BoB2 screenshots - the RAF campaign

Some 'Stuka party' highlights...

The one that DIDN'T get away...

Sadly, 249 Squadron was a tad late for THIS Stuka party, which is about to start without us...

Sightseeing # 1 - this is Hampton Court Palace, I believe...

Sightseeing # 2 - Brighton Pier, showing BoB2's attention to historical detail (the inner section of the pier had been removed by the Battle, to limit its usefulness to the anticipated Jerry visitors)…

Sightseeing #3 - Beachy Head, complete with the distinctive lighthouse...

Sightseeing # 4 - this stunt was surely worth a few days in 'jankers'...

Sightseeing # 5...unfortunately, those mean people in the Totenkopf Geschwader weren't content with merely having a gander at Portland harbour, the cheeky beggars had to chuck bombs at the place, too...

And what better way to finish for tonight, with a couple of pics of the Spit herself, including one reminiscent of that classic Battle of Britain photo of 610 Squadron in flight...

Air Vice-Marshall Keith Park in his white flying suit in his personal Hurricane, coded OK-1, on a tour of his 11 Group airfields:

Ooops...missed the raid in cloudy conditions, but the Stukas managed to find the convoy we were supposed to protect:

Flying the mission 'Interceptions - single fighter against single bomber' and opting to fly as a gunner in the latter, my He111 has managed to reach safety over the French coast. I didn't get the Spitfire, but he didn't get us, either.

Nice shot of a 64 Squadron Spitfire. No point disputing matters of taste, but I prefer BoB2's stock rendition of the Dark Green/Dark Earth scheme to the lower-contrast, somewhat 'plasticised' finish seen on some more modern sims. If I ever get around to making up some of the 1/72 BoB-era kits in my stash, this is how I would like them to look:

From what I have seen, this is a fairly typical raid from the first, 'convoys' phase of the Battle in BoB2. All the contrailing aircraft are I think bombers, about seventy of them. Their escort is out of sight somewhere, so probably this raid is labelled a 'hundred plus' on the plotting table, as represented in the sim. The specks under the raid are a squadron of Spits climbing hard to intercept. At command level I have simply been accepting the default directives, so the campaign AI is handling that level for me; I can just fly the interceptions I choose, either from take-off or after spotting the Bandits. This approach seems to be producing historical results, with costal convoys covered by patrols, and when the large raids come, additional individual squadrons being scrambled to intercept. So you do get a nice sense that you're re-fighting the Battle of Britain much as it was fought and experienced by the commanders and the pilots. Super stuff really, BoB/BoB2-WoV2 with the BDG's efforts must still be a strong candidate for the best single player air combat sim ever made, definitely Rowan's finest hour at any rate.

The AI Luftflotte II seems especially to like hitting convoys in and around the Thames Estuary, not just those in the Channel. No. 74 Squadron was one of those scrambled to intercept such a raid on the morning of 12th July.

Tally ho! But what are they, this time? And which are the escorts?



We were not long in finding out. A swarm of Me110s curved across our front, their leaders firing at another Spitfire squadron which was nearer the main body of the raid than us.



I cut the boys loose on them and then tackled a couple of the beggars myself, starting with this fellow.



Got him!

Having gunned down a couple of ME110s on campaign, I thought I'd get a feel for how it was the other way around, by flying for I Gruppe, Zerstorer Geschwader 26 on the 'instant action' historical raid that sent KG54's Ju88s against Portland naval dockyard.



Basically, I was lucky to get away.

I did manage to get a nice pic of my mount before the fun started.



But warning cries over the radio and a glance behind showed that the mission had started with the skies behind us rapidly filling up with RAF fighters.



Before trying to get out of their way, I looked ahead to clear my conscience of concern for our charges, and was happy to see the Ju88s rolling in on the target unmolested. Sehr gut, time to look after Nummer Eins.



Unable to think of anything cleverer to do, I told everyone else to look to their own skins and then did my best to save my own.

It was all a bit of a blur after that. I managed to avoid some attacks from astern by one or more Hurricanes by pulling up and into a half loop. After a few of those, the skies seemed to be empty, if not the airwaves. I even managed to turn the tables on another Hurricane which came after me but I could not get my guns onto him for more than a few snap shots, after the last of which he dived away and left me in peace.

I called the boys to order and circled gently, throttled back, so they could re-form, noting with some satisfaction that the bomber people seemed to have hammered the target.



But the others all seemed to have disappeared somewhere. All I could see in the sky was more single-engine fighters, behind and above. And from the way they were approaching me, I didn't think they were ours.

They weren't. I firewalled the throttles and nosed down, speeding for home at sea level. After a short chase, my small squad of pursuers pulled up and away, and I could breathe again. Phew!

Loverly screenshots. Very good!

I also once or twice fell for the temptation to fly through Tower Bridge hoping not be be sent to the Brig there. The campaign is as historically accurate as possible due to the fine work of initially Rowan of course, the BDG Battle of Britain Development Group which also corrected some bugs, and then refined during the conversion to BoB2/WOV specification.

Well I now have Win 7 on a separate SSD and with BoB2 installed alongside, end of mission CTDs seem a thing of the past. First mission report is now up over at CA.

Yes the new Win 7-based install seems to be running fine, both in instant action missions like this take-off training in a 501 Squadron Hurricane...



...and in this 79 Squadron campaign mission, intercepting a reported 'hundred-plus' raid on a Channel convoy...

Some nice studies of me flying Douglas Bader's Hurricane LE-D in campaign, from my latest mission report:

That (speechless) screenshot above clearly shows something that NO OTHER combat flight sim was or is ever close to or probably will ever achieve (which is massive and I mean REALLY MASSIVE "furballs").

Excellent screenshots there 33lima

Beautiful set 33lima, well done.

Thanks guys!

Do you think the Stuka gunner who did this to me was trying to make a point, or something?

da-ka-da-ka-da-ka-da-ka-da-ka-da-ka!

'Spring chicken to sh*tehawk in one easy lesson'

Some lovely pics in this thread....

Well, hello boys...what can happen when you misjudge an attack.

The girl next door...



...and the girl of your dreams...

The leading Heinkel from I/KG55 prepares to add its bombload to those already dropped on the Bristol Aero Works at Filton on 25 September 1940. One of BoB2's historical missions, which I was flying as a gunner in this aircraft - that's me, in the dorsal position.

The target was hammered but it ended badly for my crew, the formation having already lost several machines by the time our turn came...

A spot of Kanalkrankheit might be experienced by the flight crews.

...and if my crew were not already sufferers of that ailment, then they probably had a sudden attack of it, when this happened, earlier in the mission...



..and that's assuming they were not already having a dose of ack-ack-itis...





I have to say that - while urban area textures often blend a bit sharply with rural, and shadowing or misting don't give much impression of relief/the lie of the land - IMHO the BoB2 terrain (my textures are unmodded) looks a lot more like the real thing than in Cliffs of Dover, which to my eye looks a bit artificial, the colours too dark and the hedgerows more like tree-rows.

Thanks for posting these great shots - BoB still has a place on my hard-drive (and in my heart)!

Thanks Smithcorp, having left BoB2 gathering dust for years, I'm glad I finally took the plunge and persevered this time.

Even the training missions are little gems! IIRC these pics are from 'Interceptions - rear attack on bombers'. I could have chosen to fly in any of the planes in either a Spit or Hurri squadron or as a bomber gunner, and opted to fly as Tennis Red 2, with 501 Squadron.

I never actually saw the bombers. The boss called safeties off and ordered an attack but by the time I had oriented myself - I was approaching London's dockland...



... the others were gone, like they'd never been there. All I could see was the 'top cover' Spit squadron peeling off and diving steeply down to my left rear.



There was some pretty fierce ack-ack, over to my right and below, but what they were firing at, I could not make out...



I did see this fellow though, as he flew past in an effort to avoid a Spit which was chasing him. I dutifully hung around to cover the seemingly-solitary Spit from above, as the combat drifted a bit lower. But the Spitfire seemed to be making a bit of a meal of the fight so when the 109 temporarily shook him off, I had no compunction in going for the beggar myself.



I got some hits on him and down he went, possibly not fully under control. Rather than go down after him I decided to keep my height and put him down as a 'Probable'. I even did a bit of a victory roll, showing off to the virtual camera my authentic early 1940 split black and white recognition undersurfaces, complete with the aluminium fuselage the makers used until they realised the Air Ministry meant the whole lot should be black and white, divided down the middle. Typical BoB Development Group attention to historical detail. Love it - this sim really does' the Battle' justice, and the air to air experience is probably the best in any sim I have played - a real workout, scary and exciting.



For an encore, I turned east and chased after a large group of aircraft that was being tracked by black AA bursts as it withdrew down the Thames Estuary, maybe a thousand feet or more higher. For a while, I flew straight and level, struggling to gain ground without overboosting my engine.



Clearing my tail, I noticed an even fiercer ack ack barrage back over London itself. You can't see it in this screenshot, but the bursts appear first as a sharp white flash, giving a realistic and suitably violent impression of each burst. I turned back to have a pop at whatever it was, since it was (a) lower down not higher up and (b) seemingly coming my way. I'm all for economy of effort - why go chasing the enemy when you can just let him come to you?



As I came up to the barrage, staying above and looking down, I could see there seemed to be several fighters below, on a reciprocal course, at least a couple of what looked like 109s pursued by some of our chaps. I rolled in after a 109 as it passed below me on the right, and we were soon in a merry little dogfight which whirled round and round, and up and down, over the rooftops of the great capital city, just east of the docklands.



I managed to stay behind the 109, and slowed him up with some hits, firing in short bursts. Suddenly he rolled over onto his back and went down vertically. I didn't think he would pull out, and he didn't. He crashed close to, but fortunately not into, a gasometer amongst a lot of terraced housing.



Looking at the pics afterwards, the Hun ended up at the end of somebody's garden - I just hope the residents were not in their Anderson shelter, at the time.



Still up for a scrap after all that excitement, I chased after another small group retreating to the east. Note the functional rear view mirror, and the realistic greenish tint to the bulletproof glass windscreen - if I recall right, fitted at the insistence of Air Chief Marshal Dowding, who told the civil servants that his boys ought to be at least as well protected as a Chicago gangster.



I gave myself a fright when I nearly ran into these fellows. Yes, these barrage ballons do have cables, as I noticed when one slipped past not too far beyond my starboard wingtip; and yes they will spoil your day in BoB2, if you hit them.



So I left the stragglers to it. 'Twas a couple of our boys, one leaving a light trail of smoke who must have been really gung-ho, chasing down a 109. No need to get involved, so I called it a day.



Now, for me, that was about as immersive an experience as it comes, yet it was 'only' a training mission, one you can replay from many positions, and one of many single missions in which you can do the same. And that's before you even get into the commander and pilot campaigns you can also play. No mean package, this, still 'gold standard' stuff and a truly worthy representation of the Battle of Britain experience.

Great screenshots 33lima. It ' s very beautifull !!!

Man I'd love to fly this with a modern system. Anyone thought of a kickstarter to fund modernizing the game with an HD texture facelift ?

How not to get shot down...

A race to the top...

Too late to help...a pair of 109s shoot down a Spitfire over the Thames Estuary...

Nice tight formation, down there...except for me, up here...

Robert and Claude (Bob and Clod for short) visit Sheerness Naval Dockyard, on the Thames Estuary. BoB's Sheerness has the barrage balloons and a more realistic layout. Clod's paintwork has gone to the dogs (not to the Isle of Dogs, a good few miles upstream from here) and his Merlin doesn't cut out like it ought to, if he should bunt.

Now you see them (or at least, BoB sees them)...



..and now you don't (or CloD doesn't)...



And BoB has lots and lots of them, while CloD only has a few...which he can only see when he's really, really close. Should have gone to Specsavers?

KG55 leaves the Bristol Aero Works at Filton suitably plastered. I'm in the dorsal gun position, anxiously watching out for Fighter Command to catch us up.

This Heinkel has the badge and unit letters of a different Geschwader, KG4 'Wever', and was my mount when I opted to play the bomber gunner instead of the fighter pilot in the stock 'Interceptions - single fighter vs single bomber' mission. We got away!



The low sun glints off the bomber's glazing and casts an amber glow on the landscape as our pilot prepares to land, having made it all the way back across the Channel.

Sticking with the bomber theme, this is a 'Stuka party' from viewpoint of the guests who are wishing they'd made an excuse and stayed at home. The mission is 'Ground Attack' from the included training missions and like the others it's 'live firing' with a real enemy and you can play a choice of aircraft types on either side.

Here we are, all dressed up and somewhere to go...IIRC the party is at Tangmere airfield near the south coast.





And here we go, just dropping in to say 'Hello, Mister Churchill, have this one on us'.

Here I go in a vertically-banked turn, coming off the target (having missed badly because I forgot the bomb release key!)...



...and behind me, you can see the reason for the lack of flak and my aerobatics...

We took some hits but got away as the Spit overshot us. One of the others wasn't so lucky...



Looking around for somebody to join up with didn't go quite to plan - the first aircraft that joined up with us was a Spitfire...



Again, we got away, but again, another Stuka had fared rather less well...



I then decided to re-try the mission to see if I really could fly not just for the fighter escort instead, or with the defenders, but with a 109 or a 110 instead of a Stuka, choosing a Bf110C4 from Erprobungsgruppe 210. This famous unit was formed to try out schnellbomber tactics for the new Me210, hence the unit designation (and to heck with security precautions). This worked, down to our 110s having the correct unit gruppe code letters 'S9' and bearing the correct unit badge, a red map of Britain with yellow crosshairs superimposed - cheeky beggars. The only problem was we lacked the proper bomb fairing and our two SC50s (think that's what they are) were a bit too far forward. Still, I was planning to get rid of them before too long.

More of a mission report, this, but here goes...

It’s the morning of 17th July 1940, and playing RAF, I’m a week into my first serious, sustained effort at a campaign in BoB2. The latter being the realistic simulation of the Battle that it is, this is the ‘channel convoy’ phase, during which Fighter Command’s main task – my task - is protecting the aforementioned shipping. As in real life, the Navy hasn’t yet accepted that these convoys are too risky and their loads should go by rail instead. The cost is proving high for both sides, with my losses not much less than those we believe we’ve inflicted on the Luftwaffe.

I’ve been letting the campaign AI set the ‘Directives’ which determine general tactics, and accepting the results, in terms of which patrols are flown over which convoys, and which squadrons are scrambled to beef them up when raids come in. I then get offered the chance to fly in any plane in any RAF squadron, typically on take-off or upon sighting the enemy. Or can just jump into one at any time - ‘frag’ they seem to call it, not sure why.

Today, I opted to fly as Red 3, in the CO’s section in A Flight, 603 'City of Edinburgh' Squadron, at the point its Spitfires had sighted a big ‘hundred plus’ raid heading for Convoy Weasel, off the East Coast, where the weather was a bit better than in the Channel. I didn’t get a screenie of the campaign map/wargame interface until the raid and the intercepting squadrons were all heading home. But the pic I did get then still usefully illustrates how things are presented to the player in the campaign interface, close to how it looked in the real Fighter Command Ops Rooms at the time. All you need to do, to get the picture I saw at the start, is to imagine the direction arrows next to the markers are going in the opposite direction.



This is the view from my Spitfire’s cockpit right after I’d opted to fly in this position with this intercepting squadron. The CO is in XT-F, with the blue and red squadron leader's flash under the cockpit. I neglected to get a pic of the raid we had just spotted, but it was BIG, with maybe 50-70 aircraft in formation, visible up ahead.



At about this point, the CO came up on the blower and ordered B Flight to go for the fighters, while we in A Flight hit the bombers, picking our own targets. At the same time, he led the squadron off in a wide sweep to the right, before curving back in towards the enemy. I got left behind! As I wondered what to do about this, I looked ahead and saw that the sky in front of me was rapidly filling with fighters turning and diving. I wasn’t sure if this was our lot or another squadron mixing it with the raid’s escorts, but it did give me a chance to do what I do best - sneak up behind and clobber somebody whose attention was directed elsewhere.



So that’s what I did, singling out this 109 who seemed to be on his own. Not to mention probably low on fuel, operating so far north.



It took several passes, all the while praying that somebody wasn’t sneaking up on me. I’m not a section leader with wingmen of his own, just a wingman on his own, with only a rear view mirror and the odd glance behind to cover my tail. But after another flurry of flashes, smoke and flying pieces as my third or fourth burst got some more hits, the 109’s canopy came off and the pilot bailed out.





So far, so good. But we're not done yet!

I was suddenly conscious again of the continuous R/T chatter indicating the squadron was heavily engaged, but turning around to port get a good look, could make out little. Ahead and to the south, I could see a near-vertical cluster of specks, with another group in relatively tight formation apparently further away, above them and to the right.



Closer in about half-right, was another small formation, with at least one machine trailing smoke and perhaps fire, and some scattered aircraft behind (out of sight to the right), apparently in pursuit. As I closed, the aircraft up ahead started contrailing, which gave me a better indication as to their heading.



Over to the right, further away, a spread-out group of specks whirling round and round, up and down, indicated an air fight in progress.



Decisions, decisions! In the end I decided that rather than seeking out and rejoining the squadron just yet, I would investigate that formation with the aircraft leaving the smoke trails. Retreating bombers, I thought. With some of our boys on their heels.



I edged closer to the aircraft I had noticed trailing the now-depleted formation, thinking I would join them in chasing down the Huns up ahead. I got a nasty shock when I recognised the supposed pursuers were Bf110s!



I got out of there fast. Happily, none of the big Messerschmitts seemed to have noticed me. As I watched, the two aircraft trailing smoke finally gave up the ghost and fell away.



So I came back in and attacked one of the 110s with whom I had very nearly tried to formate, a short time ago.



I got a few hits on him but he was reasonably well-handled and didn’t give me an easy target as we dodged amongst the clouds. I got a few hits but in the end, my ammo ran out and I had to let him go.



After that, I decided to go home rather than try to rejoin the others in the middle of an active a combat zone, but exited to the wargame interface when I found out from Control that I was a hundred miles from base!

Soon after, I was offered another flight as 253 Squadron’s Hurricanes spotted retreating Germans. Again, I opted to fly as Red 3, next to the CO. All our Hurricanes bore the early-war black and white wings underneath, intended quickly to identify friendly aircraft to the Observer Corps, on the ground.





Again, I was caught out when the boss took the squadron off to one side before giving his attack orders for each flight. Before I could rejoin, several calls warned of low fuel and the order to reform was given. As I watched, the squadron came back together and drifted off towards the coast, over on my right. I thought about doing a bit of hunting on my own, but the enemy were rather numerous, and I too was getting low on fuel.



So I called up the others, by now out of sight, and got a bearing to rejoin them. Time to go home!



This was the cumulative position at the end of these morning air battles and a week of many more like them. Up to now, as you can see, my fighter losses have been nearly as high as our own claims, which I hope are not too badly inflated!



Fortunately, as the wargame interface tells me every time it happens, newly-produced or repaired aircraft are regularly being allocated to squadrons, which are being rotated in and out of quiet sectors when deemed necessary. I could husband my strength by giving up, or heavily scaling back, trying to protect convoys. But apparently this can result in you being removed from command! So I’m ploughing on, but considering amending the campaign Directives (which BoB presents to you each day at the start of morning, afternoon and evening periods), perhaps to increase the strength of patrols (at the cost of pilot fatigue and wear on aircraft) or perhaps scrambling more squadrons, in the hope of getting a better claim-to-loss ratio. I think reducing my own losses is the priority now; how best to do that, short of staying on the ground, being the conundrum I need to solve. My campaign setting choices include historical Luftwaffe tactics, which delays the latter’s switch to attacking airfields and more optimal targets to about mid-August and Adler Tag. So I have a while to go at trying to look after these darn convoys without running down my strength before I need it for the main event!

Fabulous account!

Yes, I remember being in danger of being removed from command myself, during the Convoy phase. Never cracked that problem though.

Thanks Jens! All of this is probably 'old hat' to seasoned BoB2 players but I'm glad it brings back memories and maybe encourages others to give the sim a shot - I've still not seen or played a sim of the Battle that's in the same league in most of the ways that matter, to me at any rate.

Ivor

Scenes from a mission report 'in another place'...

Bounced by 110s!



Now THAT'S what I call a dogfight!



Nearly got him!



Definitely got him!



A fine time to run out of ammo!



Party's still in full swing!



Could have been worse, but not a great result for 242.

20th July. Ignoring the convoys for a change, the Luftwaffe goes for a target on the coast, one of our airfields possibly. Two squadrons try to get to them first...



...but after we're jumped by 109s I get separated. After some inconclusive combat, I follow one of the Messerschmitts out over the Channel, as they withdraw. And come out of cloud behind the whole shooting gallery...



Feeling heroic, I shake up the nearest 109s first...



...then have a go at the Heinkels...



...before making my escape. Must be worth a DFC, at least...

Tally ho!

Now what am I supposed to do?

Just posing for the camera - 79 Squadron Hurricanes.

Loving these

Thanks!

The one that got away - BoB2's version of the 109 of Franz von Werra, obviously pictured at some point before he entered, and escaped from, captivity.



...and a well-known pic of the real thing, for comparison...

Now you see him...



...soon, you won't...



The 109 of Hans 'Assi' von Hahn, I/JG3 falls to the guns of a Hurricane, as the pilot bails out. The rear section, including the mast, should go when the 109's canopy is jettisoned, but it seems to be a bit sticky in BoB2 as in some other sims.

Pride of Poland: canopy fully back, a 303 Squadron Hurricane looks for home in poor weather.

Congratulations !!! Beautifull screenshots !!!

Thank you!

It's a good landing, if you can walk away from it, they say. This isn't a great landing, though, because I can't re-use the aeroplane.

Some pics from operations later in the day of my AAR for the morning of 20th July...

Squadron SCRAMBLE! Flying as Green 1 in UP-L, I wait for the leading Hurricanes from 605 Squadron to get moving...



We're a bit late, but make up for it by chasing the raid back towards the French coast.



The others wisely turn back before reaching France, but I lead Green Section on and clobber one of the Huns...



...before heading back to Blighty, feeling rather chuffed.



Soon after, Flying as Green 2, I'm waiting for the off in ZP-X, with 74 Squadron. Sadly I forgot to let off the brakes and nosed over, soon after this picture was taken.



Jumping in as Green 1 when 32 Squadron intercepts a raid, I'm glad I had opted to pause the action at the start, because it kicked off with me in this unusual, rather disorienting position.



I got one of the Stukas...



...as the others pitched in too...



...but I got caught in a cross fire during another pass, and had to break off...



I was lucky to get off with a misfiring engine, having taken this burst in the side of the cockpit.



A busy day indeed! And it's not over, yet!

Later the same day...

234 Squadron catches the 109s napping...



Now, where to begin...



This one, I think...



Now, who's next...



This one, definitely...



Ok, whose turn is it now?



Apparently I'm next, the 109s having woken up.

It's only mid-afternoon and the raids are coming in thick and fast, with and without close escorts, hitting targets inland, not just convoys.

I've reduced the channel convoy patrols, tasked 10 and 12 Groups to patrol 11 Group airfields instead, and started scrambling or diverting patrols to intercept raids. This lot is on its way home having knocked the spots off the exposed airfield at Manston.



There's a mounting feeling of backs being against the wall, and again I'm colliding with bombers in my anxiety to hack them down while I can.



We're still in business, but the battle has really stepped up several gears and I'm not sure how long 'we few, we happy few, we band of brothers' can keep this up!

Lunchime is rudely interrupted by Hostile 101, which is plotted coming in from the south-east towards Bognor Regis. There's no convoys near there, so it looks like the target is one of the coastal region fighter airfields, at Tangmere or nearby Westhampnett.

Tired of being on the back foot, I decide to teach this raid a lesson. I re-vector the squadron patrolling over a convoy to the west, and bring down a 12 Group squadron patrolling an 11 Group airfield to the north. Two further squadrons are scrambled to intercept. With wicked satisfaction, I watch as their markers converge on the 'thirty plus' raid, which is in for a nasty shock.

The Spitfires of 234 Squadron make contact just before two other squadrons do so. I'm flying as Green 1 again, in AZ-K.



There look to be about thirty bombers, in three wedges of ten, just above and ahead of us. The 109s out front of them break formation, apparently to deal with another RAF squadron which you can see climbing up on my left. I can make out more Messerschmitts to the bombers' right, but we have the escorts well outnumbered, this time....



...and I'm able to lead Green Section into the bombers from astern.





To my right, Hurricanes and Spitfires are also coming in from behind.



I take the wing off a Heinkel in my section's first attack from astern...



...then break up and away. As I do so, a veritable swarm of our fighters is about to hit the Heinkels!



I pull off to my left and clear my tail. From the R/T chatter, some of us are engaged with 109s. But I can only see the bomber formation, which is losing aircraft steadily.



In my next attack, hardly noticing the tracers zipping past all around me...



...I can only damage a Heinkel before I have to break off again.



Coming back in for another crack, I decide to hit the right-hand side of the formation, this time. As the range winds down, more bombers are burning or falling.



I aim for the port engine of my target and am rewarded when a wing suddenly shears off...



...but again, I've left it too late to break, and rip off one of my own as I clip the stricken bomber.



By now, I've become a bit of an expert at bailing out in such situations, and luck is with me once more. Not so much the Heinkels, who appear to have lost nearly half their number, and the air fight isn't over yet.



Don't you just love it, when a plan comes together! If we can keep this up, Goering will have some explaining to do, to Adolph! The downside - the Huns still managed to hit Tangmere heavily, having done the same to Manston earlier in the day.

Even if he is old, this game is still interesting !!!

I's only mid-day on 20 July and the Luftwaffe is making another airfield raid, this time on Manston. The Hurricanes of 605 Squadron, scrambled to intercept, can't make contact until after the raid has bombed. But they harry the raiders all the way back to the coast.

