Alright folks, put on your speculation, skepticism and rumour mill hats on for this one. An image has begun circulating around the IL-2 community that has attracted quite a bit of attention. Is it real? Is it a fabrication? Let’s have a look.
Update: Debunked.
Sabre, Chosin, Korea?
The image above has been shared a few times across the IL-2 community over the last 24 hours. The original source, which I’ve struggled to track down or verify, purportedly comes from the Russian language official IL-2 Discord.
The image of course shows an F-86 Sabre with a “Battle of the Chosin” title in the same format that we’ve seen other prior IL-2 titles. The IL-2 Great Battles Series badge is located on the bottom left. Tucked away on the bottom right corner you’ll see some text, written in English, that says “Busan terrain WIP 50-53 not for distro.” Obviously, it has been distributed.
The Battle of the Chosin likely references the Chosin reservoir battle or campaign as it’s sometimes referred to. Chinese and primarily American troops battled it out with the American X Corps briefly surrounded before eventually breaking through. Loses on both sides were extensive.
If this is actually the title for the series it likely is representative as a central point to a wider campaign much the way Bodenplatte references a single, one-day, battle, but the sim experience itself covers months surrounding it.
Although well composed, I’m undecided if this is a leak of an upcoming title or if it’s something a fan put together. Both are possibilities but until we hear something from official sources, anything you see out in the community about this should be regarded with a high degree of skepticism. I, of course, speculated that the series may make the leap to Korea quite some time ago. Still waiting to find out if my guess was a good one or not.
I’ll update the article if more information develops.
Update: Debunked
More information has come out since writing this. One reader mentioned to me that the markings on the F-86 are not from a Korean era Sabre but rather a European one from later on. 1CGS are typically good at getting those details right so that pushes it towards debunked. And then…
The original image is actually a screenshot from P3D posted in an IL-2 forum post in July 2019.
Quite a few people in the community still think that Korea is where the series is going so this just feeds into the vacuum that currently exists.
Stormbirds 
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