homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation IL-2: Cliffs of Dover CoD Offline Tournament! The RAF CoD Ace is...drum roll...

What settings are you running Ajay? I'm having a hard time finding more than 2 contacts. Fritz hasn't been exactly helpful either, I swear the only thing he's looking at is his fuel gauge, lol.

Missions 1-2 are intended as intro missions...in 1 you will only find 2 contacts, in 2 there are 2 primary and two secondaries. in 3 the same, with tougher opponents. in 4 you get some heavies with escort. 5 you either escort or intercept a raid. Six... Well, enough said for now!

Great AARs. Luckily Freddy and Fritz are flameproof, waterproof, and fly with a lucky rabbit's foot and horseshoe...

H

On the map i have the waypoints listed but no map icons or plane icons, i despise the plane icons just too damned ugly. Locked in pit as well.

1 think generally the enemy (so far) has found me rather than me find them except for the condors that Fatty found before me.The first mission they were head on and i didnt see them until they buzzed past, the second was the same again with a head on by the 109's.Then the third they found us. Twice i encountered the 110's near the coast lapping back and forth but i knew they were there somewhere as i had spotted them earlier so i just kept me eyes peeled and hung around in the general target area. Mostly staying low enough i can spot them against the sky, i find if i am too high i have no chance seeing them against the water unless i am very close.

I intend to give the Luftwaffe version a run next as i am more comfortable in the 109 and the hitting power with the cannon makes a real difference in close.I know when shooting down 109's with the 109 (yeh yeh i know but it was for a good cause ) i find i use a lot less ammo and i am more likely to get a wing seperation at the wingroot or a good wing or engine fire , whereas with the spit i hardly ever get a wing seperation or a fire with a lot more ammo put on the target.I have managed to get very conserative with my shooting though and normally i am only putting in half second bursts , so many snap shots! Only giving it more than that if the plane is filling my sights.

And dont think all that ramble makes me a good pilot, i can juggle an enemy around my sight for ages before i get a kill, i seem to be able to be steady as on approaches or when diving or climbing for them but once i have the, lined up i am all over the place like a madman , i find i used to use rudder to line up in IL2 a lot and it is a nasty habit to kick now in CloD.I think the slipstreaming must come into play a bit too ?

I realised i have radio messages off , was too annoyed by the constant pointless dribble that kept coming over it , maybe i am missing something there, will check that tonight.

Let me know if the early LW missions need tweaking to get enemy in your face. Can quickly adjust proximity and aggression and repost the download. It isn't intended to be Where's Wally. (Or Vere ist Valdemar)

As to Fritz crying low fuel, this is a skill issue, so a sign the skill settings work. Novices bug out at any excuse...fuel less than 50pc, slight damage, you name it...feigling! He will get better. As Ajay has noted with Fatty, he does improve and in later missions he might actually outscore you...

H

I doubt it, he's going to end up a casualty if he shoots across my canopy again!

So far Fatty hasn't shoulder shot once, both times when i thought he was i looked and saw enemy fighters.The biggest problem i am having with him atm is the complaints about the lack of bacon in the mess!

During my second mission, after wiping the floor with the 2 Hurris, I was off to hunt the Defiants down. 30 seconds over England, Fritz announced his fuel was low, and he promptly veered off back to France. Not knowing how HK has these set up, I thought this was a prompt for me to follow and observe Fritz getting jumped (although now that I think about it, getting "jumped" by Defiants would be about the safest thing I can imagine for Fritz), so I gamely followed him home.

I also found you can keep your wingman safer by allowing him more room when the @#$# hits the fan. Go to the formation actions, and set to either Middle or Far. I prefer Middle, as I can keep a better eye on him that way. If he's Near or Close, anyone turning on you, will set up on him first, and he's not the pilot you are (hopefully!).

Mission 3...

Perhaps give a few more seconds before being jumped HK. I barely had time to center TrackIR, open rads, and they were already on us. Hadn't even disengaged my AutoPP. Quite a fight, those birds are FAAAST.

that was kind of the idea! Catch all you CEMers fiddling with yer knobs.

Wouldn't be bad if it weren't an AirStart. That's just picking on those with too many controllers! heh (TrackIR was the worst offender there)

I have found the worst thing is the shifting between instrument view and then sitting back view..that second and a half or two seconds when the view adjusts and stays centered.Man! Anooooying! For that split bit of time you are stuck in centre view and thats all it can take to miss a dead certainty shot or the other plane getting out of your sights or peel off and peeling away then you have to go through the motions again.

