It’s time for another IL-2 campaign review and this time I’m talking about Jay Jaegermeister Yarbrough’s “Overlord” campaign featuring the P-51B Mustang and IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Normandy. This fifteen mission campaign puts you in the cockpit of a 354th Fighter Group P-51 around the time of Operation Overlord fighting some intense battles on the air and ground. How does the campaign play? Is it something you should buy and play yourself? Read on!

Variety is the name of the game

One of the things that I appreciate in a scripted campaign for the IL-2 series is variety. While Career mode provides a more clinical, day-to-day, look at combat flying in the IL-2 series (something that I admire about it even when it does get repetitive), for a scripted campaign I want something more akin to a book series or TV show. Apple+’s Masters of the Air series certainly sent us on many a B-17 raid but with enough variety that it never felt the same twice. The same thing applies to the work that Jaegermeister has done on this Overlord campaign in that you never really ever fly the same mission twice.

The first couple of missions have you flying from the south of England conducting a cross channel fighter-bomber attack first, and then putting you up against V-1 interception in the second. That gives way to a reposition mission for your third which helps set the stage for the majority of the campaign. Those first few missions actually feel a bit like a prologue, setting you up for what is to come and that works well for me.

This move early on is a good one in that it matches the history but it also acknowledges that long transits across the channel could easily become monotonous and uninteresting. Instead, you get a taste of it and then move on to operations flying from A-2 Cricqueville. It helps to shorten travel distances and flight times and that keeps things a bit more exciting!

Some missions have you started up and ready to takeoff while a few others, just a few, have you starting up and taxiing out. Again, I like this mix of experiences.

Another part of the variety experience involves the aircraft involved. While you’ll always fly a P-51B in this campaign, your flight will see a mix of P-51B and D models, a mix of liveries and configurations too. Friendly and enemy flights mix things up often enough too ensuring that you never feel like its a template that you’re flying but something handcrafted.

All of this focus on variety of mission types and experiences does come with a theoretical downfall. If you want your campaign to feature action packed dogfights on every sortie, you may not enjoy the experience as much as I did. I don’t need or necessarily want that on every mission but its worth noting that you will get to use the Mustang on all of these different mission types.

Immersion

One of the things that I was interested to see with this campaign is how Jaegermeister managed to tackle the challenge of portraying one of the largest military operations in history. Giving us the feeling of Operation Overlord without bogging down the performance of the missions (and our PCs) is a significant challenge and here I think a viable middle ground has been struck. A few missions are on the heavy side but are similar to other scripted campaigns.

Fly anywhere near mission areas post invasion and you’ll see a mix of stationary and moving ships, parked trucks, moving vehicle and tank convoys and plenty and Allied aircraft. There aren’t so many as to bog down the whole thing and make it unplayable but its enough that if you look on the horizon you’ll see a whole bunch of ships out in the channel. Most of them aren’t moving but that’s ok, I think the feeling of the invasion is there and that’s what matters.

There’s also all of the other little things. The squadron codes, the mix of D-Day olive drab and aluminum schemed Mustangs and Thunderbolts flying around, the occasional but deadly presence of the Luftwaffe entering the fray with their own appropriate schemes. Also, the parked aircraft, trucks, and other doodads scattered around the airfield. It all helps with the immersion and for the history buffs this is all laid out in a historically realistic combat scheme.

I also appreciate the labels on each of the mission maps which give us the different ground units involved in the different areas. The goal isn’t to simulate the entire operation all at once but to make you feel like you’re there in a combat zone and every mission did its utmost to do that while keeping my frame rates generally high.

I also want the mention the mission briefings which, like Black Six and Gambit21’s campaigns, feature not only mission briefings but also a narrative that reads like a short story, told in several pieces. Its not a requirement for a good campaign but it helps drive the action forward and makes you feel invested in what’s going on.

One thing you won’t find here is a lot of chatter. The radio calls are relatively minimalist in design though they do absolutely work. Doing what Gambit21 did with the Hellhawks campaign with quite a bit of pilot chatter is of course quite a bit of extra effort. It’s not at all typical of IL-2 campaigns to have them either and I don’t feel that the campaign suffers for it and I only note for completeness.

Combat mix

Because you’re flying for the 9th Air Force (and not the 8th), your missions are more tactical in nature. That has you using the Mustang as both fighter and fighter-bomber. Generally you’ll be down in the weeds fighting under overcast or partly-cloudy skies with out without a ground attack mission in mind. It’s not what the general public sometimes imagines of the P-51’s mission types but it is certainly what the 9th AF did with the airplane. It’s my preferred way of combat simming so this is right up my alley.

A few missions involve strapping 500lb general purpose bombs to the wings and taking off in search of ground targets. An early mission, for example, has you bomb German fortifications at Cherbourg which proved to be memorable with its highly explosive secondary explosion trigger making for extra fireworks after a successful bomb attack.

There are also patrol missions where you’re vectored to intercept bogies, some are friendly, some are enemies, you’ll find out when you get close enough to ID them! Another mission has you out over the channel looking for a downed pilot while yet another has you escorting a couple of notable VIPs around the frontlines. It all makes sure that you never really fly the same mission twice.

The Luftwaffe at this point in the war was struggling to keep up with the numbers of sorties that the Allies were throwing at them and as a result you don’t see enemy fighters every mission. But you will see them and the fights may even up being memorable though I did note that enemy AI does seem to be more target fixated than usual. Not sure if that’s a campaign/mission setting or not. Still, that does make things quite hectic at times.

There are plenty of friendly aircraft flying around too. You’ll see everything from Thunderbolts and Typhoons on fighter-bomber missions to Spitfires and Mustangs doing their own patrols, and a mix of B-26 and A-20s on bombing missions. There’s never too many that the mission bogs down but there’s just enough to make the battlespace feel authentic with Allied flyers all doing their own missions.

The weather is also an enemy at times. You will fly missions with a low cloud ceiling, there will be turbulence and you may fly into a rain squall too. I love that element in campaigns as it adds a layer of challenge to the mix. It was never over done but it is an element.

One minor complaint I had was waypoint triggers sometimes only seem to work when you get very close to them. They are keyed on the flight lead which is fine, however, later on in the campaign you lead the second element and you have to pass very close to activate the next waypoint. Mission logic does continue on but if you do like seeing those yellow markers ahead you will want to fly very precisely.

All of the missions worked for me flawlessly… except for that one where I pulled out from a dive bombing run too hard and hit the ground. Rookie mistake!

Pilot errors aside, there’s enough logic here that you can progress even if some things didn’t go according to plan. For example, I never did find the downed pilot during the search and rescue mission. I’m assured that you can but the mission allows for both scenarios to occur without penalty and I think that’s a good thing. The intent is to fly every mission and survive every mission. Not every mission is going to be a complete success.

Final thoughts

This campaign isn’t Jaegermeister’s first by any stretch of the imagination and all of that experience has contributed to what I think is his best effort yet. There’s an attention to detail here that shows in all aspects. Overlord has taken lessons from past campaigns and brought this together in a polished and extremely well designed experience.

Each of these 15 missions proves to be memorable with each one having its own distinct flavour and nothing ever really feels repetitive. Even the missions that do sound like they may be the same as an earlier one, end up being quite different in how they play out.

The variety of mission types does mean that if you want constant aerial dogfighting action, you may seek more action elsewhere. However, if you love the Mustang in tactical fighter operations then you’ll absolutely love Overlord. It’s got lots of action in the air and on the ground, immersion, a good narrative to back it, and it recreates one of the most well known military operations in history. Most of all, however, this campaign was just fun flying one of the most charismatic aircraft in the sim and getting to fly it in all sorts of different situations.

Overlord is available for purchase at a standard price of $9.99 USD from either the IL-2 online store or from the Steam store.

If you haven’t already read it, I also encourage you to read the Community Q&A with Jaegermeister posted talking about the creation process for this and his many other missions and campaigns.

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