My current campaign is with 811th ShAP in a Ironman (dead-is-dead) setup.

I've flown 4 missions in 3 campaign-days of August 1942 as "Ruslan Sysoev".

When opening the current career I have a timeline bar at the top and a few tabs for Pilot, Unit HQ, Planning Room etc.



Looking at the "Unit HQ" one can see loads of stats for this airassault regiment and at the bottom there's a list of all pilots and their score, missions flown, hours - you name it.
Also, I can see the status of the current fleet of sturmoviks we have.

Moving on to "Planning Room" tab we have the two missions assigned to 811th this very day (not sure if there always generates two missions a day but so far it's been like this)



Early morning raid at 07:42 was calculated the campaign engine as I was not part of the two VIC-3's

As seen, another newbie pilot like me - Tikhon Afanasiev - managed to bring back a damaged IL-2, that's the plane we saw in repair on the first picture (should be back in business tomorrow 28th).


So, looking at the assignement for us.
We have a pretty long flight down south-west to slap a trainset and surrounding units with all we've got.



Two ~10min legs heading 215deg and 232deg - this is all you need to successfully navigate keeping 280 kmh but unlike previous version (old campaign), even in "expert" you still see your plane icon on map now.

I do expect future flight will come shorter as the germans advance on Stalingrad.

Looking closer at the target area:



Quite a few german sites around our target - this means AAA trouble - and no weak sector we could use to circle when re-attacking the target. Not that I expect the AI flight leader to do that but for me to increase survival is getting parted from our group.

Note that the "Abgane.. junction" north-east is a previous target we've hit so I expect to recognize the general area as we overfly that today.


Taking off and flying a little lazy on the first leg I only catch up with our 2x3-ship formation as we enter the second leg. This is where/when our escort usually arrives too.
I have not yet figured out how to see what IAP they are and what planes they fly - would be nice to see in planning room.



We continue as planned and I can hear our escort calling out targets as we're getting close to target area.
This is very common but to this day I've only seen them fight nearby and the AI escort has actually been successful keeping enemy fighters from engaging us.

Not today.

AI lead starts doing evasive manouvers (nothing drastic) and suddenly I hear this high-pitch noise of a DB601 and to my horror this 109 comes passing by on my right hand.



Suddenly the dead-is-dead feature becomes very real and I'm trying to decide to stay with my flight or break off to execute even harder defensive manouvers.

I decide to stay in formation (not tight but in general area of my fellow sturmoviks)

Major mayhem evolves and I see guns, smoke and one or two planes hit ground in colorful fireballs.

After like forever, or double that, I manage to locate the trainset and choose to miss my delivery with the two FAB-100's but second and third attack with RS-132 rockets seems to deliver hurt with most pairs.



Trying to finish off a few extra aiming blind with 23mm guns I start to plan for a solo exit if the AI will keep orbiting in this very unhealthy environment.

As I look around I realize the small black profiles I see is not the slow turning big Sturmoviks but a mix of Laggs/Yaks and maybe 109's

OK, time to get the hell out.
Having a serious hit on left wing from AAA but engine OK I should be fine but dead-is-dead adds to my nerves.

Flying alone down here is not wise so I need to catch up with my formation ASAP without putting too much pressure on the airframe nor the engine.

Soon enough I spot the bigger profiles of the not-so-agile IL-2's and the smaller fighters flying escort in a faster speed zig-zag just above.

As we cross Volga and overfly the marsh-land east of Stalingrad I start to feel safe for today but the wing still looks sad






When I finally see home-sweet-home "null" airbase (you'll get that if you try the campaign) and their flares it's only a matter of landing this bird and we're done for today.

Our control tower is of the latest fashion:




Taxi to parking, shutting down the engine and exiting I get to see an award of 1500 rubles:



Mission accomplished and we lost no planes!



I guess the planes lost must've been escort or german fighters.

Pressing "Next Day" the campaign advance to the 28th August 1942 and we're assigned two missions and I am to participate in the first one as planned for now:



Prokhor Rusanov leaves us for 11 IAP, why fly fighters when you can be a mud mover?


As seen in the timeline bar something happens between 29th/30th August - I haven't made it that far in any campaign try yet so I hope I will survive to see what it is as my "Ruslan" character this time.

Dead is dead is masochism. Playing DiD in an Il2 (or Lagg3, or Ju-87) is even greater masochism, enjoy the spanking

Nice report theOden. Thanks for sharing.

S!Blade<><

Very nice!

I have a question about the "IL2.mod" button. Are you running some mods or is that just how the stock button is. If so...what mods are you running?

Probably just an abbreviation of model 1942




Wheels

As wheels says.
What you can do setting your plane up before a mission is to add a backseat gunner for the cost of speed etc or switch the 23mm to the 37mm but I've never had to edit the preset choices. When hunting armor we're already equipped with big 37mm and full load of RS-82.

After above reported event I might look into using the backseat gunner though