Anyway.. Fat's my main man and myself found a gaggle of Stukas heading in for what looked like a strike on Dover , we were in a perfect bounce position and just waded right in blazing.I was trying to tell Fat's to seperate but got task saturated and had to leave him to his own devices..he seems pretty well on the ball now so i was not too worried about him and could not see any fighters.I watched him wading in amongst the Stukas as i was coming up from underneath , loosing a few burst's at them. flashing through the middle and then gaining height, rolling down and having a shot at them with a pile of speed on.We repeated this a few times and had four of the six trailing various oils and fuel , i think nearly all six had some sustained some type of damage by now in a matter of a minute or two.

Two Stukas dove down so i followed them but couldn't get a burst at them while were vertically diving, i lost them in the pull out but came up and saw three more off to my right and just above.I called Fatty back to me as i could not see him and climbed up firing at the front Stuka , his mate crossing my sight and managed to gets bits of both in one burst! The first one i hit took most of the rounds and dived to his left and his two mates followed , then me behind still firing. They corkscrewed down and two seperated from the one i was firing on who i flew over at top speed, having to pull up to avoid becoming a submarine by the time i could look back i could not see a trace of him so he must have went in.

We found the other two , one smoking and i sent a burst from below and watched his upper tailplane and rudder assembly break loose and flutter off, then he slowly circled loosing height and smacked into the sea upside down.Fatty confirmed two definite for me and i may have nailed another but never saw him go in, just saw him drop out of formation in our initial scrap and dive downwards.I will let the Kill board decide on that on one.

Going back over the action in my head i think i did see another single engined fighter a few minutes into our attack but i am unsure whether it was friend or foe as there was a lot going on.Fatty has no recollection and said he more worried if the bacon he hid in the early hours of the morning in his kit locker has been discovered.Maybe it's time to steal his pillow again...

Coming in to the coast Hawkinge was closer so i opted to land there and despite telling Fatty several times to rtb he plodded along behind me so i am guessing his set was on the blink, being worried about what he was doing and if he would land on me or not i executed some violent turns before landing to try and throw him off and as i was touching down he flew low over my head causing me to panic and lock the brakes..thus upending my crate.His pillow is definitely gone when i get back!

Initial pass through the middle of the Stukas, bit of spray and prey



Rolling and turning as i was copping some mg hits from the rear gunners



Fatty getting in there



Impact from underneath



Follow the smokey leader



Finishing him off



Tail being swallowed



...not impressed, really , you should have seen my stern look.



Brief.



Now the brief. As i look at it i get three kills credited to me and two damaged with Fatty claiming none..correct?

Just wondering as in my mission 4 above, the condor one, it shows three destroyed 2 x condors and 1x 110 by me, and then in damaged it shows the four enemy craft with one of the 110s at 50 percent damage by me.. but doesnt list it as destroyed anywhere in the statistics though i saw it splash down and claimed it as a shared between me and Fatty.So i am guessing you only see Player destroyed and not other planes destroyed by ai pilots on your side.

Seems a bit of a mess the way they list the destroyed and damaged with the same percentage.Once it is destroyed there really is no reason to show it as damaged at the same percent. Looking at that same one (condor mission) you can see my three kills listed in both destroyed and damaged at 77 and 96 for the Condor and 100 for the 110.Makes no sense having it twice? Or am i missing something basic here?

Reason i am asking is that, is it possible Fatty got a kill in the above Stuka mission and it is not listed as the 110 was not ? And is the Stuka i got a 17% damage on listed as destroyed all mine or did Fatty maybe get 50 % ? I know it will not always need a 100% to be a kill as a pilot kill may only be 10 % or something..dunno.Just seems strange.

Quite a few pics in this one..but it needs it

Lifted off under attack, looked back and saw a bunch of fighters so gained some speed keeping low and turned into them, Italians! Nifty looking little rigs too..rather sporty! Had one on my tail that i easily out climbed then dove on, the buggers are that slow that they are actually a harder target than the Messers, so played with him for a while back and forth over Manston , must have put nearly half of my ammo into the little ruddy thing but he just kept on flying and diving and weaving and rolling, i dont know what they make these machines out of over there in Italy but they are rugged!

His mate kept on popping up behind me so i pulled up and he overshot , losing his tail on my wing in the process, but causing no damage to me, i let him go and managed to finally get a good hit on the other Fiat and saw him slowing and going low so thinking he was a goner i swooped straight over onto 'Mr i don't need a tail'.

