of the last knights’ epoch perfectly, highlighting the project potential. Enjoy

 

 

 

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

Update 4.005

 

Dear friends,

The IL-2 Sturmovik team is happy to announce that another, very big and important milestone in the evolution of our project has been reached and its result is ready to be downloaded to your PCs. This time the update doesn’t bring new content since the development of the new Normandy project is at the very early stage. However, it contains an enormous block of changes paramount for the IL-2 as a combat flight-sim, namely the aircraft damage model and munitions damage calculations. Earlier we have published several Dev Blogs dedicated to these changes, where they are covered in detail and how they affect the gameplay.

Additionally, the external textures of four previously released aircraft are now available in 4K quality thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney and Francisco =BlackHellHound1= Bindraban. 4 additional ground vehicles were added to the sim - two ambulances and two fuel trucks. And a new language has been added to the game - Simplified Chinese! Well, at least most of the sim is translated, some parts will have to wait. More on that below.

 

But of course, this is not quite all we have done. The change-list contains a whopping 140 changes - this is the all-time record for our project! There are numerous improvements to the aircraft simulation, aircraft models, player controlled tanks (Tank Crew) and artificial intelligence (AI). The causes of several important issues we weren’t able to reproduce previously due to their rarity and randomness and thus fix before were finally found and fixed. The full list contains many other improvements and fixes as well. Take a look:

Main features

1. MiG-3 series 24 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;

2. Pe-2 series 35 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;

3. Pe-2 series 87 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;

4. Bf 109 G-4 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Francisco =BlackHellHound1= Bindraban;

5. Binoculars have been added for tank commanders (press LCtrl + 5);

6. GAZ-55 ambulance vehicle added;

7. BZ-35 fuel truck added;

8. Opel Blitz ambulance vehicle added;

9. Opel Blitz Tankwagen fuel truck added;

10. New language added - Chinese Simplified (简体中文). The career mode is not yet completely translated since the newspaper articles and some squadron histories and award descriptions are in English (they are not necessary for playing though). The Chinese symbols in the pilot name won’t work sadly due to the technical limitations in the mission file format.

Aircraft Damage Model Improvements

11. All aircraft got the new, significantly more advanced version of the airframe damage calculations: each aircraft has its own geometrical sizes of the airframe parts and the material types while the damage calculations take into account the peculiarities of the AP, blast and fragmentation damage;

12. A complete rework of aircraft skin damage calculations has been done and it now takes into account the projectile caliber or its HE capability: now AP ammo and bullets damage the aircraft skin to much lesser extent than HE ammo while ramming an aircraft with a propeller of another instantly causes severe aircraft skin damage;

13. Visual hit effects (sparks, splinters, etc.) and sound effects now depend on the material of a hit part of the aircraft;

14. A one projectile impact won’t erroneously cause multiple (doubling) damage effects on the airframe parts which have several hitboxes;

15. Projectile impacts (and ramming an aircraft with a propeller of another) at the parts which don’t have their own cracks modeled in 3D visual model (for instance, when shooting at a wing root that should cause a crack in the wing on the aircraft where a crack at the wing base is not modeled) are calculated in more detail;

16. Projectile impacts (and ramming an aircraft with a propeller of another) at the parts not connected to the airframe won’t damage the airframe (for example, hitting an engine nacelle of a twin-engine aircraft won’t destroy a wing);

17. The calculations of the energy impulse transfer to an aircraft from a munition it was hit by now take into account the shots that went through it;

18. Exploding shells no longer damage the airframe by their initial kinetic energy of an intact shell, only by the blast and the kinetic energy of its fragments;

19. The following visual effects of the aircraft fragments were corrected (turned on when needed and off when not needed): landing gear dust (in the flight), the lighting from landing and navigation lights, guns firing and engine exhausts, smoke from smoke generators and vortex trails from the wingtips);

20. The found discrepancies between a new and repaired aircraft aerodynamics have been fixed;

21. A rare issue that could cause the airframe cracks to preserve after repairing has been found and fixed;

22. The modeling of the combat damage of the piston engine crank gear became more detailed and takes into account the engine type (for instance, the damage of the crank gear of the air-cooled engines happens more rarely than crank gear of the liquid-cooled engines) and the peculiarities of the armor penetration, blast and fragmentation effects of the munitions. The damage of the crank gear can cause the wedging up and seizing up of the crankshaft while the heavy momentary incurred damage can cause the immediate stop of the crankshaft;

23. It is now possible to damage one or several engine cylinders at once by weapons fire, reducing its power output. Damaged pistons can affect the crank gear and can be accompanied by oil and coolant leaks. The calculations of the incurred damage and leakage values take into account the type of the engine and the peculiarities of the armor penetration, blast and fragmentation effects of the munitions;

24. The calculations of an engine fire probability from torn fuel lines and oil leaks take into account the peculiarities of the armor penetration, blast and fragmentation effects of the munitions;

25. The physical model of the engine now differentiates the two types of oil leaks: from the engine and from the oil system;

26. Only the actual oil leak from the engine now soils up the canopy instead of a general engine damage;

27. An excessive amount of piston engine shaking caused by the crank gear damage has been reduced;

28. The calculations of an oil tank or oil radiator leak probability, its size and leakage value take into account the peculiarities of the armor penetration and fragmentation effects of the munitions in detail;

29. The calculations of a coolant tank or water radiator leak probability, its size and leakage value take into account the peculiarities of the armor penetration and fragmentation effects of the munitions in detail;

30. The calculations of a fuel tank leak probability, its size and leakage value take into account the peculiarities of the armor penetration and fragmentation effects of the munitions in detail. The fuel tanks leak protection will be taken into account later, when the next level fuel system modeling is finished;

31. The visual intensity of a fuel, oil, and coolant leaks now corresponds to the actual severity of a leak closer;

32. When calculating the probabilities of a fuel tank fire and explosion, the different AP, blast and fragments effects are taken into account as well as the amount of the fuel leaking from the tank at the moment. Inert-gas pressurization and other fire countermeasures will be taken into account later when the next level fuel system modeling is finished;

33. Bf 110 G-2, Bf 110 E-2 and Hs-129 B-2 right engines won’t be excessively damaged by explosion fragments;

34. P-38J-25: a stabilizer won’t be destroyed by small fluctuating stress loads;

35. P-38J-25: it is now possible to hit and damage the right engine radiators;

36. P-51D-15: it is now possible to hit its oil tank and its armored visor is correctly included in the armor protection calculations;

