Dear Pilots!

We have a few important announcements to share with you about our BOBP and FC Steam Releases and our latest Collector Planes Pre-Orders.

BOBP, P-38J-25, Fw-190 D-9 and FC Steam Release Date

We are thrilled to announce that Battle of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus are coming to the Steam store immediately after the Autumn Sale ends. We are aiming for December 3rd 2019 for the release. The BOBP release on Steam will be the Standard Edition with the two additional Collector Planes being sold separately. Flying Circus will include all ten aircraft, same as on our website. Each product will have a launch discount equivalent to the current Early Access discount enjoyed by customers on our website. The prices are as follows.

Battle of Bodenplatte on Steam - $44.99 (Reg. $49.99)
P-38J-25 Collector Plane - $17.49 (Reg. $19.99)
Fw-190 D-9 Collector Plane - $17.49 (Reg. $19.99)
Flying Circus on Steam - $69.99 (Reg. $79.99)

The launch discounts on Steam will be in effect for one week once launched which is the maximum time Steam allows.

Hurricane Mk.II, Yak-9 and Yak-9T Pre-Order Launched

We are proud to announce that we have begun taking Pre-Orders for the Yak-9, Yak-9T and Hurricane Mk.II Collector Planes in the IL-2 Webstore. These planes will be available on Steam when they are finished and ready to be flown.

The legendary British-built Hurricane came to fame during the Battle of Britain where it did the heavy lifting for the RAF in that pivotal battle. The Hurricane Mk.II series which consisted of the a,b,c and d variants was outfitted with a few different armament configurations. This included either the 12 x .303 machine guns in the wings or 4 x 20mm Hispano cannons also fitted in the wings. Many of the Mk.II’s were of the ‘Hurribomber’ variety with wing racks for 250lb or 500lb bombs. One later variant could also carry two 40mm cannons for anti-armor duty. The Hurricane was built in large numbers and the Mk.II series was sent to all corners of the war to fly and fight, including the Eastern Front where the Soviet VVS put them to good use in several sectors.



The Yak-9 was the first model in the most mass-produced family of the WWII Soviet fighters - with its many modifications the total amount of units produced reached 16,769. The work on the new long-range recon and fighter plane began in the Yakovlev design bureau during Spring 1942. Compared to the earlier Ya-7, it had a boosted M-105PF engine, a lighter wing of composite structure, and the lower spine with a bubble canopy that significantly improved the rearward visibility. However, the armament was reduced to one nose-mounted 12.7mm UBS MG and one engine-mounted 20mm SHVAK cannon firing through the propeller hub. The mass production of the new fighter and its arrival to the frontline units begun only in 1943. In combat, the Yak-9 proved itself as very maneuverable and easy to control fighter, earning the love and respect of many Soviet pilots along with volunteer French from the Normandie Niemen fighter regiment.



An important variant of the Yak-9 family was the Yak-9T (tank), which appeared in early 1943. In addition to one 12.7mm UBS MG it was armed with a 37mm engine-mounted cannon model 11P (later NS-37) instead of the usual 20mm SHVAK. The installation of such a heavy and large weapon required reinforcing the airframe in the nose section and moving the pilot cabin 40cm (1.31 ft.) rearward, which resulted in worse forward and underside visibility. Combat trials showed that Yak-9T is capable of not only engaging bombers and various ground targets, but it could also hold its own as dogfighter. Its flight characteristics were only marginally worse than Yak-9 while packing a much bigger punch. Its production started in March 1943 and ended only in June 1945 with a total of 2,748 units produced.



Note: This announcement includes items not yet available on Steam, but will be once they are completed.

The Sturmovik Team

Dear Pilots!

The Autumn Sale is here to officially kick-off the Holiday Shopping Season and we are giving you the opportunity to purchase our Great Battles modules, Scripted Campaigns and Collector Planes for an amazing 75% OFF right here on STEAM!

Remember, these make great Christmas gifts for friends, family or wingmates!

BOS = 75% OFF
BOM = 75% OFF
BOK = 75% OFF

All Collector Planes = 75% OFF

Blazing Steppe = 75% OFF
Fortress on the Volga = 75% OFF

All Rise of Flight Content = 75% OFF

We hope you enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team

235

Hello everybody,

Only one week has passed since the huge release, but we're already preparing for the next update. Of course, it won't be as massive - we can't do so much each month - but it will bring a number of important things nevertheless. As we promised, we're working on improving the overall quality of the product.

First of all, we have found a way to improve the situation with the planes disappearing too early against a cloud. This won't fix the pixelization issue (it is a different matter), but we hope the coming update will address the problem when a plane can visually disappear at 2 km or so. We plan to start the work on minimizing the pixelization issue before the end of this year. Another good news is that we have managed to fix a very old problem with excessively long login into the game - if the testing goes well, in the next update you'll see your login times decrease nearly tenfold, from dozens of seconds to single digits, and the dreaded login fail error #2 should be gone as well.