He was flying on merrily as if a tail was just an inconvenience and had only hindered the progress of flight.So lining up i plugged him with a good two second burst, weave, duck,roll,climb,dive..this dude was out of control! I had to keep on popping my flaps to drop speed and stay behind him, then he would dart away and flaps back in, i would give chase and pour more lead in.Like a sponge to water he just absorbed the rounds and i swear i saw him give a middle finger salute when i pulled alongside..more holes than a cheap spy novel! And she just kept on flying like a piece of paper caught in an ever increasing updraft.

I then decided it was my mission in life to down this pesky little freak of a plane, slowing down and not wasting any ammo i shot at him every time i had a dead certain chance of a hit, twang! tink! twank!waaang! bzzzzzz! bits kept on flying off , smoke puffs lit of his wings and fuselage but he just kept on keeping on.One of his other pals passed me head on firing and another was off to my left and coming in but i was oblivious to these and had blacked out everything around me and could only now focus on the super plane of absorbance.

Another 10 pounds of lead in his direction and i think the weight of .303 bullets was finally starting to tell as he definitely was slower in his turns, then his flaps popped so i dropped mine and slowed to just above a stall, she was getting a bit shaky so gentle movements on the stick and keep on plugging away at this plane of invulnerability.Rage, disbelief..and a little fear had now built in me and i knew then that i was never too have this victory.

He had scared me by not plopping into the sea under the repeated attack by His Majesty's finest aircraft and was now just stirring the pot.I was beyond caring and even thought of tickling him in the rear with my Merlin but surely his tail would open and eat whatever i offered! I held my finger down as if it was glued to the trigger and was scoring hits everywhere, but still he flew and slower even, but his engine just burbled on.. not missing a beat! Then it happened, i stalled, less than 20 feet above the Channel..no chance of recovery..splash down.And he just flew on trailing a little smoke in his wake, probably not even from his Fiat but no doubt a reverse victory cigar! I seethed in my cockpit upside down, and finally decided that as much as i could have just sunk with my spit in shame ..i just really do not like the squidlike creatures that abound here so crawled up onto the undercarriage and awaited the rescue boat.

I heard someone mention that Galland or one of those Lufty boys had asked for a few Spitfires..myself..i knew what we needed to win the war.Fiats...and probably not many.

Takeoff for what seemed like another normal series of duals..



First hits on a nimble but slow Italian job



A good look at the little sporty machine



Quick burst



Mr invulnerable approaches..



Spraying red dots of evil scorn at me



So up i go and chop his tail off..then after a last burst at his mate, begin the pursuit..



after enough hits to shoot down two Condors he pulls up beside me to show off his speed holes



Blasting bits of him for the umpteenth time, maybe he was throwing my bullets back at me, chewed up between his teeth while smiling



The battle of who is the slowest, proving the Fiat can outclass my Spit in this area..



My final burst just before the stall and noticing i had quite a few holes myself



Kicking an own goal and thinking of squid...while supes fly of into the distance..grinning, with a fat cigar trailing smoke.



Brief.



Fatty must have went down early, i didn't even see him once.

Shame! All that hard work and no kills to show for it...the bombers would have been worth more points! And by the look of it, easier to bring down! I do wonder though if Luigi would have made it back across the ditch...

I think the mission report from earlier shows you getting 2 kills, with Fatty or someone else getting 1. 3 Aircraft were destroyed, but with you having 17%, someone else got in a large amount of damage. You had assists on all 3, but 2 of them you got majority damage. Not sure how that would translate in RL back in the day, but game-wise, Fatty looks to have put a licking on at least 1.

HK can score this however, I'm simply stating how the in-game is divided.

There are 109s flying escort in the Stuka mission and they do go after you, though they have only 'average' skills. If you are as fixated on the Stukas as you probably were, and maneouvering as radically as you definitely were, you either just didn't see them or were lucky and lost them! There are also Hurris from 111 squadron helping out against the Stukas so it could also been one of these you saw.

I do love the way missions like this play out when you are really focused on your own flying and fighting - you experience that feeling of fighting your own fight and only notice half of what is going on around you, and then often you get those moments where you are in a furball with several machines, chase a foe and knock him down, then look around and the sky around you is suddenly empty and you are all alone.

As to kills I also find it is hard to judge from the pure combat report, hence the player does need to assess. In your Stuka mission AAR you listed two definite kills and a probable. That should be your score... ie 2.

In the 'Italian Job', you listed 1 kill and 1 damaged and this is what the summary shows. Unfortunately, you crashed, so no kills count in that mission, but kudos for the HONOURABLE HONESTY!!

And keep them AARs coming! I hope to contribute my own when I get back from work, but of course I won't be eligible for the prize!

