There haven't been that many WW2 sims that cover bomber ops. Fewer still enable you to blow up your home town. So on a foray back into the excellent CFS3 ETO Expansion, I was intrigued to notice a mission that enabled me to do just that. Specifically, to fly a Luftwaffe bomber during one of the raids of the Belfast Blitz in the Spring of 1941.

Conscious that the coming Easter weekend would mark the 79th anniversary of the raid featured, I decided to fly it. Which could be tasteless, or as I would prefer, a mark of respect to the nearly 900 lives lost in my home town on the night of 15-16 April 1941.

Many cities in the UK were singled out for such treatment during World War 2, mostly before the Luftwaffe was re-deployed east to support the attack on the Soviet Union. Belfast’s turn came towards the end of this period, in April and May 1941. The biggest raid was during Easter, lasted several hours, killed hundreds and did widespread damage. As a child brought up in the north of the city, I well remember the many ‘bomb sites’, gaps large and small in the rows of houses, little rectangular patches of flat, compacted earth where people had lived and perhaps died. Lacking a shelter other than under the stairs, my Mum told me how her family ran across the street during the raid when invited to shelter in a more substantial house opposite, the night sky lit up by flames and fragments flying. This photograph, with the remains of the parachute of an air-dropped mine hanging from the tram wires, was taken after that raid near the junction Antrim Road/Duncairn Gardens about 200 yards from where this happened and the house where I was born.



This and many other pics in 'then and now' format are available here: https://www.ww2ni.com/belfastblitzthennow.htm

I'm not sure where I got this mission or who wrote it, but many more like it are still available on MRJMAINT's CFS3 ETO Expansion site, here:

http://www.mrjmaint.com/cfs3/ETOHome.html

The original ‘Aussiex’ site for the ETO Expansion seems long gone, but happily, SixStrings has uploaded it to Mediafire and you can get the links here:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php/111633-ETO-Uploaded

Installation requires careful adherence to the required process, but this is described very clearly in the manual. The map is still awful, but the Expansion transforms CFS3 into what it could and perhaps should have been, adding amongst other things a huge variety of additional flyables from many nationalities, better terrain, awesome effects (not a word I use often but apt in this case) and additional missions and campaigns from the Spanish Civil War onwards. Adding Ankor’s DX9 mod brings dynamic shadows to planes and terrain, optional mouse view control & head bobbing, and the ability to kill the stock CFS3 ‘fisheye lens’ external view by editing the Field of View. And on a semi-decent PC, you can rack all the graphics sliders up the the maximum and still get a solid 60FPS.

Here’s the mission briefing. I’m flying a Heinkel 111H, leading a staffel effort of eight aircraft from Kampfgeschwader 51, flying out of the requisitioned Aéronavale airbase at Lanvéoc-Poulmic, Finisterre, in Britanny.



A bit further down, the briefing describes us striking at production facilities for Spitfires and Hurricanes, although the Shorts factory in Belfast was noted for production of other combat types, including the Sunderland flying boat and the Stirling bomber.

It’s daylight now, but the sun is setting and it will be dark long before we reach the target. Our route will take us up the Irish Sea with Dublin on our left, then running in over County Down straight for Belfast. There are some Hurricanes at RAF Aldergrove north-west of Belfast, but no radar-equipped night fighters in the area, so flak is likely to be our only opposition. My main problem is actually going to be that I’ve not played CFS3 in a long time, and in particular, have forgotten what I learned about making and ordering bombing attacks, despite having enjoyed doing just that with the Firepower and Memphis Belle add-ons.

Here I am at the head of four of my staffel, ready for take-off. The rest are already orbiting, waiting for us. As you'll remember if you're an ex-CFS3-er, you’re the flight leader by default in CFS3 and eight aircraft is your default flight strength.



Engines started, flaps set, controls checked and brakes off...



...then away we go. We’re each carrying two 500 kilogram bombs on the optional external racks, so won’t be using the internal bomb cells on this op. It takes quite a long run to unstick.



If I remember right, the CFS3 AI fly at empty weights, so my flight-mates have an easier time getting off the ground.