37. P-51D-15 canopy will appear correctly soiled up by an oil leak both in internal and external views;

38. P-51D-15 3D-model won’t erroneously show the wing crack;

39. The landing gear doors on all aircraft are destroyed if landing gear wheels are torn off in retracted position;

40. Hs 129 B-2: the destruction of the right landing gear door won’t generate the landing gear door debris on the left;

41. Bf-109 (all series except E7): the loss of the vertical stabilizer and the central part of the horizontal stabilizer is temporarily blocked due to the interdependence of this damage in the 3D model, which makes this point extremely vulnerable to combat damage and causes undesirable results. We will try to move the breaking point above the stabilizer in the future and fix this limitation. Damage to the rudder, elevators and horizontal stabs are still possible and the rudder and elevators can still be detached. And the left and right portions of the horizontal stab can also be lost;

42. Bf-109 (all series): the mixed up locations where the debris of the landing gear bay doors appear have been corrected;

43. MiG-3 series 24: the main landing gear bay doors in the wing can also be torn off by an excessive ram air pressure;

44. Excessive rear hemisphere protection of the Pe-2 gunners from the fragments has been corrected;

45. Ju-52/3m g4e: the oil level gauges display the correct amount of the oil left even if it is completely gone or after the oil system repair;

46. Ju-52/3m g4e: first pilot bailing out won’t cause the death of the second pilot and the gunner;

General Damage Model Improvements (for all objects in the sim)

47. A complete overhaul of the blast and fragmentation damage, as well as armor penetration damage has been finished, including, but not limited to: correction of calculation errors, calculation speed optimizations, protection of the calculation results for finding possible errors in the initial data;

48. Insufficient blast damage in case of a very near explosion or inner explosion has been corrected;

49. The number of fragments hitting an object is correctly calculated basing on the distance to an explosion, including the case of inner explosion;

50. Now there is a possibility of a ‘stray fragment’ impact when the expectation function gives less than one fragment due to the distance to the explosion (outside the kill area), which is important in a case of multiple explosions;

51. The armor penetration ability and damage of projectile increases if the resulting impact velocity exceeds the muzzle velocity of a projectile in the reference test data;

52. The fragmentation damage modeling is made less abstract for all ammunition types: the formation of the fragments, their initial speeds, masses and sizes are calculated and their loss of velocity with the distance traveled is calculated using the modern estimates of their resistance factor and the integration of their movements;

53. The calculations of the penetration ability of the combined HE and frag damage is also less abstract. Instead of using an empirical parameter, the system now uses the speed, mass, and size of a fragment to model a penetration and the massed impact in case of a near explosion is also modeled;

54. Since the calculations of the penetration ability and the energy of fragments were changed, the excessive effectiveness of the bombs against armored targets at large distances has been reduced, but a very close explosion is much more effective than before;

55. The penetration ability of the fragments created by shells containing a small amount of explosives relative to their overall mass was also reduced because of the same reason;

56. The blast damage calculations use a more accurate power law depending on the distance to the blast center. The damage inflicted by a blast and its ability to break through an armor sheet now drops as the distance increases faster than before, but became much more powerful at very short distances;

57. Engines, drivetrains, reduction gearboxes, ammo racks and other large pieces of equipment now have their own hard casings modeled where applicable and they can protect them from some damage;

58. In a rare case of a direct bomb hit at a turret of a flying aircraft, aerostat or a parachute there won’t be a detonation delay that could cause it to explode at a distance to the object;

59. The severity of a wound depends on the impact area: a head hit is more critical than a body one while a body hit is less severe than it was before;

60. The crew members experience less pain shock from wounds and impacts;

Player controllable tanks improvements

61. The death of a radio operator now blocks the external communications;

62. Pz.III-L and T-34 STZ tanks ammo racks now are damageable;

63.The physical collision model of the Pz.III-L turret now correctly rotates together with the visual model of the turret;

64. The physical collision model of the T-34 STZ main gun barrel now correctly corresponds to its visual model;

65. The M4A2 commander’s machine gun can be damaged;

66. In the event of a catastrophic detonation, the turret flying away from Pz.III-L and T-34 STZ tanks will be visually damaged;

67. A knocked out machine gun won’t incorrectly cause the death of its operator;

68. The issue that could result in the destruction of a tank when its main gun and coaxial MG are knocked out has been found and fixed;

69. Several commands of the tank commander (for example, “Attack ground targets on sight”) will work even if the mission script doesn’t include any commands for this tank;

70. Several non-working technochat messages about turret systems failure and repair (coaxial machine gun, main and backup turret traverse, vertical aiming mechanism, etc.) have been fixed;

71. Pz.Kpfw.III.Ausf.M, Pz.Kpfw.IV.Ausf.G and M4A2 tracks tension is correctly animated (it was reversed);

72. The tank radio transmitter failure makes the communication with other tanks of the unit impossible;

73. Viewing instruments on KV-1s tanks made more detailed;

74. The issue with KV-1s tracks visibly moving in the opposite direction when accelerating has been minimized;

75. The casing of the various large systems (engine, gearbox, ammunition) can protect them from shell fragments;

76. An additional armor sheet on the front hull of the KV-1s is now modeled;

AI Improvements

77. The AI pilots of the high-speed aircraft now try to use their advantage over significantly slower aircraft using the hit and run tactics;

78. The AI pilots of the high-speed aircraft aim better when firing the guns;

79. A failed bombing run won’t cause an AI-controlled bomber to fly beyond the map borders;

80. An AI pilot estimates the time required to destroy a ground target better;

81. The AI pilots won’t try to move the control surfaces of a crashed aircraft;

82. P-51D AI pilot will always close the canopy before taking off;

83. Gunners won’t do unnecessary motions when bailing out;

84. Additional improvements were made in the ground vehicle obstacle avoidance algorithm;

85. A rare issue that could cause vehicles of a column to move directly North after an emergency stop has been found and fixed;

86. AI-controlled ground based guns and MGs aim better in heavy wind weather conditions;

87. 76mm and 77mm AAA of World War I era aim better;

Visual aircraft models improvements

88. The bomb control panel on all Bf 109 3D-models is now hidden in the outside view if no bombs are installed;

89. The right landing gear wheel of the Bf 109 E-7 is no longer visible from a large distance when the right wing is lost;

