Until now we’ve had a couple of steamship gunboats and some shallow water transports but now the IL-2 series is expanding its fleet and including submarines, destroyers, and large cargo vessels adding the possibility of shipping strikes against some serious naval opposition. How is it? Let me tell you!
Next level ships
When the 1CGS team adds something to their sim, they don’t seem content with just doing the basics. Although vehicles and tanks are a key part of IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad, it was clear early on that they would be doing things like vehicle suspension and detailed armored vehicles with armor thickness and armament setup in an accurate way. The same goes for ships.
Ships in IL-2: Battle of Kuban have individual gun turrets and various other and all of these can be damaged separately.
Ships can light on fire, list, rise out of the water and sink. They can go down slowly or roll over on their side and capsize quickly.
In one case I hit a freighter with a 1000KG bomb and it lit on fire and began to sink. As the water overtook the ship, the fires went out and the ship slowly slipped under the waves after several minutes.
Unlike in previous titles I find the larger ships take a lengthy amount of time to go down. Sometimes its several minutes such as the Type 7 destroyer in the image above.
There’s also some really cool sound effects if you go to external camera. Warning sirens and buzzers are going off at times. They sometimes sound an audible horn. It’s really those small details that propel things from just a basic game or simulation into something that really feels immersive and a little bit alive.
Small craft too are interesting. A G-5 gunboat I strafed and several parts became damaged. The ship lost speed and then lit on fire before sinking. Amazing! This is all considerably better than the previous IL-2 title and it continues to show what this sim and the developers are capable of putting into it.
Battle of Midway is the next planned title and ships like destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers are a key component – I have no doubt they will be done to these standards at the very least.
Screenshots
Stormbirds 
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