I'd been planning to play this payware campaign for a long time, but never got around to it. The Vergeev Group campaign was originally slated to contain 100 missions. As far as I'm aware, the only phase released was Vergreev Group 1/10 representing the first 20 missions of the planned 100 mission campaign. I'm not sure why the project was discontinued, if it will ever be revived, or any future plans. The website is still up and the first set of missions can still be purchased ($4.57) here:
Vergeev GroupI have no idea if this campaign will work with DCS World BS2, but I am attempting it. I know a lot of changes have been made to the DCS World mission editor over the years and perhaps some of the Vergreev Group missions will be broken. For that reason - unless there is a clarification from the developer, I'd urge caution before purchasing the product with unrealistic expectations. (You could always run it with BS1 ver 1.0.2 as it was originally written for..)
I've started a new pilot for the Vergeev Campaign, although I don't know if the campaign will play out properly (I may have to play it as a series of individual missions).
Our first mission is a local area familiarization flight in the area around Sochi-Adler airfield. The instructions are in English, but the grammar is a bit shaky. One could imagine perhaps being a foreign exchange pilot trying to fit into a Russian helicopter unit.
The familirization flight is explicit in the requirement to hit all of the waypoints and extreme care must be taken not to wander across the border into Georgia.
Once again, back in the Black Shark. I was a bit rusty at first, but after a bit I began to get comfortable with her once again. I've mentioned it before that flying and fighting the Ka-50 is about as rewarding an experience as you can have in a sim.
After receiving permission to depart I start out on the flight plan.
The text messages are supplemented with extensive recorded radio messages. The composition of the messages and feeling of getting a real tour are quite good indeed.
I faintly recalled the ability to slave the autopilot to the PVI-800. I've never understood why you couldn't also slave the autopilot to the ABRIS - that would be a welcomed "upgrade" to the Black Shark! I keep my altitude around 100 meters and speed at around 150 kph.
As we tick off the waypoints the narrative continues, giving me some background on the recent history of the border area.
Approaching the border I slow a bit so as to not have such a large radius of turn - but I make a crucial mistake that almost ruins the mission. I forgot that the PVI-800 only stores a maximum of six waypoints. Upon reaching the border, the ROUTE mode of the autopilot just wanted to continue forging ahead! A quick snatch of the controls was necessary to keep from violating Georgian airspace.
On the border, a Russian checkpoint looks over the river toward the Georgian side.
Paralleling the border we fly back to the west and continue the tour.
We cross a valley that descends from the mountains into Sochi-Adler. It is apparently a frequent target of attacks by the enemy.
After a few more waypoints with descriptions we are dumped out on a final waypoint on the downwind leg.
The Vergeev Campaign developer mentions that the philosophy of the campaign is to work into progressively more challenging missions. The local area tour is a perfect beginning to the campaign.
After the first mission, I am suitably impressed with the radio messages and the start of the campaign storyline. I'm sure a LOT of work had to go into the radio messages - which may be an indicator of why the project was halted. I'll be anxious to see how the rest of the missions play out and whether they maintained their integrity even though they are being flown in a highly updated DCS World environment.
Stay tuned...
BeachAV8R