90. The Bf-109 G-14 canopy cable looks correct when the canopy is open;

91. The gap between the bomb holder and Fw 190 A3 and Fw 190 A5 fuselages has been removed;

92. The gear wheels of the chain drive of the He-111 bomb bay doors are animated now;

93. The An-4 compass on Pe-2s has a functioning backlight now;

94. The excessive visibility of IL-2 mod. 1943 at large distances caused by a wrong glare setting has been corrected;

95. The rear navigation light of the La-5FN won’t be visible from the cockpit;

96. A damaged LaGG-3 won’t appear to have through holes when zooming out;

97. The Yak-1b rear wheel trace on the ground won’t visually thicken when zooming out;

98. P-51D and Tempest radio station bulbs made brighter when turned on;

99. An incorrect flare visual effect on the P-51D fuselage has been fixed;

100. An incorrect flare visual effect on the Fokker D.VII wingtips has been fixed;

101. Left ailerons of Fokker D.VII and Fokker D.VIIF won’t cause visible z-fighting effect;

102. S.E.5a: a dead or unconscious pilot or gunner won’t clip through a cabin side;

103. The animation of the 2000-pound bomb M66 impeller has been fixed;

Other aircraft changes

104. Another error that could cause the hits on the own aircraft to be not audible in multiplayer has been found and fixed;

105. When in the cockpit, the player will now hear different sounds when different parts (materials) of the aircraft are hit different types of ammunition (before that, sounds differed only by the type of ammunition and only in open cockpits or in an external view);

106. The ram air sounds in the cockpits of all aircraft have been re-adjusted, the sound changes depending on the state of the canopy (open or closed) as well as the position of the pilot’s head relatively to the windscreen;

107. The positioning of the engine sounds in the cockpits has been improved as well;

108. Bf 109 G-6 in-cockpit sounds were corrected;

109. The issue with the pilots posing in weird ways should be gone now;

110. Ju-88 top shooter won’t continue to fire when the canopy and the MGs are jettisoned;

111. It is now possible to shoot a signal flare after opening the IL-2 mod.1943 cockpit;

112. The trace of an aircraft after a belly landing won’t disappear when zooming in;

113. Flying Circus planes will correctly show the dust from wheels effect;

114. P-51D wheels leave correct traces and their dust effects were corrected;

115. Opened P-51D landing gear bays cause less drag;

116. Bomb detonator switches are no longer inverted on P-51D;

117. A-20B, La-5 series 8 and La-5FN: it’s now possible to move the throttle control when it is in the idle position and ‘Engine auto control’ helper is enabled in the options;

118. FFB vibrations increased during control surfaces buffeting at terminal flight speeds;

119. Now a crewless aircraft will be removed from the simulation when it stays on the ground for 30 seconds (previously it was removed when its altitude was less than 10 meters and speed less than 10 meters per second);

Ground and naval objects

120. Projectiles of the multi-barreled anti-aircraft guns visually appear aligned with the positions of the individual barrels;

121. Tanks and trucks won’t leave marks on concrete surfaces;

122. Vehicles won’t create so much dust when moving on concrete and paved surfaces;

123. TRG_Spawn mission logic element won’t cause the spawned vehicles to have visual effects of a damaged engine;

124. The issue of random destruction of a train in QMB has been found and fixed;

125. Simple AI-controlled ground vehicles won’t visibly ‘shudder’ when moving on steep slopes, especially on the Prokhorovka map;

126. Sd Kfz 251 Wurfrahmen 40 rockets launch correctly visually;

127. The upper and lower armor of simple AI tanks has been corrected (made more resistant to fragments);

128. The visual model of a static railway tank has been updated (its frame);

129. The static T-34 model texture that appears at a certain distance has been corrected;

130. Railway wagons and locomotives won’t receive critical damage from any first hit;

131. A graphical corruption caused by G-5 gunboat firing its M-8M rockets has been fixed;

132. The issue that could make the naval guns indestructible has been found and fixed;

133. Ships that run aground will stop earlier and won’t display water wake effects;

134. A random issue with the parachute not completely descending to the ground has been fixed;

Other changes

135. VR zoom can be made instantaneous if the default speed gives you nausea - set the value of the vr_zoom_speed parameter to 1 (it is located in the camera section in data\startup.cfg file);

136. Ricochet sounds and graphic effects were added;

137. The physical collision models of the European suburban buildings in some blocks on the Arras map now correspond to their visual models;

138. The trees that prevented takeoff and landing were removed at the end of the strip of the Florennes airfield;

139. Bailed out pilots can be correctly captured by the enemy in the Bodenplatte career;

140. MCU_Waypoint mission logic element won’t receive input from other elements when deactivated.

[Phantom88 3,284]

Hello everybody,

After releasing the update 4.005 last week we continued on polishing it, addressing the issues that were found after the public release. We hope to release another hotfix tomorrow that will improve the public version stability. Of course, the work on the next update is being done in parallel - for instance, the new heavy assault gun SU-152 for Tank Crew project will be finished soon. This one, being a symbiosis of a heavy tank and a heavy howitzer, really stands out. It’s no wonder that such a war machine required adapting and improving the core systems to support it properly - there is no reason not to implement something created for one unit to all others that were released earlier. For instance, all 45mm and higher caliber shells that in reality did not have tracers will have a visual model of a flying shell (one for all for now) instead of a symbolical tracer. Firing the main gun without working ventilation and closed hatches will result in carbon monoxide poisoning of the crew and we created additional effects of the evacuation of the propellant fumes from the engine compartment for vehicles that used it for the fumes evacuation. The new system that allows a commander to order his gunner and other self-propelled guns under his command to fire at a specified direction and range is also almost complete. There are also finishing touches like oil pumping animation before starting the engine. The visual model of this vehicle, that probably has the most firepower in the project, is also nearly finished.

We would like to emphasize that many things that were done for Tank Crew also improve the aircraft - for example, the Tank Crew separate animations tech and the new models of the Soviet and German pilots that are being created using it for BoS, BoM and BoK allow us to put American and British pilots into the lend-lease planes. This means that soon you’ll be able to witness RAF and Soviet pilots in Spitfire Mk.V and Spitfire Mk.IX and RAF, USAF and Soviet ones in P-40E, P-47D and B-25D (according to what country is specified in the mission file by its author). A bit later, when we complete the required animations for the new pilot models, this will also work for A-20B and P-39L.

In addition, the same approach will allow having a correct visual model depending on the timeframe: Soviet pilots will appear in correct summer uniforms depending on the mission date (there will be three different models for early war before April 1st, 1942, between April 1st, 1942 and March 1st, 1943, and late war). Later, when we have German and US pilot models ready, their uniforms will also change depending on the mission date, including the g-suit. And we plan to give all the WWII-era pilots hand weapons as a final touch in this department.

