We haven’t heard too much from the 1CGS team for a couple of weeks now but that usually means they have a whole bunch of things in the pipeline and it’s all starting to come together. This update includes information on a new map (sort of), new pilot models, a look at the Typhoon for Battle of Normandy with some confirmed features there, and talk on some updates for Tank Crew. Tons to get through so let’s get started!

Velikiye Luki summer 

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Velikiye Luki, located on the northern side of the eastern front was called the “Little Stalingrad of the North” and saw a similar fight in the city, an encirclement and ultimately defeat of German forces there. The original Velikiye Luki winter map came after the initial release of Battle of Stalingrad and was done by a third party enthusiast who ultimately ended up joining the 1CGS map team (and has had a hand in development of other maps since then).

Although a summer map was always hoped for, there were substantial changes that would have been needed to put it together. This passion project has now been done, according to the dev diary, on a personal basis by the map creator and it’s now slated to be put into the sim. Velikiye Luki summer is coming in 4.009. It doesn’t feature any of the new high detail building technology but it does have some excellent texture work which frankly looks great! The winter version has also been updated as well.

Can’t wait to check it out!

Pilot model updates

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Two pilot model updates are in this week First, the long asked for female pilots for the U-2VS and Yak-1 (and Yak-1B) are coming to the sim. The female pilot models will allow for historical representations of the “Night Witches” and famous Yak-1 ace pilot Lydia Litvyak.

Also coming is an earlier version of the USAAF pilot featuring the uniform from before the G-suits became widely available. These will undoubtedly used during the Battle of Normandy.

Typhoon work in progress

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We now have our first shots of the Typhoon Mark IB for IL-2: Battle of Normandy. Closely related to the Tempest and widely used as a fighter-bomber from the middle part of 1943 until the end of the war. The Typhoon has rarely been featured in combat flight sims over the last few decades and so getting a Typhoon modeled at the same level as the Tempest that we have in Battle of Bodenplatte will be a real joy for me as a fan of both this specific aircraft and British fighters of WWII. I know I’m not alone in this either!

The version we’re getting has a few key features represented:

• Late war Normandy era bubble canopy version with late war stabilizer which partially corrected the issues of tail loss during high speed dives suffered by earlier versions
• Sabre IIa engine (same as used on the Tempest) with mention of the +11lb boost modification meaning that this may be available on the Typhoon as well
• Two propeller variants with the three and four bladed versions

Typhoon’s became well known during the Normandy campaign for their bomb, rocket, and cannon attacks on vehicles and tanks of the German army. They were also used right to the end of the war and the modifications mentioned by the dev diary suggest an aircraft that fits extremely well from the pre-invasion campaign all the way to the last days of the campaign featured in IL-2: Battle of Bodenplatte. Excellent!

Tank Crew receives new sounds, station notes feature

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There are a series of updates coming for Tank Crew ranging from a course director for some tanks, new sounds for things like the radio motor-generators, gyrocompass sounds, and sounds for the traveling locks of the turrets and machine guns. A more audio rich environment will be key here.

Another interesting new feature is the Station Notes dialogue box. Available at any time by pressing Esc, the notes box will show off details of the tank with descriptions of each part of the tanks controls for each station. This is an excellent reference utility and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw that come to aircraft eventually as well. More references available in sim the better!

Road to 4.009

A great series of updates and some exciting content coming to 4.009. Where is the Hurricane you ask? We haven’t heard if its coming in 4.009 or if 1CGS is saving up some surprises for us there but I can’t wait to see that. Stay tuned for more information on that. In the meantime, check out the full update here.