Il2 BoS

I have finally got the tank controls set up and boy is this fun :) Driving a Sherman with the hatch open in VR is AWESOME
Believe it or not...I've still yet to try the tanks, considering I did it as a day job for a few years. As a former tank crewman, I'd really like to see how it stacks up against the real thing. I think it's having to set up the controls to my liking that's putting me off jumping in.
 
You need to map the following. I have put most of them on a hat switch (the CMS on the Warthog) The gun is controlled by the mouse, and the open canopy opens the hatch. In VR it's superb and the other crew members look pretty realistic
change crew position
nestle to gunsight
take control of gun
select ammunition
range up
range down
 
Just had an email that the Cliffs of Dover addon, Desert Wings: Tobruk is up for pre-order...15% discount for pre-ordering via the IL2 web store.

Desert Wings store page

Desert wings will probably make for a nice change of scenery. :)

But what I'm really looking forward to is battle of Normandy, but I think we'll still have to wait quite a bit. And a native career mode for Flying Circus would be fantastic too. :)
 
Desert wings will probably make for a nice change of scenery. :)

But what I'm really looking forward to is battle of Normandy, but I think we'll still have to wait quite a bit. And a native career mode for Flying Circus would be fantastic too. :)
I'm making do with Pat Wilson's Flying Circus Campaign generator...it adds so much that is sadly missing from Flying Circus. It's officially sanctioned by 777 studios too, they asked him to do it after it was such a success in RoF. PWCG simply makes a world of difference... not to mention adds a whole new level of immersion...for FC.

As for Desert Wings..I want to fly a Beaufighter and a Wellington torpedo bomber :)

Found a vid of Desert wings torp bombers in action....can't wait now, looks awesome.

 
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You need to map the following. I have put most of them on a hat switch (the CMS on the Warthog) The gun is controlled by the mouse, and the open canopy opens the hatch. In VR it's superb and the other crew members look pretty realistic
change crew position
nestle to gunsight
take control of gun
select ammunition
range up
range down
Quite possibly the worst ever display of tank gunnery in history...from Wolfpack. Seriously glad he wasn't my gunner doing the real thing :D


I'll apologise for the TL;DR in advance :)

First thing we were taught in gunnery school is to remember your sight picture...basically if you're off left, right or elevation with the first round matters not (besides inducing a pucker factor of 9.5)...all you do is observe and mentally mark the section of the sight or graticule pattern where you see the the round drop, move that section of the graticule or sight pattern onto the target and fire again, this practically guarantees a second round hit...the graticule pattern is only there for reference, it's not a Schwarovsky-Habbach sniper scope and you're not a sniper ;).

The co-ax MG is coaxially mounted for a reason...range and windage estimation for the main gun... as well as to hose down grunts... With the old 7.92mm co-axes used on the tanks in IL2...I'd half the windage error before firing the main gun...just a best guess as an experienced gunner from looking at the vids of the tank gameplay I've seen so far.

On the Chieftains before IFCS and laser targeting sights became the norm, we had a co-ax Browning .50 cal as a ranging MG which was bore sighted in tandem with the 120mm main armament (as well as having a mounted 7.62mm GPMG co-ax to hose down the grunts).

The .50 fired a 3 round burst of all tracer high flashing tip ammo on the stamp of a foot pedal. It's cheaper to use the co-ax to range, especially for windage when firing HESH rounds (slow at 670 m/s)...not so important with SABOT rounds since they're kinda quick, the muzzle velocity of a SABOT round (1370 m/s) overrides the windage error. The Co-ax ranging .50 is more efficient than doing the Royal Navy target bracketing system with the main armament firing HESH rounds.

Most competent gunners back in my day, even firing without a ranging burst from the .50 could guarantee a second round hit with a HESH round on a moving target at 800-1500 yards. 2500 yards was the maximum direct line of sight range via the old 9 dot graticule pattern sights (see image below). Anything over 2500 yards was into Quadrant Fire Elevation Controller territory... which was turning the main gun into a long range artillery piece. A complicated bit of kit the QFEC...involved lengthy manual calculation of range to mils, levelling of spirit levels attached to the main gun and other wizardry.

The introduction of the Marconi Integrated Fire Control System with it's meteorological probes, Barr and Stroud laser sighting system as well as other computer gubbins took the skill out of tank gunnery...it became mindless button pressing instead, lase/autolay/shoot/next target. First thing we did with new gunners arriving from the training school was to get them into the gunnery simulator, flip the big off switch to turn the power traverse and computer aided nonsense off...then teach them how to shoot properly :)

Giving away trade secrets here ;)

The 9 dot graticule pattern, used on the Chieftain before the introduction of IFCS in the early 80's. The inverted triangle at the top middle of the pattern points to the main armament Muzzle Bore Sight marker (MBS 120) the .50 bore sight mark is indicated by the '>' symbol (MBS RMG)...the tiny '+' at 800 yard mark on the 7.62 co-ax scale was used for point blank range main armament shooting. The T bars to either side of the centre dots are lead markers for moving targets. The APDS dot -- range (Armour-Piercing Discarding Sabot) was in built range/dot estimation for Sabot rounds.

ve7QBTm.png
 
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As an addendum to the TL;DR post...I got around to trying the tank gameplay...frustrated that I cannot for whatever reason use my HOTAS stick to control the tank turret no matter what I tried. It works fine from the drivers seat controlling the tank...which is all fine... but the turret will not accept the stick input. Maybe it's an eyetracking thing since I've noticed that even with turret mouse control input when using the Tobii, I have to hold down mouse2 to rotate the turrets...even in aircraft. I had to switch the co-ax on the tank from M2 to another button for that reason.

I should mention that my real life tank gunnery experience makes the stick approach more natural for me...since that's how it's done with power traverse and elevation in the real world via a DUPLEX stick controller. If anyone has any insight on how I can get the stick working in controlling the turret without mucking up the aircraft turret mouse control, I'd be grateful.
 
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It seems like there's no straight up solution bar using joy2 key or manually editing the current actions file in the game/input directory...I'll mess about in the input files to see if I come up with a realistic solution....adding the deleted by Tobii mouse command lines in there won't do it since it only re-enables the mouse turret control...perhaps if I replaced the deleted mouse command lines with the stick axes...hmm, I'll try that and see what occurs.
 
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Just noticed that Cliffs of Dover is doing an 11Gb update on Steam....must be Desert Wings : Tobruk downloading...wonderful, something else to play...besides HZD, Destroy all humans, L.A. Noire, Hitman 2, Mafia 2 and 3 definitive editions and all the rest of the stuff currently distracting me. Where the hell am I going to find the time? :D
 
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I'd take that to be a good sign.
The Ai is brutal...haven't finished a mission yet by actually landing except for a couple Wellington bombing raids....even then I had an engine on fire, half the wings missing and a rear turret shot off :oops:

Just noticed that Desert wings has been further discounted to £47 on Steam for a limited period... I know of quite a few that are waiting on VR support before considering...but Team Fusion are still fairly small time. I'd suggest by buying now, if simply just to support their phenomenal efforts, might assure the VR support comes sooner rather than later :)

Steam 12_08_2020 14_42_13.png
 
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