Trimming the elevators to relieve the back pressure on the stick, I spend a bit of time gaining height – or trying to – before I start to come around in a wide right-hand turn onto the first leg of our flight path. I haven’t flown a bomber in any sim for quite a while, and it’s easy to forget what ponderous creatures they are, compared to fighters.



The sun starts to dip below the horizon as I climb up and away, with the airfield falling away in the middle distance on the right and the others swinging around to form up.



It's a pretty sight, but it'll soon be dark, and we have a long way to go.

...to be continued!

A course adjustment takes us towards the setting sun.



My bomb-aimer is obviously a very keen fellow. Instead of sitting in the jump seat beside me, he’s ready with bombsight or machine gun from the beginning; perhaps he just finds lying down more cosy.



The others are quickly in formation beside and behind me. They will stay there even after it gets dark - not terribly realistic but this is one situation where CFS3 bombers flying wide, fighter-style formations is actually preferable. Eight bombers flying nice tight vics in the dark would be much sillier.



We're soon flying over the westernmost outposts of France, with the broad Atlantic Ocean to our left and the Bay of Biscay behind us.



Darkness begins to fall as we forge ahead, out to sea.



A tap of the ‘X’ key kicks off the warp function. I quickly remember to turn on the map as well. The CFS3 map is truly dire, but it’s best enabled during warp – especially when operating in darkness – so you can judge when to come out of it. CFS3’s warp is just high-rate time acceleration, not a ‘jump to next event/waypoint feature, like CFS2. It’s been a while, but it’s all coming back to me, although it takes a few seconds to remember the correct keystroke to end warp. And to find it, with the room lamp now turned off.

Northwards up the Irish Sea we go. Dublin is in darkness, even though Eire being neutral, it was not blacked out during WW2.



I come out of warp for good as we cross the coast on our run-in to the target.



I search ahead in the darkness, looking for landmarks.



To our left, I recognise the distinctive inlet that is Dundrum Bay, and beyond that, the Mourne Mountains.



Up ahead, the blacked-out landscape remains dark and fresh landmarks are hard to make out. So I start turning on and off CFS3’s radar-like tactical display (aka TAC), target type turned to buildings. In this form, it serves as a reasonable proxy for the radio-beam-based navigation and bombing systems used by the Luftwaffe for night raids.

The next landmark I see is Strangford Lough, named from the Norse description of the strong tidal flows in and out of the narrow channel to the Irish sea at the lough’s southern end.



Finally, Belfast Lough looms up ahead, running across my course at roughly right angles and with Belfast at its left-hand, western end.



Won't be long, now! Er kommt! ER KOMMT!

...to be continued!

It seems we are expected! Searchlight beams start to pierce the darkness ahead, first one, then others. Many others. Apparently searchlights where only hastily deployed to Belfast after the city was first seriously bombed, a week earlier, doing quite a lot of damage to factories including jigs, machine tools and components for fifty Stirling fuselages.



I can now make out the urban sprawl of Belfast as a large irregular patch lighter speckle contrasting with the dull, dark greens of open countryside. It’s slightly left of the course indicated by the tactical display. I know the Belfast shipyards, railway yards and the housing in east and north Belfast that collected a lot of the real bombs in 1941 are, like the city centre itself, somewhat to the left of our track. So what are we supposed to be bombing? The briefing didn’t name a specific target, so I decide to follow the tactical display and hope a target will appear on it, when I get within the radius it covers – if I recall right, the mission target is in a purple colour.

This, I can rationalise as letting fly when we reach the intersection of the X Gereat radio beams that guided Luftwaffe navigation and bomb release. On we go!



As we run in, yellow rings suddenly appear on the ground just ahead, short of the target but en route to it. I realise these must be markers dropped by pathfinders, to guide us in.



We’re now aproaching the south-eastern outskirts of the city. I can see the target area more clearly. A real spider-web of searchlight beams flicks back and forth the night sky.



Belfast streets are illuminated in an errie glow.