The tournament has also been posted at Airwarfare and 1C. Here is one of the other player's AARs...

pacer12

Mission: RAF Mission 1
Report: The enemy planes came at us and quickly we got them in a turn and as they slower moveing I could easily hit them from behind. I went for there cooling systems. I damaged both on the one and one on the other, but also made a fual leak Both crashed.

Claims: 1X BF 110 C-4 player damage: 100 %
1X BF 110 C-4 player damage: 50 %
Score to date: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged.

I will tell you why in a pm that i did not go after the bombers Heinkill, i flew that las mission twice, first time i played with a Fiat for a minute or so then climbed after the bombers and decided they were far too easy to bring down so hit restart and left them alone the second time

Well to me the scoring system within clod leaves something to be desired, but i suppose in the fog of battle it should not really be that easy to confirm some kills, i know with the Stuka action i totally was not worrying about Fatty at all and just hoping he was hanging with me..and not wanting to dive after a smoking stuka to confirm a kill as the others were all still up high. So do you chase and confirm to get a definite or go for the two in the bush. Happy with a probable or damaged that may or may not make it home and he has been diverted from his attack so in a way it is a small victory.

So if i sum up then Heinkeill, correct me if i am wrong as we are using you as the Kill board judge jury and executioner


So total claims after 6 missions will be as follows...

After 4 missions


6 109's

2 110's

1 110 shared and 1 damaged

2 Condors

and a -1 for Fatty down.

so 10 total kills and 1 shared - with Fattie's loss dropping it to 9 and 1 shared

After mission 5

2 Ju87's

1 shared with Fatty so he gets a full kill now (yay Fat's) ..obviously i wont be claiming shareds, just getting Fatty some action.

2 damaged

Takes total to 11 kills , 1 shared , 2 damaged.

After mission 6

1 kill and 1 damaged , me in the drink and Fatty down.

Total still 11 kills , 1 shared , 3 damaged.

Luftwaffe mission 1

Bloody &%�#!!! Fritz.

We catch 2 Hurricanes sleeping at the stick, low and slow. I call the enemy and dive down behind them.



Fritz poodles along up above without reacting.



But he looks pretty safe up there on his own. The Hurricanes execute a slow turn in vic formation, so I go after the rearmost Hurricane. Get a few deflection shots in and then lose them momentarily. When I locate them again...



Fritz is under attack!

I close frantically, firing at his attacker from long range to drive him off



This works...unfortunately his wingman has snuck up behind me and hammers my tail and I start streaming glycol.



What a b*llsup! Of course if I had a wingman of any worth, he'd be back protecting my six, but Fritz is waddling around 500m below.



I head for France.



Gauges look ok, temps look okay, France getting closer



Coast of Le Havre comes into view. A beautiful sight!



My engine seizes, oil sprays over the windscreen.



Engine completely kaput.



I go in like a flying brick.



As I float around off the cliffs of Le Havre, fuming...



Fritz makes a lovely three pointer and goes in to call the rescue services



Claims:



Funnily the summary screen doesn't show I lost my machine, but no matter. No claims. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Luftwaffe mission 2

Much more satisfactory! Fritz just followed around behind me like a placid duckling, staying out of trouble while I dealt with a couple of Hurris and then found a couple of Defiants but was lucky to get away with my skin intact after a mid air collision. Got a nice bag to kick off my scoring though with 3 destroyed.



Clipped the first Hurri with a head on shot that ripped off his elevator





Then closed behind him and gave him a long burst which set something alight



Followed up by chewing the tail off his mate





Then lucked onto a couple of Defiants but got too close



Clipped him with my tail, ripped off his wing and my rudder





I could still maneouvre though, so called it a day! Foibles of war, the summary screen shows the Hurri destroyed after the Defiant, but it was the other way around. I realised later the Hurri was limping along with the pilot dead, so he must have gone in after I hit the Defiant, and it is recorded that way. Something to remember in future if the mission summary seems strange.

Unlucky Cheese, Fatty seems a bit better than Fritz Are you going to try the RAF version ? Maybe you should just RTB Fritz at the beginning of the missions and continue alone

I haven't decided yet, just looking at the briefs, seems there's a few more planes to hunt in the RAF version, but I love my big explosions in the 109! Hadn't had much time the last couple of nights, but I'll get the campaign done this weekend.

HK, any rules concerning modding your mission files? I want to change my loadout, I didn't realize it was stock, and convergence is also way out of whack compared to what I normally use. Probably save me 50% of my ammo right there, lol.