While I know the Bf-110 is in Il-2: CloD, I do yearn for the opportunity to fly underneath Lancasters and Wimpys and shooting them down with the Schrage Musik, rather than fly them as bomber escorts in a role they failed miserably at. Is there a sim out there that models night fighter ops (or will the modders deliver)?

I don't know cod, but I flew many night missions with fighters in Il-2 1946. They don't model night missions anymore with cod?

It would be anachronistic in COD, they didn't start with the Schräge Musik installations till 1943. Still it would be awesome to do that, especially multiplayer. If I recall correctly, someone was working on it for IL-2 at one point. May be worthwhile to post a question over in that forum.

Like this?

IL2 1946 patch 410.1 with Ultrapack 3.0

SWOTL SWOTN mod is pretty fine - however, it is looking a bit dated (although the nice thing about night sims is that you can't really see). Rise of Flight also has some neat night combat these days...

With the right mods for Il-2 you can get a Ju-88C6, Bf-110G, Me-410 NF, Me-262 NF, Go-229 NF (not the real variant though), Ar-234 NF, Mosquito NF and Beaufighter NF... try SAS.

OK. I'll bite. What in the hell is SWOTL SWOTN?

Secret Weapons of the Looftwarfers, Secret Weapons of the, um, Narnians? Nibbelung? NoGoodNiks? Nanobots? Narcocapitalists? Nasties? Noncombatants?

That's the only think I could think of for SWOTL, too.

Secret Weapons of the Nachtjägers (a total conversion for Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe - one of the finest, only rivaled by the Russian Front and surpassed by Lucky Strikes).

On a historical note - the simulator which eventually became Janes's Attack Squadron was originally planned to have nightfighters (along with other features like atmospheric modelling), but it was cancelled. When JAS was released it had the one remaining feature (searchlights) disabled without modding. Many sims lacked night flying at all.

IMHO, Russian and American developers have a history of overlooking night combat (and how varied and interesting it can be). A recent exception is Rise of Flight (which has expanded the night element), eventually Il-2 (eg. searchlights) and several jet sims (eg. for the F-117)...

Yes, Rowan's BoB1 had at least a sun which set, so you could get caught out after dark if you lingered too
long. BoB2 has the sun lock at the point it touches the horizon, I believe because of lack of time/funds
during development to properly create the visuals for sunset and stars. I've been hoping a capable volunteer
might come along and rectify this, but it has never happened.

Well, if dated graphics don't offend then European Air Wars has night time and we have a range of night fighters available... we are working on searchlights as I write this ...

Difficult to get full night screenshots to work but here is a corsair heading out at dawn so you can see the graphics level...




cheers,



Pobs

Looking nice Pobs.


Wheels

Jumping in a little late but that mod is probably one of the few that I did NOT download for the SWOTL.

The only "sim" that comes to mind is the board-game Nightfighters published by GMT games. It covers practically the entire length of WWII, covering the impact that technological advances had on the night battles. I recall when flying WB there was at least one night fighting phase I took part in, flying a Bf110 and I had to get vectored in towards B-24s subbing as Liberators by another player in the control tower acting as GCI.

The problem with night fighting is that it's a lot different from day fighting and it's a totally different world. It's almost a cross between modern air combat with the radar and chaff flying around and a submarine sim. Most of the time, the player would be staring at a radar screen trying to make sense of what he's seeing, listening to GCI vectoring him in and everything else would be black with flak bursts, search lights and the occasional tracers streaking by.

You can customize DCS P51 Mustang to do night missions.

SF/WoX and SF2 series are well suited for the night combat, just a matter of whether you can deal with the quality of the WW2 aircraft available: models, textures, and flight models. SF2's inclusion of the P-51 should make it better than SF1/WoX for WW2 prop action. But most of the available aircraft mods were originally developed for SF1 and may not be fully adapted to improvements/changes of SF2. SF1/SF1 series is the only game I know where you can fly a P-61 at night with a functional radar. But the SF series doesn't really support the WW2 radar displays, so the radar screens will look a little more modern than they should.

I have flown some F7F Tigercat night missions. The fun is there if not the most realistic displays.