On the ground, more yellow markers erupt. Now there are also some red ones, probably indicating targets within the built-up area. Things are happening fast now and I’m struggling to concentrate on the bomb run with all this stuff going on. The tactical display shows we are nearly there, but I have it set to target buildings and none of them look to be highlighted as purple, the target colour. Perhaps buildings is the wrong target type. And when I have located a target, how do I get us to bomb it?

A fierce flak barrage assails us. I can see what looks like a couple of factories on our track, so I padlock and issue an attack order (or two) for each of them, in turn. I hear acknowledgements on the radio, so perhaps I'm doing something right.

I let go my own bombs, flak bursting all around. It would be something of a pity if we weren't attacking precisely what we came all this way to hit. But for now, I'll just be glad to be rid of the bombs and away from this place. I wish we'd had our undersurfaces painted black!



This is dangerous work!

...to be continued!

I begin the turn that will take us north-eastwards down Belfast Lough and away. Flak bursts just off my starboard wingtip. This was a soft target, the crews who came here last week said! Not now, it isn't!



Red and yellow marker flares are everywhere. What they mean, I no longer care.



Astern, some of the boys are still on bomb runs. The rest are turning with me.



Below my starboard engine nacelle you can see Queen's Island, home of Belfast's shipyards. They seem unscathed; perhaps they are someone else's target for tonight.



As we come off our own targets, a red marker flare illuminates the ground right next to one of them which has been hit and is burning. Little yellow flashes may be fires started by the marker flares; it's all a bit chaotic in the sound and vision department.



The second factory is sufffering from some of those little yellow fires, too.



Finally, we leave the maelstrom behind. Bangor bay looms up below. Fortunately for the well-heeled residents of the seaside town, we have no bones to pick with them tonight.



A turn to the south and home gives us a last look at the hornet's nest we've stirred up.



That was pretty well the end of the mission. The sim locked up while I was warping back down the Irish Sea, something I don't recall happening before with this one, although this may be the first time I've played it in Windows 7 (still boooted into in preferende to Win 10 as the former plays fine with BoB2).

Thoroughly enjoyed it nevertheless! Next time, though, I will spend some time first, re-familiarising myself with the gentle art of blowing stuff up with bombers, CFS3-style!

Nice AAR

Thanks DBond!

Not a fan of night missions, generally, with all that flippin' darkness Give me Spitfires and blue skies, any day!

Good posts 33 Lima ,,got me in the mood to put CFS 3 back on my drive..where are the CFS3 expansions ???

Thanks RW - most interweb links to the ETO Expansion are to the original AussieX no longer work, but the ones posted above do, thanks to SixStrings - I just clicked a couple and they look to be live:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php/111633-ETO-Uploaded

The CFS3 version of Ankor's DX9 mod is also a must-have - not sure where that lives now, possibly SimOuthouse.com

MRJMAINT's site (link also in first post) has some broken links too but worth a look for any to missions that still work.

The installation process is very involved, including running batch files which need a simple hand-edit first if using a 64-bit Windows version, but the manual describes every step very well, it just needs carefully followed. If you persevere you will end up with an impressive list of flyables, including these:

Really nice 33lima. Now if i can only find my CFS3 disc??? I did a quick search to try to find Ankor's Dx9 update and haven't found it. Hmmm.

S!Blade<><

For anyone interested, I believe the DX mod is still available on the downloads section at sim-outhouse.com, where most CFS3-ers seem to hang out these days - IIRC, registration being needed to access the files section: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/content.php

Can't resist winding up with a few more pics - the dynamic shadows, water reflections and more natural external perspective make Ankor's mod an essential complement to the excellent ETO Expansion:

33lima, how does these free CFS3 addons like ETO in combination with Ankor’s mod compare to WoTR, if we are talking about eyecandy? Are the plane from WoTR better quality, more realistic made, nicer eyecandy.

Super pics. Lima - I've never been able to get terrains (or water) looking that good in my ETO expansion pack and have therefore avoided flying it.

Terrains and water don't look all that better in my ETO pack than they do in the vanilla ver. 3.1 install of CFS3, or in the PTO expansion pack for that matter - never was able to install the MTO expansion pack since there is something corrupted and/or missing files with that particular installer located on simouthouse or wherever it resides these days.

