DD_Fenrir

4mm Arthur. Had a few of my very own stud of locos and stock grace the metals of this magnificent layout!

This is the train se... I mean model railway, that I used to play wi... I mean operate regularly:

'Cruise' is something of a misnomer here - and not Siddly's fault either I should add. The fact is it is better to generally interpret WW2 engines to have these discrete power bands: War Emergency Power - Max everything! Generally a very tight limit of time use. In the P-38J this is 3,000 RPM and 60" with a 5 minute limit Combat - a sustained high power output that even in best circumstances generates more heat than the cooling system will be able to dissipate but has been calculated to provide sufficient for typical time periods of combat. In the P-38J this is 3,000 RPM and 54" with a 15 minute limit Max Continuous - the maximal power that you can run the engines at for indefinitely - or as long as you have fuel. In the P-38J this is 2,700 RPM and 46" with no time limit Cruise - a power setting reduced from the above that combines the best compromise between fuel consumption and airspeed. In the P-38J this is around 2,200-2,400 RPM and 35" with no time limit Economy Cruise - a power setting much reduced that priorities fuel economy above all other considerations. In the P-38J this is around 1,800-2,000 RPM and 30" with no time limit The setting Sid quotes of 2,600 @ 44" is more a maximum continuous setting (As an aside you will find you can actually run the P-38 at 2,700 and 46" and not break into combat power, hence the figures I give you above). Now, as single players (non-fomating) that's fine you can cruise at that setting as long as you like. No one to follow, no-one following you. Easy! However, as a flight lead or formation pilot, if you stayed at that no bugger could catch you unless they went to Combat Power. And then, when you eventually did find some trouble, all your wingmen would be buggering off with damaged engines because those time limits are hard in GBS. What this means is, if you use your engine in Combat mode for 14 minutes catching up to your leader, even if you throttle back, you do not get any recovery on that engine. You will therefore have only 1 whole minute using it in actual combat before you suffer some engine damage and are forced to withdraw. Leaders, when cruising to or from target in flight you MUST avoid going to full cruise mode - you NEED to give your wingmen some RPM and Throttle "headroom" to make adjustments without having to resort to combat power. Wingmen, avoid going into Combat Power to catch your leaders at all costs. Use Max Continuous (2,700RPM @46") at the most.

How strange Sid... will check out the settings my end, but can't think of anything that would or even could cause this...

As a rule I orbit the field at much reduced power settings - 2700 RPM, 35-40" Manifold Pressure - in a VERY gentle left hand turn to assist with forming up; this does however rely on those joining to cut the corner properly to rejoin - and I mean properly! You chaps joining up need to put your leader at your 2 to half-past 2 o'clock, not stick your gun-sight on him and try and overhaul him! Otherwise all that happens is you end up with an extended conga line merry-go rounding home base for 20 minutes! Done effectively and with people getting off the ground in good order this can be done in a maximum of two orbits. This should allow everyone to get into a reasonable group before setting off to mission. I agree with Sid on the Whispers. Have the Squadron Leaders certainly but perhaps have the Flight Commanders too for redundancy in case the CO's buy the farm! If they both go down then the individual squadron members just have to do the best they can and/or scoot home.

Thanks all who joined in the stress test last night. Both a success and... not so much! For reasons as yet unclear none of the events last night logged - so whilst I was able to generate the next day's mission, no kills or deaths actually were recorded. I have a feeling I know what caused this but need to run another test. Noted issues 1. Need to increase the idle kick timeout - well done to all for managing to dodge this issue without ground collisions last night! 2. Radio saturation - probably best to segregate the squadrons to separate channels 3.Skins - 402nd squadron: http://www.mediafire.com/file/n8pc4a0ggyon99g/P38J25_402nd_Gen.zip/file http://www.mediafire.com/file/z15z4hnirnp7wrf/P38J25_402nd_E6_T.zip/file 485th squadron: http://www.mediafire.com/file/2am3npm7ftbszm5/P38J25_MY_LITTLE_PIG_V2.dds/file and the official skins: "Les Vin, Les Femmes, et Les Chansons" "San Dot" With a lot more coming soon: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/56052-370th-p-38-skins/ 4. Icon mods for those who asked: http://dangerdogz.com/forums/topic/13451-gbs-icon-mod/ http://dangerdogz.com/forums/topic/13517-mod-that-removes-all-aircraft-on-maps-except-own/

Object Icons on, map icon on. Engines pre-warmed. No hud instrument except compass is how I have been running them thus far but open to conversation Dave.

Alas, Crash, no such functionality exists in PWCG.

Update 3: another test run last night with Rox and Painless to test the new segregated squadrons and... Success!!! We are ready to fly gentlemen! In order to save me a great deal of tedious admin we will continue from the mission that Rox, Painless and I flew last night - also it means that the scores Painless and Rox accrued will be saved - a small reward for their help in the test process. For now I will host on my computer but it would be wise to run a stress test mission one eve to establish what kind of numbers my PC and connection can handle. I will attempt to get on Sunday evening and if we can perhaps substitute one of the co-ops for the campaign stress test at round 2100BST for a max attendance attempt that would be great. Cheers!

Nice!