Thanks for stirring up interest. I'll go find and install game and updates.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Good luck! If you have Windows 10, the best you'll likely be able to do is fly the many single missions with a CTD when you exit, with campaign missions regularly CDT'ing. To get BoB2 running fully, I spent about the cost of a new sim on a second SSD (preferred that to partitioning the Win 10 drive), a legit copy of Win 7 and about an hour getting drivers etc all installed in the 'new' O/S. Now I just boot into 7 by default as it's still supported and all my other sims run fine on it as well. Worth every penny - this campaign has me hooked and I haven't even started the Luftwaffe one, or either side's pilot campaigns, yet.

First time in action against Ju88s. This mob has just bombed Lympne airfield but was caught by 32 Squadron as they tried to leg it back across the Channel.

Turned into a bit of a Punch and Judy Junkers show - all that was missing was Red Leader squawking on the R/T 'THAT's the way to do it!'





Aha! Stragglers! You'll do nicely!

Good stuff! I remember when this was new! *gasp* Wish I had more time to get into the whole "full theater" kind of role....

That's what put me off persevering with BoB/BoB2, Rick. That and 'Where's my pilot campaign?' (and of course there is one, now).

But I found this time around that I could happily play the stock RAF 'commander' campaign by simply accepting all the defaults offered by the 'wargame' in the Ops Room. And just accepting the offers to fly when they came up. And there is never long to wait. It was only after ten campaign days of doing this and flying mostly air starts (plus a few on takeoff) that I decided to intervene, after getting a feel for how that could work. I might have been better just letting the AI commander carry on fighting the battle and sticking to flying the missions - time will tell!

I think the improvements made up to and including BDG update 2.13 help a lot. Plus I have a better PC now so everything except particle density is maxed out. Plane skins and terrain seem to look sharper, autogen trees flesh out many areas, there seems to be less wobble when flying, aircraft you're chasing don't 'jump' and your gunsight doesn't wander or 'hunt' so much. Apart from 109 close escorts not zig-zagging and sometimes ignoring you, apparently sticking to their station rather zealously because another staffel is reacting, I don't remember BoB2's air combat side being this good before. But I'm finding it top drawer stuff, now.

Excellent! I always wish I could have gotten more into this as well as Mig Alley - time for a big reboot of that one!

One thing I have learned from my most recent venture off the campaign trail and into the single missions is...don't underestimate Defiants. Not while they're in formation.

From reasonably shiny new Messerschmitt...



...to smokin' hole in the ground, in one easy lesson...



Bailing out too low didn't help, either.

This is an illustration of the one really major weakness I've found in BoB2 - 'unresponsive escorts'...

BDG member Stickman explains it over on the A2A BoB2 forums, but in a nutshell, close escorts have a proportionate response to threats. The typical gruppe detaches one of its typically three staffels to counter each threatening RAF squadron. Which is great. The weakness is that if you're playing as an RAF wingman or section (vic) leader not the squadron leader; and if you leave the squadron and go swanning off, you may encounter one of the uncommitted staffels, which will ignore you as the committed staffel's problem. Even if you attack them. If it's against your principles to gun down defenceless 109s or 110s you can always fly as the squadron leader, or not go swanning off, or not pop off the unresponsive escorts if you run into them. Not a fatal price to pay for the big and realistic formations, the rest of the time. A code fix would be nice, though.



In the pic above, the 110 close escorts have ignored me, despite having attacked and damaged one of their number, and two Hurricanes, probably my wingmen Green 2 and 3, who are attacking the Stukas the 110s are supposed to be protecting.

Very next mission, the escorts are back on form.

Mid-afternoon, 20 July 1940. I decide to arrange a hot reception for an incoming channel convoy raid by scrambling a squadron and re-vectoring two more that are on airfield patrols, to join the patrol covering the convoy itself. I opt to fly as Green 1 with 302 (Polish) Squadron when it makes contact...



The situation is a bit confused. Somebody comes on the blower reporting low fuel, though a look at my own gauges shows I'm about half-full. And looking ahead and left, I'm not sure who's who. Are the aircraft up front the other RAF squadrons intercepting the raid, on the left? Or are they the raid, and the crowd on the left, who look a bit dispersed for bombers, the escort?



The boss doesn't seem sure either, because his only order is for our own squadron to reform, at which point he leads us down and to the right. Following him down, I notice the convoy far below, apparently under attack, with bomb splashes and distant aircraft whirling around it. Anticipating orders to attack this lot - Stukas, probably - I lead Green Section down after the squadron, wondering who it is, already reporting on the R/T that they are being shot at and need help.

Next second I'm the one that needs help. Rounds slam metallically into my crate and I roll inverted to get out of the line of fire. But it's too late, next second I'm dead. We've been bounced again, by 109s this time.

About to drop in on a Stuka party...



...while this one's already in full swing...

Early afternoon of 20 July and the raids are still coming. These fellows have just bombed Lympne airfield, close to our base at Hawkinge. I've led Green Section around to cut off their escape, but the boss has taken the rest of 79 Squadron in behind the raid and got there first. They are cutting the tripe out of the leading bombers, by the look of it, and I'm chomping at the bit to join the fray.



This is one of three Heinkels I'm claiming destroyed, having got my chance.



Overall, we are later credited with five destroyed and the same number damaged, for one Hurricane damaged and none lost. I'd thought we'd done a bit better than that but no complaints. Somebody reported Messerschmitts early on, but there was a lot of cloud about in places, and we never saw them after that.

Returning to Hawkinge - you can see BoB2's very accurate rendition on the left - I can see Lympne burning, not far to the west. The specks above and right of Hawkinge are the rest of the squadron, in the circuit.



Our airfields closest to the coast are taking a bit of a beating. While we are intercepting the raids, it's generally only after they have bombed. I'm wondering if I should start putting up patrols over the coast, accepting the strain on men, machines and supplies for the sake of getting to the Huns earlier. At the moment, our claims of enemy aircraft destroyed are not much higher than our losses, so it's all a bit of a worry.

Cuckoo in the nest. An 87 Squadron Hurricane joins up with a rather battered Spitfire squadron for protection, after an air battle.

Death of a Dornier. These people had just bombed Dover, so serves 'em right, really.



Having ammo to spare, I cut across their turn to the south.



Then, it was, Death of another Dornier.



Right in front of his mates, too.



This one didn't make it back to France, either. Not a bad day's work.

Folks,

33lima:

Excellent screenies. Sorry, I have no pix to post. Sadly I cannot get our game to run on Win 10. Thanks for posting. This brings back many happy memories.

Thanks JR2. BoB2 runs for me in Win 10 - not sure what compatibility settings I'm using - but CTDs when I Alt+X out of a mission, and sometimes earlier when flying campaign missions. Leaving me able to play all the single missions without being able to get to the debriefing screen. Nothing I could find online improved on this. Recorded my experiences and my ultimate solution - basically Win 7 dual boot - here: https://combatace.com/forums/topic/92753-battle-of-britain-2-wings-of-victoryand-windows-10/ Was a small price to pay to enjoy this classic.

Back in the Ops Room, a WAAF reports that a raid has wrecked the airfield at Hawkinge. Minutes later, another raid is reported to be threatening Lympne. I join the Spitfires of 74 Squadron just after they sight the raid, which is approaching rapidly from ahead and above. I lead Green Section up and around so as to come in from their right rear, while the rest of the squadron goes left and takes a more direct route.



I make a stern attack on the rear wedge of what turns out to be a bunch of Ju88s, but seconds later I'm falling through space and reaching for my ripcord. The bomber I attacked is no longer in its place on the left rear of the formation, but that's a rather poor price to pay, for my Spit is falling away in flames.



What got me, I'm not sure. There were 109s reported spotted, but I think it was return fire from the bombers which did this to my kite. Meanwhile, I doubt we did much to save Lympne, which will mean that until they're repaired, 11 Group will have two heavily-damaged airfields close together near the coast, liable to create something of a gap in our defences. This isn't going terribly well.

Well, I have been extracting a bit of enjoyment from CloD Blitz Edition while gritting my teeth at its many vicissitudes, but my most recent RAF 'commander' campaign mission, while not exceptional by BoB2 standards, was another reminder why - late convert that I am - I still consider Battle of Britain II - even by current standards - to be a far superior product, both as an air combat sim and as a convincing representation of 'the Battle'.

I'll post a mission report/AAR in the appropriate forum later, but here's a few screenshots from the action. This involved jumping aboard as Green Leader with 41 Squadron as we met a raid without close escort, whose target seemed to be poor old Dover, getting it in the neck again despite Fighter Command's best efforts.

Here's the raid as I lead Green Section up after it.



By the time I'm getting into position for a stern attack, the rest of the squadron is getting stuck in.



On my second pass, I get a shock when a round from a Heinkel smacks into my armoured glass windshield.



And that's not the only place I've been hit...



Engine misfiring but rounds to spare, I get another shock when, on my next firing pass, I find myself so close to this Heinkel, I can see the face of the ventral gunner staring down his sights at me.



After recovering sufficiently to make another pass, I pull away as the air fight rages behind. By this point, a Hurricane squadron has joined in and the Heinkels are having a hard time.



I've played a few air combat sims in my time but - while BoB2 has some limitations of its own - none better than this. The flying is convincing, the visuals are still more than good enough, and the air battles are as epic to witness as they are to fight in.

AAR to follow!

EDIT - first part of mission report is now up (raid's target wasn't Dover I now see, got a bit mixed up above!): http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4464012/bob2-select-your-own-targets#Post4464012

WHEEEEE! Look, no wings!!! The Caterpillar Club is about to get a new member.

And some people complain about mobile phone masts...they're lucky they didn't have a Chain Home station in their back garden, and a set of Chain Home Low masts next to that. [Edit - the smaller towers aren't as I first thought meant to represent a co-located Chain Home Low station (which IIRC had rotating 'mattress' antennae on higher or lower frames) - the normal CH stations had separate transmitting and receiving towers, the shorter ones being the latter.]

The people who laid this railway line seem to have had scant regard for passenger comfort.

'Oh, I do like to be beside the sea-side, I do like to be beside the sea'...even if it's Sheerness dockyard. British readers, at least those 'of a certain age', will likely be humming along by this point.

A Pole over the palace, if you'll forgive the somewhat inelegant expression.

There's 'a bit of a draught', and then there's sticking your head out into a 183 MPH slipstream.

The anti-aircraft people doing what they do best - trying very hard indeed to spoil an otherwise pleasant flight. I hope the cabin crew had already finished the trolley service.

What do you mean, number two, 'Behind you!'?

I've heard the Luftwaffe tendency to insist they were never shot down by Hurricanes, only by Spitfires, being referred to as 'Spitfire snobbery', but having it painted on the side of your Spitfire is taking it a bit far, don't you think?

Hee hee! I guess it's better than if the N wasn't there, wot?

If you ever wanted to know where the 'location for wing tip steadying trestle' was on a Spitfire, here's you're answer:

This mission (Historical, Black Thursday morning) started well...



...then got better...



...but suddenly went from bad...



...to about as 'worse' as you can get...

Kenley aerodrome, 18th August 1940, shortly before a visit from the Dorniers of 9 Staffel, Kampfgeschwader 76...



...and soon afterwards, during the visit...



And the real thing, seen from one of the Dorniers in the actual raid...

Back on campaign...

It's the morning of 21 July. Lympne airfield has just been hammered by Hun bombers and 74 Squadron are left chasing after the retreating raiders. Their escort has already decided their job's done and they may be right!



The rest of the squadron seems to be trying to head off the Huns, and goes wide to my left. I lead Green Section on what I hope is a more direct route.



As the range winds down, I steer towards the right hand bomber in the right-hand group - Heinkels, they turn out to be.



I knock my target out of formation but my first attack is my last, I took a lot of hits from below as I broke up and away and my engine is running very rough. I try to catch the bombers again but give up and turn back when I'm about half way over the Channel. The rest of the squadron hasn't appeared yet and I'm not sure where Green 2 and Green 3 ended up, but I'll be happy to get home without getting my feet wet.



We now have three south coast fighter airfields damaged, one so badly as to be out of action. And our claims of aircraft shot down are not very far ahead of our losses. Production and repair of Hurricanes is keeping pace with losses, but Spitfire strength is falling. And the battle is just eleven days old!

Late morning, 21st July 1940. There have already been several big air fights as raids are intercepted. A thirty-plus is over the Channel heading for hard-pressed 11 Group's westernmost flank, A Sector, which includes the coastal airfields of Westhampnett and Tangmere, near Chichester. Tangmere is recovering from bomb damage inflicted the day before, and one of the two airfields looks like the target again now. The Sector Controller scrambles 601 Squadron's Hurricanes against the raid. We're not up to full strength - a quick count shows about eight of us, including the three I'm leading in Green Section.

Our first sighting of the enemy is the familiar one of three waves of about ten, each wave hard on the heels of the one in front. Bombers, with no sign yet of the fighters (which from information received later, seemed to have carried out a sweep somewhere well ahead of the bombers). Problem is, as seems to be the norm now, they are well above us. As they near the coast, the boss gives the order to go for them and I lead Green Section up and around independently of the others.

My vic arrives behind the bombers slightly behind some of the other Hurricanes. Automatically, Green 1 and Green 2 split off from me and come in for their own attacks. By now the bombers are inland and what I feared has happened - sticks of bombs begin to fall away from the Huns. Too late!



The Hurricanes ahead of me have not attacked the bomber on the outside right of the rear group - I can see now that they are Ju88s. So I go for this fellow and send him down with his port engine on fire.



Down and away he goes - no doubt about that one!





Down below as I come around for another pass, the bombs are bursting - in open countryside, by the look of it. The target looks to have been the area of grass to the left of the bursts - Westhampnett satellite fighter base [the shape co-incides exactly with an air recce shot of the airfield in Philip Birtle's 'Battle of Britain Airfields', so kudos to A2A/BDG.). The town down there will be Chichester, as it would have looked at that time, and complete with its cathedral, which is clearly visible. The airfield with the X-shaped concrete runways will be Tangmere.



This is the map view at that point, zoomed out. No town labels but you get a read-out of your position in relation to a landmark, in this case the coastal town of Bognor Regis.



As I come in for my next attack, the Huns are making a turn to the left, to make their withdrawal back out over the coast near Portsmouth. Our fighters are still snapping at their heels.



I get another Junkers on this pass, with the crew bailing out instantly.





I'm on a roll now and another bomber goes down in flames from my next attack. These Junkers types seem rather more vulnerable than the slower Heinkels, and their speed advantage doesn't seem to do them much good, even against Hurricanes.



The bombers make another left turn over Portsmouth, and another attack sends another bomber going down with the crew taking to their parachutes.



As I look down and right, I can see that the middle group of bombers is looking intact but the group behind has been well whittled down.



I peel off and go for one of the Junkers which is streaming smoke, which makes aiming difficult when I come in from astern. Down he goes nevertheless! The airfield visible here is Thorney Island, I believe.



My next pass is my last - my ammo runs out after just a few rounds are fired. I break off and watch the Huns go, still with Hurricanes snapping at their heels and the calls of our pilots on the airwaves. Where Green 1 and 2 have got to I'm not sure, but I decide it's time to go home. Having done an air start and not checked where 601 was flying from, I call up Control and get a vector to my home base. This turns out to be the airfield, next to the bombers' target, which I had identified as Tangmere. Cockpit canopy slid back, I make my approach. I forget to ask for permission to 'pancake' (BoB2 uses the correct radio pro-word) and have to watch out for a couple of other Hurricanes milling about. At the last moment I notice some splodges of earth on grass and runways and remember the base has been bombed, but I keep on coming.



The repair people have done a good job, though, and despite the signs of craters seemingly filled in, I make a safe landing after a bump (or two) and a longish roll out. This takes me onto the perimeter track so I roll to the right around it and come back towards the hangars, which seemed to have escaped destruction.



The squadron seems to have had a red letter day, with just one pilot and his aircraft lost and a claim of no less than fifteen Ju88s shot down, and the rest of the thirty damaged. The 3d air combat in BoB2 is said to be rather bloody and more so than if things are left to the 2d wargame element to resolve, but I'm not complaining - not at all!

Really nice 33lima. I really enjoy reading your AARs and your knowledge of the UK really ads atmosphere to your writings. I received my copy last week and I am reading up a bit in the manual. I will probably try to install it next week and start learning the ropes of BOB II.
Keep up the great AARs Sir! S!

S!Blade<><

My next mission on 21 July didn't go quite so well! A case of the best-laid plans of mice and men going awry, it was.

Lunchtime, and far from giving us a rest, the Luftwaffe is piling on the pressure. Another raid is plotted in coming in from the Calais area, across the Straits of Dover where the Channel is at its most narrow. I decide this raid is for the chop. We'll teach the beggars to interrupt our lunch. I re-vector two of the 12 Group squadrons that, according to the 'Directives' I have modified to that end, are now patrolling 11 Group's northern airfields, to intercept the raid. Altogether, three squadrons are on their way.

The Hurricanes of 605 are the first to intercept, but I decline the offer to jump in and wait till 266 spot the Huns. They fly Spitfires and I reckon I'm due a change of mount. As usual, I opt to fly as Green Leader.



This time, we find ourselves at about the same height as the enemy. They are just offshore, off the North Foreland, north-east of Dover. I reckon they are headed for a coastal convoy in that area. But they veer back towards the coast. It looks like the airfield at Manston is about to get another pasting. There must be an AA battery in the area, perhaps protecting the port of Margate, as their black bursts are filling the skies, regardless of our presence. I can also see some Hurricanes are already attacking the Huns. I can't see any escorts, though somebody reported some further ahead - maybe one of the other squadrons has engaged them.



As I lead Green Section in...



... the bombers - twenty or thirty Heinkels, they are - turn inland, to port.



This rather throws off my attack and while I get some hits, I end up breaking away under the bombers without bringing anyone down.



I gain height again and wait while the Huns, still under AA fire and Hurricane attack, shake out and begin to settle down again onto a steady course, which takes a minute or so.



I then make another stern attack on a Heinkel at the edge of the formation. I set him smoking, but he doesn't seem to be going down.



This time, I break upwards. By now the Huns are headed nearly south - on a direct course for Manston, just a few miles away.



And there it is, far below. The big hangars already look blackened from previous raids.



I roll gently left, then right...



...and come in for a pass at the left-hand group of bombers, which seems to have escaped serious attention so far. Time to change that!



I get some hits on my chosen target but once again, the bombers make a turn, leaving me to break in the opposite direction without, I fear, doing too much damage. Determined to do better this time, I try too hard. the Heinkel I attack spews back a thick cloud of smoke and gunk but holds his course. After a moment's hesitation, I hold my course too, and continue firing. Idiot! Predictably, the result is a collision, which tears off my Spit's starboard wing. Here we go again!



I chop the throttle to reduce the torque and hopefully the rate of descent. I wait a bit for this to have some effect, then bail out.



Thankfully, my 'chute opens - treating me to a birds-eye view of the damage the raid, on which I had so little impact, has done to poor old Manston.



I had reckoned my previous scrap signalled a red letter day for the RAF. This one fairly turned the tables. Just to rub it in, while all this was going on, another raid plastered Hawkinge, down near the south coast. Which I found out when I resumed my place in the Ops Room after the air fight. Hawkinge is the airfield (green circle) with the red ring (damaged) plus now a red cross (I can guess what that means, probably out of action altogether for the time being). Worse still, somebody reports that 79 Squadron, stationed there, was caught on the ground and that 'we don't know how many of them got off.'



The Luftwaffe has come after our airflieds well ahead of the historical Adler Tag in mid-August. If, like me, you have the Germans set to use historical tactics, the gen online is that this happens because British convoy losses have curtailed that traffic to the point the AI Luftwaffe commander has decided it's time to go for Fighter Command's jugular, without further ado. The gap between our losses and our claims of enemy aircraft destroyed is beginning to open up, but that's the only positive I can see. Apart from the fact that I can't imagine any other sim immersing me any more deeply in the sense that I'm there, flying and fighting the Battle of Britain. Albeit with victory possibly slipping away...!

I didn't have room above for a sixteenth screenshot, but since this is a BoB2 screenshots thread, here's a final one from this mission. It shows me breaking after my penultimate attack, while my Spitfire still had a wing on each side. I see now that I'd taken some hits in my tail feathers, which I had no recollection of earlier, so hot and heavy was the action.

Well the 21st of July is finally over and to mix up my war move titles, it's been 'the longest day'. I've lost count of the raids we faced. The last three or so came during the afternoon. Although Hawkinge aerodrome was back in action by the end of the day, nearby Lympme was knocked out by a raid which slipped in and out again without even being intercepted. Dover docks had already been handed out similar treatment, by this raid:



This was largely down to me diverting patrols over inland airfields which were too far away to catch the Dover raid; and having to return them to base to refuel. During which time the Huns paid Lympne their visit. Attempts to concentrate patrols against other raids were also hampered because they were low on juice to begin with.

This is what happened to 266 Squadron, seen here from my cockpit in a shallow dive to catch another raid on Manston. The three groups of specks out to our left looked ominous...



...but our more immediate concern was the thirty or so bombers we had come here to intercept.



Another look to the left revealed one group of specks splitting away and loosening formation as they swung in towards us. That could only mean one thing - snappers!



I turned Green Section into them and before I could call them in on the R/T, a shower of 109s hit us.



This is the view from the cockpit. I don't think Me109s adopted yellow motor cowlings till about mid-August in reality, but I was in no position to debate the point with these fellows.



I went after one who didn't happen to have a yellow nose but he kept his speed up and I could not get close to him. After a bit, my revs dropped away and I realised I was out of fuel. The subsequent forced landing ended badly!



I next accepted an offer to fly with 32 Squadron, but by this time the raiders were on their way home, having hammered Manston - again. And again, I had to give up the chase as the gauge was down to zero.



What turned out to be the last raid of the day, mounted as the sun was sinking in the west, was by about 30 Stukas plus as many escorts, who hit Convoy Rabbit as she was sailing innocently west down the Channel. Two squadrons intercepted, and I opted to fly with the first to make contact, 74, flying Spits.



Up ahead was a confused mass of aircraft. As I got closer, several sailed across my nose from right to left - Stukas! You can also see a dogfight going on already, lower left - the other intercepting squadron must have arrived about the same time as we did. I had no idea who the other visible aircraft were.



The Stukas ahead of us promptly dived down, not to evade us, but to attack the convoy.



The boss came up on the blower and ordered B Flight - which includes us in Green Section if I recall right - to get the escorts. So I led on into the developing air fight up ahead, while the rest of the squadron broke up and got stuck in.



I chased this 109 around for a while, but didn't get any hits and lost him when he disappeared down below somewhere. This was not the sort of environment to spend too long looking for lost quarry.



So I turned around and steered back towards the nearest air fight, hoping to come across somebody I could sneak up on. You may be able to make out that there seem to be three distinct scraps going on in the pic below, at different altitudes or ranges.



I chased another 109 but gave up when I realised a Hurricane was already pursuing him. I then went after a fighter climbing away from the fight, only to find he was a Spitfire. Finally, I found myself another 109, and saw smoke and sparks fly as I hit him, But again I lost hin when he disappeared under my nose, and couldn't pick him up again.



I cleared my tail and looked for another fight to join. But the sky seemed suddenly to have cleared. All I could see was one or two specks coming back towards England - our boys breaking off and going home. The boss called me up and ordered me to close up; it turned out the squadron was already well to the north and homeward bound.

It was a bit of a messy way to end the day, but I was glad to see the back of 21 July 1940. It was reported that we claimed 61 destroyed, which is a good bag, but all 11 Group's coastal airfields have been heavily bombed and while Hawkinge was repaired, it was reported that the line to Lympne has gone dead and 'they're out of it', said the WAAF making the report, which certainly sounds ominous. Manston is also out of action again. Thank goodness, was my reaction when a new day dawned. I'll have to reflect on lessons learned and change tactics if I'm going to last much longer at this - we certainly can't go on like this!

I Love it. Keep em coming 33lima. I am hoping to install BOB II WOV tomorrow or Friday and start the learning process. I haven't been this excited to install a new Sim in a longtime. Will this Sim display 2560x1440 ?

S!Blade<><

Gosh - 2560x1440? What's that, a screen resolution or the size of a small country?

You might try asking on the A2A BoB forums. The drill seems to be that you set 'Use desktop resolution (not for widescreen)' to 'Off', then set both 2d ('Campaign') resolution and 3d resolution to your monitor's native, an embarrassing but 'looks ok to me' 1600x900. Which should be one of the available values, if supported. One of the entries for these has exclamation marks either side implying it's a problem but it isn't - for 1600x900 anyhow. Exclamation marks against BOTH values might indicate a real problem.

The main prob is if you have Win 10, ending the mission causes a CTD sometimes, killing the debrief and forcing a restart. Inconvenient but the many training and historical missions are just fine with no debrief, and the fact that you can vary some parameters, and fly with any squadron in any position (gun positions only in bombers) produces a fair bit of replay value, just from these single missions. My experience in trying to play a Win 10 campaign is that I sometimes also got a CTD earlier, but only in the 3d - so I think you could play a campaign ok in Win 10, provided you were prepared to accept the odd early CTD; and that when you got one at the end of a mission which you had opted to fly in 3d, accepting that its results will not count, so you will have to restart the sim and load the autosaved campaign. Allowing the wargame AI to calculate the mission's results instead.

Win 7 has been fine for me so far, except for a period I think a saved campaign file got corrupted or something, rescued by loading an earlier one.

No dymanic shadows but the graphics are ok - positively great if your idea of nice visuals is seeing raids of at least thirty bombers plus close escorts if present...





... and not just a nice plane to look at (that looks like it has had a thick overcoat of satin varnish, ok for Luftwaffe but just not right for RAF). Plus I appreciate the highly authentic and more varied markings on BoB2s planes, like the range of RAF undersurface treatments, correct squadron codes or emblems for every unit on both sides, and airfields and lots of ground targets generally looking like they did in 1940, no generic stuff here - like the famous Battersea Power Station only having one of its two blocks built at that time (building density here is IIRC a notch below max)...