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

Dear Friends,

 

We want to thank you for your continued support during this difficult time. Many of you took advantage of our promo code special while being forced to stay indoors and away from others. Plus, many of you are out of work and focusing on the health and safety of your family, so any support you have given us during this stressful time is very much appreciated. Because of your generosity, we will continue with the savings by launching our THANK YOU! Sale starting today April 24th and running to May 8th in the Official Webstore and on Steam. 
 

Apr. 24th - May 8th in the Official IL-2 Webstore

Apr. 24th - May 8th on Steam

 

Battle of Bodenplatte = 50% OFF (Webstore and Steam)

Flying Circus = 50% OFF (Webstore and Steam)

BOS = 75% OFF (Webstore and Steam)
BOM = 75% OFF (Webstore and Steam)
BOK = 75% OFF (Webstore and Steam)

All released Collector Planes – 75% OFF  (Except P-38 and Fw-190 D-9) (Webstore and Steam)

P-38J-25 = 50% OFF (Webstore and Steam)

Fw-190 D-9 = 50% OFF (Webstore and Steam)

Blazing Steppe = 75% OFF (Webstore and Steam)
Fortress on the Volga = 75% OFF (Webstore and Steam)
Ten Days of Autumn = 75% OFF (Webstore Exclusive)
Havoc Over the Kuban = 75% OFF (Webstore Exclusive)
Achtung Spitfire! = 75% OFF (Webstore Exclusive)

 

Cliffs of Dover: BLITZ – 75% OFF (IL-2 Webstore Only)
 
All Rise of Flight Content = 75% OFF (ROF Webstore and Steam)

 

IL-2 Official Webstore

 

IL-2 on Steam

  
NOTE: having at least the base game (Stalingrad) on Steam means you can launch it from the Steam client without entering a login and password and you can access your IL-2 content purchased elsewhere if you link the accounts.

The Sturmovik Team

[Phantom88 3,284]

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

250

 

Dear friends!

 

We would like to congratulate you on the very important holiday - 75th Anniversary of the Victory in Europe! On this day 75 years ago the hard and long road to peace, that cost millions of lives, has finally come to its end at the European theater of the world war. The people of all nations got a second chance to live. Let's remember the heroic deeds of our ancestors and be thankful to them - even though that today's crisis and problems are significant, they can't be compared to the gravity of the situation and the hardships of those years of war.

 

 

The life that was given to us by the heroic deed of our ancestors continues. Coincidentally, this is a small anniversary for our project, which is entirely dedicated to the World War II events, as well - you're reading its 250th Developers Blog. Our work on the sim also continues - in 2 or 3 weeks we plan to release the next update 4.006. It will bring not only the new player controllable machines - Yak-9 and Yak-9T Collector Planes and SU-152 assault gun for Tank Crew - but also the fundamental changes in the graphics engine: the renderer will be switched to Deferred Shading. At the moment this update is already in the beta testing and our team is working on debugging and finalizing it. The changelist will be a long one once again, it already includes more than 50 changes in different areas of the sim. To illustrate what these renderer changes add to the visuals, we want to show you the in-game screenshots of Yak-9T, which is a good aircraft to display the new graphical capabilities:

 

 

Another pic we want to show you the WIP model of the early war German pilot which will be used in BoM, BoS and BoK timeframes. It's going to appear in the project a bit later, but it won't be a long wait:  

 

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

251

Dear friends,

Update 4.006 will be released soon and we can show you more of the coming improvements. Today we’d like to demonstrate how the aircraft materials and textures will look in the new renderer compared to the old one. For instance let’s look at La-5 series 8, He 111 H-6, P-38J-25, Albatros D.Va:

We also have good news about the changes in 4.006. First, the airframe damage model for the WWI planes will be tuned according to your feedback. Second, the ships in the sim will have more advanced physical models - they will be able to run aground, receive an impulse from collisions, etc. - this is important for the Battle of Normandy where they played a major role. Third, according to Tank Crew players’ feedback, we added a server option to disable tank AI gunners in multiplayer. Another option that has been requested for a while - now tech chat messages are a difficulty option so the players will be on equal terms in multiplayer.

Our engineering department improved the FM and systems modeling for a number of planes, including Yak-7 and Bf-110. Tank Crew assault guns will be able to fire indirectly at a heading and distance set by the gun or platoon commander. In the graphics department, we’re adding an alternative antialiasing method, FXAA, which trades some AA quality for a noticeable performance boost. It also has a side effect of somewhat improving the visibility of the contacts against the ground, especially when used in conjunction with the “Sharpen” graphics option. Several planes from already released modules will get the 4K quality external textures and the rivers and sea will get the updated water surface visualization.

As usual, the full list of the changes and improvements will be available at the update launch and it is already close to 70 items total. We’re hoping that the next update will be another step forward in the development of the project and you, our customers, will enjoy it. And to finish today’s Dev Blog, here are a couple of Yak-9 and Yak-9T Collector Planes screenshots from our Producer:

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

Update 4.006

Dear friends,

Around a month has passed since the previous humongous update and we have another right here. Its changelist is not as so hideously long (it is still too long, however - more than 80 items), but some of them are quite important. First of all, two new Collector Planes are released, Yak-9 and Yak-9T. It was the most mass-produced Soviet WWII aircraft, the real victory weapon. They had very good flight characteristics, bubble canopy with armored glass on the front and back, good manufacturability. The modification Yak-9T armed with powerful 37mm gun NS-37 was designed for bomber intercepts but was also widely used against ground targets. Yak-9s were used in the Battle of Kuban, so you can use it in the Career mode at this theater of war as well as in QMB and multiplayer.

For Tank Crew customers this update adds a long-awaited Zveroboy (“Beast Slayer”) - self-propelled heavy howitzer (assault gun) SU-152 based on KV-1s chassis and armed with a very powerful 152mm gun-howitzer ML-20S. While these assault guns were designed primarily for knocking out heavy defenses, at the Kursk Battle it was probably the only Soviet armored vehicle capable of killing Tigers and Panthers at far distances. Its 152mm APHE round weighed nearly 49 kg and its hit was lethal for a Tiger up to 2 km distance. Panther’s thick and sloped frontal armor and 200mm frontal armor of Ferdinand tank destroyers could withstand it, but a HE shell hit at a Panther turret guaranteed to breach the thin hull roof near the hit area and APHE hit at a Panther side could knock it out easily. Being very powerful, SU-152 wasn’t an absolute weapon of course. Limited armor and gun traverse angles, low ammo reserve and slow rate of fire demanded the combat skills from the crew and interaction of a group of these machines to reach its combat potential fully. Nevertheless, it was the first dangerous adversary for the newest German cats of prey.