We also have managed to find the cause of the random bug some of you have reported, when some planes suddenly lose their rudders in the flight. It turns out this issue is caused by the signal noise in some joystick controllers. Such noise spikes in the input cause the control surfaces in the sim to turn so sharply that their durability limit is exceeded and they are torn off by the ram air. This means that fixing this particular bug is no trivial matter - on one hand, we need to keep the durability limit of the control surfaces realistic while on another we don't want to add a new layer of filtering for the joystick axes input we have minimized so recently before. This is a very fine work involving re-checking every plane control behavior, but our engineers have done it and we plan to include its result in the next update as well.

Another important improvement is for Tank Crew users that play in VR - now you won't have to rotate your head when looking through the gunsight and rotating it using the mouse. Like most improvements for the tanks, it will be also useful for aircraft - operating turrets in VR will be easier. We're also starting the work on two other important things for the tanks (they won't be ready for the next update though) - improving the gun aiming (fixing the problem when the rotation marker 'jumps' too far) and adding the binoculars for tank commanders.

We also hope to include important AI improvements in the next update - aircraft AI should better attack the ground targets in hilly areas while ground vehicle AI should better navigate through numerous obstacles like driving through a village.

SU-122 assault gun will be the main addition of the next update. It demanded several new technologies and some of them, like aiming for indirect fire at large distances, will be added later. 122mm HE shell is very powerful since when it hits the turret its fragments can penetrate the thin hull roof armor while 122mm HEAT rounds can penetrate up to 120mm of armor, enough to engage any tank in the game from any angle. Of course, there's a catch - low muzzle speed and narrow range of vertical adjustment of the howitzer (+-10°) make aiming at large distances a nontrivial matter. The 45mm front armor inherited from T-34 tank the assault gun is based on (and the fact that its slope is less than on T-34) make the face-off with enemy heavy tanks very difficult. At least this task is much more realistic than engaging them having only a 76mm gun at your disposal.



The work on another cat in German arsenal, Pz.Kpfw.V Ausf.D "Panther" is underway as well and we hope to have it ready for the release before the New Year. Here are several WIP screenshots from our partners at Digital Forms:



And to finish today's diary we'd like to show you two promo videos. One of them showcasing Flying Circus Vol. 1 was created by ShamrockOneFive while another promoting Battle of Kuban is the work of =HH=Pauk. Here they are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkRmBD3VQpA&feature=emb_title
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uuK1ZRqkYk&feature=emb_title

The Sturmovik Team

Update 4.001

Dear Pilots!

Finally, we have reached a very important milestone for our latest IL-2 Sturmovik titles. Today, two projects moving from the Early Access phase to Official Release. The first of these is Battle of Bodenplatte, which acquired the last major content components that were missing - the seasonal textures for the Rhineland map and the Pilot's Career. However, this does not mean that work on this project is completely done, we plan to spend some time before we begin our next project on fine-tuning and polishing a number of its components and adding a couple yet to be completed pieces such as Air Marshal. However, we feel it contains enough content and features that we can begin to sell it in all our channels including Steam as we head into the Holiday Season. In addition, we plan to closely monitor your messages in order to improve the quality of the project as much as we can in the last part of 2019. Bodenplatte turned out to be a truly record-setting job for us, the volume of work done on the development of maps and aircraft of the late period of the war is unprecedented for us. The late period imposes serious additional requirements on the manufactured equipment; however, the result is extremely interesting. The included aircraft make an incredible impression, because this is already the "apogee" of piston powered planes and, at the same time, the "dawn" of jet aircraft. The Rhineland map impresses with its scale, size and richness of cities and the number and historically researched airfields. The career "Battle of the Rhine" takes place over a fairly long period of time that includes four seasons - from September 17th, 1944 to April 1st, 1945. The Career covers a very significant part of the war on the western front - more than half a year. Battle of Bodenplatte was a bold step for us and when coupled with our other two projects, it pushed us to our creative limits. We hope you will enjoy it! Also, a Standard Edition of BOBP will be coming soon with the P-38J and Fw-190 D-9 offered as Collector Planes to give users more buying options. BOBP will also be available on Steam in the coming weeks, there are still a few details we must work out there first.

Flying Circus - Volume 1 is now available in its fully planned state and all the remaining ground-based equipment of the First World War have been added in our new standard of visual quality. Observation balloons with observers who may leap from their post when under attack are also included now. A number of improvements were also made on the map, primarily to the front line. We hope that users who purchase this project will like the step forward in comparison with our previous title Rise of Flight, especially in the visual quality of aircraft and the environment that we, together with our partner Yugra Media, have created for you. Although the flight models generally correspond to the ones from Rise of Flight, many of the improvements that have been made over the past 7 years for Il-2 Sturmovik play a role in Flying Circus as well. Such improvements automatically benefit all projects within the framework of our one common game world and give a new, previously unavailable experience of virtual flight and combat in the First World War. All these new opportunities unfold in their fullest when playing with the use of virtual reality devices. FC includes so many new things - new landscape technology, new lighting and clouds, better sound, new AI and improved ballistics, new graphic effects and new materials for aircraft surfaces, new detailing of textures and models - all this and much more gives the virtual pilots of the First World War something that is not available anywhere else. We hope to make more Flying Circus volumes in the future and we thank those who have jumped into this new product so far!