Anyhow the first 11 days of my RAF campaign have become increasingly gruelling. If you hear no more from me here, it'll be because I have been sacked, or have failed to halt the invasion and am kicking my heels in Stalag Luft whatever-it-is.

Ok, Check 6 often and I hope your Campaign carries on.

S!Blade<><

I think I've got the boss worried - AOC 11 Group Air Vice Marshall (later Sir) Keith Park looks a bit anxious as he sets off from Tangmere in his personal Hurricane, OK-1, for one of his regular tours of the battlefront...

22nd July 1940, morning. The weather has been less cloudy this last week, but that's the only good news. This morning has been crazy, with four major raids, the last one being a 'hundred plus' job, hitting a coastal convoy. I elected to fly as Green Leader in the first squadron which met each raid - Hurricanes each time, as it happened.

First raid, I was with 238 Squadron. When the mission loaded, the squadron was already splitting up and diving to cut off the bombers, which were headed roughly north-west towards our coastal area fighter airfields at Tangmere and Westhampnett.



They had 109s for escort and the beggars were already counter-attacking as we came out of our first pass.



So it was with a wary eye astern that I came around behind the Heinkels, having done no visible damage on my first run.





This time, I got some hits on a bomber at the left rear of the gaggle, causing him to trail some pale smoke, but he stubbornly refused to go down. You can see that one of the others has had better luck, sending a Hun down in flames...



I broke hard for fear of the Messerschmitts, but my tail was clear. Behind me, some Hurricanes were still streaming in to hit the bombers, but most of the rest seemed to be mixing it up with the 109s in a fierce dogfight.



Seeing the escorts were heavily occupied, I decided to have another go at the Heinkels.





The one I had attacked before was no longer in formation, so I hit the fellow to his right, instead...



...and this time, the results were entirely satisfactory...



The bombers seemed to have left the dogfight behind, off the coast. I could hear the R/T chatter indicating that the party back there was still in full swing. Instead of joining it, I decided I would first have another whack at the Heinkels. I reckoned this would be my last chance before they bombed, so I wasn't going to miss it.





I chopped down another bomber, aiming as usual between the fuselage and an engine. Self-sealing fuel tanks they had, but a good burst there often seemed to set something burning.



What next? A desperate call for help on the R/T settled that, and I turned away from the bombers and out to sea, where the dogfight was still going on.

...to be continued!

Heading back to the dogfight, I saw a bright flash as a fighter, pursued by an enemy, was hit. Then a trail of smoke as the victim arced down towards the steely blue-grey of the English Channel. I was fairly sure this was the Hurricane I had left the bombers to help, and that my objective was no longer rescue, but revenge.

Sure enough, as the range wound down, I saw the rearmost fighter was indeed a 109. He was moving fast and I cut across his turn in an effort to catch him.



My first burst didn't allow enough deflection and served only to alert him to my presence. Just after this next picture was taken, I got some hits but he suddenly nosed over downwards and disappeared below, obviously under full control and not in the least bit shot down. I rolled inverted to try to keep 'eyes on' without cutting out my petrol supply from negative G, but lost him against the ground. #%&*$#!!!



I picked up a different 109 and chased him instead. But he also went down and I nearly went into the water trying to get him. I got a shock when I realised how low I had got, but managed to pull up without blacking out. A ropey business this, fighting 109s in a Hurricane! Give me bombers, any day.



I then realised to my surprise that 'my' 109 must have done something similar, for there he was, close above me! Time for another crack!



The Hun kept his head and pulled up and away in a tight spiral climb, which I had trouble following. I got off a burst while I could, in an effort to slow him down or make him change course, but succeeded only in exhausting my supply of ammunition.



The air battle was still in full swing, with fighters going in all directions. I hung around for a while and made a few feints, then decided to go home, converging with some others doing likewise. On the way I passed this ditched Hurricane, without seeing the pilot's dinghy.



Two Heinkels destroyed, one Heinkel and a 109 damaged, I think - I haven't checked BoB2's records for the mission (which are mission rather than pilot persona oriented, in the 'commander' campaigns) but I'll be happy with that. Overall, it's a different picture - I don't recall what the raid's target was, but those Messerschmitts did a pretty good job of making sure it got bombed.

The next raid we intercepted I think bombed Manston - again. In the real battle, this exposed, much-bombed and even strafed airfield was the location of possibly revisionist stories that ground personnel had taken to the shelters and refused to leave.

This time, I was flying for 605 (County of Warwick) Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force. I'm in UP-L, leading Green Section as usual, and Manston is the grassy area above my wing, on the left; it shows no sign of having just been bombed.



As another player pointed out to me, the advantage of flying in Green Section in BoB2 is that you are on the outside of the formation, giving you a bit more latitude. Here's the other three sections, as we head for the bombers. Green 2 and Green 3 are out of shot either side of and behind me. As usual in BoB2 since the multiskin patch, not only do we have correct squadron codes, but invididual aircraft letters. However, we all have the 'B' Scheme upper surface pattern, BoB2 not providing the mirror image A Scheme alternative.



Looking to my right I could see Green 3, and beyond him a port which I'm fairly sure was Dover, with its distinctive moles or breakwaters.



And up ahead were the Huns. All three groups turned out to be bombers; my first reaction was that the ones on the right, further out, were snappers - escorts. The surprising thing was that they were flying south, away from Manston and back to France. I padlocked one of the groups and issued the 'Bandits!' call on the R/T (which you can hear played back to you, so you get to hear yourself reporting the type of target, bearing and relative altitude). If your squadron leader has not done so already, this usually gets an acknowledgement, followed by rudimentary attack orders. The second part of which you can see in the text display at the bottom of the pic, which you could supress as it's exactly what you hear on the radio.



We chased the enemy out over the Channel but then, the boss ordered the squadron to reform, generally a sign of an attack being broken off. In frustration, I chased after the bombers, getting uncomfortably close to the French coast - the port you can see ahead is possibly Dunkirk. Naturally by this time I had established that there were after all no enemy fighters in the vicinity - I hoped.



In BoB2 if you are a section leader, you can't issue IL-2-type orders to your wingmen - you just lead them where you want to go and a sort of AI Standard Operating Procedure takes over. So you can concentrate on what you are doing. Which in this case, was wading into those Heinkels.





I damaged one in my first pass and coming in for a second one, saw that he had begun to lag behind the rest of the formation. So I went for him again...



This time, there was no doubt whatever about the outcome...





Enough was enough. I turned around and headed home, pausing in mid-Channel to allow Green 2 and Green 3 to re-appear and catch up. Which they duly did. Home, and tea! Green Section had earned its pay, any rate.

Nice shots

I always had some kind of a glich to play with in this game, but when it played right. It was a lot of fun.

Very nice 33lima. My recent distractions have my copy of BOB II WOV still sitting on my desk here waiting for me to install it and learn the ropes of using it. Soon hopefully. Keep up the good work with the AARs Sir.

S!Blade<><

The last raid of the morning of 22 July was, as they say, a corker. Since the tempo markedly increased a few campaign days back, I have become accustomed to more raids, but smaller ones. This new threat was reported as a hundred plus, about three times the size of most recent raids. Its marker, moved on the big Ops Room map by an invisible WAAF, showed the raid coming north across the Channel, headed ominously towards a solitary convoy off the coast near Brighton.

A moment of panic ensued as I called up various still semi-familiar dialogues in an effort to see what I could do about it, with several squadrons still refuelling and rearming after earlier sorties. I knew I had accepted a campaign AI ‘directive’ for a proportionate response, but took no chances, and ordered up several squadrons, as well as re-vectoring a 12 Group patrol, which had recently arrived to cover one of 11 Group’s airfields.

Was the target the convoy, the coastal belt airfields, or something else? I knew that raids often threw dog-legs into their routes, so it was hard to be sure. Watching the movement of the friendly blue and white plots on the map, what was certain was that my squadrons would meet the enemy one at a time, the first one just about the time the raid passed the convoy. If those hundred Huns held their course.

Which they did. The Hurricanes of 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron spotted the bandits first, well out over the water. I accepted the offer to fly with them (Green Leader, as usual). If you're sick of seeing screenshots of Hurricanes, look away now.



Looking up at the incoming raid, this is what I saw. It was above us, very big, and coming our way. You can see from the text read-out of the R/T message the player hears that our AI squadron leader - Red Leader, by default - has given his situation-specific orders on the blower. He's using the squadron code name, 'Chester', and a credible effort at authentic radio voice procedure for the time and place. Attention to details like this tends to be what makes the better-researched and constructed sims stand out from the less well.



Green Section is the second section in B Flight, so it's our job to tackle the escorts. Because this raid was not only big, it definitely had escorts. And they were on the qui vive. As I watched, a group on the right of the formation broke ranks, loosened up and began to expand, as it drew closer. Here they come! As they did so, the boss was finishing his orders.



Instinctively, I pulled up harder to meet them and edged slightly right, away from the rest of the squadron, to give myself a bit of elbow room.



Up ahead, the untidy swarm of escorts was closing on us fast. It's not very clear in this pic, but there look to be five wedges of about ten bombers each, with squadrons of smaller aircraft - 109s probably - either side of the leading wedge. And what looks like another squadron of escorts to the rear of the whole formation. All coming on inexorably. Except the nearest escorts who are coming straight down on us. [EDIT - in retrospect, I think the ragged diagonal line of specks just right of my nose is another RAF squadron about to intercept, but I generally avoid using labels or markers so I didn't know at the time.]



Next thing you know, it's raining 110s as the diving escorts hit and break up our climbing attack. Unsubtle, but effective. Well, it's my job and Blue Section's to deal with this lot, so I had better get busy.



A last look upward reveals that only a couple of Hurricanes have managed to hold their course to get at the bombers. There goes that plan then. Was it Napoleon who said that no plan survives contact with the enemy? Anyhow, time to deal with these big Messerchmitts, leaving the bombers to those who come after us. I hoped.



...to be continued!

Those 110 pilots must have rather fancied themselves, because they stayed to fight instead of zooming back up, or diving on through. Perhaps they still foolishly believed Luftwaffe intelligence chief 'Beppo' Schmidt's assessment that only the Spitfire was a match for the Me110, and a skilfully-flown one at that. Bit off the mark, there. As I was determined to prove. I had a pop at this fellow first, who seemed to be on his own.



After a bit of milling around, gradually losing height, I got him with my third or fourth burst.





The next 110 I singled out tried to use the vertical, but he fared no better.





For an encore, I chased after another 110 who was attacking a Hurricane from behind. There is an air fight going on beyond them, another one at nearly the same level to the left of my armour glass windshield, and a third one lower down on the right, where somebody has just gone into the water.



Having chased off the 110, I suddenly noticed a single-seater with angular wings and a pronounced dihedral. Until then, I hadn't realised we were engaged with 109s, as well. I chased this fellow for a bit, and managed to nick him...



...but then lost the beggar and instead, tried to locate Green 3, who was in a spot of bother...



The F5 key will padlock whoever last transmitted this sort of call, but in this case I didn't need to. IIRC, Green 3 was the Hurricane visible just above my bulbous, Spitfire-type Rotol prop spinner, being harried by one, possibly two, 110s.



I managed to get there in time, but only damaged the Hun. At the cost of the rest of my ammo.



The sky was still pretty thick with Messerschmitts of one sort or another. So rather than run for it and risk getting the chop, I decided I had better act dangerous, for the time being.



Green 2 and 3 were likely not far away, but I had lost sight of them. If I hung around long enough, and managed to avoid getting shot down, perhaps things would just fizzle out. That was the plan, anyway.

...to be continued!

I don't know about you, but it's at times like this, when I'm running around out of ammo and hanging grimly onto the tail of a 109, that the saying comes to mind, about having a tiger by the tail. And wondering, when you do let go, quite how things will develop.



Especially when you can see that the sky is still alive with other tigers, all quite happy to chew your tail or wings off. You can't see many of them in this pic as they are mostly just specks, but they are there. I could see them.



I got as close as I could to the 109, who was probably put off from trying to dive away by the closeness of the water...



...and then I just broke hard and ran for it, steering roughly north, and home. Again, it's not clear in this next picture, below, but there are a lot of planes still fighting, from the left edge of the screenshot to about where you can see the smoke trail up in the sky, going straight down. I was not especially confident of sneaking past that lot, without attracting unwelcome tiger attention.



Up ahead loomed the convoy. There were signs of recent air activity in that direction, but no actual aircraft...apart from the one going down. The ships looked static, but I think that's because they don't have wakes in BoB2, unfortunately.



As I flashed over the convoy, I could see that one of the escorting destroyers was putting up some Ack-Ack - fortunately, not at me. Especially so, since from the dark blemishes on the water, it looked like somebody had been dropping sticks of bombs on them. They could have been forgiven for shooting at anything with wings, but I don't think BoB2 does friendly fire due to IFF errors -- anyhow, the infamous Battle of Barking Creek is not one of the included single missions. So I made good my escape and was soon over home territory, looking for other returning friends and a vector to my home airfield.



Having flown several exciting missions one after the other and finally got away with my skin in the last one, I quit the flight then saved and quit the campaign. If I recall right, back at the Ops Room, BoB2 had ended the morning session at that point, without presenting me any more opportunities to fly. I expect this was because the other RAF squadrons which made contact did so while I was in the mission. To be honest, I was quite relieved. This BoB2 RAF campaign is certainly giving me a feel not only for the command and control aspect of the Battle, but also for the strain on fighter pilots flying repeated sorties against superior numbers and an apparently determined, skilful and relentless foe. In particular, that first glimpse of an oncoming aerial armada in close formation can produce real alarm, something as close to fear as you're going to get playing an air combat sim. Super stuff.

Bravo 33lima, I love it. Your pictures are great. Are you having to pause the sim to take them or are you recording or are these pics taken on the fly? Does BOB II have a built in recorder?
I look forward to your next report Sir. S!

S!Blade<><

Edit: check this dumbass Chinese zoo employee out. Drunk maybe?

Yep, that pic's about how it felt! Except I was stone-cold sober, sadly

I pause the sim when I want to take a pic, if I think it'll be worth recording and maybe useful in a mission report, and can change view or zoom in or out and pan around while paused, to get a decent viewpoint. Can be awkward at times as the wily Hun can often escape, since he knows full well you have had to let go the joystick and will never pick it up again in the exact same position.

BoB2 has a sort of gun camera based recorder, which I haven't actually used at all, yet. I don't think it records sound, read that somewhere; any Old Hands reading will be able to clarify. The 2.13 manual you will have after installing that update says this of the facility; I don't know if you can change views while replaying, as you could in Il-2 with the right setting:

"RECORDING
There are several ways to record footage. The simplest is to set the Gun Camera option in the Sim Config/Views screen to On. This will record the mission from start to end. Setting this option to Trigger will record when the player shoots or drops a bomb. The recording will stop shortly after the player has stopped firing, and for one minute after a bomb has been dropped. The player can also toggle the gun camera on/off by using the “C” key. Both this and the recording on trigger will concatenate recorded pieces during the same mission together into a single replay file for that mission. It is possible to throw away all current footage and begin again by pressing the “X” key."

PMed you Sir. Part 1.

S!Blade<><

A massacre! That was the only word for it - my first mission on the afternoon of 22 July 1940. But who got massacred?

Read on, to find out!

Hostile 101, sixty plus, is being plotted approaching the coastal airfield of Tangmere, from the south-east. I watch the Ops Room map intently as the fighter squadrons scrambled by the campaign AI rush south to intercept. Thirty-two Squadron, coming down from Biggin Hill, spots the bandits first, with 111 - 'Treble-one' - not far behind. The WAAFs report that the raid has split up, with one element moving away to the south - as it turned out, the 109s that were sweeping ahead of the Hun bombers. By the time I join 32, the 109s seem to have disappeared somewhere amongst the cloudbanks that are now sweeping in. All I can see is the bombers - but they're making their run in towards Tangmere!



And they haven't got far to go! I quickly realise there's not a cat in Hell's chance of us getting to them first. I quickly report the Bandits to the boss on the R/T. He confirms he's seem them, and quickly gives the order for us to attack independently (I'm not making this up, BoB2 really does generate, play and display all this dialogue).



At this point, the Ack Ack people let fly. But their barrage, while looking ok for height, seems to be trailing the Huns by quite a bit, at first.



I lead Green Section towards the bombers on the left, at full throttle. The rest of the squadron is above and behind us...apart from one fellow who is climbing up, having temporarily lost control. The distant group of aircraft under my left wing as you look at my Hurricane must be Treble-one, rushing to catch up.



I see the bombers turn left for home and know this means they have bombed. Sure enough, down below, Tangmere is catching a packet. The bombing seems to have been both accurate and concentrated; it will be a miracle if any of the hangars and station buildings under that lot are still intact when the smoke clears.



Keen to exact retribution, we tear into the turning bombers - Heinkels. I only manage to damage one of them, but somebody else sends one down minus a large part of a wing. And the gunners down below are now firing right into middle of the developing air fight - maybe they got the Heinkel, it's hard to be sure.



My own target seems to have fallen out of formation, so I attack the Hun next to him in my second pass. In the excitement, we seem to have forgotten for now about the possibility the escort will show up. The enemy, meanwhile, is nearing the coast close to the prominent headland at Selsey Bill, west of Bognor Regis.



In my haste to punish the Huns for clobbering Tangmere, my shooting hasn't been particularly good, and the enemy formation looks to have suffered only a couple of losses. Time to have another go, before they get away. or the 109s show up!



...to be continued!

For my third pass on the Heinkels, I again go for the group on the left. But this time, I steer for the fellow on the inside, partly to stay clear of the Hurricanes you can see ahead of me in the next pic, as they broke.



I get some hits on my target, but without obvious results. You may be able to see in some of these pics that these Heinkels have the unit code V4, which indicates thay are from Kampfgeschwader 1 'Hindenburg'.



By the time I break up and away, we are whittling away nicely at the Huns, with the group I am attacking seeming to have suffered the worst.





I come in for another pass, and damage another Heinkel - a different one I think, my previous target having dropped out of formation, and maybe even gone down.





As I come around for yet another crack, I briefly lose sight of the Huns, who have started another turn, onto a more southerly heading. They are still being hounded by Hurricanes, all the way.



I slip off to the right this time, and have a good look around before making my next move. I am alone, the BoB2 wingman AI seeming to put attacking their assigned target ahead of following me around - not inappropriate for the period, probably. At any rate, the only fighters in sight are Hurricanes, thank goodness.



In fact, there are so many Hurris that I have to work hard to stay out of their way while getting at the Huns again. I hadn't realised it yet in the excitement, but 111 Squadron is now on the job, too. In fact at this stage we probably out-number the Heinkels!



Predictably, my ammo gives out and I have to break off my attack without doing any damage.



As I swing around, it is obvious that others still have rounds left, and are making good use of them.



I trail along behind to watch the fighting for a while. On the right, you can see a conveyor belt of Hurricanes ripping into the main body of the Heinkels. On the left, the group on that side seems to have been chopped down to three survivors, all damaged, who have wisely put some distance between themselves and the centre of action.



I orbit for a while to see if the others began to break off too, then turn north for home, throttling back to enable Green 2 and 3 to catch up. I am quite relieved when they both do. A check with the rest of the squadron brings the answer that they are further north, already on their way home. So when I notice another presumably friendly group of fighters behind us on a parallel course, I reckon it must be 'Treble one', having finally broken off the action. And so they are - I can make out their code letters, JU, as I close in on them for some company on the way back to Biggin Hill.



So today, it was the Heinkels of KG1 that got massacred.

As shown in the 'Squadron Diary', we have lost just two damaged in our tussle with Hostile 101. The campaign results in BoB2 may still not always jive precisely with the rather excessively bloody outcomes from missions flown in 3d; but 8 destroyed and the same damaged is a a very respectable 'bag' for 32 Squadron. I'm not sure what the 'mimimal damage' assessment relates to - the raid's target looked hard hit, and the raiders certainly were.



The bad news is that our claims are now significantly behind losses. I suspect this is because we are now losing aircraft on the ground, at bombed fighter bases. I can only hope that when I look at the statistics in more detail, I will find that pilot loss rates are not getting any worse, and that production of fighters is at least keeping pace with losses . If not...well, we may indeed be fighting them on the beaches, next!

Taking a break from the strain of battling hairy hordes of Huns...or is it hordes of hairy Huns...either way, today I'm flying BoB2's rendition of Brian Lane's 19 Squadron Spitfire on the takeoff training mission, operating out of Debden, if I remember my airfield selection correctly.



The CO wasn't impressed. I took the time to taxi out onto the paved runway first, and was told that if I took that long on ops, I would be mincemeat. TBH I think BoB2's COs are a bit on the fussy side. I very rarely get complimented on a takeoff, even if I manage to bounce only once or twice

Yes the CO/instructor in the take off training missions is very demanding. It has been many years since I last took off but I think the best I got out of him was a very reluctant admission that the time was all right but the take off was rather shaky, or words to that effect.

The sound in the gun camera recordings was very spotty at best, sometimes I got the sound of the guns and ambient engine sounds but usually just silence. I can't remember if the sounds were gone entirely by the last update.

Anyway, 33lima, as always lovely shots. I come here to look and admire every time you post!

Thank goodness it isn't just me that's due a conversion course 'from spring chicken to sh!tehawk in one easy lesson'!

Another break from the daily grind, sees me escorting KG55's Heinkels to knock seven colours of the aforementioned obnoxious substance out of Bristol's at Filton.

The results were amusing, even impressive, for a while....



...even when the Englanders' flak began filling the skies around us with impressive displays of vicious and noisy fireworks...



I got separated from my schwarm when the air-fighting started, and it was hard to work out who was shooting down whom...



I did eventually manage to pick out a Hurricane, which I hit and sent down. Not fatally damaged I have to admit, because in my haste I hadn't selected cannon, just MGs. Verdamt!



It was some consolation that the target had evidently received a good German pasting, from KG55's Heinkels...



But it all went to pot, as the Englander would say, when yellow tracers suddenly started flashing past from behind, spoiling my sight-seeing, and indicating this impertinent fellow had showed up...



After that, it was all downhill, to borrow another English expression...



...rapidly downhill...

Caught on the ground! Again! How did it happen?

It started badly. In the late afternoon (still 22 July in my RAF 'commander' campaign) Hostile 401, a 'hundred plus' raid, is rapidly approaching Convoy Felix. No patrol is on station and I rush to divert other squadrons, which the plot shows coming down from the north.



They are too late - the convoy is hit, fortunately suffering only light damage. The raid splits and then turns for home. I order my squadrons to return to base. But the Luftwaffe's not done yet. A couple of campaign hours later, a new raid is picked up and plotted - Hostile 751, 'sixty plus', heading in the general direction of the same convoy. By this time the squadrons scrambled earlier are back on 'the tote', available again for action. I order one squadron to patrol the convoy and three others to intercept the raid. That should give the Huns something to think about - this time I haven't left it too late and I can see our fighters will catch the raid, if not before it hits the convoy, then before it turns for home.



First to spot the bandits is 609 Squadron and I jump in as Green Leader, glad to be flying a Spit for a change. As I'd hoped, we're meeting the enemy well out over the Channel.



Off to 609's left, I can see another of our squadrons converging on the raid. Somewhere a bit further back are two others. I'm looking forward to ensuring this raid doesn't get away scot free, like the last one.



The raid's escorts have different ideas. A gaggle of 109s is sweeping ahead of the bombers and even as the CO is completing his attack orders on the R/T, the snappers are tearing straight into us, splitting up our formation and forcing us to fight for our own skins.



I pull up hard...



...and come around onto the tail of one of the Messerschmitts. He's fast and I can't gain ground...



...until I manage to land some hits on him, visible from the white flashes of the impacts. He pulls up sharply and I go up after him, but I lose him for a second...until I realise he's feet away above my canopy, so close I could chuck a stone at him...if I had one...





I try to roll into him but only succeed in losing him for good. I make several tight turns to clear my tail, fearful that he hasn't lost me. By the time I feel safe, the sky seems to have emptied, as they so often say it does during an air fight.

By this time, I'm over the coastline and looking left to the east in the direction of Dover, I get a nasty shock. The grassy airfield of Hawkinge, just north of the port of Folkestone, has been bombed! They weren't after the convoy, after all!



Looking around for somebody to punish, I notice some tracers coming up from the smoke rising from the airfield - Bofors guns in action against Huns, it must be. I can't see anyone at first but turn in that direction.



As I get closer I see the ack ack's target is a speck which turns out to be a 109. He veers away from me, towards some contrailing aircraft further east. You can just about see him above the reticle of my reflector sight. Evidently, the beggar hasn't noticed me. You'll do, I tell him silently.



I manage to get close and let fly. He turns hard left and disappears under my nose as I roll left and pull the stick back to cut inside his turn. Next second the 109 suddenly pulls up right in front of me and instead of instantly breaking to avoid a collision, I decide to take a snap shot first, get some rounds into him while he's there, right in front of me. Big mistake!



Back in the Ops Room, I can see Hawkinge wasn't just bombed - reports coming in confirm it was put out of action. And aircraft were caught on the ground - valuable fighters, this being one of our belt of coastal fighter bases. Whatever casualties were inflicted by 609 and the other squadrons I scrambled, we didn't stop this happening.



Overall, our losses and our claims now seem to be nearly in step, with our own aircraft production doing a slightly better job of keeping up than the enemy's. A narrow margin it is. We're still in business, but as well as organising effective interceptions, I need to get fighters threatened on the ground, into the air. Needless losses on bombed airfields I just can't afford.