Hi chaps, in light of some of the misconceptions regards propeller pitch and RPMs I've been hearing on comms lately, here is a video that helped me understand the difference between fixed, variable and constant speed propellers and the various effects these have on RPM. Though it is for an FSX module, these characteristics apply to all the planes we fly in any of the simulators.

Yup. Fraid it looks like we'll have to split the two squadrons to two separate airfields. 😠 However, on a plus note, after flying a sortie with BluBear managed to get the next day's mission to generate! Logged progression it seems is now acheivable! Will have to make some further edits and tests regards the new airfield. Thinking A-89 Le Culot might be the best option for the 485th guys.

😄

Status update: I have been having issues spawning a max attendance (8+) mission without having P-38s spawned inside each other. I did some messing about in one of the files and generated a new mission based on this edit and lo and behold I have 16 P-38s evenly split between the two squadrons and airframes are tightly arranged but importantly no occlusions between aircraft whatsoever. I am reluctant to claim victory as yet because this could be a fluke - so this requires further testing. The test mission ran last week also brought up a critical issue. Whilst performance and behaviour in mission was excellent, when attempting to generate the next days mission after doing the requisite admin in PWCG, it crapped out and created an error. Naturally, if we cannot get events to log and the progression of time to occur it kind of nullifies the 'campaign' aspect of this effort. I bundled an error report off to Pat Wilson but as yet have had no explanation as to what is causing the error or whether it can be fixed. What I have discovered is that in attempting to spawn two user squadrons of 7+ aircraft at the same airfield I am pushing PWCG beyond it's envelope and am butting heads with the limits of the program and in some regard GBS also.

Hi Dave, sorry for the tardy response on this matter, got distracted with the admin. To answer your question, I have set up the generator to give us a 50/50 mix. This can be tweaked on the fly though so if anyone feels it's not quite right, then it can be opened up for discussion.

Right then, here's a provisional OrBat for the campaign: 402nd FS CO Maj. Fenrir FL1 Capt. Jabo 1.Lt. Fruitbat 1.Lt. Arthur 2.Lt Perfesser 2.Lt Wingflyr 2.Lt FT 485th FS CO Maj. Painless FL1 Capt. Sid 1.Lt. Pooka 1.Lt. Crash 2.Lt Friar 2.Lt Delta Anybody deeply offended by my choices can bugger orf. 😁

Good show Mick, or should I say, Major...

As an aside, some generic 402nd Fighter Squadron Skins can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/n8pc4a0ggyon99g/P38J25_402nd_Gen.zip/file With a specific and very nice skin of a/c "T", Vivacious Virgin of the 402nd, here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/z15z4hnirnp7wrf/P38J25_402nd_E6_T.zip/file For those of you who choose to fly with 485th Fighter Squadron, some of the default skins already cater for your squadron - look for a/c coded "7F-". Otherwise, a nice fellow called Jaegermeister is working on a scripted campaign for the 485th and is creating a load of skins (~12) for it's P-38s based on historical reference. The campaign is not available yet but release should be coming soon and the skins with it. Info here: https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/56052-370th-p-38-skins/

Update 2: Discovered a limitation in PWCG that means only 11 players can be in a squadron. We have 13 participants. Doh! My workaround has been to create a second Squadron of the 370th FG: the 485th Fighter Squadron. This squadron will not fly the same mission as the 402nd but from some testing last night they do seem to go to the same rough area of operations. So that 485th don't get bundled off on their own mission with only one or two pilots and bump into half the Jagdwaffe whilst 11 members of 402 swan about and see little action on their own mission, I think it would be best to split the current roster and have 7/6 split between the 402nd and 485th. What I need is a someone to lead 485th and some chaps to go with him. Volunteers?

Good stuff Pook, glad to have you on board!

UPDATE: So as, it stands I have (through some devious deduction and defilement of the campaign generators file structure!) got a campaign generated flying P-38s with the 402nd Fighter Squadron (of the 370th Fighter Group) flying out of Florennes in October of 1944! Wh00t! Cold starts are enabled! Furthermore - if I have made the edits correctly, we should move to the base of Ophoven in February of 1945 and thence switch to Mustangs come March. (Disclaimer, I have not tested this as yet, figuring out how to, so it might go Pete tong but we will have to wait and see...) All those parties who signed up (shown in the first post of this list) as wishing to partake are currently assigned slots on the first mission, but if any further applicants wish to join they may - it does not take long to do the admin. I propose a test run on an upcoming GBS night. I will host just to see if the form is viable. This will allow those not wanting to join the campaign to do Dogz Server co-ops as normal (ish - might have to use the premade 'good' co-op repository in rotation as I assume Ft will be flying the campaign tests?) Missions may be quite long as Florennes is one of the more Westerly airfields so expect transit times to the Area of Operations to be in the 15-20 min range, similar on patrol/over target and then back again. Overall mission time could be in the range of 45min to 1hr for each mission.

Mossie is gonna get a truckload of love from me when it lands in DCS, though I suspect it will be something of a torque monster on takeoff and asymmetric flight conditions... but the ability to precision bomb at treetop height whilst scooting along at 300+ IAS in something so profoundly pretty with the soundtrack of two Merlins? Priceless!

DCS Dogsford too methinks! For those who don't own DCS one DCSer could stream the event?

WE HAVE A WINNER! Looks pretty fantastic, doesn't it?

So who can guess the airfield Wags is flying over in his P-47?