This update also includes three new Scripted Campaigns – Kaiserschlacht, Spring Offensive and Lightning Strikes.

Kaiserschlacht and Spring Offensive are two campaigns developed by our friends at The Syndicate which tells about the same events from different sides of the front line of the spring of 1918. Although previously released to the public, these campaigns have been enlarged to include new unreleased missions. These are the first official campaigns for Flying Circus, allowing you to more fully evaluate the full potential and atmosphere of this great product. These two campaigns will be available free of charge to those who have already purchased Flying Circus: Volume One. There is an accompanying skin-pack for this campaign. It is available in the forum.

And for those who own the P-38J-25 Collector Plane and Battle of Bodenplatte, we also have a cool new Scripted Campaign for you - Lightning Strikes! This campaign was developed by our friend and talented mission maker Jaegermeister and it portrays P-38 combat missions in the skies of Europe from October to the end of December 1944. The campaign includes an outstanding number of missions, 25 of them, the last of which tells about the notorious events of January 1, 1945. This campaign is included free of charge to everyone who owns the P-8J-25 and Battle of Bodenplatte. There is also an accompanying skin-pack for this campaign and is available in the forum as well.

While new aircraft, tanks and campaigns are the lead stars of our sim, the most important change in this update is the release of the new graphics rendering engine based on Deferred Shading. This is the base for a new powerful shoot forward in the visual part of the project. It’s impossible to unlock all this potential at once, but in this update, we already added a number of improvements based on this fundamental change. More natural-looking aircraft exterior, cockpit and instrument reflections, better-looking water surfaces - this is just a start.

Thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney we have the external textures of 4 more existing aircraft in 4K quality: two bombers He 111 H-6 (BoM) and He 111 H-16 (BoS) and two Collectors Planes, La-5 series 8 and La-5FN series 2. The new textures push the visuals of these planes to a new level.

These huge additions aren’t all - the update 4.006 brings many others which are also important. Aircraft FM and DM were updated basing on your feedback, Soviet fighter pilots have new visual model, there is a lot of changes for ground and naval units as well as for player controllable Tank Crew war machines. Multiplayer functionality has been also addressed. All this serves one purpose - constant improvement of the quality of gameplay and accuracy of the simulation. IL-2 Sturmovik team hopes that you’ll enjoy all these changes.

Main Features

1. Yak-9 series 1 Collector Plane is available;
2. Yak-9T series 1 Collector Plane is available;
3. SU-152 heavy assault gun is available for all Tank Crew customers;
4. La-5 series 8 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;
5. La-5FN Collectors Plane exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;
6. He-111 H-6 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;
7. He-111 H-16 exterior textures, including damage, are in 4K quality now thanks to Martin =ICDP= Catney;
8. Two scenario campaigns, Kaiserschlacht and Spring offensive, are available for all Flying Circus Vol.1 customers for free;
9. A huge (25 missions!) scenario campaign Lightning Strikes is available for all Bodenplatte Premium customers (you can also play it if you have purchased Bodenplatte Standard Edition and P-38J-25 Collector Plane separately);
10. The graphics engine of the sim now uses Deferred Shading technology;

Graphics Improvements

11. FXAA or MSAA can be selected in the game options;
12. New option - cockpit reflections;
13. Metallic and lacquered aircraft surfaces reflect the light softer and more naturally;
14. There are canopy and instrument reflections in the cockpit;
15. The aircraft visual image won’t suddenly darken when zooming out or at a distance;
16. Damage textures won’t light up too much when zooming out or at a distance;
17. Rivers and lakes water visuals improved;
18. Clouds reflections in water bodies improved;
19. Excessive brightness of the high detail buildings on the Prokhorovka map has been reduced;
20. Shell casings won’t become transparent when too close to a camera;

Crew Models

21. There is a new pilot model on all Soviet fighters and on A-20 (pilot and navigator);
22. This new pilot model has three uniform variations depending on the mission date (before April 1942, April 1942 - May 1943, late war);
23. The new pilot model has a sidearm (press RCtrl+4 when the cockpit is open). Pilots of the other aircraft will receive it when their models are updated;
24. Battle of Bodenplatte aircraft which have been also lend-leased to USSR (Spitfire-IX, B-25D, P-47D) can have Soviet crews if their country in a mission file is set to the USSR;
25. P-40E (BoM), Spitfire-Vb (BoK) and Spitfire-IXe (BoBp) have American pilots if their country in a mission file is set to the USA;
26. P-40E (BoM), Spitfire-Vb (BoK) and P-51D (BoBp) have British pilots if their country in a mission file is set to the UK;

Player-controllable Tanks

27. New quick missions for tanks - Tank Duel and Tank Skirmish;
28. All player controllable tanks have the transmission from forward-backward and left-right user controls to the simulated tank controls corrected, which improved their turnability at high speeds and reduced the tendency to enter a skid;
29. The commanders of the indirect fire capable self-propelled guns (SU-122 and SU-152 at the moment) can order the AI gunner(s) of their tank or tank platoon to fire at a set distance and direction;
30. T-34UVZ-43 got two new modifications - additional all-steel internally sprung wheels;
31. SU-122 OF-462 HE shell ballistics corrected;
32. Death of a radioman correctly affects the radio functioning on player controllable tanks;
33. When the turret ventilation system is off, you can see from the outside the smoke coming off the crew hatch;
34. The smoke can be seen escaping the engine compartment of KV-1s and M4A2 after a shot;
35. All Soviet tanks have animated oil pumping in the engine start procedure;
36. Т-34UVZ and SU-122 have correctly looking headlights at a medium distance (without a block dot);
37. Older Pz.III.Ausf.L and T-34-76-STZ-42 tanks have correctly damageable suspension and armament;
38. All 45mm and bigger shells don’t have tracers anymore if a real shell didn’t have it (HE shells mostly and 122mm HEAT). This is true for AI units as well;
39. All 45mm and bigger shells without tracers have a generic visual model (HE shells mostly and 122mm HEAT). This is true for AI units as well;