It’s now the early evening of 22 July 1940. The weather has remained clear and there are several hours of daylight left, which the Luftwaffe is not going to waste. I look down at BoB2’s Ops Room map. Above the footsteps and other intermittent background noises, I hear a WAAF calmly announce a new raid forming – Hostile 851, thirty plus. Earlier raids have been against my eastern flank, towards Dover and its famous white cliffs. This time, they’re going straight down the middle. There are no convoys in the area, so possible targets include nearby ports like Southampton, or 11 Group’s pair of coastal fighter bases near Chichester – the sector station at Tangmere with its own vital ops room, or the nearby satellite station at Westhampnett.

Out to the west, beyond the Isle of Wight, 234 Squadron’s Spitfires, from neighbouring 10 Group, are patrolling a coastal convoy. Rather than leave this interception to the campaign AI, I re-vector 234 to intercept the raid. I do the same for 501 Squadron, also from 10 Group and 32 Squadron, from convoy patrol further east. I completely forget to do anything about the aircraft on the ground at Tangmere and Hawkinge, which have both been bombed before. Whatever is left there will have to take its chances.



First to spot the bandits is 234; so I jump in as Green Leader. A quick check of my fuel gauge shows that I still have plenty left from my earlier patrol task. Green 2 and Green are in position, tight on either side.



Up ahead is the raid. The two groups on the right seem to be bombers, with what might be 109s or 110s out to their left. Further right, roughly above my radio mast, is a group of aircraft which must be 32 Squadron coming across from the east. The boss isn’t saying anything yet, so I turn on padlock and call them in. I hear myself on the R/T reporting fighters and then bombers at 12 o’clock. The boss confirms he’s seen them - ‘Help yourself’ is the gist of his orders.



The 109s are by now off to the left somewhere, so with the rest of 234 between us and them, I edge Green Section out to the right and swing in behind the nearest group of about thirty bombers as they sweep past. As usual in BoB2 when you’re close enough, medium bombers are identifiable from their tight formation, most often in groups of ten or fifteen in two or three wide vics of five apiece, stepped up to the rear. As I go in, the rest of 234 has cut the corner and is also about to attack, so I hang back briefly to let them have first whack.



These particular Huns are Ju88s,. I go for the one on the left rear of the nearest group, coming in from astern and taking my chances with return fire. The results are spectacular – the Junkers first starts smoking, then, after a final burst, blows up!



I’ve not escaped unscathed, though. In particular, a round - or was it a piece of the disintegrating bomber? - has whacked into my armoured glass windscreen. This rather spoils my view through the gunsight. As I break away to contemplate how this might affect my next move, Green 2 is making his attack. And a look behind to clear my tail reveals not 109s, but a squadron of Hurricanes in a compact mass, streaking in to hit the Huns.



I pull up and to the right, to see how this goes. Already, the first rounds are being exchanged. A flash from the leading Hurricane and smoke streaming back from one of the bombers shows that both sides are getting hits, already. If only the 109s don't intervene, we could do these boys some serious damage.



...to be continued!

I wait for 32 Squadron to finish their attack, before slipping back down to make my next one.



But there’s a problem. I find my damaged windscreen makes aiming near impossible, forcing me to come in from below so that I actually can see something of my target as I approach. At closer range, the bomber I’m trying to get at is almost completely hidden by the damaged glass.

Struggling to do some decent shooting, I come in low but quickly lose my target behind the smashed glass. In my frustration to get some results from the pass, instead of breaking away, I foolishly end up flying on through the formation, shooting at anything and everything that comes into my line of sight. More through luck than judgement, I avoid colliding with anything. But I can see yellow tracers flashing past and hear the metallic impact of those that hit me. By the time I come out the other side, my Spitfire had been fairly plastered by return fire.



There are holes everywhere (except the nose - I’ve yet to see a damage decal show there in BoB2) and my engine is running badly, losing power and surging.



I come around for another go, by which time the Ju88s are now being attacked by 234's Spitfires again. I’m unable to join them; my engine is struggling, though not leaving a trail of smoke. The Spit wants to roll right and I need to hold the stick well left and forward, to maintain something resembling level flight. It's just as well those 109s spotted earlier seem to have disappeared, for some reason...perhaps 501 Squadron, coming down from the north-west, has kept them occupied.

I tag along behind the Huns for a while, easy prey for any 109 that should come along. None do. I’m not even keeping up with the 88s, let alone closing the range. All I can do is watch.



And there’s plenty to see. A succession of fighter attacks knocks down bomber after bomber.





By this time, we’re over the coast and I’m glancing down at Tangmere’s paved runways and the grass of Westhampnett nearby, fully expecting the bombs to start bursting on one of them.



Up ahead, it's not all one-way traffic, for at least one attacker goes down in flames under return fire.



A little later, his parachute slips past, not far to my right...



The Huns are getting very much the worst of the fighting, though. I reckon only half the bombers will still be in formation when they reach their aiming point - whatever it is. Finally, I see the smoke rising from Westhampnett. It’s hard to be sure, but the bombs have certainly not hit the landing ground itself. It looks like they may have gone wide of the airfield altogether. We may have put the bombers off their aim, as well as exacting a stiff toll for their visit.



The air battle is still going on when I turn away, about the same time as the surviving Ju88s come left and around, to make their own getaway.



I often end the mission at this point rather than make an uneventful flight back to base, especially if it’s a long trip. But I’m clearly unlikely to make it all the way to 234’s home airfield at Warmwell, some distance away to the west. As there are other options nearby, I decide to continue flying and land. I descend towards Tangmere, visible just beyond the smoke rising from Westhampnett.



I call up Control to get a wind direction at ground level. This comes back as 180 degrees, but by the time I come down, revs still dropping, I find myself poorly positioned to use Tangmere’s shorter, north-south runway. So I curve into nearby Westhampnett, whose grassy landing ground gives me a bit more leeway as regards landing direction, at the cost of less room to make my approach. A tight turn onto a curving short final further reduces the speed built up during my descent, and I can safely drop both undercart and flaps. Winding back the elevator trim then stops the rattling and shuddering, but by this time my nose is dropping sharply and I have to pull back hard on the stick to brake my rate of descent as I roll out of the turn. The good news, as I had suspected, is that the bombs have not only missed the landing ground, but fallen off the airfield to the west.



By this time, I have realised that I should have bailed out while I still had the height for it. My surging engine means that I am porpoising badly as I come in, unable to maintain a steady sink rate. I just about clear the airfield's perimeter track, then touch down, hard. Too hard. The Spit somersaults - and that's that.



Back in the relative safety of the Ops Room, a quick check of 234’s squadron dairy shows that we are claiming 9 bombers destroyed, and as many again damaged, for a moderate loss in aircraft and pilots. It also casts doubt on whether we really say any 109s. The Hurricanes from 32 Squadron which I saw intercepting are claiming 2 downed and 2 damaged but have lost 8 - perhaps the 109s got them, instead. Five-oh-one must have been late for the party, because their diary shows no claims or losses. I’m just sorry my own role in the battle wasn’t more constructive, and my sortie’s ending wasn’t less destructive.



But the war goes on. Already, a fresh raid is reported, coming in from the west again, where the damaged Convoy Felix is still chugging along near Dover, and my coastal fighter fields at Hawkinge and Lympne are both heaving damaged. It’s been a long day and it’s not over yet!

A massive report to go with the massive action!

Cheers Rick - glad you're having equal fun with - and with comrades-in-virtual-arms are flying the mission report flag for - WoTR!

At last! A new day has dawned, 23 July 1940. Even though the BoB2 commander campaign lacks the objective of individual pilot survival, I’m finding that simply getting to the end of each day with the best results you can, is a satisfactory substitute. It’s like completing a mission in a conventional pilot campaign, except that I’ve had the experience of flying several missions, each with their own challenges, to get there, not just one.

They say the early bird gets the worm; today, the greedy Luftwaffe eagle is up for an early breakfast. By 06:30, looking down at the BoB2 Ops Room map, I hear a WAAF announce the first raid, Hostile 701. Its marker, showing sixty-plus, begins to track north across the wide stretch of the English Channel between Cap Gris Nez near Calais, and the Cherbourg peninsula over to the west. It could be headed for the port of Southampton, or the damaged airfields of Tangmere and Westhampnett. Or maybe targets further inland, or the RDF/radar stations along the coast. Three squadrons are directed to intercept it, a mix of scrambles by the campaign AI and myself manually scrambling or re-vectoring existing patrols. I watch as the three blue and white fighter squadron markers come down from the north, almost one behind the other, and see that the leading one will meet the raid just before it crosses the coast.

First to sight the bandits is 19 Squadron, famous for being the first equipped with the Spitfire. I accept the offer to fly, choosing Green Leader as usual.



This puts me out to the right flank of the tight squadron formation where I have some elbow room, and means I don’t need to direct the whole squadron.



As expected, the bandits are right ahead - and slightly higher. Apart from a few Reichs defence missions in modded Il-2 ’46 and the venerable European Air War, BoB2 is the only sim I have ever played - or seen - which gives you that oh-so-satisfying feeling compounded of awe, anticipation and apprehension, when you get your first sight of the oncoming aerial armada that you’re are about to smash into.



This morning, I can see what looks to be about thirty bombers in three groups of around ten. Of rather more concern, there’s also a veritable cloud of smaller specks which can only be snappers – fighters. These look to be slightly below the bombers, and as I watch, a group of them loses its tight formation as the individual aircraft start manoeuvring. This can only mean one thing – they have spotted us, and are coming to get us. And it must be us – no other RAF squadrons are anywhere in sight. I can only hope that the other two I know to be in the air are not too far behind.

On spotting the bandits, I have as usual padlocked them up and then used BoB2’s comms menu to report the sighting. The message (from myself!) then displayed and heard gives the direction and relative height of first the fighters, then the bombers. Responding, the boss had acknowledged with ‘All right – I’ve got them’ and then given quick orders, detailing B Flight – which included my Green Section – to tackle the fighters. It’s maybe worth mentioning here that in these mission reports, I’m not using my imagination to embroider or enliven the story with invented dialogue or events – what you see/read is what I got. And there is much R/T chatter going on in BoB2 that I don't mention.

The boss’s orders are a bit redundant, since by the time he has finished, the fighters – 109s – are tackling us.



I come up and around to avoid a frontal attack, intending to come around behind the 109s as they sweep past. A last look above reveals the bombers merrily sailing northwards completely unconcerned, with the rest of their close escort still in place. I’m tempted to go for them but my own squadron has enough on its hands without me going glory hunting.



So I return my gaze to our attackers and chase one of the Messerschmitts. He jinks and turns, but I see flashes from some hits. This causes him to jink some more.



After a few more hits, he makes a diving turn towards the sea. Rather than follow him down out of the battle, I break to clear my tail and look for another victim. But the sky suddenly seems to have cleared of the 20-30 aircraft which were there just a few seconds ago. Where is everybody?

I hear one of the boys calling for help and looking back out to sea, notice a speck trailing smoke, tailed by another one. So I head on over that way, but lose sight of both aircraft when, still just faint specks, they dip below the horizon.



By now I’m over the coast, and all I can see is the occasional aircraft flitting about much lower down, friend or foe I cannot tell – not without turning on labels anyway, and I prefer being in the dark to playing God. At least I know where I am – below me is Beachy Head, with its famous red and white ringed lighthouse on the eponymous beach at the foot of the cliffs.



There’s now no sign of even the thirty bombers, or whatever it is they have bombed – as I found out later, back in the Ops Room, they had basically destroyed Westhampnett airfield, somewhere off to my east. Out of curiosity I turn on the map and see that the markers indicating German aircraft seem either to be off the coast or heading back that way. Ignoring this God view information, I call up the squadron on the R/T, to be told they are to my north, in the direction of our home airfield and thus likely homeward bound. There may have been a reform order given, but I don’t recall hearing it. I could ask control for a vector to bandits, but I haven’t seen Green 2 or Green 3 since we ran into the 109s, so I decide to call it quits rather than try to win the war single-handed. I should have kept after that first 109, I tell myself ruefully, for all the good I have done since I let him go.

Back in the Ops Room, the next raid is reported and plotted forming up and then coming in, even as the previous one heads back to France. This time, the Huns are coming across the narrowest part of the Channel, the Straits of Dover. Their target could be the latter port, or nearby airfields, although the closest two, Hawkinge and Lympne, are already both heavily damaged and out of action. Here we go again. Despite the rather flat start, this is going to be another of those busy days!

It's now nearly 08:00 and Hostile 702 is rapidly approaching the coast near Dover, which is reported to be the likely target. But the raid flies on inland, with the two squadrons I manage to organise for an interception struggling to catch up, By disabling Hawkinge and nearby Lympne, Goering's boys have effectively blasted a gap in my outer ring of fighter stations. And now they are pouring through that gap.

By the time 32 Squadron catches up and I drop in as Green Leader...



...the raid is level with London and still hearing north. It's also several thousand feet higher, so while reporting the sighting on the R/T, I pull up sharply after them. There are plenty of targets in this area, including Tilbury Docks and the oil storage tanks at Thameshaven, so I'm not surprised to see the Huns are attracting ack ack at intervals along their flight path. BDG modder Stickman has put a lot of effort into deploying the correct AA batteries in their historical locations and it shows.



The raiders seem rather fast, even allowing for speed lost as we climb. After a fruitless chase the boss orders a course of 220, well away from the enemy. A check of my fuel guages shows no problem there. Not understanding the reason for the course change and reluctant for the virtual Londoners down below to see the raid unintercepted, I carry on after them. After a while, the rest of 32 is just a bunch of specks over to our left rear.



The Huns - who seem all to be bombers - are by now still going north, before turning and settling onto a more westerly course, roughly parallel to the Thames, well north of London. They are still a bit higher and I shadow them on a gradually closing course, hopng to catch them when they finally turn left across my nose to head south again. That will take them over London, and I am determined to make them pay for any bomb dropped on the great city, even if I can't actually stop them with just three Hurricanes. Well, two actually, for Green 3 seems to have disappeared somewhere.



By now, I can see landmarks like the Victoria and Royal Albert Docks over on the left of the pic, and the Isle of Dogs and its own docks hemmed in by the famous U bend in the Thames. Up above, the cloudless blue sky will make a fine backdrop to the air battle, when it comes.



We're now getting close, at which point the ack ack boys open up again.



Having come so far I'm in no mood to hang back now, so I plough on into the thick of it.



Suddenly, as the formation begins a left turn, one of the bombers is falling away, trailing smoke and minus part of a wing. Looks like the gunner boys have found the range!



Now it's the turn of the fighter boys. I can see now that the Jerries are Ju88s, which explains their turn of speed. Finally I close the range and let fly at the bomber on the outside left of the nearest group.



Sometimes, the Hun air gunners are better than others, in BoB2. This time, they seem fairly hot, for rounds are smacking into my machine. But I hold my aim and don't break until my target has turned out of formation with his right engine on fire. Got him!



I go slightly over the vertical as I bank hard to get out of the line of return fire before something bad happens to me, too.



As the range opens up, I level off. One down - only another twenty-nine to go!



to be continued!

I come back after the Ju88s – there are actually 28 not 29, both ack ack and me having got one.



In the meantime, Green 2 (or the gunners – I’m not sure) has damaged one from the front of the pack, leaving the Hun trailing smoke.



I attack the bomber next to the right from the one I shot out of the rear group. I quickly take and get hits. Smoke from the damaged Hun streams back over me, so instead of firing half-blind and risking running into him, I slide over to the right and engage the bomber on the opposite side.





My eye seems to be in today and an engine goes up in flames. A few missions back, I noticed that I had target size set to medium, which makes getting hits easier but distributes them more widely.



Since reducing that to the lowest/hardest level, I’m finding that the ability to aim for specific parts of the target mostly repays the lower hit probability. On a good day, anyhow. And today seems to be a good day…so far…

I break away to take stock, having taken some hits in the process. Everything seems to be working normally.



Right-O, here we go again. Ahead and slightly left, I'm cheered to see Green 2 making another pass, so I come in as fast as I can to spread the return fire



By now, we are over the East End of London, where the docks and other targets abound. But there is still no sign of any bombing being done. There are some airfields (Croydon, Biggin Hill and Kenley) to the south of London and roughly on the Huns’ way home, but it begins to look as if either they are not going to bomb, or – much more likely - in the excitement I have not noticed them doing so. Switching to tour guide mode for a moment, if you look up to the top left, you can see Tower Bridge over the Thames, and next to it on the northern bank, the Tower of London.



Green 2 has the bit between his teeth and gets there ahead of me. His reward is another Ju88 going down. Despite less than stellar co-ordination, we're proving a decent double act. Flanagan and Allen have nothing on us.



The bomber I left smoking has refused to straggle and is still in formation. I decide he will be the best target – I’m getting low on ammo and an already-damaged bomber is more likely to go down with less rounds. This works out quite nicely.



Before I have to worry about being blinded by smoke, I can see fire has taken hold. So can the bomber crew, for they are wasting no time in bailing out, with the first chute open and the second beginning to.



The other Huns are meanwhile doing their very best to knock me down, too.



These Ju88s are A-5 models with the longer-span wings of the chronologically-later A-4. When hit, they seem to be more prone to engine fires than either Heinkels or Dorniers. For some reason, if this machine is anything to go by, the BoB2 Ju88s seem to have a crew of five, rather than four.



Anyhow I’ve been pushing my luck and my Hurricane has been accumulating hits. My last pass results in my ammo running out almost at once, doing no visible further damage, in return for taking yet more hits. By the time I break off, my trusty Merlin is running unevenly and the aircraft wants to roll to the left. Time to go home! At least I have given the Londoners – those who haven’t taken to the shelters when the air raid sirens sounded, anyhow – something to cheer about.



If you're wondering why the BoB2 Hurricane has this bulbous, slightly oversize prop spinner, apparently this is the one for the Rotol constant-speed propeller for the Spitfire, fitted before the proper, more bullet-like Hurricane version became available, for the Mark 2. Hurricanes with a 3-blade prop and a smaller, distinctly pointed spinner have the earlier De Havilland 2-speed prop - which was converted to constant-speed operation by late July for Spits, and by mid-August for Hurricanes.

I’m a bit short of real-world time to fly home, so I quit and return to the Ops Room. I have only really begun to explore the many info boxes available but I remember that there is one which will answer that burning question - what the bombers actually bombed. This is the Hostiles List, as seen below, which does exactly what it says on the tin.



So - this is interesting! - the answer is, Hostile 702 bombed North Weald. This is an 11 Group fighter airfield north-east of London. I take a moment to ponder the significance of this information. Having pounded many of our outlying fighter bases, the Luftwaffe has now extended its attacks to the inner ring of airfields around the capital! I get the sense of plans drawn against us, that are unfolding nicely – from the enemy’s point of view!

I am also getting a sense of why sims like Rowan’s Battle of Britain, its successor BoB2, and the likes of Mig Alley and Falcon 4, are so very highly regarded for their ability to give you the feeling you are part of a convincing, bigger air campaign, going on all around you, growing and developing day by day. If there’s a better-executed or more immersive and engaging air combat sim than BoB2 with the BDG 2.13 update, I have yet to see or play it.

Great report 33lima. This is getting more and more interesting mate. No progress for me, but I am off Monday so hopefully then. Keep up the great reports so we can see where this ends up mate. Maybe on the Ju88s are A-5 they have bigger wing tanks and by the time you intercept them they emptier than a smaller tank would be, as these bombers may be going longer distances to target, and your 303s aren't very friendly when playing with big wing tanks with lots of fuel fumes in them. Just physically bigger targets also. At an rate your observations make reading this AAR very interesting. Thanks for that.


S!Blade<><

Cheers Blade and looking forward to your project seeing the light of day...or night, if you see what I mean I've just flown the next mission and it's back to...you guessed, your favourite new friend...



Pics and the story behind them will be up later today.

Looking forward to it Sir. Will read this evening.

S!Blade<><

The morning of 23 July passes, and the plots dry up. Until shortly after mid-day, when the calm and unhurried voice of an unseen WAAF announces a new raid, designated Hostile 101. I watch its plot coming roughly north-west towards Southampton. By re-vectoring two patrols, I bolster the squadrons scrambled against it by the campaign AI directives (which I am invited to approve or change at the start of each daily session, of which there are three). I watch as four squadron markers converge on the raid. One of them has to give up due to a shortage of fuel. But the other three keep tracking towards the raid, now reported as sixty-plus. This is going to be interesting!



First to sight the enemy is 609 (West Riding) Squadron, formed as part of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, probably equivalent these days to the US Air National Guard. I jump in - as usual - as Green Leader. Here's the view of the squadron to the left from my cockpit. Another intercepting squadron - probably the Hurricanes of 607 (County of Durham) Squadron - is visible in the distance as a ragged row of specks. Green 2 is to the near left and Green 3 is out of sight to my right. We're flying in four tight vics or sections of three, Figher Command being trained for air defence duties against bombers rather than fighter vs fighter work. That was before the 109s were based just across the English Channel.



And it looks like about half Hostile 101's reported sixty bandits are 109s. The rest are evidently three of the usual tight, wide but shallow wedges of twin-engined bombers, type so far not identified. The thought that two more RAF squadrons are on their way helps. But for a while, we are going to be on our own against this mob. The boss is in no mood to wait for re-inforcements, and orders B Flight - which includes Green Section - to take the fighters.



A bunch of 109s breaks off and makes a pass at us. I pull up and around, then come after them. They turn away, seemingly wary of tangling with our Spits, perhaps content to break up our effort to get at the bombers.



I learn that all is not what it seems when, out of the corner of my eye, I see a Spitfire below and ahead of me briefly framed by tracer smoke trails - and then blow up!



Our Spitfires are in fact the meat in a Messerschmitt 109 sandwich.



Meanwhile, the Hun bombers and the rest of their escort roll inexorably on towards the south coast of England, not far away.



Well, we have stripped away part of the escort so it's up to the other intercepting squadrons to take it from here. B Flight's job is to keep 'our' 109s tied up. After a bit of twisting and turning to avoid getting whacked myself, I come in behind one of the beggars.



I get some hits on him and he rolls over onto his back and dives away. I try to follow him...



...but he quickly opens out the range. Seeing that he is streaming a light trail of smoke or vapour, possibly glycol, I let him go. Hopefully, he'll stay gone.



I turn left to clear my tail and look for another, more worthy target. They suddenly seem hard to find. Then the boss comes up on the blower and orders the squadron to reform. Are we breaking off so soon? I still have plenty of fuel and ammunition!



I call up the CO and ask for the squadron's whereabouts. It turns out they're to the north, between me and the coast. Unable to see them, I head that way, looking in my mirror frequently, and making what I hope to be unpredictable changes of heading about my mean course.



As I come up to the coast, I can see there is an air fight up ahead, with distant aircraft flitting back and forth, up and down - about ten of them, as far as I can see. It looks like several individual combats are going on. This will be a good opportunity to sneak up on somebody, so that's my plan.



...to be continued!

I wish I had your dexterity on the keybord for AARs, I'm ready to throw it out the window after a few sentences... You really put me in the mission though and help me appreciate how the whole Rowan air command approach works in practice!

Thanks Rick!

Now, where were we...ah yes, I remember now...

Nearing the coast, I fall in behind two fighters in trail formation which are moving across my nose from left to right. Happily, the one to the rear turns out to be a 109 so I let him have it. Not for the first time, I get hits but don't knock him down, and the usual merry dance ensues.



BoB2 is notable for its range of authentic aircraft finishes and markings, but I don't think 109s so commonly had yellow motor cowlings this early in the battle.

Anyhow I don't seem able to catch this particular yellow-nosed b**tard who leads me all over the sky.



Having to watch my tail and take pictures doesn't help. This particular pic does nicely illustrate that the 109's leading edge slats are animated in BoB2, so I suppose taking it was worth the risk.



In the end I black out trying to make a sustained high-speed, high-G turn and lose him in the darkness. Just before it went dark, my controls had stiffened up from the speed and I ease back on the stick, conscious I have been descending and the water is now close. When this control effect kicks in, with BoB2 it can be really scary; especially if you are low and all the more so if you can't see. And of course you are totally vulnerable to anyone in a position to take a shot at you.

I'm relieved when the lights come on again and I can see that I've come out one wing down and low, but have managed to avoid smacking into the Channel.

Phew! That was close!



I have lost sight of my opponent and the sky around seems clear, so I fly inland. If I can't rejoin the squadron, maybe I can catch the Hun bombers on their way home.



Soon, I see the flashes and black bursts of ack ack fire, up ahead and well inland.



Then the skies clear again as the AA fire pauses. But as I get closer, I can see a series of specks across my path, widely spread out in ones and twos and coming my way. They're barely visible in the pic below but there's at least eight of them. They can only be 109s withdrawing.



I veer off to the right of the single speck furthest to that side, then, staying low, come in around behind him.



At full throttle I'm able to close slowly, and soon confirm he's a Messerschmitt.



I let him have it of course. He disappears in a flurry of flashes and smoke from hits, and instinctively I break sharply to avoid either running into or overshooting him. It is as well that I do so.



I didn't see the bunch of 109s coming up behind, until I broke. Now that I have, I hold my turn to come around behind them - I might was well go down fighting. More throught luck than judgement, I end up on the tail of one of the diving Huns, who have had to pull out for lack of height. So I fairly lace him before breaking again, without waiting to see who might be trying to lace me. You can see that in addition to the vertical bar of the third gruppe, my target has what looks to be the seahorse on a blue shield unit badge of 9 Staffel, III/JG3.



I quickly clear off and am relieved to find that the other 109s aren't chasing me. They've crossed quite a stretch of Channel to get here and have as much to cross to get home, so they'll have little fuel to spare. Emboldened, I slide back over and start stalking the last of them from below and behind, ignoring the ack ack.



Again I manage to close the range and have a rattle at the fellow on the outside left of the group.



I hit him, but not fatally. He breaks left and down. At that range I'd expected my eight Brownings to chop him up, and I'm slow to react.



He disappears somewhere below, hard to spot against the ground. For all I know there may be more 109s streaming south, coming up behind me, so I decide to get out of it and this time stay out. It's a bit of an unhealthy spot for single Spitfire low on ammo and with a pilot who needs more practice in air to air gunnery against other fighters.