@Dutch, at least on my rig., WOTR is what CFS3.1 should have been - day and night difference - with crisp textures in WOTR that I've come to expect already in WOFF, both for terrains and aircraft. Also the FMs are much better in WOTR when compared with the "generic" CFS3.1 FMs.

Von S

@VonS - not sure but it may be down to the version of Ankor's mod used - the 25 Feb 17 version I use added very many other settings you could tweak, including field of view, head bobbing, reflections and mouse view, not just dynamic shadows.

@dutch - as regards eyecandy, the ETO Expansion has some incredible effects, with flak being downright scary as well as spectacular. Another strength is the accuracy and detail with which the very large number of UK airfields featured are depicted, this one being Middle Wallop circa 1940, many of which change from era to era eg hard runways instead of grass.



Some aircraft are re-skinned CFS3 types and share the same limitations eg tho not visible in this pic, the FW190A8 has the original's excessively splayed-out undercarriage legs.



Having said that, the polished metal effects on the likes of the re-skinned Marauder are a joy to behold.



As for terrain, ETO Expansion looks better than CFS3, WotR better again, like a further evolution of that. With the latest Ankor mod, the shadows cast by terrain and by ground objects like trees add a lot to the ETO Expansion's landscape, compared to CFS3.





ETO Expansion cockpits vary, but even the best aren't a patch on WotR's. The ETO Expansion's varied planeset is a huge asset, though unlike modded Il-2 '46, not backed up by the equal variety of freeware missions and campaigns available at Mission4Today for Sturmovik. Thus, the Expansion has a Ju290 but I'm not sure there's a campaign for it, tho there may be a single mission or two.

ETO campaigns are either sequences of static missions, or more dynamic campaigns in roughly the same style as CFS3's eg you have a pilot character but no logbook, and it's a bit soul-less. Whereas WotR has a classic and much more immersive pilot campaign, with a detailed logbook, the ability to make claims in combat reports and many other trimmings not found in any CFS3 mod, freeware or payware, I'm pretty sure.

As VonS said, the Expansion is like a much-expanded expanded and more fully-realised CFS3 (though the radio commands are still very limited and the map, still awful). Like CFS3, it still suits tactical air warfare best - there are heavy bombers but very simplified, and air-to-air is marred by the fact that the AI fly at empty weights so with what are apparently accurate FMs, a 110 can fly in a big circle so fast a Hurricane can't catch it or cut the corner.

The Expansion's scope is hugely larger than WotR's and its visuals, with Ankor's mod, not too far behind (except for cockpits, which are generally not nearly as good). WotR does what it does a lot better. While they have common origins, they are not really comparable, I would say. Fans of CFS3, the Expansion and the PTO & MTO probably value it for the variety and the ability to play around in its sandbox.

Sorry but I’m not wanting to compare WOTR to the original CFS3.1a but how to compare an free pack like ETO to payware like WOTR.

Thanks Lima for the explenation.

@Dutch - personally I don't see that big of a difference between the expansion packs and generic CFS3.1, especially if Ankor's great DX tweak is missing or cannot be made to work, as in my case. On the other hand, only you can decide for yourself if ETO-with-Ankor-mod is "good enough" when compared to WOTR (depends on how interested one is in WW2 sims - the hardcore WW2 campaign simmer is, IMHO, better off looking at WOTR).

@Lima, thank you very much for the detailed breakdown and comparisons - I will look into getting a newer ver. of Ankor's DX tweaks installed (I think I have the spring 2014 install of that pack) - simply to see if it improves the graphics in ETO, a little side-hobby when I find more free time. I appreciate the great effort you always give to your sim comparisons and posts.

Von S

Thanks VonS, was afraid that WoTR did not bring in that extras besides the terrain aspects. Great to see OBD can squeeze out that much improvements.

I do hope one day, they will start with (only one 3D plane is for me also ok) a game that does have VR possibilities and I’m back to the immersion OBD always create. Also in combination with VorpX as an extra investment, I do not care, happily to pay for coming back. But once be infected by VR........

Enjoyed the screenshots and the AAR 33lima.


Wheels