Aircraft Physics, Systems and Visuals

40. The maximum airspeed at which the pilot is able to bail out now depends on the vertical G-load acting on the pilot: the smaller positive G-load, or the greater negative G-load, the easier it is for the pilot to leave the plane;
41. A G-load indicator is added to the HUD. When simplified instruments are switched off, G-load is indicated without a fractional part;
42. A message about turret ammo replenishing and turret repair has been added to the technochat;
43. A message about servicing the engine oil system or cooling system in the repair area is added to the technochat. The service is performed if the engine oil or coolant have cooled down significantly during the aircraft stop (previously in these cases the player periodically received information about the repairing of the corresponding system, which wasn’t really clear);
44. SPAD 13.C1: the roll oscillation of an AI-controlled airplane at a speed of about 200 km/h has been fixed;
45. Yak-7B polar curve has been corrected (the critical angle of attack was reduced, the inductive drag at large angles of attack was increased, the turn rate was reduced, the maximum speed and climb rate remained the same);
46. Yak-7B: the engine heat balance has been adjusted (the engine won’t overheat as quickly as before);
47. Yak-7B, Yak-1 (ser. 69, 127): the ailerons hinge moment and ailerons effectiveness at high airspeed were corrected (the roll rate is increased);
48. Bf-110 (G2, E2): the airplane polar curve was corrected (aerodynamic drag was increased), the turn rate, maximum speed and climb rate are corrected to be as close to the values specified in the airplane in-game specification as possible;
49. Bf-110 (G2, E2): aerodynamic characteristics corrected at supercritical angles of attack (the effectiveness of slats was improved, the drag was increased, and the nature of the stall was adjusted);
50. P-38J25 landing gear doors are visibly opened in the hangar;
51. Bf-109 G14 emergency engine power has been fixed (increased);
52. An aircraft won’t appear underground when a season is set incorrectly or undefined in the mission file;
53. Sopwith Camel: when the option “Simplified Controls” is enabled in the difficulty settings, the automatic helper better stabilizes the plane along the roll axis at a high angle of attack;
54. Spitfire Mk IX: excess struts on the pylons were removed;

Aircraft Damage Model

55. The piston engines’ combat survivability has been adjusted - the protection from the engine casings has been reduced, bullets and shells cause more damage to the crank gear, while shell fragments cause less damage to the engine.
56. All Flying Circus airplanes: hitting at the central section of the top wing now also leads to breaking the top wing (its left or right part);
57. The geometry of wing spars of all Flying Circus airplanes has been checked and brought into strict compliance with known sources. In general, now it requires much more bullet hits to break the wings of World War I aircraft;
58. The absence of visual and hearing disorders under the high G-loads for gunners in the single-player mode was fixed;
59. A rare bug has been fixed, which caused the fragments not damaging the airframe sometimes;
60. Pe-2 (ser. 35, 87): fixed rudders ‘wobbling’ when their control wires are broken;
61. Pe-2 (ser. 35, 87): a bug has been fixed that caused the left rudder to react to the controls slightly when its control wires were actually broken;
62. All Bf-109 fighters except E7 can now lose the left or right side of the horizontal stabilizer when hit at its central part (Bf-109 E7 has a central part of the stabilizer which can be lost by itself);
63. P-38: fixed a bug due to which the oxygen system could erroneously take damage;
64. Ju-52: fixed rudder ‘wobbling’ when its control wires are broken;
65. Fixed a problem with repairing aircraft turrets;
66. Fixed the undamageable machine guns in a number of aircraft turrets;

Ground and Naval Units

67. Ships have a more advanced physical model - they can be damaged by collisions, run aground, lay on the shore (and not sink into it), and lay on the bottom when sank;
68. All naval guns and howitzers fire physically modeled projectiles (previously explosions were created in the target area), making their combat use much more realistic;
69. All naval guns and howitzers have AP ammo available (around 10% of ammo reserve);
70. AAA guns can fire at the ground area (if the mission trigger Attack Area is set on the ground level);
71. The issue that made the first several salvos of an artillery battery too accurate has been found and fixed;
72. The issue with AI aiming the guns of player controllable tanks has been fixed;
73. Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F1 and Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.G have their armor plates thickness corrected;
74. Groups and columns of AI-controlled ground vehicles can stop on shallow slopes (previously they couldn’t);
75. Tank AI gunner no longer try to fire at flying targets;
76. Ground vehicle AIs can’t spot targets through a dense enough forest (if at least 50m of the line of sight to a target travels through the forest area);
77. Field guns (AT and divisional ones) can fire at a maximum distance when given the Attack Area -> Ground command in the mission;
78. Aiming tables for several AA guns have been corrected;

Aircraft AI
79. The firing accuracy at air and ground targets depends on the AI pilot level;
80. View sectors have been corrected for Hs-129, Ju-52, A-20 and U-2 crews;
81. The minimal fuel reserve calculations have been corrected (previously they could cause AI pilots to RTB too early);

Multiplayer

82. The audibility of hits on the own plane has been corrected when the cockpit canopy is damaged;
83. New server-side option “Restrict tank AI gunners” blocks the ability of the tank commander to assign a dynamic object as a target for the AI gunner or order it to search for targets on its own;
84. Tech chat and handling tips are now governed by difficulty settings that can be enforced on a multiplayer server;

General Fixes

84. The recently introduced error in the armor penetration modeling has been corrected (it made the projectile speed - armor penetration function graduated and could cause an armor penetration in a case when it shouldn’t occur);
85. Concussion won’t cause the loss of hearing for too long;
86. UK and US careers (Bodenplatte) will work correctly with the Simplified Chinese language selected;
87. A rare error in scripted campaigns that could cause the progress to be lost after re-entering the game has been found and fixed.

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

252

Hello friends,

As you know, the recently released update 4.006 brought many important and interesting changes. Our work continues and soon we will start to prepare the new update 4.008 that is planned to include P-47D-22 “Razorback” fighter for Battle of Normandy and tank destroyer Sd.Kfz.184 “Ferdinand” for Tank Crew. You may have noticed and wondered why the mission number isn’t 4.007? The answer is that we plan to release an intermediate update before that, it will add some important functionality and new features. They will be based on your feedback mostly and will bring some features long-awaited by the community. The update 4.007 is already in beta testing and we hope it will be ready in the coming week. Among other changes it will include 4К quality external texturing by Martin =ICDP= Catney for the legendary Ju-87D-3 from Battle of Stalingrad, here are some screenshots of it:

Speaking on the update 4.008, which is planned for late June - early July, we have also something to show you already. Another legendary plane, P-47D-22 “Razorback”, will begin the Early Access for Battle of Normandy:

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

253

Hello Everyone!