Note: We have extended the $10 Off Early Access discount for days more, but it will go to full MSRP very soon. Make your purchase before the price goes up!

Tank Crew – Clash at Prokhorovka is still under development, as one more tank and three self-propelled guns are being built by our DigitalForms partners. However, from the point of view of the gameplay, this project has almost reached its planned goals - this is expressed in the release of the Breakpoint and Last Chance scenario campaigns in this version. These campaigns tell the story, in the maximum possible historical manner we can, about the complex and intricate events of one of the greatest tank battles on the Eastern Front - the battle of Prokhorovka.


This battle was not limited only to the events of July 12th, it took place over several tense days, from July 6th to July 16th, 1943. The events and outcomes of this battle are extremely complex and controversial. Although the Soviet troops and armored forces suffered heavy losses, the German command was never able to achieve their planned goals. At the end of the battle, the situation in this sector of the war front almost returned to what it was before it began. However, numbers or the “net book balance” does not always determine the magnitude of the event. The incredible tension, power, complexity and intensity of this military clash, which practically merged into one single and continuous epic multi-day battle, has few equals in world history. And the ambiguity of the outcome of the battle only enhances the intensity of the drama of these events, which do not require any embellishment - simply being retold "as is", without exaggeration is incredibly exciting. It should also be noted that the release of these tank campaigns is accompanied by the completion of the development of some of the most important features of Tank Crew – the radio and command interface. This will allow you to better control your own tank and your tank platoon. We also plan to continue the refinement of our tank project in the coming months as this project too readies for official release.

And finally, the Achtung Spitfire! Scripted Campaign is also now released and ready to be played! Developed by our friends The Syndicate, this historically inspired campaign contains 20 missions featuring a fictional story-line that is inspired by historical events. Your character is a young Russian pilot from Siberia serving on the North Caucasus Front in late May 1943. The campaign features missions inspired by the Soviet 37th and 56th Armies attack on the German 44th Army Corps west of the city of Krymskaya. You’ll fly a bird of a different feather in the lend-lease Spitfire Mk.Vb over the beautiful Kuban region of the Soviet Union. The campaign is great fun and full of action.

This campaign also has a new feature. We have added support for special assigned skins for the player’s plane and other planes I the mission. This is a first for us in a pay-ware campaign such as this. However, to see them, you must download the free skin pack from HERE and place the skins in the Spitfire Mk.Vb Skins folder. We have decided to offer the skin pack as an optional download to lighten our distribution costs and the size of your install if you don’t own this campaign. The skin pack is offered free of charge of course.

We thank you for your patience as we have readied this product for release and many of you have already pre-ordered it and we appreciate your support. Products like these add more diversity to our product line and help fund many new innovations and content for all of you.

And now we proudly present version 4.001 to you, our friends, partners and customers. And like most huge updates, there are likely to be some bugs or other unintended issues missed in testing. We of course, as always, will address them just as fast as we can. We appreciate your support as we have worked hard to build all of these new products. Here’s to you and to more great combat-sim goodness in the future!

The Sturmovik Team

Note: This announcement showcases content that is not yet available on Steam, but it is coming soon now that we reached this milestone in our development.

Full change-log is on our forum here.

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/12826-game-updates/?do=findComment&comment=848043

234

Dear Friends,

October has ended and we'll release the next update very soon - once again it will be a huge and very important milestone for our project. Version 4.001 is the release of Bodenplatte and Flying Circus, but it is also a huge step forward for Tank Crew.

For Bodenplatte, this update will bring the previously missing parts - the promised 4 seasons of its map and Battle of Rheinland Career timeframe. The Career required a huge amount of work - 115 squadrons, 65 of them are joinable by the player, operate from 70 airfields (most of them are correctly recreated using historical layouts) according to historical images and data. It should be noted that we'll continue to improve both the Battle of Rheinland Career and Rheinland maps after the release.




Flying Circus has its scenery finished - our partners from Yugra Media have finished the development of the ground vehicles and artillery and the Amiens cathedral. Please note that AI-controlled ground objects both for Flying Circus and Bodenplatte (Allied ones) are made at the next level of detail, previously unseen in the series. With this content added, Flying Circus is now complete as it was planned and announced.



Tank Crew players get the three important gameplay elements which the project lacked before - scenario campaigns, player tank and tank platoon commander functionality, and radio messages.

To give orders as a tank commander, turn the autopilot from the driver seat by pressing A key, then switch to the commander station and press ~ (tilde) key to open the orders menu. After that, you can use the cursor to point at a target or place on the ground and choose what to do, i.e. attack it or move to it, and choose who you're giving the order to - your own tank, entire platoon or a selected tank in the platoon. There are also many commands that don't require selecting a point or a target - change formation and spacing, speed, turn at various degrees, move forward or backward, change ammo type, fire from stops, while moving slow or moving at full speed, temporary stop, cease firing and so on).

