Cloud, rain, and the occasional glimpse of the moon bleakly shining down onto the Normandy landscape. That was the tension filled setting of the first mission from campaign author Jaegermeister and his latest work, The Gestapo Hunters for IL-2: Sturmovik: Battle of Normandy. Here’s how it went and what you can expect playing the first mission of the campaign!

Airbase attack mission

The campaign puts you in the role of a pilot in No. 464 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force. This multi national force took on the difficult task of low altitude fighter-bomber missions and the first mission typifies the kind of work that they did. Simply titled “Intruder Flight”, this mission also helps set the stage for the rest of Jaegermeister’s “Gestapo Hunters” campaign with the squadron seeing plenty of duty flying these dangerous missions… and often being used to hunt Hitler’s secret police and disrupting their operations from the air.

Flying from our base at Detling (near Maidstone), the mission is a straight forward one in concept. Take a lose formation of Mosquitos and attack the airbase at Beauvais–Tillé.

To do this we’ll be armed with the usual array of 20mm Hispano cannons, .303 machine guns and four 500lb general purpose bombs. We’ll be flying low altitude all the way in staying scarcely higher than 1000 feet. With partial overcast and light rain, it should be plenty miserable.

Starting up it does definitely give that bleak wartime feeling with plenty of activity at the airbase being the only tell that things are about to happen. One flight of Mosquito is already actively taxiing and taking off while you and your navigator start up your Mossie.

This campaign features voice over work with a navigator calling out key moments in the flight which definitely helped with the immersion.

With our engines all warmed up, we taxiied out in the gloom towards the runway. The actual runway is lit by lights so its well illuminated and ready for our takeoff. After countering the torque and powering up, we’re on our way down the runway and into the sky.

Apologies in advance for the screenshots which are dark… because that’s what I was seeing on the screen. Click to make them larger to make out some of the details!

Cruising

This is a reasonably authentic recreation of Mosquito operations and so while the Mossie is certainly a fast airplane, its still going to take a bit of time to get up off the ground, cross the English Channel, fly across occupied France and hit the enemy airbase.

After turning for the coast we settled in for the cruise changing course twice as we made our ingress to target. There isn’t much to do except for settle in and follow the course.

You know your friendly flight of Mosquitos is out there but they are largely lost to the dark so you just have to hope that you don’t run into them. Big sky theory in full effect.

Airbase attack

After cruising through the dark for quite some time, we eventually come up onto the target and that’s when things got interesting really quickly. My navigator called out that we were approaching the target and not a moment too soon as the search lights began to be visible … and then the flak.

I started maneuvring attempting to throw off the search lights and hopefully avoid the flak gunners too. While doing this, I was also looking for my first target. In the dark you can still see something of the airbase and I was able to spot a building. I opened my bomb bay doors and dropped a bomb on that building.

A column of flame shot up behind me.

I evaded some tracers coming up at me and began looking for another target. Some trucks, with their lights on (big mistake!) were driving down one of the access ways so I turned and fired full guns and dropped a bomb on the column lead. Another column of flame shooting up behind me.

I repeated that pattern a few more times dropping on yet another airfield building and on a parked aircraft before turning around again to strafe a parked Fw190, a parked Ju52 and nearby supply truck, and as the guns began to run out… one of the search lights.

Columns of fire and smoke were starting to rise all around the airbase as our squadron were doing their jobs.

With the dark in full effect and a bit of rain in the mix, you never really know the full picture of what’s going on. And that aids in the tension. You know that the target is being hit, you can see the tracers all around, but you have no idea how successful its going or where the other Mosquitos are.

Haul it back to base

With bombs expended, cannons dry and .303s nearly gone… it was time to return to base. More tracers and explosions behind me suggested that the attack was ongoing but my job was done.

I climbed away up into the clouds and into the moonlit sky above. For a time we cruised our way back over the channel with my navigator giving me the occasional update – particularly as we flew over the English coast and onwards towards home.

Then it was just a matter of landing and parking the airplane.

After action report indicates that the mission took 1 hour and 12 minutes. I managed to destroy 2 parked aircraft, 2 transport vehicles, 1 AAA gun and 1 searchlight. A pretty good haul seeing as that was all done in the dark!

Challenging and immersive

I’ll eventually finish this campaign and turn in a full review but I did quite enjoy this first mission. Mosquito campaigns were always going to be a little different from others and that means that you’ve got slightly longer flights than some of the more fast paced missions. You’re also flying into bad weather or at night which also ups the tension and the challenge. This should be an interesting campaign to experience!

Jaegermeister Gestapo Hunters campaign is available for $12.99 USD in the IL-2 store. I’ll be working my way towards a full review at some point later on down the line once I’ve finished the campaign.