Summer has finally come to us, but this is not a reason to relax and slow down - the work continues. Work is going on in many directions at once, especially now, when in the next big update, we will see two major events. First, the readiness and release of the American P-47D-22 “Razorback” fighter, which will mean the beginning of the Early Access stage of Battle of Normandy. Second, this is the completion and release of the German tank destroyer Sd.Kfz.184 “Ferdinand”, which will mark the completion of all the planned tanks in Tank Crew. Although, this does not mean we will stop working on it, more improvements will be made in the coming months, several are being designed and prepared now.

Several aircraft, six in total, both for BON and a Collector’s aircraft, are currently under development. The P-51B, P-47D-22, C-47, Spitfire Mk.XIV, Typhoon Mk.Ib and Hurricane Mk.II are all on the production line at once, many of them are in a fairly high degree of readiness. For those who keep asking about the status of the Hurricane, today we will show you a couple of Work in Progress screenshots of the cockpit:

Creating new aircraft is not the only thing our team is busy with right now. Having finished work on the airframe damage model airframe and control linkages, we smoothly proceed to the development of a more detailed model of fuel systems and their damage. After completing the next iteration of improving lower level logic for air combat AI fighter aircraft - maneuvering and aiming, we have moved on to improvements in matters of the upper level - the choice of targets and operational solutions. Work on the creation of the “Battle for Normandy” map has been launched on all fronts, its borders have been defined, a prioritized list of cities and airfields has been compiled, work has begun on the creation of ground equipment, and a list of development sites is under final approval before production begins. All these works are proceeding in accordance with the approved development plan and, at the moment, we have no serious deviations - we hope that this will continue in the future.

In parallel with this, work continues on updating the flight crews for all previous projects, and a German pilot in early winter uniforms will be ready soon. And at the same time, owners of the U-2VS airplane, we have some good news: a special and famous pilot model is ready for this aircraft in three uniforms (summer pre-1943 and 1943+ and winter). However, such news, of course, is better to see than to read:

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

254

 

Hello everyone!

 

As time goes on, the release date for the next update is approaching. As we said earlier, one of the central objects of this update will be a German tank destroyer - a self-propelled artillery Sd.Kfz.184 "Ferdinand". As many of you know, this monster was the result of the loss of Ferdinand Porsche in the competition for the creation of a heavy breakthrough tank for the Wehrmacht. That competition was won by the "Pz.Kpfw.VI Tiger" developed by Henschel. Porsche’s loss was caused by the extraordinary, even for the Germans, the complexity of the chassis. However, in the course of this rivalry, Porsche produced a significant amount of the chassis of a new type of heavy tank. This was subsequently used to create the most powerful and protected, at the time of the Battle of Kursk, anti-tank armored fighting vehicle in the world.

 

 

On the Porsche chassis, an armored fighting compartment was installed, protected in the frontal projection by a 200mm armored plate, the weight of which was similar to the weight of a large truck. Even the Tiger gun is not able to penetrate this 200mm obstacle when using armor-piercing shells and 152mm armor-piercing shells of the ML-20 howitzer can't do it either. To bring the frontal armoring of the front of the hull in line with the existing 100mm armor plates, an additional piece of 100m armor was installed. The sides and rear of the vehicle were protected by 80mm armor plates, which were an extremely difficult, almost insurmountable obstacle for 76mm Soviet armor-piercing shells. The roof and the bottom of the hull were also armored considerably.

 

The weak spots include the roof of a large-scale engine compartment, which was located in front of the tower and could be hit by large-caliber high-explosive fragmentation shells when they burst on the front armor plate of the fighting compartment. Also, the tank’s weak point is the relatively thin armor of the cooler exhaust manifold of the electric propulsion motors - a significant part of ammo is 'conveniently' located just above it. It is worth to note the completely unprotected gunsight of the main and only gun, located on the roof of the fighting compartment.

 

 

The Ferdinand is armed with an extremely powerful 88mm KwK-43 L / 71 gun, that was created on the basis of the Flak 41 long-barreled anti-aircraft gun, while the shorter Tiger gun (also 88mm) was created on the basis of the shorter Flak 37 anti-aircraft gun. Firing a similar armor-piercing projectile, but with a more powerful charge and a longer barrel length, the KwK-43 L / 71 gun accelerated it to 1000 m/s against 800 m/s in the KwK-36. The Ferdinand had no machine guns at the time of the Battle of Kursk. The disadvantages of its armament include a panoramic sight that is not very useful in anti-tank combat since it doesn't allow entering corrections in the field of view (it had a significant degree of amplification though), and a low horizontal aiming speed.

 

But the most remarkable feature of the "Ferdinand" is it’s progressive and promising, but very controversial electrical powertrain. This is one of those cases when technical thought was far ahead of technical capabilities. The idea of refusing the mechanical transmission of torque from the power plant to the propulsion system, which is widely used today in heavy equipment, at that time led to very serious problems. The electric drive motors gave an increase in speed, but with a significant loss of torque on the tracks. So the efficiency of the power plant as a whole, even when on a flat surface, was so low the vehicle could not reach speeds more than 20 km/h. Even with a huge fuel reserve of 950 liters, the range was just 150 km on the highway. Also, due to the features of the electric motors, the power plant had a reduced efficiency when driving backward.

 

 

To supply the required amount of electric energy, two engines from the Pz.Kpfw.IV tanks were installed in the Ferdinand, each with a corresponding DC generator. Both generators were connected to a single line that supplied current to the electric motors, and each of the motors had its own regulator to control the speed and direction of movement. This made it possible to continue driving even if one engine or generator failed. The high cost of materials required for the production of windings, conductors and switches of the electrical powertrain, the use of two engines, plus its huge mass of 65 tons led to extremely serious technological and operational difficulties even for such a rich and industrialized country as wartime Germany. That is why the competition was won by the more traditional and easier to produce Tiger-I of Henschel design even though the Tiger from Henschel was also not a cheap tank by any means and the labor costs for its production were many times higher than required for a mass-produced T-34. On the other hand, the simplicity and ease of control of the tank, as well as the softness of the ride were a bonus to those who manned it. The ability to turn the vehicle on the spot without using advanced mechanical systems required for a traditional powertrain was a welcome bonus.