Give me bombers, any day!

Hurricane Interlude...well, there's a piece of orchestral music called 'Spitfire Prelude', so there might as well be a SimHQ post called 'Hurricane Interlude'. Seeing as how it's got a few screenies featuring Hurricanes from a historical mission, set in between two on campaign missions...makes perfect sense to me, anyway...

Can't recall which historical BoB2 mission this is, possibly one from a London raid on 9 September 1940. Having picked the RAF side, I had a choice of flying the mission with three or four RAF fighter squadrons. I chose 310 (Czech) Squadron, not as well known these days as 303 (Polish) but with its own fine record. The squadron code is 'NN' and I seem to remember that until the BDG modders developed the Multiskin feature, this was carried on all BoB2's Hurricanes.

Here we are on sighting the enemy. I think the built-up area in the middle distance is western London, with West End centre right and the Thames running left to right. I just noticed recently that BoB2's London doesn't seem to feature Millwall Docks in the river's U bend over to the east, which is odd considering how accurate most else is. You can see two of the other intercepting squadrons I could have flown with, over the nose of my aircraft, and two more, over to the left.



And here are the Huns - bombers disappearing off screen left centre, having come up the Thames Estuary from the east, and the 'snappers', Me109 escorts who are already coming at us.



The boss's orders were for 'B' Flight to take the fighters - this seems the norm, so stick to Red or Blue Sections when choosing your position before the mission, if you want to have a crack at bombers instead. In this case there were probably enough 109s to make the distinction academic.

The rest of the mission involved an engaging but not particularly conclusive series of tussles with Messerschmitts. I sent two down smoking - in the Great War, these would have been credited as 'Forced Down', these days they will be 'Probables' or more likely just 'Damaged'. My first target was White 5 from II/JG3 (not named 'Udet' at this stage, I think) - the II Gruppe horizontal bar (no bar for I Gruppe, vertical bar for III Gruppe) is after the fuselage cross and the II/JG3 unit badge (red-edged white shield with tilted black cross) is ahead and below the cockpit canopy.





Shortly after I was engaged with this fellow, whom I also damaged, as you can see from the smoke trail. He is likely from a different gruppe, with those prominent yellow wing-tips as rapid identification markings.



Anyhow, after that it was back to campaign porridge, flying Hurricanes again. So the practice from my Hurricane Interlude came in handy!

I've had a few days away from my BoB2 RAF campaign and simming in general - apart from a brief interlude (that word again!) with Cliffs of Dover Blitz Edition - 'A Plus' for effort (except for the limited number of stock SP campaigns, there's a LOT of content and functionality in there); but 'D Minus' for implementation (there's still so much that's either broken or just badly executed). But you can't not like the aircraft...



But enough of that, this is a BoB2 screenshot thread. And I'm back on campaign. With a jerk, for after several real-world days away, when I load the game, I'm back where I left off, lunchtime on 23 July, with Hostile 101 still in the air. By now, the raid is heading back to Nazi-occupied France, south over the English Channel. I barely have time to take in the scene from the Ops Room map when I'm offered a chance to jump into a mission again. I take a deep breath and mouse-click 'Fly'. This time, I'm with the Hurricanes of 12 Group's 607 Squadron, come down from RAF Wittering to the north, to harry the retreating raiders.

My first sight of Hostile 101 is the bombers, twenty to thirty of them, which I mis-identify as Dorniers. They are higher, but we can certainly catch them up. However, life is not so simple.



Looking right, ahead of the bombers, I see two groups of fighters, a smaller one maybe a mile ahead, the larger one a bit further ahead again. This is not going to be so easy, after all!



The closer group of 109s breaks up and comes at us, while the others curve around threateningly. At bottom, you can see what I'm hearing on the R/T - the squadron leader giving his orders.



Yellow Section and my Green Section are 'B' Flight, so 'take the fighters' it is. Six against about a dozen, and that's assuming the other 109s leave us alone.



As I turn into the 109s, the bombers sweep majestically overhead. The raid doesn't seem to have lost a single aircraft - the escorts have done a good job of keeping the intercepting squadrons busy, including the Spitfires of 609 squadron, with which I was in action against Hostile 101 just a few virtual minutes earlier. They look to be Heinkels, definitely not the Dorniers I had taken them to be.



I cut around inside the hurtling shower of Messerschmitts, hoping Green 2 and Green 3 can keep up, or at least not get shot down, but knowing that's unlikely in this melee. Up ahead, there's just a swirling mass of aircraft, most of them 109s. This is going to be one of those days!



...to be continued!

I've managed to avoid the first onrush of escorting Messerschmitts. Better still, I have ended up somewhat outside the developing dogfight. After a look in the mirror, I sweep back in, looking for someone I can sneak up on, while they are otherwise occupied. No point taking a chance on a fair fight, when you can catch someone unawares.



This works out better than expected. A quick burst sets a 109 smoking. Hardly has he started turning than a second burst has this effect - unexpected, shocking even, but satisfying. I have little time to take in Yellow 3's report of friendly aircraft, let alone look in the direction indicated.



After a bit of turning this way and that while trying not to bleed off too much speed, I catch a second 109, who rolls left and dives away smoking. Tunnel vision being what it is, at the time I didn't notice the two aircraft chasing a third machine, over to the right.



We're out over the water and so it's easier to avoid losing sight of the Hun. I watch him level off and run for home, then I run after him.



The 109 seems sluggish and I manage to catch him after a short chase, creeping up in his blind spot. He breaks right and down only after I hit him again.



The Hun keeps on going down, seeming to lose control and regain it every so often, all the while getting lower and lower. I'm reluctant to get fixated and rather than lose height to make sure of him, I pull up and away. Better a Probable than get shot down, or even lose precious height in a combat zone, just for the sake of confirmation.



By this time, the skies seem to have emptied of other aircraft and I set a course for home. Not before time, because my fuel gauge is reading rather low. The Hurricane had a single gauge which you had to switch between left and right main tanks but I'm not sure how it works in BoB2. Anyhow it's time to go home; no point hanging around here anymore.



I cross the south coast with the town of Worthing just ahead of my starboard wingtip and Brighton visible a bit further along the coastline, just beyond the estuary. Rather than make the long flight back north to Wittering, I settle for having made it back over Blighty, quit the mission and return to the Ops Room.



By 12:34, I can see that Hostile 101 is well on its way home to northern France; 504 Squadron, whose marker is nearby, may be the friendlies reported earlier by Yellow 3. The main body of 607 Squadron is quite a bit further north of where I quit the mission, about half-way back to Wittering. To the west, 609 Squadron's Spitfires, with which I flew my previous mission against this same raid, are nearly back at Middle Wallop. A look at BoB2's 'Hostiles List' reveals that Hostile 101's target was the coastal belt fighter airfield at Westhampnett, attacked again and out of action, with nearby Hawkinge damaged.



Time to check some statistics! They are not good. The 'Claims' tab on the Review screen shows our figher losses, on the ground and in the air, are now lagging significantly behind our claims of enemy aircraft destroyed. And our fighter production is falling behind losses. How long this state of affairs can go on remains to be seem.



The pic above shows to the left BoB2's Log Book window, which lists your missions flown and their results, but without identifying the squadron. I'm not sure why only two are listed for 23 July when I had flown four, by the time this screenshot was taken, but the way the air battle is going, that is the least of my worries!

Amazing! This is like an ever evolving book for me. Each time I finish reading your reports I am caught up imaging where this is all going and how it will end. It would be interesting to see your remaining assets and production rate for the Spitty & Hurricane and also the remaining estimated production rate, overall strength of the Luftwaffe 109s, 87s and Bombers. I am enjoying this immensely 33lima.
Godspeed and keep up the Good Fight Sir!

S!Blade<><

In Lima's hands, and through his eloquent powers of description, this game proves itself a simulator in the truest sense of the word.

Well done.

Interesting AARs Lima. Nice intro to one of the best single player sims. Very nice.

I'm very interested to learn more about the dual boot method that your using under Win 10 : Win7/SDD/EasyBCD. Sounds like something I'd like to try. I tried BOB2 under 10 and had the usual crashes everyone else has. I Still have it on a XP using the older BDG updates. I sure would like to get this classic on better hardware with the new BDG updates.

So how is it going? - less crash? is the campaign still running ok? Would you do anything different? Any system details here or elsewhere would be greatly appreciated. -Vox

Thanks for the feedback guys! I'm ready to fly my next missions in BoB2 and will pick up the story here again soon!

Vox, of all the advice online I found, the bit I went with was CountMike's post # 6 here: https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/42241-dual-boot-windows-10-windows-7-using-2-hds.html

Limited space on my 'new' PC's existing Win 10 SSD was one reason I opted for a second SSD for Win 7 rather than partition the first one and have 10 and 7 on that, but reading that post helped convince me that separate was better/safer. The extra capacity and faster load times of a cheap SSD for Win 7 were icing on the cake, worth the small extra outlay.

I had some issues to troubleshoot, and the usual hassle of installing drivers for everything after getting Win 7 working, but was able to Google my way through the former with no fuss, and the latter was no worse than merely tedious.

I never bothered trying to simplify choice of O/S and if I want to switch, I just hit F2 on boot and picked from the BIOS. But I have just left it booting into Win 7 and don't bother switching. Any games I want to play either run fine in Win 7 even tho not installed on the Win 7 SSD (eg Il-2 '46 both DBW & CUP installs, Steel Fury, Steel Armour, CFS3+ETO expansion, all my Steam games, Trainz 2009); or they ran after a tweak to reflect the fact they were no longer on the 'C' Drive (eg First Eagles 2/Strike Fighters 2, Open Rails); or they will need me to boot into Win 10 to play them, or I'll have to delete them and reinstall them in Win 7, whenever the fancy takes me (eg Wings over Flanders Fields, Iron Front).

My original BoB2 install is on an HDD salvaged from my previous PC and now in the new PC's case, and this runs from there fine, in Win 7; but I installed BoB2 again on the Win 7 SSD for faster loading times and that's what have played, ever since. I might load the French campaign onto the original BoB2 install. Both are updated to BDG 2.13, as you say that's where we all want to be (haven't tried the Beta 2.14 yet as I don't want to have to start my current campaign afresh)

With the Win 7 setup, I got a few CTDs over a couple of days (out of over 3 months of playing BoB2 fairly intensively) but that stopped when I reloaded an earlier campaign save, after noticing something which led me to suspect something was corrupted. Steady as a rock, otherwise. Single missions and campaign - have only been playing the RAF commander campaign so far, which leaves the Luftwaffe commander and both sides' pilot campaigns to look forward to.

Thanks Lima that really helps. Ive heard about dual booting BOB2 but yours is the first detailed description I've seen . I was a little confused about dual booting . I had pc at work that was set up to dual boot win xP and win8. It was set up the conventional way i.e. by installing each OPS into its own partition on a single disk.

I think installing each OPS on its own disk with its own boot-loader, drivers, games etc makes things simpler-At least in theory! One key seems to be disconnecting each disk before installing the other OPS so that the boot-loader isn't spread across both disks. Then when both are set-up , reconnect both disks and use the BIOs to select disk to boot from. sounds simple enough. The Asus MB i'm currently using has a good UEFI BIOs. which should make managing the boot drive selection easier.

Hardly have we dealt with Hostile 201 than another raid, designated Hostile 101, thirty-plus, appears on the plot. It's headed towards the north-east of London, possible target the 11 Group fighter base at North Weald - again! A look at the Mission Folder - I am slowly getting the hang of the many useful info boxes in BoB2 - reveals that the AI Controller is scrambling 601 Squadron to intercept.



The next pic shows more of these boxes which I have called up. The Squadron List, top left, 'does exacttly what it says on the tin'. Clicking on its entry for 601 brings up the box for that squadron, in the form of an open tab for its base, West Malling, bottom left. Clicking on this box's 'Diary' button brings up the Squadron Diary, bottom right. This shows 601's results from its last mission. Top right is the Aircraft tab from the Review box, which summarizes how I have got from a starting position of 768 fighters available two weeks ago, to the 615 I now have left - not a pretty picture!



Opening the Hostiles List - not pictured here - I see that this new raid is reported to consist of thirty Ju88s. I hit the 'Authorise' button. A recent read of the comprehensive BDG 2.13 Manual's campaign guide made me aware that this was an easier way of scrambling additional squadrons against a raid, than what I have been doing so far.

As expected, having been scrambled earlier from a nearer base, 601 sights the enemy first and I get the offer to fly - which I accept, rather than letting the campaign AI fight the battle from the 2d map.



I've mentioned before choosing Green 1 (leader of Green Section) as my usual position in the squadron formation, so it's maybe a good time for a pic of the selection screen. Here you can see the squadron's radio code name, 'Angel' - most of these are authentic in BoB2, and they are actually used in the missions R/T traffic. 'A' flight is on the left; 'B' on the right. BoB2 appropriately has both flying a mission together in squadron formation, not as separate flights as in Wings over the Reich.



And here I am as Green 1, flying UF-W, N2359. 'UF' of course is 601's authentic squadron code. Serial numbers are not unique in BoB2 but individual aircraft code letters (numbers, for German single-engine fighters) are, as you can see from Green 2 to my left rear...



...and from the other visible squadron aircraft, ahead. We are flying roughly north over the Thames Estuary, in pursuit of Hostile 101, with the river winding its way off towards London, in the distance. You can see that we have not gained an awful lot of height since taking off from West Malling, which is not far behind us.



Up ahead - more 'up' than 'ahead' - is the raid, drifting diagonally across our noses from right to left.



I use padlock and then the command menu to report the Huns to the boss, rather than waiting for him. At this point, I realise there's a cluster of smaller specks close ahead of the three waves of Hun bombers.



Again without waiting, I lose no time in pulling up after them, bringing Green 2...



...and Green 3 with me...



At this point, things get a bit strange. The boss - Angel Red Leader - orders the squadron to reform. Perhaps this is a reaction to my splitting off. I look around for the others, but apart from my own section, the only other Hurricane I can see is a solitary machine up ahead, bravely chasing the Huns. I decide to do likewise.



Soon, we're getting close to the bombers' height, so I ease off the rate of climb. By this time we are well to the north-east of the capital. Visible above my cockpit is London's docklands, with the Thames's 'U' bend nearly cut off by the East India Docks. The Milwall Docks, which should be an L shape to their south, are not represented in BoB2.



But I have more important things to worry about! The bombers are now attracting Ack Ack fire, but my real worry is that I have lost sight of their fighter escort, which is no longer where I last saw it, up ahead of those Ju88s. That's my reward for looking around and taking pictures! Now, I will have to be extra careful. Were the 109s - they were too small for 110s - lured away by the solitary Hurricane, or by the rest of 601? The R/T is quiet so perhaps not, but it's all a bit of a worry.



The Huns were bound to start turning left for home at some point, and now they do so. Fine, we can cut the corner and get at them all the sooner. Won't be long now!



...to be continued!

Here we go! With Green 2 tucked in tight to my left, we go for the Huns.



On my right, Green 3 seems already to have picked his own target, and has levelled off.



A final glance in my mirror - fully functional in BoB2, when turned on - shows no sign of those 109s - maybe low on fuel this far north, they have just gone home. Up ahead, the Junkers are still turning left, also keen to be home and out of it. They've probably already bombed some unseen target. No time to fret over that now!



The Huns settle onto a new course to the south-east. As usual, I decide to take the one on the left rear, but make a bit of a mess of my run, in a clumsy effort to get a nice picture rather than a clean shot. I should really try out BoB2's gun camera recorder!



I open up at close range, damaging the Ju88. Smoke obscures him and the next second, as I break, I clip him with my starboard wing, losing most of it in the process! And revealing that the damage textures are re-using some external ones, visible from the mini-roundels. The flash to the left of my surviving wingtip is an AA burst; the missing Millwall Docks should be just left again of that, south of the West India Docks that are present. But this is hardly the right time for sight-seeing.



If I could have seen him, it might have been some consolation to know that my target had come off just as badly.



This pic, taken before I began to roll over, shows that one member of Green Section is diving away, but the other one is still after the bombers.



No flying controls seem to be answering, as my Hurricane rolls wildly and heads for the deck. I chop the throttle, wait a bit, then bail out. This goes well, but I hope my kite lands in open country and not on somebody's roof. BoB2 isn't a skydiving simulator (now, there's an idea!) so I can do nothing about my own trajectory.



The picture above reminds me of the sketch below from a 13 Group illustrated publication 'Forget-Me-Nots for Fighters', said in its intro from the Group's AOC at the time of the Battle of Britain, Air Vice-Marshall RE Saul, to be '...the outcome of discussion amongst the Training Staff, on the best and simplest way to bring to the notice of new Fighter Pilots certain salient points in air fighting'. It's not unlike the British Army's little book 'Basic Battle Skills' which soldiers from the 1970s and after will remember. We called it 'the Dick and Dora' book after the illustrated reading books used in primary schools. Unlike Basic Battle Skills, this WW2 RAF version is humorous, and perhaps all the more memorable for that. I always remembered this pic, since first seeing it in Arms and Armour Press's 'Fighting in the Air'.



As I fall, the Ju88s are coming under attack from more Hurricanes. It looks like the rest of 601 has arrived at last. Go get 'em, boys!



My animated pilot figure automatically reaches across for his ripcord and pulls. But no parachute appears! Instead there is a blood-curdling scream of horror and my virtual self starts thrashing wildly with his arms and legs. It's a bit shocking, really.



The Hun I had attacked is also falling, as the air fight goes on. I continue to flail about silently.



By the time I hit the ground, my Hurricane had also arrived.



Even though I'm not playing the BoB2 Single Pilot Campaign and have no single identity, it really came as a bit of a shock to the system to end this mission in such a violent fashion. Especially having survived so many scrapes with the other virtual pilots whose cockpits I took over, across a fortnight of intense air battles, flying several sorties a day. At any rate, any lingering doubts I might have entertained about Battle of Britain II's wargame-based campaign being any less immersive than a conventional pilot career are long swept away. Truly, this is a sim amongst sims!

It's shortly after 1pm on July 23rd, and something unusual and different is happening. Looking down at the Ops Room plotting table, I can see the marker of a Luftwaffe raid, Hostile 202, moving steadily down the English Channel, its course slightly north of east. I have seen this before and wait for the raid to turn north. But it doesn't. I hear a WAAF announce its likely target is the port of Plymouth. So far I think Dover is the only port the Luftwaffe has bombed, and it's across the narrowest part of the Channel. Goering's boys seem to be expanding their repertoire!

Nearing its target, the raid is reported to have split up, spawning Hostile 301, thirty-plus Messerschmitt 110s. Their marker sweeps on ahead of Hostile 202, which latter a look at the Hostiles List tells me is composed of a similar number of Dorniers. Hastily, I start authorising additional squadrons to be vectored against the Dorniers, with 87's Hurricanes first to sight the Bandits.



Fancying a go with a Spitfire again, I decline the offer to fly with 87 and wait till 92 arrives on the scene, very soon after. They've come all the way down from RAF Pembrey in South Wales and are doubtless keen to see a bit of action. So keen that when the mission loads, 87 has not yet gone into action.

As usual, I choose to fly as Green 1. If I can hold on till August, I have promised myself a promotion to flight leader, which I believe opens up more command options on the radio menu, available only to flight and squadron leaders. If I don't lose the campaign by the start of September, after a virtual month flying as flight leader, I will promote myself further and lead a squadron. 'If'...!



Up ahead is the enemy - the thirty or so Dorniers of Hostile 202. Dutifully, I report the sighting to the boss, who acknowledges, but seems hesitant to give the usual order to attack. Trailing behind the bombers and lower down, there are two other groups of aircraft, possibly 87, 213 or 234 Squadrons. They're unlikely to be Huns given what's been plotted on the map, but you never know.



I should really stick with the squadron, on the basis that I'm a mere section leader and it's the boss's job - even an AI boss - to decide what to do, not mine. But I tend to remember what Nelson said before Trafalgar - that confusion being normal in battle and signals not always being seen, no captain can do much wrong who places his ship hard aboard of that of an enemy. So having heard no orders this time, I open the throttle and take Green Section into battle, on my own initiative.



Being to the right of the Dorniers, I pick the rear bomber on that side for my target. But these Huns seem particularly alert and especially accurate. My Spit is soon at the centre of streams of tracer, flashing back from Hun gunners, long before I'm in position to start shooting myself. Sharp plinks tell me they're hitting me, too!



I avoid the temptation to break off and settle on a closing course behind and below my chosen victim. I try hard to ignore the return fire, even thought I am hit again as soon as I level off. As soon as my sights are on, I start shooting, trying to concentrate between the Dornier's starboard engine and wing root.



I see the flashes of hits and then dense dark smoke streams back from the Hun, who begins to bank left. Breaking right, I can see that he is well alight!



As I disengage, I'm well aware that I haven't escaped unscathed. But up front, my Merlin is running smoothly, and all controls are answering. Time for another crack!



...to be continued!

As I pull up and to the right, I see a single fighter, probably Green 2 or 3, making a firing pass at the Dorniers, without doing any visible harm. As a mere section leader in BoB2, AFAIK you can't issue orders, just lead your two wingmen around until contact is made, after which it seems they default to attacking the mission target. Anyhow I roll left and come in diagonally for another pass. As I do so, the boss comes up on the blower and announces a course to the north-west - the direction of our base at Pembrey. Somewhat distracted as I am, I neglect to check my fuel gauge. If you haven't opted to fly from take-off, there's a tendency to neglect this, and 92's long trip to the scene of action may well have left us short. But now, I have eyes only for those bombers.



Off to my left rear, some other aircraft appear to be chasing the Huns. Fine - they're not chasing me!



This time, I slide all the way across the rear of the German formation, while still out of range of their gunners.



Then I level off and come in behind the fellow on the left rear. Again, the return fire comes thick and fast, and I take some more hits.



But on my second burst, my target suddenly blows up!



I recover quickly from the surprise and instead of breaking off, roll right and attack the Dornier next to him. A few more bursts from close range and he starts ditching his bombload, rolling left and out of formation, trailing smoke. A hat trick!



Breaking left, I flit through some cloud, just as the Hun crew takes to their parachutes.



Once out of range, I start to roll right for another pass, but nearly go over on my back. My damaged kite now wants onto roll to that side of its own accord. And my engine is running unevenly.



Behind me, my victim is spiralling steeply down, while the the four silken blobs of the crew's 'chutes drift earthwards - literally, for unless there's a nasty wind from the north, they won't get their feet wet.



I stil have some rounds left and am reluctant to leave before I'm empty. These Huns haven't bombed yet and every one knocked down or out of formation is one less stick of bombs on somebody's head.



However, my Spit is controllable only with difficulty. Over-correcting badly, I end up on my side, slipping left wing down through the Hun formation while blazing away, hitting mostly empty space.



I level off underneath the bombers and end up coming out ahead of the Huns, narrowly missing a collision in the process. Crikey - this is dangerous!



Sliding awkwardly out of range and determined not to risk that again, I see that other fighters are now rushing up behind the bombers - you can barely see them in this pic but there are two groups in the lower contrails, the larger, rearmost ones just to the right edge of the pic.



My right-rolling Spit wants to take me in that direction so I let her do so, taking me across the rear of the formation, but lower down. Once I get across to the inland side of the Huns, I will be better placed to make a forced landing on terra firma, should my surging motor pack it in. From there, I'll simply watch the fun. No more wild attacks for me, I've already earned my pay.



As I slip across, a bunch of Hurricanes is closing fast on the Dorniers. There'll soon be something to see!



...to be continued!

I don't have long to wait before the leading section of Hurricanes smacks into the Dorniers. Their first victim catches fire and begins to fall away, even as the rest of the pack closes in.



At about this point, I take a look at the in-game map, which I do rarely as it shows rather a lot. Probably, this can be reduced but I use it so little that I've left it alone, for now. The map is a zoomed-out view of the 3d world with no placenames, Strike Fighers style; there is a closer level of zoom which looks like a satellite image. The map shows that Hostile 202, me with it, is ten miles east of the likely target, Plymouth harbour. The three RAF roundels behind it will be the Hurricanes I can see, probably 213 Squadron, followed by 87 and 234, the latter flying Spits. The roundel that's tracking north is probably my own squadron, 92, heading back up to Pembrey for want of fuel - note the R/T message from one of my section, Green 3, and our squadron leader replying to my request for his position. The enemy raid off to the left will be Hostile 301's Me110s, which have swept ahead to Plymouth, unaware of the trouble the Dorniers, lacking close escort, have run into.



That trouble steps up a notch when the main body of pursuing Hurricanes weighs into the bombers. The next Dornier is falling away even before the last of the fighters has attacked...



...while the chutes from the first Hun show that the crew made a good escape from their burning bomber.



The sky over there seems to be filling up with falling aircraft and descenting 'chutes.



Suddenly, the picture changes. A long stream of aircraft zips past in the opposite direction, slightly lower. Who are these people, and what are they playing at?



I'm out of the battle so I do something I wouldn't normally - turn labels on, briefly. I've set these to display just a single character so even when I do use them, I just get friend or foe identification. And these are foes. It can only be the 110s of Hostile 301. As for what they're doing, the Messerschmitts are actually attempting to cut off a second RAF squadron which can be seen coming up behind.



Up ahead, more 'chutes and more planes are falling. Incidentally, the far west and far north of the extensive BoB2 map has more repetitive terrain textures, as you can see in this pic.



In the next shot, you can see four of 213's Hurricanes sweeping around behind me as they come in for another pass at the Dorniers. Below my raised wing is the next intercepting squadron, coming in from the west. The 110s cutting them off seem to have split into two separate groups. Possibly, some of them have decided to come back our way, where the bombers are having a very bad day.



I never saw the bombs fall but probably they have, for now the remaining Dorniers turn left to make their getaway. As in real life - for all the reports of raids being broken up or turned back, it seems the Luftwaffe rarely gave up, and only turned back without bombing when they could not hit a target, eg due to cloud cover.



I decide to go home before either my rough-running engine quits, or some of those 110s arrive and decide to pop off my damaged, solitary kite. A call to Control reveals the nearest airfield is 50 miles away, so it's high time I made myself scarce. A last look back as I leave reveals the Huns are still being remorselessly harried.



I quit the mission at that point rather than make a long return flight with a risky landing at the end, in my shot-up and hard-to-control crate. Back at the Ops Room, this is the scene after the air fight is over and both raids are withdrawing back the way they came.



Results in BoB2 are updated at different points, but this may well show 92 Squadron's final results from this action. I definitely got three Dorniers and the three damaged Spitfires also reported in the Squadron Diary are likely to be me and the other two in Green Section. We seem to have been the only ones engaged before the squadron went home, low on petrol.

My intended four-squadron concentric attack on Hostile 202 didn't come off - only my section of Spits and 213's Hurricanes actually made contact, with the 110s returning in time to cut off the late arrivals. Nevertheless, between Green Section and 213, we seem to have destroyed or knocked out of formation between a third and a half of the bombers, mostly before they reached their target. A decent afternoon's work, by any standard!

The first chute failure horrified me too.

Well, 23rd July is over; I've made it to the end of another hard day. The final hours of the afternoon phase presented me with two big raids. I opted to fly four times, twice against each raid.

First on the scene is Hostile 401, a hundred-plus raid whose marker tracks north up the east coast, past the Thames Estuary. It's likely target I can see for myself - a convoy off the East Anglian port of Lowestoft. There's nothing else on the plot so I decide to give it a hot reception, authorising two additional squadrons to intercept, on top of the two the campaign AI scrambles.



The Spitfires of 66 Squadron are the first to report spotting the Bandits and I accept the offer to fly with them. When the 3d world loads, we are mixed up with a second Spit squadron, which looks like 603, code XT. I report the Bandits up ahead using BoB2's radio menu system and the boss orders everybody to help themselves. At that poiht, both squadrons bank left and away - 66's are the aircraft with the blue undersides (and no roundels), this colour being one of several substituted for the new Sky colour, seen on the others, before paint supplies caught up with the change. Our mob's Spits have red spinners, reportedly introduced by 66's CO after he was bounced by a wingman! In the distance, you can see another RAF squadron coming in on our left.



The raid has about thirty bombers of some description - Stukas, they turned out to be. Its convoy target is about as far north as Me109s can come, but this raid has both 109s and 110s for escort and they react immediately to our presence. I'm rather glad I allowed the other Spits to draw away from my section, because the former are swamped by a shower of diving escorts, and a wild dogfight quickly develops. The third RAF squadron - seen under my nose - also looks to be about to collect a storm of escorts, who can be seen coming down under my raised wing.



I pick up one of the people who have engaged 66, confirming they are Messerschmitt 110s.



The fellow I'm chasing keeps his speed up and doesn't make an easy target. When he pulls up, another 110 slides into my view from the left, closer in, and I switch targets to him. Ahead, there are Spits and 110s going in all directions, while high and right, the raid ploughs on, framed by what looks like a mix of more escorts and other RAF squadrons trying to get at the bombers.



My second target rolls over and dives away.



I stick with him, but he's good, and again makes a difficult target.



Up behind us, the raid is drawing away, taking its own separate air fight with it. The escorts still seem to be doing a good job of protecting those Stukas.



At last I land some decent hits on the big Messerschmitt and he dives away, smoking.



I generally pause before following down a damaged enemy - partly to clear my tail, partly to avoid losing height needlessly. If the enemy isn't going down, I can make further 'boom and zoom'-type attacks. But this time, I won't need to bother - the 110 settles into a steep dive towards the North Sea, and doesn't pull out.



It's a pity that Hostile 401 had such a strong escort, which so far has proved a match for my grand plan to hammer it with a strong force, rather than nibble at it with a couple of squadrons. But I got one of those escorts, and I've ammo left - time to find another target!

...to be continued!

By now, the skies in my immediate vicinity seem to have cleared. To my left rear, the raid is drawing away, and lower down, some distant aircraft are milling about. Streamers of dark smoke show where damage has been done.



Suddenly, I see a group of fighters coming inland, crossing my nose from right to left, just a short way off. They look like Hurricanes, but as they go past, they begin to break formation threateningly.



I latch onto one of them and stay with him long enough to confirm that - yes, he's a Hurricane.



Further inland, other groups of aircraft are heading out to sea, towards the raid. Our machines, I'm fairly sure.



I turn after them, intending to join up with them in chasing after the Huns.



But the lowest group - more Hurricanes - changes course back inland. BoB2 seems to reflect the historical situation that each squadron had a separate radio channel; on this you can communicate with your squadron and 'Control', at the Sector airfield which tasks you, but not other squadrons. So I have no way of talking to them or hearing what orders they may have been given.



Instead, I chase after a small group of fast single-engine aircraft also heading out to sea. Slowly, I catch up. The dihedral on their wings tells me they are certainly not Hurricanes, and they are rather few to be one of the RAF squadrons scrambled to intercept this raid. Messerschmitt 109s!



I slowly close the range, taking the one on the right. A quick pass and I'll be gone, before the others know what's happening! Besides they will be low on petrol, this far north, and won't be able to hang around.



I give the Hun a decent burst, see the flashes from hits, pulling up and away...at which point I see that I'm attacking what's left of 603 Squadron, and have just shot down a Spitfire!



Horrified, I can't bear to see whether or not the pilot gets out, and end the mission at once. I sit at my desk for a few seconds, staring at the Ops Room map. When the next prompt to fly comes, I grab it, keen to redeem myself!

...to be continued!

Hostile 401 has by now been intercepted by two squadrons of Spitfires, which the escorts have largely succeeded in keeping at bay. For orientation, the pic below shows the Ops Room view very shortly before battle was joined as described in the last post. You can clearly see the markers representing the numbered RAF fighter squadrons - 66, 603, 253 and 46 - coming in to intercept the raid. Where a raid marker has split into two or more as seen below, this usually indicates escorts splitting off.



The Spits of 66 and 603 having done their bit, next squadron to make contact is 46, one of two Hurricane outfits coming down from 12 Group. By the time I take over as Green 1, the raid is headed back south and we’re immediately into a tail chase.



More to the point, the air fighting seems largely to have died down - and many of the escorts the escorts are still in, or back in, position.



Behind and to our right is what I take to be the second Hurricane squadron, 253. Up ahead is the raid, which is heading roughly south, back the way it came, off the North Sea coast of East Anglia.



A limitation of BoB2 is that close escorts don’t weave. This makes it a bit easier to sneak up behind the nearest enemy aircraft, which turn out to be Messerschmitt 110s. In my anxiety to wipe away the memory of my recent ‘friendly fire’ incident, I neglect to worry at all about what the rest of the squadron is doing. Such is my haste that I find myself closing too fast. I manage only a short burst at my chosen target, but make up for this by switching to the one next to him, before breaking off. Net result – two 110s are falling out of formation, smoking.



I get out of there quickly, losing sight of Green 2 and Green 3 in the process. BoB2 - by design, apparently - gives section leaders little control, so I don’t feel too bad about my lack of any better leadership.



I settle down again above some clouds. I think the AI couldn't see through these in the original game, but can, with the otherwise-superior volumetric clouds in BoB2. The trade-off being accepted. I haven't noticed at all, so good call, IMHO. I also really like BOB2's RAF schemes - not just their variety, but the convincing depiction of 'sand and spinach', as Matt Dark Green and Matt Dark Earth were known. I rather despair that certain more modern sims are reproducing Dark Earth as rather brown, and worse, may be convincing a new generation that RAF WW2 camouflage colours were slightly glossy, much as seen on 'restored' warbirds. Whereas people who actually knew them, knew differently eg Michael JF Bowyer, who wrote 'Close inspection of the aircraft showed the camouflage paint to be very rough when touched, thick and very matt so that the aeroplanes gave the impression of being very badly finished'. This is a look the BoB2 texture artists have, IMHO, captured far better than any other sim.



The raid seems to be flying on unperturbed, so I close in again, on my own as far as I can see. This time I come in behind some 109s. I take a bit more care than I did last time, to make sure they really are Huns.



My target falls away smoking. He seems to be the only one with the yellow nose ID markings that really didn’t appear till mid-August. The other 109s, by contrast, are in the early ‘clean’ finish with no mottle to darken the pale blue sides.

But I’ve no time to dwell on such things – that’s the Belgian coast up ahead and it’s high time I was going home.



The other 109s don’t come after me – they will be doing well to make it home, having come so far north.

Back at the Ops Room, a review of squadron diaries reveals that all four bagged some Hun escorts for modest losses. But only a handful of the dive-bombers went down – there was no Stuka party, this time. Overall, there’s a positive RAF balance sheet for this raid – it’s just a pity that I contributed one of our losses!

But the day’s not done yet. What turns out to be the last raid of the day - Hostile 651, sixty-plus is already crossing the Channel, heading for the already-bombed fighter airfields at Hawkinge (which is out of action) and its satellite, Westhampnett (which is barely operational).



The Luftwaffe seems determined to keep our coastal airfields out of action. This forces me to bring in fighters from further away and reduces the prospects of raids being intercepted before they bomb. You can see what they are trying to do, and the sense of it. Doing something about it, that’s the tricky part!

...to be continued!

A WAAF confirms that the damaged coastal fighter base at Westhampnett is the likely target for Hostile 651. Nearby Hawkinge is still out of action and I’m not sure how long repairs will take. No aircraft are currently based at either airfield – maybe just as well! At any rate, I know this may well be my last chance today. So I decide to have another go at putting up a couple of extra squadrons against a raid. If we’re to go down, we might as well end with a bang, rather than the proverbial whimper! First to meet the enemy are the Spitfires of 616 (South Yorkshire) Squadron, their County affiliation indicating they're an activated reserve unit, in this case from the Auxiliary Air Force.

This unit has a particular significance for me. About forty years ago, I made a 1/32 Revel Spit 1 model for the father of a work colleague who had flown the type with 616 in 1939-40. Based on a single photo of his aircraft and a likely not accurate black & white profile in Aircam's special on BoB fighters of a different 616 pilot's machine, I finished this with a black port wing but incorrectly painted the rest of the undersurface in Sky. The starboard wing should have been white and the nose and rear fuselage, Aluminium. It looks like somebody has made a worse mistake here, for the boss's Spit is in early Photographic Reconnaisance Unit colours ('camotint' aka duck egg green)! The rest of us have squadron code YQ, not the strictly accurate QJ which was also carried by 92 squadron in 1940 for some reason - 616 reportedly didn't adopt YQ till 1941.



This time, I remember to padlock and call in the Huns, about thirty Ju88s with 109s for escort. They’re not far ahead of us and only slightly above, as they near the coast.



The boss acknowledges my report and orders B Flight – in BoB2, that means Blue and Green Sections – to take the fighters.



However, by the time he’s finished doing all this, I’ve already taken Green Section in behind the bombers...



...who, not unreasonably, start shooting at us.



Their accuracy is above average and I quickly start taking hits. At this point, probably, the smart move would have been to shoot back. However, deterred by the Hun gunners’ accuracy and a reluctance to disobey orders, I roll away in search of the 109s. In doing so, I pass across the rear of the nearest wedge of bombers and get properly done over.

I roll the other way in an effort to get out of the line of fire, or at least make myself a more difficult target, but succeed only in taking yet more hits. I feel like a live, practice target in a Hun air gunner’s shooting gallery. Clearly, I’ve made a bit of a mess of this one.



By the time I’m clear, my Spit’s engine is running rough and I’m having real trouble maintaining any semblance of control. Actually attacking anything is right out of the question. Trying to hold her level, I fall off onto one wing and side-slip past a bunch of 109s, who don’t seem to think me worth bothering about.



They’re quite right, I decide. My role in this air battle is over before it’s even begun, with not a round fired from my eight Brownings. I call it quits, throttle back and bail out, while I still have plenty of height. Better wet feet and a ride home in a boat, than trying to land or ditch this thing.



But I’ve got one last chance. The Hurricanes of 3 Squadron, sporting their distinctive white prop spinners, have caught up with the Huns and as usual, I jump into Green Leader's machine.



...to be continued!

By this time, all I can see up ahead is fighters, which the boss orders attacked. At our level and slightly left, there's a dogfight going on, while another formation is on a steady course above them. I assume it's these fellows we are to attack, and pull my nose up in a climbing turn to come after them.



Closing in, I can see they are definitely 109s. But before I get there, some of them start dropping onto the rest of the squadron, who scatter in apparent alarm or confusion. Not a great start!



Soon, we have a dogfight of our very own in full swing. I chase these two for a while...



...before latching onto this fellow, who is on his own.



After a short scrap, I send him down, smoking. By this time, we are nearly over the coast.



The 109 pulls out and looks like getting away. The sky close around me seems clear, so I decide to go down after him. This time, I leave nothing to chance.



Looking out to sea, I can make out against the sky some distant specks, dancing around in a fight. The bombers must not be too far away, but the rest of the squadron is probably still fighting its battle with the 109s and that's where my loyalties lie. So I head back south, out over the Channel.

Suddenly, with no cause that I noticed, my Hurricane rolls violently to the right. What on earth...? Has a wing fallen off or something?

As a matter of fact, it has...



Chopping the throttle and bailing out leaves me hanging under a silken canopy for the second time in minutes, none the wiser as to why this time.

At this point, before I can do anything more at the Ops Room level, the curtain comes down on the fighting for 23 July 1940. I haven't checked out any details yet, but apparently, we didn't do to badly.



Perhaps, we might yet win this battle!

Well done. A nice read.

It's not yet half-past seven on the morning of 24 July 1940 and already, the first Luftwaffe raid is coming west down the English Channel. Hostile 701, estimated at sixty-plus, is headed towards Westhampnett figther base, which is damaged but not yet out of action. I authorise an additional squadron scrambled against it. The raid will be met by thirty-six fighters, twelve each from 32, 72 and 602 Squadrons.



Unfortunately I get no pictures of the action. It's getting dark and I must have been hitting the wrong key, the equivalent of not taking the lens cap off my camera! Not that there's much to see - flying a Spit with 602, I go for the bombers - Heinkels - but in my anxiety to get a decent pic of my attack, I get too close to my target before opening fire, wait too long before breaking off, and collide with the Heinkel, managing to bail out.

The next raid is plotted coming in before the first one has even reached its target. Hostile 702, again sixty-plus, edges steadily north, target estimated to be North Weald airfield. Again, three squadrons are scrambled to intercept - 79, 605 and 'Treble 1' - famous post-ww2 for their aerobatic display team the Black Arrows. Many will remember the Airfix 1/72 Hawker Hunter, conveniently moulded in shiny black plastic, featuring one of their jets. In 1940, they were flying an earlier product of the Hawker Aircraft Limited - which was actually the WW1 Sopwith company, reformed to avoid crippling tax liabilities and remaned after TOM Sopwith's chief test pilot, Harry Hawker. But I digress...



When contact is made, it's with 111 Squadron that I elect to fly. At this point, we are heading roughly eastwards, with London behind us and the Thames Estuary up ahead.



Also ahead are the Huns. We are not first on the scene and the situation is not entirely tidy. What seems like two groups of bombers and a bunch of escorts are to the left, with what looks like more fighters to the right. The latter are already breaking formation. The boss gives us the order to get stuck into the fighters, so I pick the ones on the right. There are plenty for everybody!



By the time I get across there, it's apparent we are not first on the scene, for a dogfight has already developed. But there's a lot of cloud about today and when I try to join the party, everyone else seems to be disappearing into the white stuff.



I pull up into clearer blue sky, unclear if Green 2 and Green 3 will stick with me or, as the boss has ordered, picked their own targets. Up ahead are two widely-spaced 109s...



...so I try to cut off the tail-end charlie.



I get in a burst and see the flashes of some hits - BoB2 is rather good at representing bullet strikes on airframes - but he pulls up and slips out of my field of view, so I lose sight of him. Meanwhile, the dogfight is still going on nearby and several ack ack batteries are plastering the sky with black bursts.



I head back towards the nearest air fight I can see, which is in the direction of the Medway on the far side of the Thames Estuary. The area to my left is I think the Thameshaven oil terminal, famous for blazing for days after being set on fire in an early September raid during the real Battle of Britain.



After hanging about on the edge of the fighting looking for an opening, I decided to investigate more closely two aircraft engaged in single combat. At least one of them must be an enemy! You can just about see the black and white underside of what will be an RAF fighter just above the far shorline, with the 109 engaged with him above the skyline.



By the time I get close, the 109 is on the Hurricane's tail and I race to cut off the Hun before it is too late!



I get off a burst at the 109 and could yell for joy as he breaks off his attack! Saved the day and no mistake - that other Hurri was in deep trouble!



I've definitely hit the Hun, for he's leaving a thin but distinct trail of dark smoke. I hang back to see if he'll go down.



No such luck - he's clearly going to need a bit more encouragement. The 109 makes a gentle left turn, still trailing smoke. I open the throttle again and start running him down.

He levels out, now heading south, back the way he came. I come up in his blind spot, closing steadily, then let fly. You may be able to make out my first tracers reaching out to him, in the pic below.



No mistake this time! The 109 rolls left and makes a diving turn earthwards.



Got him! No chance the pilot got out, at that height. Regrettable, but a few seconds ago he would have meted out the same fate to one of our own, had I not intervened.

...to be continued!

Excellent Shots and reports Lima..Its been while since i flew BOB II. Love the size of some formations.
Your tempting me into firing the old girl up pal.

The thing is Adger I had the original Rowan's BoB and only played it occasionally, likewise I must have had BoB2 for maybe ten years and same again. This campaign is my first serious bash, having been so impressed when I at last made the effort to get into BoB2 that I got Win 7 on a second SSD so I could play without the end of mission CTDs.

Anyhow, back to the morning of 24 July 1940...I bank around the crash site of the 109 I've recently chased off another Hurricane's tail. Not much left of that one.



I double-check my tail is clear and head back northwards towards Thameshaven. It's not very clear in the pic below, but the skies over there are thick with the bursts and violent flashes of AA fire at relatively low level. This makes me wonder if this is a Stuka attack on the refineries, rather than a level bomber raid on North Weald.



Suddenly I notice a terrific AA barrage much closer, just to my left. Thinking that patch of sky must be full of Huns, I'm relieved to notice that the target looks like a single fast-moving enemy aircraft. He seems to be having little difficulty keeping ahead of the pursuing AA fire.



I turn in behind him - a solitary 109, by the cut of his jib...



...but get the angles wrong and can't catch him up. Looking for someone else to sneak up on, I see three aircraft in a loose group ahead, going away towards the Medway.



Closing quickly at full throttle on the tail-end charlie, it's not long before I can see he's a Hurricane like myself, the two ahead likewise.



Intending to join them if they're from 111, I get close enough to read the squadron codes. He's from 605, as it happens, so I take my leave, having some ammo left which I could make good use of.



The sky seems clear of Huns at my own level, but up above, the AA boys are tracking a target. It's a long shot, but worth a look. I race ahead, gently climbing as I go. I'm not quite done here, yet!



...to be continued!

After a while, a small, fast-moving speck emerges from ahead of the ack ack bursts - a single 109 homeward bound, by the look of it.



I gradually gain height while falling in behind him. Every so often, more anti-aircraft fire brackets him, or rather tries to, but he flies on unconcerned. Further ahead and to the right, I can see the gunners are also firing at someone else. I press on, wary that there are now more Huns around than I bargained for,



As the range slowly winds down, the ack ack on the right dies off, and I see three, maybe four distant specks slip over from right to left, apparently joining up with the fellow I am chasing. Not necessarily a welcome development, I tell myself. Of course Albert Ball specialised in attacking large bunches of Huns, convinced that they kept a poorer look-out when beguiled by that 'safety in numbers' thing. But I'm no Albert Ball...



So on I go, creeping up steadily from below and behind. Eventually I can make them out clearly - five Me109s, no less, three one behind the other and two more off to the right. Will I, or won't I...?



I decide that I will. I come up behind the tail end Charlie, on the left. I get in close, and aim carefully. The plan is to knock him down with the shortest possible burst, then clobber the one in front and slightly below him, before anybody knows I'm here. You know what they say, a bad plan is better than no plan at all.



Got him! the Hun slips down and to the left, trailing smoke.



I avoid a temptation to make sure of him and stick to my plan. My next target and the other 109s have not reacted. Time to get the next one.



I hit him from very close range. There's a sudden gout of dark smoke and some flying debris and I break upwards in a sudden fright, suddenly afraid of running into him. But he's disappeared somewhere, into the cloud. Or did he blow up?



Recovering my composure, I see the other three 1ois have not reacted, so I come in again for what I tell myself will be my last pass. Same again - close to point-blank range so a single burst will do the job.



I close in rapidly until the next 109 fills my windscreen and I press the gun button. Nothing happens. Not a round is fired. I push down to avoid popping up in front of my former quarry, who would doubtless get over his surprise quite quickly.



I break hard right and away, but the Huns don't react' Either they need their remaining patrol to get home, or are locked into 'go home' more, or maybe a combination of both. Anyway, two 'Probables' plus the earlier 'Destroyed' will do nicely. I'm turning into quite a little Messerschmitt killer, I tell myself smugly.



Taking advantage of the cloud cover I head back north. Base is about forty miles away and I don't want to miss another contact for the sake of a long flight home.



So I quit and return to the Ops Room. Just in time to see that there are other raids have come in further to the west while I've been occupied east of London. Time to get busy again!

Nice reports 33lima.

S!Blade<><

Thanks Blade. I think my SSD has defected to the Luftwaffe tho, for it died yesterday, taking this campaign (and my Win 7 installation) with it. It seems you can power it on for 30 min without the SATA cable, power off for 30 sec, repeat that on-off cycle again, then it may come back to life. Because they can sometimes be clobbered by a sudden power down, which I got. If that doesn't work, I will be in the market for another SSD (and this time I will keep the receipt!) and in for another tedious installation of Win 7, drivers etc, Which will not save the campaign, so I'm hoping the power cycling trick might work.

Sorry to hear that 33lima. Hope it works out for you. Can't you just copy your BOB II folder and any personal save folders, maybe in my documents or saved games folder, to your Windows 10 SSD or HDD? Then when you get your new SSD and install Win 7 and hardware drivers all you will have to do is copy these same folders to the new SSD and make a new short cut from the BOB II .exe onto your desktop and everything should work. No installation of BOB II is required as Win 7 will make all the registry keys magically. I have done this in the past and it worked for me just fine. Hope this helps maybe.

S!Blade<><

Hi Blade - the SSD that stopped working - not picked up in the BIOS, or in Windows explorer (now running from Win 10, on my original SSD) had Win 7 and my main BoB2 install on it. Nothing can be accessed on it including the saved campaigns, which are stored in the SAVEGAME folder in the BoB installation folder. Until I get Win 7 back up and running all I can do is play individual missions in Win 10 using my original BoB2 install, with a CTD (so no debrief/stats) when I exit. Or I can play a fresh campaign, but only from the map, as campaign missions often crash.

Happily there are lots of individual missions and many of them can be played from several units on both sides - like gunners in this KG55 Heinkel on the Bristol Filton raid, which can be played from any of about a hundred aircraft involved, bombers, escorts or interceptors. So even in Windows 10, there's plenty to do in BoB2 (sounds like an advertising jingle!).

View from the bombardier/nose gunner's station on the run in to the target, in the right rear aircraft of one of the three groups of about fifteen Heinkels…



My aircraft from the outside, showing individual markings on each plane and authentic unit codes and emblem...



My aircraft from the front, as the guns defending the target throw up a barrage...



Bomb bay doors starting to open...it'll be 'Bomb-en auf En-g-land' any moment now...



Turning for home after bombing. The next group of Heinkels is lining up on the target, while in between them and us, our escorts have cut across and intercepted some RAF fighters...



Just when I thought we had got away with it, a couple of stray fighters latched onto us from behind. I shot off the first two or three, but the last attacker wounded two air gunners and damaged an engine, causing us to fall behind the formation. It didn't help morale that the Messerschmitt 110s flew past on their way home, without pausing. At least by that time. the attacks had stopped and we were not losing height, so had a fair chance of making it home.



Normal campaign service will be resumed when I get Windows 7 up and running again, one way or another!

The gap in reports is not due to loss of interest or of opportunity, but to the demise of the SSD on which I had Win 7 and BoB2. Both have been replaced and if a few days play on BoB2 prove stable, reports will resume, probably starting at the second 'airfields' stage rather than with those bleeping convoys again! Watch this space and sorry for the break in service.

In short, I got clobbered...



...but hope to be back up there clobbering the Huns again soon...

Something - a sudden power failure perhaps - killed the SSD I had obtained specifically to run Battle of Britain II in Windows 7, rather than 10. A bit of a shock, this was. But the 4 months or so of stable gamplay it provided, in what I'd come to appreciate as one of the very best sims I'd ever experienced, gave me the confidence - and a strong incentive - to start afresh.

Well, not quite afresh. Having lost my saved RAF campaign, I decided to re-start not at the beginning, but at the Battle's second phase, from mid-August 1940, when the Luftwaffe switched from attacking mainly Channel convoys to hitting the RAF. 'Eagle Attack', BoB2 calls if, after the original German Adlerangriff. Which is apparently where German rather than British writers reckon the Battle started. Those who concede that there was such a thing as the Battle of Britian, that is. One who apparently didn't, or had second thoughts, was the famous German ace Adolph Galland. His role is recounted in Leonard Mosley's 1969 'making of' book of the movie.



Galland, he says, "...made it clear when he was first approached to be a consultant on the film that he didn't believe that there was such a thing as the Battle of Britain, from which it followed that Germany certainly hadn't lost it. 'All that happened', he said to Ben Fisz [co-producer and WW2 RAF fighter pilot] during their first conversation in Bonn, Germany, 'was that we made a number of attacks against England between July and September. Then we discovered that we were not having the desired effect, so we retired'. Fisz regarded him with a bland smile. 'Dear General Galland,' he said. 'have you ever been to a boxing match?' When Galland nodded, he went on: 'You know what happens when, in the tenth round, one fighter is groggy on his feet and his trainer, he leans over and throws in the towel and shouts: 'My fighter retires!'? Who has won the fight, general, and who has lost it?"

But I digress. Having started a fresh campaign on 12th August, here's the situation I was faced with shortly after ten a.m., as the first raids of the day are plotted, coming across from the Pas de Calais.



Hostile 001 is a hundred-plus, and Hostile 901 is thirty-plus. Four defending squadrons have been scrambled by the campaign AI, two against each raid. I should perhaps have intervened to throw another couple at the Huns but they were coming across the narrowest part of the Channel and there wasn't a heck of a lot of time for fancy plans.

The Spitfires of 266 Squadron (as any fan of Biggles will know, that was his Camel squadron in WW1!) are first to sight the enemy. I accept the offer to fly with them, choosing as usual to fly at the head of Green Section. This is me and Green 2, out on the right of the squadron formation. We are roughly south of the port of Dover, some of whose white cliffs are visible, heading straight for Hostile 901.



And there they are!



After about a week unable to play the BoB2 campaign, I was rather glad to see once more that familiar but always thrilling sight! The question now is, what exactly am I going to do about it?

...to be continued!

A glance left and right shows no sign of the other attackers and defenders I know aren’t too far away. Up ahead, the picture up ahead is full of aircraft but somewhat confusing. What looks like two groups of bombers are advancing, high and slightly right, but a third, seen beyond my armoured glass windshield, has turned left. Between them, some contrails indicate the presence of smaller aircraft – a fighter escort. They appear to be curving away from us. I hit padlock and then the keys R-3-1, you tend to memorise these sequences, some of which have hotkeys – to report the sighting to the boss. I hear myself reporting fighters and bombers using the appropriate clock code.



The CO orders us to get stuck in. By this time I’m climbing hard in the general direction of the Huns, with the bombers in clear sight but having lost track of the fighters, which are no longer contrailing. As I watch, the two right-hand groups of bombers – Heinkels, I can now see - make a sharp change of course, as if intending to join the third group over on my left. We can hardly have frightened them off. They must have just bombed Dover, darn it – I hadn’t realised they were close enough to the coast!



The bombers are well above us and I can see at once that they will be well on their way home by the time we catch them.



The escorts I'd lost sight of have already come around and down and are attacking some of our boys, to Green Section’s left rear.



Over to my right, another RAF squadron is climbing hard towards the bombers. Beyond them is an ominous sight - two distinct groups of small aircraft, contrailing and closing in diagonally. Too many to be our boys - more escorts, sweeping the skies around the bombers! This isn't looking good!



As I watch, the nearest group begins peeling off. 'Fighters! Coming down - now! - that line in the Battle of Britain film, from the scene in which Michael Caine gets the chop, runs through my mind.



I break in the opposite direction, planning to come around behind them rather than cut directly into them. Meanwhile, the three groups of bombers, one well ahead of the rest, proceed entirely unmolested back to the French coast, a short hop the other side of the Straits of Dover.



The 109s - for that's what they are - have slpit up by the time I come around, and are engaging the friendly squadron which was chasing the bombers. I have the unsettling feeling that I'm making a bit of a mess of this one.



By the time I arrive in position, there is little to see. Where did everybody go? Green 2 and 3 are no-where to be seen. I end up chasing a solitary 109 - at least, I think he's a 109. He ends up running after the bombers. Maybe he's a Spitfire?



I am relieved of this dilemma when I spot two other fighters in a duel. On the basis that there’s a 50:50 chance that the one being chased is one of our boys in need of urgent help, I join the party.



Sure enough, it’s a 109 chasing a Spitfire and I get the pleasure of shooting an enemy off a friend’s tail – for me, one of the most satisfying things in any combat flight sim. The Hun breaks off the chase and I go after him.



After a short pursuit with the hunter/hunted roles reversed, I see the flash of bullets hitting airframe (BoB2 reproduces this effect particularly well). The Hun pulls up and right, trailing smoke. Meanwhile, the airwaves are full of the usual R/T chatter, indicating I'm not the only one in the squadron who's having a scrap.



After another attack, down he goes! Finished or not, I don’t follow him down; there are too many other aircraft in the vicinity, including Huns who would be more than happy to even the score.



I clear my tail and take stock. To the south, the retreating bombers are still being harried. I realised later that I had not re-set BoB2 (a simple Wordpad edit in bob.txt) so that the RAF would not chase over enemy-held territory. I chase the bombers for a while, but after asking the others where they are and finding them reporting their location back north, I turn around, back towards England.



As it happens, there is still plenty of 'trade' on our side of the Channel, which I will shortly find out.

...to be continued!

On my way back to Dear Old Blighty, I find myself slowly overhauling another aeroplane. The nice thing about Hurricanes, I find, is that their relative lack of dihedral makes them relatively easy to identify in this sort of situation.
From his codes, you can see he is from 501 Squadron, sadly famous for having no less than four of their aircraft shot down during about two hectic minutes on 18 August, by III/JG51's Gerhard Schoepfel.



Leaving the Hurricane behind and arriving back over the coast reveals another confusing picture. There's plenty going on, but too far away for me to make out what's actually happening.
Three strings of aircraft are moving across my nose from left to right. The sky ahead of the left-hand group is filled with the black bursts of Ack Ack fire. I swing cautiously to starboard, conscious that if all of these people are Huns, I could be flying into big trouble.



As I watch, the leading group of what I take to be more 109s runs in to what looks th be a depleted RAF squadron heading home. The first 109s peel off, generally a sure sign of aggressive intentions.



By now, I have arrived in the vicinity of Ack Ack fire which is now over the coast. Again, I spot a duel going on, a Spit against a 109 by the look of it. But as I approach the 109 rolls over and dives out of it.



Reluctant to lose height to follow him down, I look around for easier prey, but all I can see is a distant Spitfire coming inland while another distant fighter wheels over the coast amidst a cloud of Ack Ack bursts.



Further east, some of the retreating 109s I saw earlier are heading south towards France.



Further west, roughly over the port of Folkestone, more anti-aircraft fire indicates the presence of more enemy aircraft.



Uncertain what to do for the best, I drift that way for a bit, contemplating cutting off the withdrawal of whatever it is the air defence chaps are firing at. But somebody else had beaten me to it, and an air fight is already under way with the first victims falling away trailing smoke.



By this time, I am over Dover. The smoke down there has cleared but two large areas of rubble in the harbour area show that Hostile 901 has done what it came here to do.



Looking back left, the gunners are having a long range pop at the retreating escorts, and seem to have hit one of them, to boot.



My last rounds of the day are fired at a 109 which crosses my path while diving away from a Hurricane.



Happily, I identify this fellow as another Spitfire, before firing at him.



At that point I decide that enough was enough and set course for home. Clearly, my return to virtual combat in BoB2 just wasn't destined for great things. But the main thing is, I'm back in action!



This is how the Hostiles List looked as my intercepting squadrons were on their way home. Stukas - which I never even saw, that I know of - have bombed and damaged Dover radar (Chain Home) station, while the Heinkels I saw clobbered Dover. Over eighty 109s were in the air, some at least operating as a covering fighter sweep rather than as close escorts.



I need to check some stats in other info boxes to get a clearer picture (within the fog of war) of the morning's actions, but it was hectic enough while it lasted and I'm hoping to be a bit more decisive on the next mission I jump into.

Great report 33lima. It is good to see you back into the fight Sir!

S!Blade<><

It's now lunchtime on 12th August. I decide to have a look at the fortunes of the squadron I'd just flown with, 266. So I pop open the Squadron Diary. It's not a pretty picture.



In action against over sixty aircraft including three dozen 109s, we have lost eight Spitfires and five pilots, for no appreciable result! Lesson learnt - next time, in this situation, make more of an effort to stay with the squadron.

I'll have to wait a bit though. Two more raids are plotted coming in, at opposite ends of the English Channel. One seems headed for the port of Plymouth, the other for another port, Dover, way to the east.



I authorise additional squadrons scrambled against the Dover raid, letting the campaign AI fight out the interception further west. But my chance to fly never comes. For some reason, instead of putting up fighters from the nearby coastal airfields at Lympne and Hawkinge, the four squadrons scrambled come down from airfields around London. By the time they reach Dover, the raid, crossing the narrowest part of the Channel, has bombed Dover and is on its way home. Dover RDF station has also been hard hit.

Seeing that nobody is going to make contact before the Huns reach the French coast, I order all four squadrons to return to base, so they can resume readiness ASAP. Lesson learnt - for such raids, intervene to ensure closer squadrons are tasked. And when the third, evening phase comes, I change the default directive to add coastal patrols.

Time auto-fast forwards. Just as I'm beginning to think the day is going to end without further incident, more raids are detected. The enemy seems intent on repeating his earlier success, with two widely-spaced prongs hitting Plymouth and Dover Chain Home/RDF station. At Plymouth, 87 Squadron intercepts the sixty-plus Heinkels of Hostile 951, while 92 rushes down from Pembrey in south Wales. Remembering what happened last time, I'm concentrating on Dover, where three squadrons are tasked to intercept, with only 54 showing as taking off in the pic below. Fortunately Hostile 952, reported as sixty-plus Stukas, is still on the far side of the Straits of Dover.



This time, my improved dispositions perform no better and 65 'East India' Squadron - its Spitfires marked with the name of the Colony which contributed patriotically for their purchase - sights the oncoming Huns while they are on their way back across the Channel. As usual I've opted to fly as Green 1 - I'm postponing my plan to assume flight leader status until I have got a bit more practice, after my recent enforced lay-off. By this time, the sun is already well down in the West...



...while the Huns are up ahead to the south, in what looks to be two groups of fighters and some distant bombers, lower down. I call them up and the boss orders B Flight to take the fighters while the rest tackle the Stukas.



This is the position at that point, seen from the in-flight map. The other two intercepting squadrons, in compact vic formation and thus displayed as single roundels, are a long way back and seem likely to miss the party altogether.



I push the throttle fully forward and begin a shallow climb, watching the nearest group of Huns grow bigger and begin to split up, threateningly.



But at this very moment, I clearly hear the CO order the squadron to reform. There's only one squadron on this frequency (as in the real Battle) so that means me. I hesitate before remembering the lesson from earlier - stick with the squadron. So watching my tail warily for those 109s, I turn north and head after the boys, who look to be heading home. We're not short of fuel. But I have enabled the BoB2 option for the RAF not to pursue over France, from which we were only a few miles away when the order came.



Behind me, the Huns, too are homeward bound, three groups of bombers plus the two of presumed fighters. At least they accomplished their mission!



But I'm not quite done yet. I'm about to get one more opportunity to fly today. Will I have any better success?

...to be continued!

Just to digress for a bit…having flown a virtual 65 Squadron Spitfire in the last mission, for upcoming holiday reading, I just picked up this book, the story of a real-life pilot who did the real thing, in the real battle, with a real Spitfire in the real 65 Squadron.



Gordon Olive was an RAAF pilot who transferred to the RAF on a Short Service Commission in 1937 and flew on ops with 65 Squadron from the Dunkirk air battles to the end of the Battle of Britain and beyond, to December 1940. During July and August, he was in the thick of it, with 11 Group. He later spent some time as a Controller, directing fighters, and during the Blitz, in the newly-formed 456 Squadron, RAAF, in the night-fighter role, operating briefly Defiants then Beaufighters. So ‘Spitfire Ace’ will cover quite a bit of different ground, all under one cover.

This recent book was assembled from Gordon’s own writings and is considerably enhanced by the inclusion of numerous watercolours Gordon painted, starting soon after the War, illustrating the actions he describes. Scenes depicted include being bombed while taking off from Manston and intercepting some very large raids. Gordon’s painted Spitfires and Hurricanes have Sky spinners and fuselage bands, not seen until slightly after the Battle’s ‘official’ July-October timeframe. But for all that, they provide vivid depictions of the sheer scale of many raids - all the more so from being painted from his own memories of the actual events. More to the point of this thread, they could be watercolour versions of many a screenshot from Rowan’s Battle of Britain or its illustrious successor ‘BoB2’ - but from no other sim. There could hardly be more striking evidence than these paintings, that BoB/BoB2 are the simulators which portray the crux of the Battle of Britain experience so very closely to the way that the actual participants saw it. A time machine, the BoB/BoB2 old hands call it, and looking at these paintings, I see again why they say so.

Stepping back into that time machine to the evening of 12 August 1940, I accept a second offer to fly, this time with the Spits of ‘Sailor’ Malan’s 74 Squadron (supposedly, the BoB film character played by Robert Shaw was based on Malan). By this time, I’m aware that the raid is well on the way home, so I’m half-expecting to be recalled again without engaging the enemy. But there’s no harm in trying.

Up ahead, I see the retreating raid from a different angle to my last view of it with 65. They look to be over the coast of France. So I'm not surprised when, as before, the boss orders the squadron to cancel the engagement.



Their turn for home leaves me briefly still flying after the raid, while the others are regrouping over to my right, headed back the way we came.



The Huns are a long way off and I have no hesitation this time in turning back to rejoin the squadron. For a while, I chase after some single-engined fighters which seem to be shadowing the others. Could they be 109s, trying to catch us out? I doubt it, but better safe than sorry.



The unidentified fighters out front start turning right and as I turn after them, I get a better look.



Eliptical wings, so definitely Spitfires.



Only Heinkel 70s and 112s had those, and there are none of these here – nor Heinkel 113s (real designation Heinkel 100), although the latter were included in recognition guides and possibly for that reason, regularly mis-reported over Britain by RAF pilots in 1940.



I follow the other Spits around, thinking to go with them if they have decided after all to resume the chase. But they come back onto their original course, north for home. Perhaps I spooked them, coming up from behind, and they were just clearing their tails.



I close up and see they are definitely from a different squadron - in fact their YT squadron codes show these two to be from 65, the squadron I flew with last time! I fly with them again for a while, a sad cuckoo in their nest, disappointed at successive failures to get to grips with raids slipping the short way across the Channel to make damaging hit-and-run raids on Dover and its environs.



Another change of tactics is clearly called for here! I make a mental note to find out what the heck is happening, or not happening, at the nearby airfields of Lympne and Hawkinge. There should be fighters at both and while they would have to climb hard, they ought to be able to intercept such raids, or at least scrambled to do so. Diverting patrols or relying on fighters coming down from the London area just isn’t working.



Here’s the Review info box showing claims and losses so far in the Battle – and it’s not a good picture. I’ll need to do better than this, starting at once.



The short end-of-day summary tells me that the Luftwaffe is increasing the ratio of escorts to bombers, resulting in smaller formations of the latter. Is this a sign the Huns are not having it all their own way, either? I hope so!

Back at the Ops Room, the time is around 09:30 on 13th August, and the first raid of the day, Hostile 901, is plotted heading towards the Isle of Wight. Over to the east, patrols in 12-aircraft squadron strength are assembling on my orders, in the hope of avoiding another nasty surprise in the Dover area. I have also ordered two squadrons from further north to relocate south, to the coastal airfields at Lympme and Hawkinge. On checking, to my surprise, I had found them unoccupied. Perhaps the campaign AI's logic is that fighters based there, so close to enemy-occupied France, are liable to be caught on the ground -better Dover gets bombed than that happens. Lesser of two evils, and all that. In moving fighers down there, perhaps I am just sticking my head into the lion's jaws. But we shall see.



I authorise two extra squadrons to intercept Hostile 901, which is achieved with a trio of mouse-clicks. Two, including 152, come across from Warmwell to the west, while 238 comes down from Middle Wallop. All are from No.10 Group, covering the south-west. I haven't flown with 238 before I think, so when they make contact, I accept the offer to fly with them. At the moment, I still have things set not to be offered a flight prior to take off, but I might change that if I get bored with air starts. At the moment, though, boredom in any shape or form is not a concern!

Here we are, at the point we have sighted the raiders. I'm flying VK-L, leading B Flight's Green Section, as usual.



The Huns look to comprise three groups of bombers and two of escorts. They are flying diagonally across our noses from left to right, towards the coast, target unknown.



The drill is by now automatic - toggle on padlock and hit R-3-1 to report the sighting. At the same time I start to 'increase Angels', in the R/T lanugage of the time. The boss acknowledges and quickly gives his orders - you can see the text display for the second part of his transmission at the bottom of the pic.



By the way, if you ever want to know what communications between Controllers and Fighter Leaders really sounded like, the best source I've heard for that is the 1952 film 'Angels One Five'. An actor playing a fighter controller was reportedly in that very role at Hornchurch during the Battle. While the dialogue (and the plot!) get a tad corny towards the end, the radio voice procedure seems to be spot on.

Usually by now, the nearest formation of escorts would be dissolving aggressively as it comes our way. This time, however, the whole shooting gallery maintains its course.



True to my orders, I lead Green Section against the 109s, who don't seem to have seen us coming. This makes a pleasant change!



I take my time and curve in behind the nearest Messerschmitt, then let him have it. As I'm doing this, someone else I've missed in the excitement is letting me have it - you can see his tracers flying past, above my cockpit.



Concentrating on making sure of my intended victim, I break off reluctantly, by which time it is nearly too late. Metallic clunks indicate the Hun behind has corrected his aim. Down and right I go, wondering what Green 2 and 3 are up to, as the Hun flashes past behind, unseen.



The nearest bunch of 109s has at last woken up and reacted to our presence. Two aircraft are already trailing smoke - the Hun I hit, hopefully now going down, and my own Hurricane, hopefully not now going down.



Clearing my tail with a tight vertically-banked turn, I pop the canopy open in case I have to get out. But though visibly hit and with my motor running rough, we seem to be still in business. Feeling a bit sheepish, I close the canpoy, complete a near circle and come in around and behind the bombers. They seem to be already under attack and the second bunch of 109s is now also breaking formation to deal with these attackers.



I can't make out where the rest of the squadron is, or what happened to the first group of 109s. So I decide to allow myself the luxury of a solo run at the bombers, which is what I am best placed to do at that point.



Swinging in behind them, I get a shock when a flock of blue-bellied fighters cuts down and across. Seeing the colour before the shape, first reaction is that they're 109s, but those elliptical wings quickly enable me to correct my identification. Still, the beggars nearly ran into me! And I do wish the shortage of the new Sky undersurface paint hadn't resulted in some people using a distinctly Hunnish colour!



Undaunted, I hold my course. There'll be ample time to be a team player later. For now, I want to nail one of those bombers, before they drop their eggs!



...to be continued!

I join the Spits in getting stuck into the bombers, which are obviously Heinkels. For my own target, I take the fellow on the right of the nearest bunch. This time, there isn't a 109 trying to warm my backside with his cannon, and I get many hits on the bomber. But take rather a lot in return.



I keep shooting right up to the instant the Heinkel begins to bank right, out of formation. I get hit some more. These air gunners seem above average, unfortunately.



I don't so much break away as fall out of the sky, barely under control and engine faltering.



It's clear there's no question this time of returning to the fray. I bring my kite's wings level and let her fall away, praying that the 109s rate my chances no better than I do.



I start north across the Solent, the body of water between the Isle of Wight on the left and the mainland, on the right. Fearing the worst I slide back the canopy again, ready to hit the silk while I still have the height for it.



Left and above, Spitfires are going for the other groups of bombers.



I rack my brains trying to remember where the nearest airfield is. But my rate of descent soon rules out any option but a forced landing somewhere close to hand. Below and right, I see a large grassy area, slipping below my tattered upper wing. Incidentally I don't know why that damage isn't visible in the earlier pics, unless I got shot again and didn't notice!



I suspect this damage is linked to my control problems. So when I turn back over the Solent, back towards the Isle of Wight, I bank left, away from my damaged wing, treating it like a dead engine on a twin-engined aircraft. Meanwhile I can see signs that the air fighting is still going on, not far away.



My rate of descent increases rather alarmingly as I turn harder to get lined up on that grassy area. It looks like an airfield, but there are no structures. I learn later that this is the Osborne estate, a favourite haunt of Queen Victoria, no less. It'll be a favourite of mine if I can get down there safely. Happily my hydraulics are working and the undercart drops and locks without further drama. I begin to not regret bailing out while I could.



I level off for my approach and throttle back. This is when it all goes pear-shaped. My kite drops its right wing and rolls right, away from the grassland. It's like what torque my damaged motor has been generating is the only thing that kept that damaged wing level. By the time I've recovered, I'm heading the wrong way and too fearful of another loss of control to try another turn, at this height. A forced landing straight ahead is my only option, so I raise my landing gear again. It's all I can do to keep the wings level, and I can't stop her sinking at an alarming rate.



I hit the ground and the camera switches to a zoomed-out view of my kite somersaulting while losing bits of a wing. As Douglas Bader noted in his logbook entry for the Gloster Gauntlet crash which cost him his legs, 'Bad Show.'



Meanwhile, a second raid has crept across the Channel and done its work, while the squadrons scrambled to intercept are still rushing down from the London area. I doubt any will catch the raid.



I can only hope that the two squadrons I have ordered down to Hawkinge and Lympne will be in position by the time Jerry tries that one again. At least my Hurricane sortie produced two 'Probables'. Better than nothing - but not by very much!

After a short break in the real world, the Battle of Britain II 'time machine' has transported me back to the morning of August 13, 1940. As soon as I load my saved campaign game and see the Ops Room map, I'm offered a chance to fly with 234 Squadron. It's one of three intercepting the sixty-plus Bandits of Hostile 901 over the Isle of Wight. This raid's possible targets include major ports and radar stations; airfields too, though these are thinner on the ground than further east, in 11 Group's area of operations.

This, I later realise, is a case of 'deja vu, all over again' as it duplicates the position at the start of my last flight. Looks like I didn't save my game after quitting, but anyway...

A couple of mouse clicks later and I'm in the cockpit of a Spitfire coded SN-K, leading Green Section on the right of the squadron formation of twelve. Up ahead, I can see what looks to be three groups of about ten bombers each, with three squadrons of what must be the fighter escort, above them. To the left of this bunch, what can only be a fellow RAF fighter squadron has spread out and is streaming in to attack the horde of oncoming Huns.



The map below shows relative positions at this stage. The enemy are heading roughly east, towards the hinterland of the coastal towns of Bournemouth and Poole. But the wily Hun isn't going to give his targets away just so easily, as I will soon find out.



As I nearly always do, rather than wait for the boss to react (which he will) I padlock the enemy and use BoB2's command menu to report the raid. To give myself some leg room, I edge Green Section up from the rest of 234, who are also beginning to react. Incidentally, this looks to be a very rare case of BoB2 getting its squadron codes wrong, as it seems SN was used by 243 not 234, the former flying Spits in the Far East and the Med, not in the Battle of Britain. Be that as it may...



Things are now happening very quickly. Before the boss has even finished acknowledging my report, the Huns begin turning north towards us, running straight into the nearest RAF fighters as they do so.



The enemy horde is now closing rapidly and I throttle back, anxious not to run into them until the boss has completed his attack orders. Not everybody is so reticent.



By the time I hear the CO confirming that we in 'B' Flight are to go for the fighters, it's become too late, and I plough smack into the oncoming Heinkels. And a bunch of Hurricanes who are merrily attacking them from astern.



I have to make a split second decision on evasive action. I decide to take none, thinking I'm just as likely to cause a collision as avoid one. A good move, as it turns out, for a few seconds later I'm curving around after the Huns, quite undamaged and looking for one of the fighters I'm supposed to be tackling.



A bit of a ropey start, this, but at least I'm still in business.

...to be continued!

Hunting for 109s, I first latch onto this fellow, who is chasing a Spitfire, currently out of camera shot. Before I can get close enough, another Spit slips in ahead of me and sends the 109 diving away, smoking.



I have lost a bit of height and pull up again in a turn to the left. By this time, the Heinkels are under atatck from both Spits and Hurricanes.



Suddenly, a Spit flashes down and across my nose, chased by a Messerschmitt. I cut in after the Hun, who is too far away for effective shooting. Before I can get close, the 109 lets fly and there's a flurry of hits visible on the Spit. #%&*$# and blast!



Fearful that I have already left it too late, I let fly, still too far out but hoping to scare off the 109. Happily, this works and I follow the Hun as he breaks away. Don't ask me how I got into this attitude relative to the 109; I know it's the done thing to keep what today would be called your lift vector aligned with a manouevring target's, not be upside-down while he's right-way-up.



For the second time, another RAF figher, closer to the Hun, nips in ahead of me and sends him diving away. So back up after the raid I come, wary of the gaggle of fighters, friend and foe, still ploughing along in the bombers' wake.



Soon, I'm closing on the Heinkels again, not holding a straight course for more than a few seconds. A 109 is going down to my left. Directly ahead, a Hurricane has levelled out and looks intent on coming up underneath the Heinkels. I decide that if nothing else happens, I'll join him in a pass at the bombers, before going looking for Messerschmitts again. By now, we are over the Solent, the body of water between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, heading roughly north, towards the major port of Southampton.



Suddenly, tracers flash past above me, towards the Hurricane, who dives away smoking. I chop the throttle and, as intended, the 109 who shot him up overshoots, just to my right.



And the same scene from the external view...



I open the throttle again and slide in after the Hun. However, for the third time, another Spitfire gets there first and sends the 109 down. Teamwork, eh? You can just about see the Hun's thin, pale grey smoke trail cutting my reflector sight disc at about nine o'clock, with the Spit in a left bank after him, just above the trail and slightly outside the sight disc.



Using the speed built up diving, I pull up again and find myself much closer to the bombers, again with a Hurricane in the queue ahead of me.



I pass the Hurricane as he opens fire. Incidentally, having just finished Gordon Olive's 'Spitfire Ace', I see the 65 Sqn pilot is quite clear RAF fighters didn't use tracers, notwithstanding gun camera footage from the time showing smoke trails (whether these were left by what were technically tracer rounds, or indendiary ones whose burning element left such a trace). At any rate, Gordon says the only sign of firing was brown smoke trailing behind the RAF fighter. By contrast, he says (and his vivid post-war paintings portray) German fighter and bomber tracers leaving prominent criss-cross lines in the sky. What Gordon may have meant is that the Luftwaffe used ammo which left prominent smoke trails, the RAF ammo which didn't, by comparison anyway.



To stay out of the Hurricane's line of fire, I edge out to the left and lay into the Heinkel on that side of the nearest formation. Subtlety not being my strong suit, I simply close right on in, aiming between a wing root and the engine on that side and firing short bursts every time the sight picture looks right. Once I'm committed, I will ignore hits from return fire. Which I duly take, but not before the bomber has begun to lurch out of formation, to the right. Notice another Spit siding away from an attack of its own. Below and ahead is Southampton, on a direct course for being bombed.



I roll left and away, but not before taking a hit which damages my armoured glass windscreen. For a few seconds more, I'll remain in range of the Hun air gunners, still doing their best to kill me. I can only bite my lip and hope it doesn't get any worse, before I get clear.



...to be continued!

Finally out of bomber gunner range and still more or less intact, I bank right to clear my tail and to enjoy watching my victim go down. Instead, the Heinkel I have shot out of formation is curving away to the right, leaving no smoke trail, apparently maintaining altutude and soon to be on his way home. Not so good.



I decide to take a chance with those nasty air gunners again, rather than leave the enemy formation for a straggler. Southampton is about to be clobbered and trying to prevent another Heinkel from bombing is more important than racking up a kill.



This time, I slide across to the far right of the bombers and go for one on that side. I close at an angle, not so much in the hope of making a harder target of myself, more so I can see him past my damaged windscreen, until I'm ready to try to line him up.



When I do let fly, I can barely see what effect it's having. So I break up and away early, to avoid a collision and hoping for the best. The fact I'm also taking more hits from these nasty Nazi air gunners is also a factor. I don't think I did my target much harm...



... and for that poor return, I remain under fire as I pull up above the Huns. You can see the grey 'pencil lines' of their tracers where they cross the water, and this is almost exactly how these appear in Gordon Olive's paintings of the big air battles of August & Sepemper 1940.



My trusty Merlin seems to be running normally but my kite doesn't want to fly level. I certainly don't want to tangle with fighters in this condition, but I decide a straggler would now do nicely, after all. I turn south-east and start following a promising smoke trail that's heading back across the Channel to France.



Unseen behind me, the raid is under Ack Ack fire and has begun to turn. Which likely means they have just bombed and are turning for home.



Second later, their bombs burst on and around Southampton's docks. It looks like a pretty tight pattern; these Huns can bomb as well as they shoot.



Over to the right, the ground gunners are also engaging some distant stragglers. My chosen one I keep slightly to my left, so I can keep him in view.



As the range comes down, I bank left, then right to level off, and start shooting.



I see what could be bombs being jettisoned, falling away from the stricken Heinkel. But I soon realise that it's the crew bailing out. Got him!



Behind me, however, a dark cloud of smoke lies over the burning dock installations.



The only other aircraft I can now see around me are the other stragglers to my right, some still drawing Ack Ack fire. As you can see, my Spit seems to have collected rounds in the starboard upper wing and in her tail fin.



Time to go home! By this point in proceedings, I have already heard the boss calling his brood to reform. I make an enquiry on the R/T as to their whereabouts, and the CO confirms they are headed back west, towards our base at Warmwell. My machine is still controllable and I don't feel the need to prove anything by making the long-ish return flight and land, so I quit back to the Ops Room 'wargame' mode there and then.



Once there, a quick look at the Hostiles List shows that Hostile 901 - its split-off escorts now being tracked as Hostile 903 - have critically damaged Southampton docks. How bad that will be in an air campaign remains to be seen. Perhaps more worrying, having enjoyed the attentions of Hostile 902's Stukas, Dover Chain Home/Radio Direction Finding/radar station remains damaged, but less seriously.



You can see that I have called up the '?' help function for the Hostiles List, which explains what the various columns in this report signify. There's a 'fog of war' effect so sightings, claims and losses etc will not always be accurate, and some figures aren't updated till later eg your squadrons have landed and are 'complete' again.

Anyhow it's great to be getting back into the swing of things in BoB2. I remain convinced that it is - by a long margin - still the very best single player representation of the Battle of Britain of any currently available. Comparing to many participant memoirs, it's uncannily like BoB2 was designed by people who were there, and who had supplemented their first-hand knowledge by thoroughly researching everything from radio voice procedure to camouflage and markings to battlefield locations. Overall, BoB2 is not surpassed by any other SP of any genre I have ever player. Uncanny.

So expect campaign reports to continue, win or lose. We're not done here yet, and this is just one of four distinct campaigns available (commander and pilot, RAF or Luftwaffe), not including the separate Battle of France user-made one and not to mention the excellent selection of historical and training missions. Plus I have barely skimmed the additional experiences available from flying as a flight or squadron leader, or from take-off to landing rather than just jumping into air fights about to kick off. Classic sim stuff!

Many times I've seen two AI controlled 109s in BOB make repeated passes at RAF fighters.. like a tag-team. At other times one baits you and draws you high while his buddy drops on your 6. I saw this repeatedly in Rowan's earlier gem ...Mig Alley. Rowan learned a lot about handling large groups of ac in that sim. ...Dentist ..."Mig train heading south"

The situations pictured below (both pics posted here before) may or may not be what you have in mind Vox, but while it had its minuses - main one seen so far is escort squadrons following the 'proportionate response' to intercepts producing unengaged ones which ignore you if you're from an already-engaged RAF squadron but go for them - yes, the BoB2 fighter teamwork and bomber formations and associated AI are still leaders of the pack, by a long way.

Pair of 109s co-operating to harry and soon shoot down a Spit, while I can only watch:



Later mission, me having just been shot off the tail of a 109 which I thought was the tail-end Charlie in the pack I had attacked from astern:

For a while, it goes quiet in the Ops Room. I decide to put up a patrol over the damaged Dover RDF station. Once the squadron is on task, I can easily divert them to intercept another raid sneaking quickly across the Straits to hit any target in that area. I'm quite keen not to be so badly caught out again in that fashion.

But the wily Huns aren't tempted. Instead, the next raid, Hostile 301, thirty plus, is now plotted coming north-west up the wider stretch of the Channel, towards my coastal fighter airfields at Tangmere and Westhampnett.



From these airfields, 145 and 43 Squadrons are AI-scrambled, in accord with my standing orders ('Directives' in BoB2 speak). Their blue and white markers seem to take ages to start tracking towards the raid, which is getting ever closer all the while. I manually authorise two more interceptions. The result is that 85 Squadron is scrambled to come over from the east - from Lympne, by the look of it - while 64 comes down from Kenley, south of London.

But it's going to be touch and go whether any of these four squadrons intercepts before the raid reaches its target or targets. I'm wasn't generally a fan of 'sims within a wargame' until I persevered with the excellent 'Steel Armour - Blaze of War', but I am certainly finding that BoB2's wargame element adds a delicious extra layer of excitement to this sim. On top of that, it gives the resultant air combats a greater sense of time, place and context than in a conventional single-player sim campaign.

One such encounter now occurs as 145 Squadron sight Hostile 301, re-plotted as sixty-plus. I accept the offer to fly as Green 1. The rest of my section, Green 2 and Green 3, are out of sight here, either side to my rear. We are actually chasing the raid in from the Channel, heading north-west past the prominent headland of Selsey Bill and about to cross the coast just east of Worthing, by the look of it.



I look up and ahead, instinctively opening the throttle and beginning to climb, but can't make out the raid. Finally, I see some contrails passing throught a patch of Ack Ack fire. They're way higher! I call them in to the boss, who at first can't see them either. I try again, and this time he acknowledges the sighting and orders us to get at them. Easier said than done!



I continue to climb. As I do so, things start to happen. The Huns swing around to our right, moving rather quickly, and I can see that they are in three distinct groups. Even as I watch, the first group breaks formation and their contrails start spearing downwards. Bloody hell - these are fighters, possibly all of them!



That bunch who's diving, who are they going for? I look across to my right and see what could be two RAF squadrons, the higher one already beginning to loosen formation to meet the attack.



I tighten my climbing turn in their direction. If the contrails are anything to go by, a couple of the diving Huns have split off and are going for the lower RAF squadron.



By the time I level off, I realise that there are three distinct air fights going on. Directly ahead, a group of still-distant specks is whirling around. Quarter right, slightly lower over the coast, another dogfight is in full swing.



Over to my left and further out, the picture is more confused, with a group of aircraft in tight formation - bombers? - and two more scattered groups manoeuvring, one above, one below. It begins to look like that's the raid, well past us, and what we've run into is a large gaggle of fighers on a covering sweep.



Warily, I approach the nearest dogfight, the one straight ahead. I latch on to one figher who's chasing another. If the fellow out in front is one of ours, he'll be needing my help rather urgently.



I'm momentarily distacted by a group of aircraft flying past to my right, in the opposite direction. I have no idea who they are, but they pay me no attention, so I resume the chase.



Soon, I think I can make out that the leading aircraft has elliptical wings, the one I'm chasing squarer ones. A 109 after a Spit!



I soon realise that I if I wait till I get close enough for a good shot, the Hun will get the other Spit first. So I open fire early, to scare off the 109. He doesn't see (or ignores) my first short burst, but the second one does the trick. The Hun breaks off to the right.

The 109 is very fast, though, and a bit higher. I chase after him and while he curves around left, back towards the coast, he sensibly keeps it wide and doesn't give me a chance to cut across his turn. The best I can do is try to stay in his blind spot, so he isn't clear where I am, while keeping an eye out for anyone trying to sneak up on me.



The 109 levels out, heading now roughly west, still going like the clappers. At this point, I notice some contrailing aircraft being engaged by Ack Ack, higher up and slightly left.



This lot will need watching. My 109 turns left but then back the other way, but by this time I'm more concerned about the group now just up ahead. They look well placed to jump on my head if ignore them for the sake of chasing that 109. And Green 2 and 3 are no-where to be seen.



Suddenly, two things happen which clear up the situation no end. First, the formation up ahead starts taking Ack Ack fire. Next, its aircraft start dropping like stones. Like Stukas, to be precise. They're going for the airfield whose crossed concrete runways I can just about see up ahead, as I bank right. Tangmere is about to be dive bombed.



...to be continued!

I race down towards the diving Stukas, knowing the best I’m going to do is get them after they have unloaded on Tangmere. Sure enough, I see the first flashes of exploding bombs above my nose, just right of my reflector sight.



The Stukas have fairly hammered Tangmere's hangars. You can perhaps just about make out several of the dive bombers as lighter specks against the fields beyond Tangmere, as the sun glints on their wings.



The Huns turn for the coast and climb, and I turn after them. At the same time, a flurry of Ack Ack fire flecks the sky with black bursts, a bit further away.



The anti-aircraft people are actually firing at a second group of Stukas. Concentrating on the others, I get a a bit of a shock when I run into these people nearly head on.



It's like Picadilly Circus, except with dive bombers instead of red buses and black taxis!



I keep going after the first lot and somehow manage not to collide with anyone.

The best time to catch Stukas is when they’re on their own, just after pulling out. By the time I’ve caught the crowd I’m chasing, they’re not only back in formation, but climbing for their withdrawal across the Channel. Finally I get into range and let rip at one of the beggars.

This doesn’t go well. My target is hit and blinds me with smoke. Hits from him or others plink into my airframe, but, reluctant to break before seeing the Hun go down, I keep firing until the last second. Breaking away, there’s a violent impact and my Hurricane goes into a vertical right bank...and keeps on rolling...



At this point, the red mist closes in – which is apparently what you see when you turn off the default BoB2 ‘spinning death’ external view. Which I did just before reloading the campaign. You can also see a rather large hole in my Hurricane’s side, but no other airframe pieces seem to be absent, so perhaps it was return fire, rather than a collision, which did the damage. Either way, I can only hope the rest of the squadron did better.



But I’m not finished with Hostile 301 just yet!

To be continued!

Stuka Party!

More like the Stukas were having a Hurricane party, for a change

Ah well, next up I'm in a Spit and we'll see if I did any better or [squadron codes joke alert] got a bit of a shok...

Soon after returning to the Ops Room, I’m offered another chance to fly with an intercepting squadron, which I accept. This time it’s the Spitfires of 64 Squadron. By the time I’ve jumped into the cockpit, the boys have already split formation and my own kite has rolled well over to the right. It’s at times like this that you are glad if, like me, you have set the sim to auto-pause when you enter the 3d world.



Taking the chance to look around, I somehow don't notice that the Squadron is reacting to some 109s just below and right. I’m more interested in the phalanx of retreating Stukas, now climbing slowly but steadily and well out over the Channel. Above them on their left are more 109s. I decide to have a pop at the Stukas, first. Some other aircraft, Hurricanes I think, are already linining them up.



I slide over behind and below the dive-bombers, towards the group on the left.



There's no sign of a reaction from the 109s up ahead so I clobber the left-hand Stuka, taking only a few hits and breaking just in time to avoid running into him. This is a significant risk in stern attacks in BoB2, when the target produces an involuntary smokescreen.



The stricken dive-bomber falls out of the formation to the left. One down, about twenty-nine to go!



As I pull up and away, I realise the Hurricanes seem to have disappeared, along with the rest of my own squadron. Have the escorts slipped in unseen?



The 109s up ahead of the Stukas aren't implicated, as they're still flying on regardless. I decide to wake them up.



I come up on them from below and behind - I think close escorts never weave in BoB2, so I catch them up fairly quickly.



I break up and right after hitting the 109 on the right. He starts smoking but doesn't go down.



Taking no chances I make myself scarce, but the Huns fly on towards France, as if nothing happened, with the fellow I hit still in formation, leaving a faint smoke trail.



Apparently, per BDG modder Stickman over on the informative A2A forums, BoB2 close escorts like these detach one squadron to deal with each distinct threat - in practice, each intercepting RAF squadron. If there’s more than one squadron of escorts, the others stick to their charges, unless and until a second distinct threat/RAF squadron appears. I have broken away from my squadron, and as far as these 109s are concerned, dealing with me is the job of the other 109s that my squadron is already engaged with. Even if I attack them.

This limitation seems to be the downside of BoB2 being otherwise so uniquely good at putting into the air convincingly big formations which mostly behave convincingly. The easy way to avoid seeing it is probably just to operate realistically. Stick with your squadron (or lead it) and fight their battle. If separated, locate them and rejoin. If tempted not to, tackle unescorted bombers by all means, but if you see a bomber formation with close escorts, leave them if you don't want to exploit the unengaged escort issue – locate and join the battle that you left behind.

I have seen several accounts from the real BoB of escorts not reacting to one of their number, or one of their charges, being attacked. So it did happen, just not quite so predictably. If someone ever picks up again working on the BoB2 code, this I would rate the most pressing issue, second to a tendency for losses to be a bit excessive in air fights conducted in the 3d world.

But I digress. If I had looked around more carefully, I would have been able to see the other escorts figthing the Hurricanes and the rest of 64, behind me nearer the English coast. But I'm mesmerised by all those Stukas. I come across onto their right side and line up for another pass.



This time I damage one of them before breaking off...



...but though damaged, the Hun manages to stay in formation. The good news is that these air gunners aren't just so hot now, or perhaps they are running out of ammo - which BoB2 does model. I take a few more hits but everything still seems to be working. So I'm not out of this fight just yet.

...to be continued!

Irritated at the sight of the smoking 109 likewise holding formation, I decide to pop him off. I've already exploited the AI so I might as well complete what I'd started.



In reality, apart from the windshield, a 109’s whole canopy - including the radio mast - was jettisoned on bailing out, not just the hinged centre section. At least one recent sim's 109 bailout animation has the hinged section swinging open normally to the side, which is quite wrong. At any rate, that's one Messerschmitt that won't be paying us a return visit - and one hot shot Hun fighter pilot too, unless BoB2 represents air sea rescue operations.



I’m now well out over the Channel and the boss is on the blower ordering the squadron to reform. I decide first to have another crack at the damaged Stuka, which I can see is still trailing smoke, but still in formation. They have climbed so high that they are beginning to contrail, which seems an unlikely thing to do.



This time my luck and ammo both run out as I start my firing pass. I do no visible further damage but take some more hits, before getting clear.



This time, real damage is done - my engine's revs start falling and rising, and one wing wants to drop. I complete my break and turn around for dear old Blighty.



The skies between me and the English coastline seen clear and I decide to fly her home. It feels a bit of a cheat, in such circumstances, to escape one's little difficulties by simply quiting the mission.

The airfields at Tangmere and its satellite Westhampnett are not far inland, but the grass Coastal Command base at Ford is closer to the coast and on my route. So I make for there. I come over the shoreline a bit high, just east of Ford, and make a spiral descent so as to line up with the airfield and land into the prevailing westerly wind. I get the speed, gear and flaps down ok. But I then struggle with the trim and throttle settings necessary to stop the visible juddering and audible rattling which results in BoB2, until you get the trim, speed and angle of descent sorted. You can see here, from the angle of the elevators, that I'm still desperately pulling back on the stick to keep her nose going right down.



In this condition, and highly alarmed, I come in rather low over the River Arun, managing to stop my damaged wing from dropping, but with the trim still not sorted.



I bounce once as wheels touch grass. But on coming back down, one wheel makes contact first and the Spit starts to ground loop around it, dipping a wing. I try to level her off, but it’s no use. The offending wing's tip catches the ground and the red mist closes in again.

I had so nearly made it, landing a damaged aircraft with a 109 and a Stuka to my name! Once again, that will teach me to make more of an effort to play with the team, not to go swanning off on my own. Hunting for glory, instead of sticking with the boys. Perhaps I will now award myself that promotion to flight leader, in the hope of encouraging myself to be more responsible!

2 or 3 reports back, your first clue that your day wasn't going to go well in the Hurricane was your call letters. SOL, for Gods sake, you should have called up the Boss on the blower and reported low oil pressure and headed for the Officers Club 33lima. What were you thinking mucker? Nice reports though Mate!

S!Blade<><

Had to look that one up BladeMeister -'SOL' or 'SOOL' is not an acronym that seems to get much use, on this side of the pond!

Anyway I'm not superstitions, as I seem to get clobbered regardless of markings!

A late afternoon show on 13 August gives my a chance to fly with 85 Squadron, notable amongst other things for a series of well-known photographs of the squadron in flight during the Battle, like this one:



Peter Townsend who flew with 85 wrote what is still one of my favourite histories of the Battle, 'Duel of Eagles', so I am glad to fly with the squadron. We are one of several scrambled to intercept a raid heading for the Dover area. By this point my losses are significantly higher than my claims, which latter may be exaggerated but are unlikely to be accurate. Does this mean I'm losing? It's hard to say. In that respect, playing BoB2's campaign reminds me of the words at the time of Fighter Command boss Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding. Quoted in Norman Gelb's 'Scramble!', Dowding recalls '...being cross-examined by the Secretary of State for Air about the discrepancy. He was anxious about the effect on the American people of the wide divergence between the claims of the two sides. I replied that the Americans would soon find out the truth - if the German figures were accurate, they would be in London in a week. Otherwise, they would not.'

As 1940 Spitfire pilot 'Dizzy' Allen put it in 'Who Won the Battle of Britain?', in conventional ground battles, you have tangible, territorial objectives, which you either hold or don't. In a fight for air superiority, it's not so clear; there can only be an assumption that you have it, and that assumption might be wrong. BoB2 conveys this sense of uncertainty nicely, conveying a real cliffhanger feeling.

In an effort to do better I am increasing the number of squadrons scrambled to intercept every raid. Before, it felt like I was feeding Oxo Cubes to a lion, and seems little point in holding back. If it shows signs of working I'll continue with the tactic; if it doesn't I'll have to try something else!

Anyhow, here I am in VY-O, a few thousand feet above Dover, with the raid well above us. The squadron climbs desperately to get at the beggars but long before we get there, the whirling contrails of escorting fighters, breaking formation and coming down, show we are in for a hot reception.



A shower of Messerschmitts descends on us and I break to avoid them, losing some of the little altitude I have in the process. I see a dogfight developing at about my level north of Dover and turn that way, skirting the port's balloon barrage on the way.



I manage to chase a 109 off the tail of a Spitfire - so at least we're not alone here. One of his wings looks narrower that the other in the pic below but that's because the sun is glinting on his starboard flaps and aileron.



The Hun dodges about a bit but at that level he can't just roll and dive away. I get hits from several bursts and see him roll over slowly and go down. I break off to clear my tail and see the pilot bail out. no doubt about that one! You can see 85's white polygon unit marking on my Hurricane as I bank steeply to get a good view of the crash.



Up I go in a spiral climb at full power. The straight line of specks to the left is I think part of Dover's balloon barrage, but there are plenty of aircraft specks over there too, plus the Ack Ack boys are having a go at something further inland.



I decide to rejoin the combat north of the port, checking my mirror and throwing in some turns as I go. Once again, I find myself skirting those darn balloons.



I close in behind an aircraft chasing another one, and when I find he is another 109 after a Spit, shoot him off. You can just about see the Spitfire on the horizon to the right.



Round goes the 109, and round goes my Hurricane, after him



The Hun sticks to his turn and I gradually close in.



Suddenly, a stream of yellow tracers flashes over my canopy and there's a clunk noise from somewhere. Caught from behind! I convert my tight right turn into a rolling dive in that direction, but when I try to level out, nothing happens. And I'm too low to bail out!



But there's no time for recriminations. Further west, the port of Southampton is under threat from another raid, and another big air fight is about to kick off!

I'm not long back in the Ops Room before I'm offered, and accept, another chance to fly - this time, with 234 Squadron, at the point it's about to take off.
The squadron's Spitfires are lined up on the grass at Warmwell, engines running and ready to go; I'm in AZ-K.



I test the flying controls and, when the aircraft in front start rolling, release the brakes and open the throttle. Once airborne, I raise the undercart and climb a little to gain a bit of separation for the section I'm leading. Isolated patches of very low cloud are scudding along.



I slide Green Section out to the right of the others as they begin a slow climb to the east. Our target, as I know from the Ops Room, is a sizeable raid believed headed for the big port of Southampton.



As we gain height, I drift back over towards the rest of the squadron. RAF fighter undersurfaces varied a lot over the course of the Battle, ours being typical for mid-August - Sky, with no underwing roundels yet. Up top ,our Dark Green and Dark Earth aka sand and spinach is in the B Scheme pattern; BoB2 doesn't represent the mirrror-image A Scheme.



Rather than fly on in real time, I do what I often do in other sims, and jump or 'warp' ahead. In BoB2 this is done by time accelerating from the map view. I seem to recall this being reported as liable to separate you from the rest of your squadron but despite doing it twice, one 'next waypoint' at a time, I don't have any problems today. I come out the second time to see the enemy is still a long way off. Part of the raid is withdrawing roughly south, down Southampton Water, away from the port. The Ack Ack people have been doing their level best and a dense pattern of bursts marks the Huns' line of retreat. Further south and farther away, another patch of bursts marks the presence of more Huns, whose aircraft are too distant to make out, even as specks.



After closing for a while, I use the BoB2 menus to call up the raid on the R/T. Acknowledging my report, the boss orders us to pick our own targets. All I can see is bombers and I curve in towards them - Heinkels, by the cut of their jibs. The gunners down below have stopped firing at them but these Huns are now being attacked by other RAF fighters. The enemy formation looks small and a bit ragged, like they've already taken some casualties.



I abort my first pass to stay out of the way of other fighters, likely including my own squadron-mates, who are enthusiastically attacking the Heinkels from astern. Happily, there's still no sign of escorts. The Hun bombers begin a turn across my nose from right to left. This allows me to cut across their turn and make my own pass.



I hit the Heinkel on the outside left of the formation and take some hits in my starboard wing. I've hit my target in the same general area, but he's not going down just yet and maintains his turn with the others.



I make a wide circuit behind the bombers to clear my tail and make sure everything is still working. Which it is. By the time I have come around behind the Huns again, they are somw way off and heading south-east, over the Isle of Wight. And still under attack.



Closing in again, I pick a Heinkel, out to left of the main bunch, who's leaving a faint grey trail. I think he's the one I attacked earlier; he and I have unfinished business. The only fighters I can see are the ones still getting stuck into the other bombers.



I run in behind my chosen target, snapping out short bursts aimed between wing root and one engine. This time, I make no mistake. Sparks from my hits fly and bits fall off the Hun, who seems to go up in smoke, although he is merely hidden briefly from view by it.



At this point, I realise there are some 109s just ahead and above, to my right, who are being chased by some of our fighters.



I'm happy to leave them to it and slide across to the right, towards the main body of Heinkels, which is still under attack. One bomber, which could be my victim, is going diagonally down and at least one other Heinkel is smoking.



I attack the Hun on the extreme right and leave him smoking, but am hit hard by return fire and to cap it all, finally run out of ammunition.



Time to go home! I break away, reduce the throttle and slide back the canopy, in case I decide I should get out. My kite needs a fair bit of left stick to keep her level, but my trusty Merlin is still running smoothly and I reckon that this time, I can get home without ramming the scenery.



One Heinkel 111 probably destroyed and another damaged, I make it. Not a bad day's work, and I quit the mission at that point. As it happens, I've got one more battle to fight before dusk ends the fighting for 13th August. Although the RAF didn't know it at the time, that date was Adlertag to the Germans, the start of serious operations against our airfields and other defences. It's certainly been a busy day in BoB2.

Nice reports 33lima. I am looking forward to the next installments.


S!Blade<><