Two historical scenario campaigns included with the Tank Crew - Clash at Prokhorovka tell about the heavy and strenuous fighting that took place there. The campaigns themselves were designed to not only entertain but also to tell about these events with the highest degree of historical accuracy possible in our sim. 20 scenarios (10 in Soviet and 10 in German campaign) were painstakingly recreated using real combat reports and the latest works of Russian and Western historians who specialize in these events. All the details like location and time, weather, approximate unit strength and composition, movement routes, operative decisions of the commanders of various ranks, artillery and air bombardments made it in.

A good illustration of the attention to detail in modeling the combat are the briefings of the first missions of Breaking point and Last chance campaigns. Here are also some screenshots taken just in these two missions that show the intensiveness of these dramatic events.







And don’t forget that this update also includes the Achtung Spitfire! Scripted Campaign created by The Syndicate. It includes 20 interesting and historically inspired missions in the beautiful Kuban theater of operations. We think you will enjoy it. Thanks to all who have already pre-purchased it. It all adds up and keeps us going!

https://il2sturmovik.com/store/campaigns/



Examples of Tank Crew Campaign Mission Briefings

Breaking Point - Chapter 1: Difficult start

At dawn on July 5, 1943, the German 4th Panzer Army (PA) launched its main attack on the positions of the 6th Guards Army. Despite stubborn resistance from the troops of 52nd Guards Rifle Division (GRD), by the end of the day, the formations of the German 2nd Paul Hausser Panzer Corps broke through the first defensive line of the 6th GA and reached the perimeter of the 2nd defensive line near Kozmo-Demyanovka with the support of the 8th Air Corps. The 22nd Guards Rifle Corps (GRC) was defending the flanks alongside the 375th Rifle Division and managed to keep the enemy from breaking through the first line.

After determining the direction of the main attack, by the end of July 5, the VF command was forced to push almost all of its operating reserves to the front line, consisting of the 1st Tank Army, one rifle corps and two tank corps, as well as artillery formations. Unable to further influence the situation, General Vatutin requested that the Supreme Command Headquarters strengthen the front line with strategic reserves.

The 1st Tank Army led by Lieutenant General M.E. Katukov secured the Oboyan axis and was supposed to defend the Melovoe - Yakovlevo section, the 2nd Tatsinskiy Guards Tank Corps led by Colonel A.S. Burdeyny was tasked with covering Gostishchevo, and the 5th Stalingradsky Guards Tank Corps led by Major General A.G. Kravchenko had to cover the Prokhorovka axis. On July 6, at 5:00, the 5th Guards Tank Corps, including the 20th, 21st and 22nd Guards Tank Brigades (GTB), the 6th Guards Motorised Rifle Brigade (GMRB) and the 48th Heavy Аssault Tank Regiment reached the Ozerovskiy khutor – Kozinka urochishche – Teterevino line.

Combat operations began at dawn on July 6, on the sections of the 375th Rifle Division and the 22nd GRC, and it was not until 11:00 that the main forces of the German II Panzer Corps launched an offensive. After receiving a report that there had been a breakthrough in the positions of the 51st GRD defending the second army line, General Vatutin issued the order to counterattack with the forces of the 1st TA, 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps (GTC) on the flanks of the enemy's tank spearhead. At the same time, Pz.Gr.Div. Das Reich, pursuing the units of the 51st GRD and 5th GTC that had been pushed out of Luchki, attacked in the direction of Ozerovsky khutor and in the direction of Sabachevsky khutor – Kalinin khutor. The frontal counterattack carried out by the forces of the 22th GTB was unsuccessful, and by 16:30, the 21st and 22nd GTB, as well as the 48th Guards Heavy Аssault Tank Regiment were surrounded near Kozinka urochishche.

'... Waiting was exhausting. After a long night march, our 20th Guards Tank Brigade took up defensive positions in Teterevino, waiting for the enemy to attack in the morning. However, the German soldiers were clearly not in a hurry and only launched their offensive at about midday and somewhat away from our positions. The main forces of the corps had been fighting for a long time and, judging by the abrupt and panicky radio messages, their situation was extremely difficult. We continued to wait while our comrades were fighting and dying somewhere else. The order to advance was only received from the corps commander at about 17:00.

... I arrived at the brigade in late 1942 as junior lieutenant, when it was being restructured in the Tambov tank camps. If it hadn't been for my experienced crew, who had already experienced the smell of powder at Stalingrad, I would have hardly survived the subsequent events. In the gruelling battles for Gorshechnoye and Kastornoye near Voronezh in January 1943, the brigade lost almost all its equipment in just 7 days, and the commanders of both the tank and motorized rifle battalions were killed. In February, our forces were replenished again, but after an unsuccessful battle near Kharkov in late March, the brigade was finally taken out for restructuring. In early summer, I was given command of a platoon, and now I had to lead men, who were just boys yesterday, in their first battle and take full responsibility for them.'

Date: July 6, 1943
Time: 17:30
Formation: 20th GTB of the 5th GTC

Combat mission: after breaching the defences of the 51st GRD, the enemy strikes in the direction of Kalinin khutor – Belenikhino station. The order was given to advance the 45th and 250th Tank Battalions to the forest north of Sabachevsky khutor leaving one tank company in Teterevino, thereby preventing the enemy from spreading in the direction of Belenikhino.

Call sign of the battalion commander: Badger-1
Call sign of the company commander: Wolf-1
Your call sign: Wolf-8

Additional instructions: you command the third platoon of the 1st Company of the 250th Tank Battalion. Follow the battalion commander in the northwest direction to Sabachevsky khutor, following all orders.

Last Chance - Chapter 1: Big plans

The main strike of the German 4th Panzer Army came at dawn on July 5, 1943; it was aimed at the positions held by the 6th Guards Army. The XLVIII Panzer Corps advanced from the Butovo – Cherkassy area along the road to Yakovlevo, and the II Panzer Corps, made up of the Panzer-Grenadier-Divisions Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH), Das Reich and Totenkopf advanced along the Tomarovka – Bykovka – Yakovlevo road. At the beginning of the operation, the II Panzer Corps had 390 tanks, 104 assault guns and 98 self-propelled guns as well as combat forces of 39,106 men. The 238th artillery regiment and the 3rd Mortar Division were attached to the II Corps.

Despite heavy resistance from the 52nd Guards Rifle Division (GRD), by the end of the day, units of the II Panzer Corps, supported by aviation of the VIII Air Corps, broke through the enemy's first defensive line and were facing the front of the second defensive line in the Kozmo-Demyanovka area. Operating on the flanks, the XLVIII Panzer Corps and Army Detachment Kempf, were unable to make headway. According to the plan, by the evening of July 5, the 4th Panzer Army should have breached both defensive lines, approached the crossings near the Psel river and continued on to Prokhorovka, so the entire schedule of the Operation Citadel collapsed in its very first hours.

On July 6, the II Panzer Corps was ordered to breach the second defensive line of the 6th Guards Army. On the Yakovlevo – Luchki section, they were to attack in the northeastern direction, destroying the Soviet mobile reserves. By 06:00, only Pz.Gr.Div. Totenkopf had engaged in active combat at the line held by the 375th Rifle Division. It was not until 11:00 that, after half an hour of artillery barrage, the Corps' main forces joined the offensive. After breaking through the lines of the 51st GRD, a combat team from the Das Reich Division rushed to the Luchki – Kalinin khutor direction, while Pz.Gr.Div. LAH captured the southern part of Yakovlevo and continued its offensive on Northern Luchki. By that time, the Soviet command decided to counter-attack with all available reserves—namely, the 1st Tank Army as well as the 2nd and 5th Guards Tank Corps, striking at the flanks of Hausser's Corps.

'... I stuck my head out of my command hatch and watched as four Messerschmitts leapt northward, followed by nine dive bombers. The Junkers circled and began to take turns nose-diving and dropping their deadly load on targets we couldn't see but that we knew were in the Russian position. Spurts of flame and plumes of smoke swept into the sky, shortly followed by the sound of explosions. The Stukas had finished their work and began to withdraw, when two flights of Focke-Wulfs arrived, attacking the enemy with equal ferocity. Our aviation had been operating flawlessly that day, providing invaluable support to the division. We hardly saw any Russian planes that day.

Suddenly, the radio came alive, and I immediately retired to the turret, pressed my headphones to my head and tried to make the message out from the static. After our grenadiers had taken over Luchki, the 6th and 7th Panzer companies immediately moved on in the direction of Sabachevskiy khutor and were now reporting a clash with numerous Soviet tanks, asking for support. The battalion commander contacted us and ordered that our company, which was temporarily on standby, should prepare for immediate deployment. The short rest was over'.

Date: July 6, 1943
Time: 16:00
Unit: 2nd Panzer Regiment of the Pz.Gr.Div. Das Reich

Combat mission: the defeated enemy units are retreating northward, constantly trying to counter-attack. The 5th Company is ordered to support the tanks of the 6th and 7th Companies fighting north of Luchki and then strike in the direction of Sabachevskiy khutor.

Call sign of the commander of the 5th Company: Puma-1
Call sign of the commander of the 1st platoon: Jaguar-1
Your call sign: Wolf-1

Additional instructions: you command the second platoon of the 5th Company of the 2nd Panzer Battalion. Follow the tanks of the first platoon northward, following the orders of the Company commander.

NOTE: This Dev. Diary showcases some content not quite ready to be released on Steam, but it is coming soon.

The Sturmovik Team

Dear Pilots!

We have a launched a sale on ALL COLLECTOR PLANES AND CAMPAIGNS on Steam at 66% OFF!

Instead of candy, fill up your Halloween bucket with legendary WWII Warbirds!!!

Happy Halloween!

The Sturmovik Team

Dear Pilots!

It’s our great pleasure to officially announce that our next Collector Planes for the IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles series will be the – Yak-9, Yak-9T and the Hurricane Mk.II.

Both of these aircraft, or I should probably say all three of these aircraft, were important designs that were workhorses of their day that made great contributions to the war effort on several fronts.

These particular planes were chosen so we can offer an even more diverse and well-rounded plane-set that benefits primarily our Eastern Front products, which we still care deeply about and as of now, the majority of our customers own the most of.

The Yak-9 came in many different flavors and it derived from the robust Yak-7b design. The Yak-9 was used over many important Eastern Front battles and was a very versatile and reliable airframe. It was the most produced Soviet fighter of the war. The famous Normandie Niemen pilots also used a variant of the Yak-9 in combat as did many successful front-line Soviet units. The Yak-9 was light and maneuverable at low altitudes and gave her pilots a real chance against the Bf-109 and Fw-190s of it’s day although it was less armed than its German adversaries.

However, the Yak-9T came packing the NS37 37mm cannon in the nose which was a heavy hitter. A 37mm round can do some serious damage to not only enemy airplanes, but also vehicles and armor. Due to the bigger length of the 37mm cannon, the cockpit of the -9T had to be moved rearward about 400mm to accommodate it, slightly changing its lovely profile. The Yak-9 was an important aircraft for the Soviet Union and will make an excellent addition to the IL-2 Great Battles Series!

The legendary Hurricane, which was built by Hawker, became famous in the west for winning the Battle of Britain and for the many sorties flown in the Mediterranean and North Africa theaters. However, it was also widely flown on the Eastern Front as a Lend-Lease product and saw much combat over the vast landscape of the Soviet Union.

Hurricanes were one of the very first Lend Lease types to reach the Soviet Union and they were pressed into service right away as a stop-gap fighter as Soviet industry moved eastward to safer locations. It would eventually be joined or replaced by other Lend Lease designs like the Kittyhawk and Airacobra and newer Soviet designs, but the Hurricane soldiered on in many combat roles across several fronts including Stalingrad and Moscow. They were also heavily used on the Northern sectors to protect important warm water ports.

Soviet ground crews also employed several weapon modifications which had a heavier punch than its original Browning machine guns. We hope to model most of these modifications. The Hurricane in Soviet service was a lengthy affair that deserves inclusion in IL-2 Great Battles.

Without further delay, here are some very early Work-In-Progress renders of the Yak-9 and Hurricane in production. As is customary, Pre-Orders for these planes will commence in just a couple weeks and they will be ready for duty first half of next year. Remember, that by purchasing Collector Planes you allow us to continue to make important and interesting aircraft that we may not have been able to include in our main titles.

Note: The Yak-9 and Hurricane will be available on Steam once they have been completed.

Dear Pilots,

Battle of Bodenplatte, Flying Circus and the Achtung Spitfire! Campaign are nearing official retail release in just a few weeks and to celebrate we are giving you the opportunity to purchase our older Battle Modules and previous Scripted Campaigns for an amazing 75% OFF!! No doubt you will want to pick up our latest titles, but in case you don’t already own some of our previous titles, this is the most aggressive pricing ever offered!

It’s also been 75 years since the time period in which our Battle of Bodenplatte title takes place. It’s was the height of the war on Western Front and the Allies were struggling to break into Germany. It was also the pinnacle of piston powered aircraft designs and saw the introduction of jet fighters.

The special sale runs from Oct. 15th until Oct. 27th on Steam and Oct. 15th through Oct. 31st on the Official Website.

BOS = 75% OFF
BOM = 75% OFF
BOK = 75% OFF
Blazing Steppe = 75% OFF
Fortress on the Volga = 75% OFF
Ten Days of August = 75% OFF (IL-2 Website Only)
Havoc Over the Kuban = 75% OFF (IL-2 Website Only)

All Rise of Flight Content = 75% OFF

And don’t forget to Pre-Order our next upcoming Scripted Campaign – Achtung Spitfire! Available exclusively on the Official IL-2 Website.

Speaking of our newest titles we invite you to check out our Developer Diaries where you’ll get the latest news on our development progress. We post them regularly and they are filled with cool screenshots, videos and information. Read them HERE.

The Sturmovik Team

Hello Everyone!

We continue our movement toward the release of Battle of Bodenplatte, but even near the finish line we still find opportunities to improve the entire project. This time we found a way to implement a significant optimization to part of the graphics engine that is responsible for displaying the clouds. In addition to a significant increase in FPS on existing cloud settings, this allowed us to add an additional setting for the cloud quality called "Extreme". This option is named so because it combines somewhat increased performance with a significant reduction of the “boiling” clouds effect which appears when looking sideways from the direction of movement. We have also significantly increased the clarity of cloud shapes and boundaries. Our clouds always looked nice on the high settings, but with the addition of this new option their visual quality and realism has significantly increased. However, it is better to see an example:



Work on the Tank Crew project is still in full swing, and new additions can be expected in the coming months. First, at the end of October, the project acquires its main gameplay component- two Scripted Campaigns based on historical events of the Battle of Prokhorovka. Second, our next update will include new command functionality for the tank and tank the platoon commander. Third, before the end of the year, we expect our partners from DigitalForms to complete two new armored vehicles - the Soviet self-propelled artillery SU-122 and the German medium tank Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther". The 3-dimensional model of the Panther exterior is in a high degree of readiness whereas the SU-122 has already been completed and work is underway on texturing the interior and creating its crew animations:





Note: Some of the content included in this Dev. Diary are for products not quite ready to be sold on Steam, but which are getting much closer to that day. Please remember, all of our products use the same client so updates and content additions can also benefit all our customers no matter which titles you own. i.e more AI vehicles and planes etc.

Dear Friends,

The IL-2 development team is glad to report that the new huge update 3.201 is released. It brings you not only the 3 new aircraft and 2 new maps for two projects, but also many improvements in all areas of the sim - graphics, physics, audio, controls, armament, and instruments. You can find the in depth information about some of the new features in our recent Dev. Diaries. Please note that this update is the last milestone before the release of two projects at once - Bodenplatte and Flying Circus Vol.1 - which should happen in a month or so. Moreover, this update contains many improvements for Tank Crew as well, paving the way for the release of its two scenario campaigns and tank commander interface.

We advise you to browse through the 3.201 changelist below - in addition to big additions it contains smaller changes which were requested for some time:

New aircraft and other objects

1. Tempest Mk.V Series 2 fighter is available to all Bodenplatte owners;
2. P-51D-15 fighter is available to all Bodenplatte owners;
3. Collectors Plane P-38J-25 is available to all Bodenplatte Premium Edition owners;
4. The new map Rheinland Summer 1944 (including the Low Countries) is available to all Bodenplatte owners in QMB mode;
5. The new map Arras Spring 1918 is available to all Flying Circus Vol.1 owners in QMB mode;
6. B-25D bomber added (not player controllable);
7. GMC CCKW truck added;
8. Willys MB off-road vehicle added;
9. M16 Half-track self-propelled AAA gun added;
10. Sd Kfz 7 Flakvierling 38 self-propelled AAA gun added;
11. Flakvierling 38 AAA gun added;
12. М1A1 90 mm AAA gun added;
13. US searchlights and landing lights added;
14. M5 3-inch AT gun added;
15. M1 155mm howitzer added;
16. JagdPz IV L70 tank destroyer added;
17. Infantry and AA .50 MG added;
18. New types of road and railroad bridges added;
19. New Western European town and village blocks added;
20. New industry blocks added;
21. Many new unique buildings for Rheinland and Arras added;
22. New countries that participated in WWI and WWII added to the mission logic;

Visual improvements

23. Aircraft and ships are visible much farther than before - theoretically, they can be spotted as far as 100 km away if there are fire, contrails or a ship wake;
24. New 'Distant buildings' option added;
25. Object markers can be blocked by landscape and objects, including own aircraft or vehicle;
26. Static objects rendering has been optimized to increase performance;
27. Sun glare from distant aircraft is visible better;
28. Fire can be visible inside the cockpit on single and triple engine planes;
29. It's possible to display a customizable photo in all aircraft cockpits and tank cabins;
30. Collimator sight reticle has been improved for all planes;

Aircraft improvements

31. DB-601 and DB-605 engine sounds improved for all Bf-109 and Bf-110 planes;
32. Realistic pilot's physiology model is now active, which takes into account the duration of the G-load and rate the G-load was applied;
33. After prolonged exposure to high-G load the load factor tolerance of the crew decreases and they require some time of steady flight to rest and recover;
34. Oxygen deficit affects the human tolerance to high G-load more accurately;
35. Visual and audible high-G effects made more realistic;
36. The sound of the player breathing during a significant positive G load improved, that sound is no longer played during a negative G load;
37. G-suits increase the load factor tolerance of the crew;
38. The crew can become motion sick from alternating G loads;
39. High-G loads, powerful impacts and pain shock can render the crew unconscious resulting in a loss of control;
40. New 'Simple physiology' option added to the difficulty settings disables the load factor tolerance decrease, loss of consciousness and motion sickness;
41. Damage inflicted to the crew from powerful impacts and falls have been corrected;
42. The player can't get painful shock anymore if the invulnerability difficulty option is checked;
43. The ability of the crew to bail out is now limited by the G-load (including its direction), airspeed and crew health (wounds);
44. Crew bails out differently depending on the G load direction - down if the load is positive and up if the load is negative;
45. The movements of the visible model of the flight stick and pedals in the cockpit are no longer filtered so there is less delay between the movement of real flight stick and pedals and the virtual ones. However, the flight stick movement speed is still limited at high flight speeds or if the pilot is wounded;
46. It is now possible to assign a trim axis if it was controlled by an axis on a real aircraft (control wheel or lever). The speed of the trim axis is still limited and depends on the aircraft, similar to the adjustable stabilizer. If you use joystick buttons or keyboard for controlling such trimmers, please assign these keys not only to electric trimmers but also to this trim axis;
47. All Pe-2 and Hs-129 have their electric trimmers disabled if the power is turned off. Turning them on and off can be heard and the sound of trim has been replaced with an electric motor sound;
48. The adjustable stabilizer axis is no longer inverted (its direction is changed according to DirectX standard);
49. New commands for retraction and extension of the landing gear added;
50. It's possible to repair in aircraft when it is near an object with the service parameter set to On in the mission file. Repairs start automatically when the engines shutdown procedure is complete;
51. It's possible to refuel in aircraft when it is near an object with the service parameter set to On in the mission file. The refueling process can be started and stopped using the new commands and only possible if the engines are shut down;
52. It's possible to rearm in aircraft when it is near an object with the service parameter set to On in the mission file. The rearming process can be started and stopped using the new command and only possible if the engines are shut down;
53. Spitfire stall behavior with released landing flaps has been corrected;
54. British and American voiceovers added for Bodenplatte pilots;
55. 150 Octane fuel is available for Spitfire IXe that enables +25 lbs. With it enabled, switching supercharger gears becomes manual;
56. La-5FN skins should work on an MP server now, but this change requires reassigning its skins in the missions created earlier;
57. Bodenplatte pilots got Summer uniform;
58. Windmilling effect works on U-2VS;
59. British gyro gunsight G.G.S. Mk.IId (Spitfire Mk.IXe) now accounts for gravitational bullet drop when calculating the deflection;
60. Spitfire Mk.IXe electric fuel pump won't continuously switch on and off at low throttle on the ground;
61. Some instruments and switches sounds corrected on Spitfire Mk.IXe;
62. Me 262 A behavior at beyond-stall angles of attack corrected;
63. The physical behavior of I-16 fragments has been corrected;
64. Smoke clouds after a plane crash in multiplayer disappear correctly;

AI improvements

65. AI better aims at distant steadily flying targets;
66. AI better distribute enemy targets among themselves;
67. If an AI has a speed advantage over a target it is attacking, it tries to keep this advantage;
68. Combat turns, spirals and banking maneuvers in a dogfight are performed more aggressively;
69. AI won't switch maneuvers too frequently, distorting its planned tactics;
70. Criteria for choosing maneuvers in a dogfight were updated;
71. AI keeps the formation better;

Tank improvements

72. Off-road shaking has been made more natural;
73. All the tanks now use the M4A2 aiming method;
74. The engine startup sequence is now animated (master switch, excess pressure valve, manual fuel pump, wobble pump, caution signal);
75. Inner visual effects are not affected by tank movements;
76. Engine exhaust effect improved;
77. Driver gauges, turret instruments, MG elements are now animated in multiplayer;
78. Direction controlability improved;
79. APHE rounds cause more damage to inner components after the armor penetration;
80. The visual effect of the turret traverse motor exhaust added to Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. G and M4A2;
81. KV-1s and Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf. M commanders can fire the signal rockets through a small hatch in the roof when the commander hatch is closed;
82. The engine startup sound on KV-1s and Т-34-76 UVZ (1943) depends on the starter type used (main electric or reserve pneumatic one);
83. KV-1s, Т-34-76 UVZ (1943) and M4A2 have functioning klaxon (LAlt+S);
84. Inner details and texturing improved on KV-1s and Pz.Kpfw.VI Ausf.H1;
85. Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. M, Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. G and Pz.Kpfw. VI Ausf. H1 bow MGs use the M4A2 aiming method;
86. There is an alternate DT MG gunner aiming mode on KV-1s - through the periscope (in addition to the regular one through the gunsight);
87. KV-1s commander and radioman have an alternate aiming mode - through a visor;
88. M4A2 turret traverse can be powered by the motor-generator;
89. M4A2 first-person view height corrected for a driver and MG gunner in unbuttoned positions;
90. Visible (from the driver seat) rotation of the steering drive shaft has been corrected on Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf. G;
91. Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf. M fuel or oil fire effect has been corrected;
92. A firing port in the panoramic gunsight armor added on KV-1s;
93. Air inlets of the engine compartment added on KV-1s;
94. Slits in the driver visor on KV-1s decreased in the visor open position;

Other improvements

95. The sound subsystem uses newer FMOD API - sound loss after long play sessions should be fixed;
96. Runway floodlights work now;
97. Coalition sorting functionality added to QMB mode;
98. An automatic chat message in the multiplayer reports if there is no UDP traffic coming from one of the players;
99. A workaround added for VR HMDs without hardware IPD adjustment - LShift-NumPad+ and LShift-NumpadEnter directly move the images on the VR screen farther or closer.
100. Radio chatter volume is affected if the player is concussed, lost consciousness or wounded.

P.S.
To add a custom photo to your airplane or tank cockpit you should replace existing default DDS image by another one in:
<game_folder>\data\graphics\planes\<airplane_folder>\textures\custom_photo.dds
or
<game_folder>\data\graphics\vehicles\<_tank_folder>\textures\custom_photo.dds
DDS image should be 1024x1024 in DXT5 ARGB 8bpp with mip-maps

Note: Some of the content included in this update are for products not quite ready to be sold on Steam, but which are getting much closer to that day. Please remember, many of the included fixes, changes and enhancements also benefit Sturmovik products already available on Steam including BOS, BOM, BOK, Collector Planes and Campaigns. All of our products use the same client so an update as large as this one benefits all our customers no matter which titles you own.