 

 

Nevertheless, with all the technological and operational difficulties it had, this combat vehicle during the Summer of 1943 was the most dangerous on the battlefield - if it was able to reach it in time to participate in a head-on tank battle. It was important for us to recreate it as close to the real one as possible, just like all the vehicles we already have in Tank Crew, and it was really hard to do. There is only one early Ferdinand remaining in the world - #501, it is located in the armored forces museum in Kubinka near Moscow. Another one, later modification called Elefant with a commander cupola and MG installed, is in the US. The available documentation is very segmentary, short and incomplete. However thanks to the effort of our partners in Digital Forms and application of cross-checking analysis, we have one of the best recreations of this combat vehicle available. From our side, we contributed to the recreation of its maneuverability, armament and systems functioning peculiarities, which required a lot of work as well. On the screenshots, you see exactly that Ferdininand #501 that was captured in the Kursk battle and ended in the Kubinka museum.

 

The last what we want to tell you about this tank destroyer - its release will complete the lineup of the combat vehicles we planned to recreate together with Digital Forms for the Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka project. This moment will be a very important milestone in the history of our project. It won't mark the end of the work on this project - as usual, we continue to support, improve and deepen all our projects after the official release date. IL-2 Sturmovik and Digital Forms teams hope you'll enjoy the result of our joint effort.

 

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

Hello!

Have you heard about wave interference? It’s amazing when the processes in people’s lives have direct physical analogies. In particular, how topics for our journal entries appear is a good example. In the development of projects of the IL-2: Great Battles series, there are a lot of very voluminous and lengthy tasks. And sometimes it happens that the intermediate results of different large tasks appear one by one, creating a subject for the diaries. Sometimes it happens that the “wave” processes of development progress in all directions and it gets to a stage when the intermediate results cannot yet be published, but sometimes it also happens that in all directions at the same time appears something that can be gladly demonstrated. And exactly this variant of “superposition of wave development processes in different directions” happened this week, which, of course, is always pleasant.

The first thing we can show you today is a 3D render of the Hawker Typhoon Mk.Ib, the legendary fighter-bomber of the RAF, which is very much anticipated by many in our simming community. In Battle of Normandy, this aircraft will, as it should be, presented with its late version with a drop-shaped cockpit canopy, a modified stabilizer of the type used on Tempest aircraft, and with two versions of the propeller (three- and four-bladed). It will be armed with four 20 mm Hispano cannons and also rockets and bombs. Despite the fact that the aircraft belongs to the class of fighter-bombers, due to the mighty 2200-horsepower Napier Saber IIa engine (and when using the 11-pound boost and up to 2400hp), it possessed strong flight performance. All in all, it will be an extremely interesting Allied aircraft that will help its virtual pilot achieve success in battle against both the ground and air enemy forces.

The second thing that we will show you today is important for the owners of all products in the IL-2: Great Battles series. We are talking about a new map! The new “Velikiye Luki, Summer 1941”, will be made available to everyone in the next update. This map was developed on a personal basis by one of our map team-members, and although it does not include all of our most modern map tech (such as buildings with increased detail), thanks to the creativity and variety of the implemented terrain and scenery, it looks extremely interesting and will add a lot of variety in your flights. The Velikiye Luki summer map, as well as an improved and updated winter version, will be available to all players. A lot could be written about the positive aspects of this map, but it seems to us that it is better to show them in the following screenshots:

The third bit of news is that work on the Battle of Normandy is progressing, not only in terms of creating new aircraft but also in other directions. For instance, a lot has already been done in creating the map which will include some promising new technologies for our series. But it’s still early and we plan to show the progress on the development of the map later. Additionally, aircraft crews are also being created and as you already know, the G-suits worn by USAAF pilots appeared after the events of the Normandy, and therefore we created a model of an American pilot in an earlier uniform:

And in FIRST for the combat-sim genre - the U-2VS, Yak-1 Series 69 and Yak-1b series 127 aircraft will receive a Soviet female pilot option! We have completed the process of animating the new female pilot model and they will be available in the upcoming 4.009 update. It is these aircraft that have the greatest basis for possessing this modification because the famous “Night Witches” from the 588th Night Light Bomber Aviation Regiment fought in the U-2, and the heroic ace pilot of the Soviet Air Force Guards Junior Lieutenant Lydia Vladimirovna Litvyak and her fellow female squadron mates flew the Yak-1 and Yak-1b. Also, the U-2VS aircraft will receive new models of male pilots.

And to finish the today’s Dev blog, here is the news about the “Tank Crew” project. As we said earlier, the completion of the vehicle lineup does not mean that work on improving it has stopped. Update 4.009 will introduce a lot of new features that will definitely give you an interesting new experience in our tank simulator. Drivers of the German panzers and the Sherman tank will have the opportunity to use the course director. KV-1s, Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf.M and Sherman tank drivers interact with pneumatic fuel gauges in a realistic way. The working sounds of the radio motor-generators were added to all tanks and the German tanks have the working gyrocompass sound as well. All traveling locks of turrets, main and machine guns are now animated and have sounds as well. In general, due to these changes, the sound environments inside a tank has become much richer and more realistic. DT and M2 .50 machine guns now have a working range correction setting. Other changes have been made to improve the player experience - many of you have previously expressed the opinion that one cannot fully discover the possibilities of the project due to the lack of a description of what equipment each tank has and how to use this equipment. To resolve this issue, a new “Station Notes” dialog has been implemented, which can be invoked at any time by pressing the ESC button.

 

[Phantom88 3,284]

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Hello!

Although this crazy sequestered summer of 2020 is coming to an end, life goes on, and our work goes on. Many things are happening in our “virtual office” including finishing a new Free Scripted Campaign for Battle of Bodenplatte featuring the Tempest Mk.V called “A Violent Wind” built by Alex Timoshkov. Also, as a result of recent discussions in the community, work is underway to improve general aircraft visibility, which we hope will appear to be both realistic and more comfortable for players. This may require more than one future update to fully conquer, but we’ll see. Additionally, there is some progress towards the completion of the Air Marshal feature which has taken much longer than planned. We’ve also had to build up technical capacity in the field of map production, which is necessary to implement everything planned for the Normandy landscape. And as always improvements to the AI for both aircraft and ground vehicles continue.

Our engineering department is fully engaged in the development of flight models of three aircraft - the C-47, Bf-109G-6 Late and the Spitfire Mk.XIV, while at the same time work on deepening the model of aircraft fuel systems is in the research and prototyping stage. Creating the technical specifications for all aircraft and other objects of for Battle of Normandy is coming to and end which is was a huge and complex research task. Completion of this allows Viks to now focus some attention to the Career mode. At the moment, 3D models of several aircraft are at various stages of development - the Hurricane, P-51B, Spitfire Mk.XIV, Bf 109 G-6 Late, Mosquito, Typhoon and C-47. It is the last aircraft from this list, the twin-engine C-47 military transport, that today we are ready to show you in the game world: