It’s long past time to review another IL-2 scripted campaign. This time it’s Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov’ latest creation titled “Iron Wind” with a classic to the IL-2 series setting and an equally venerable fighter to fly it in. What’s it like to travel back to the oldest setting in the series? What’s the action like? How difficult is the campaign? I answer these and more in the review. Let’s check it out!

Disclaimer

I always let readers know when something has been sent to me for review. In this case, BlackSix sent me over a copy of the campaign to play and review at my discretion. My review is entirely my own and nobody else has had any editorial control over it prior to publication.

Overview and details

Iron Wind returns to the well trodden Battle of Stalingrad portraying the earliest part of the battle possible with the current map and content available. This is a late summer start with the campaign kicking off on August 24th 1942. It carries you through some hectic early air battles while the Soviet Union still held onto the now thoroughly demolished city. Of course, as history is our guide here, the city eventually is partially overrun and is the site of intense battles for several months.

That’s an important overview because the start of the campaign puts you at Shkolniy airfield on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Artillery explosions, thick columns of smoke, and a lot of nearby ground action typifies early missions flying from this base. You can read more in-depth reporting from the first three missions right here.

Later you move to Srednyaya Ahtuba on the other side of the Volga. A little bit safer than the previous base but only slightly. You’ll also venture to one or two other fields as well but in all of these cases you’re never far from the action.

You fly as a pilot in the 27th IAP of 287th IAD flying the, then almost brand new, La-5 (Series 8) through 15 missions. The estimated playtime is just 8-hours, however, my play through was longer due to replaying several missions so your experience will vary.

Immersion and background

BlackSix campaigns have taken on a familiar style since the very first one, ‘Ten Days of Autumn’, that I reviewed back in 2017. Each of his campaigns features roughly a dozen or more missions, each being relatively short and action packed, loaded with background action, and featuring diary style mission briefings that tell a personalized story of a pilot on the frontlines. It’s a tried and tested combination and its resulted in some of the most enjoyable gameplay I’ve had in IL-2 single player. Iron Wind follows in the same footsteps, albeit with its own quirks and twists.

Each of the missions and the diaries and briefings that support them are drawn from a vast knowledge that BlackSix brings to the table. Aircraft fly from the correct airfields, aircraft type composition is as accurate as is possible, and you just know that a lot of details have been crammed in there just for the sake of accuracy. Attention to detail is paramount here and its well executed on in this campaign.

While that historical background is essential, there’s always a secondary goal: it needs to be interesting! While the missions should be based in history, there’s enough wiggle room so that each mission has its own unique combination and there are interesting things to do with each mission. You won’t fly the same mission back to back just because that’s what was in the unit log. Variety keeps it interesting and this is an interesting campaign.

It’s a tough balancing act but I think it’s well realized.

Every mission is loaded with all of this background action that is going on too. Tracers streak across between machine gun positions along the front lines, artillery blasts targets, trains and trucks drive on the roads, aircraft from both sides are on their own missions often interacting with you only with distant dots in the background or the occasional fly past. During some battles you’ll see action off in the distance with the telltale black smoke streak indicating an aircraft on fire. It makes you feel like just a small part of a larger operation going on and its utterly immersive in feeling.

Action and challenges

I know from comments over the years on the IL-2 forums that there’s a stated goal of making engaging, though not necessarily the most challenging, campaigns. That said, the difficulty level ramps up here as the campaign goes on and this is probably one of the hardest of BlackSix’s campaigns that I’ve played.

It’s possible that part of the challenge is that I personally have been flying more ground attack type missions recently and I’ve lost my edge. It might be because the La-5 Series 8 is a bit more of a challenge to fight in (more on that later). Or the missions, some of them at least, are a bit more on the difficult side.

Fortunately, the first few missions are relatively easy which gets you started with the campaign. The first mission sees you fighting off mostly helpless Hs129 attack aircraft that have little ability to fight back. Another has you intercepting waves of Ju52 transports. After those first few, however, things get a bit more challenging.

One mission really stumped me and I needed to repeat it three times before I was victorious. In that case, I was so eager to rush to battle to save a friendly flight of fighters that I didn’t take the time to climb to an advantageous position. Climbing above the enemy, though something that takes a longer time to do, is definitely the right way to go about it in the La-5 as it just can’t outclimb a well flown 109.

Another battle had me duelling with what was probably an Ace AI flying an IAR-80 that countered me move for move. There was a greater air battle going on but the two of us were locked in a particularly challenging battle that lasted several minutes.

Still other missions had me facing off against quite a swarm of bad guys that overwhelmed the friendlies and had me doing hit and run attacks and then escaping across the Volga. Sometimes I didn’t make it and other times I almost didn’t make it. It’s challenging but immensely fun and satisfying at the same time! It also drives home the notion that often its better to cut your losses and fight another day which the La-5 can do, thankfully, with its high top speed.

There is considerable variety and variability so not every mission is an exercise in tactical discipline and challenge too. There are some fun far easier missions in the mix too so it never really grinds you down.

Some missions involve escorting an Li-2 transport aircraft, or conducting low level recon missions spotting enemy positions along the roads and in the fields, there are interceptions and patrols, rescuing friendly aircraft, bringing some new fighters in from another airbase, and more. There’s a lot of variety to say the least! Even the odd time where the mission brief suggests that you’ll be doing the same thing as a previous mission, the outcomes and the kind of opposition you’ll face will be different.

You also won’t have to deal with too much in the way of ground activity personally, though there’s certainly lots going on down there. This is a fighter focused campaign and virtual fighter pilots will probably relish in the tight mission design and typically target rich objectives.

Accomplish the mission

Iron Wind is like a lot of BlackSix campaigns where mission objectives are not, typically, overly difficult to achieve. I’ve spent paragraphs talking about the challenges of combat but the reality here is that if you can achieve a minimum level of success and survive, you can complete the mission and move on.

One of those core objectives, in every mission, is to land at your home base or any other recovery airbase in the area. Basically, if the airbase is on the red side, you’re good to go.

I put that to the test twice during the campaign with my La-5 so badly damaged that I wasn’t going to make my starting base. I landed at another base and managed to get myself off the runway before the engine died. Mission was still accomplished.

Mission triggers

These missions have clearly been extensively tested and made ready for release because I have never run into any missions in this campaign (or others by BlackSix) where a trigger failed to execute or a mission was blocked by some sort of invisible goal that was unachievable.

But I also want to call out some really solid mission design. I’ve already mentioned the huge numbers of aircraft flying around that are on their own missions. I know from some experience how missions can go wrong if the AI just goes after the first airplane it sees and fortunately the AI has been scripted correctly to sometimes ignore enemy aircraft if they aren’t part of the mission and also aren’t a threat.

That also means you need to exercise a little discipline too because you could also go off mission and get involved in something else. The mission may succeed without you but it also could fail.

More than once I’ve see good mission design in action where AI fighters broke off their pursuit once we were close to my home base. They correctly decided not to get involved with the swarm of recovering fighters and flak defending the base. Even moreso, I actually went off and tried to challenge those retreating fighters (in perhaps not one of my more tactically disciplined moments) and they still successfully defended and then also retreated from battle when they could.

IL-2 AI gets a lot of justifiable complaints leveled against it but good mission logic helps overcome that.

Get to know the La-5

When it comes to WWII Soviet Fighters, I’ve always preferred the Yak series of fighters. They just clicked with me while the LaGG-3 and La-5 I thought were interesting but I was never as good while fighting in them.

The good thing about a fifteen mission campaign is that it forces you to get to know the aircraft you’re flying. Sometimes that involves a little trial by fire, which happened to me a few times, but other times its a slow and useful learning (or in my case more of a re-learning) process.

The La-5 does take a bit of time to get used to, more so than some of the other fighters in the arsenal, and so here are some tips while flying it in this campaign.

First, learn the engine controls. The La-5 has throttle and propeller/RPM control for power. Perfectly normal! Then there’s oil cooler control, radiator inlet control and radiator outlet control. If you haven’t bound all of these to a controller yet, do it before you get started with the campaign. During long hard climbs, of which you may find yourself doing multiple times in this campaign, you’ll want to open these all up. During dogfights and high speed chases, you can start to close them up strategically. The outlet radiator has an especially dramatic impact on the drag so its the one you should adjust the most.

The La-5 is quite a capable fighter but usually its greatest advantages are found at low altitudes (under 2000 meters) and at high speeds. Stay low and stay fast and use the aircraft’s relatively good roll rate to best advantage. Prolonged turn fights is not the La-5’s forte and thus you should focus on more hit and run attacks.

Bf109s are better performers than the La-5 except in low level straight line speed. If the Bf109s start turning tight circles, start climbing or diving to cut the corners for snap shots. A Bf109 that tries to run away at low altitude, on the other hand, is often easy fodder for the La-5’s twin 20mm cannon and I brought down a few of them this way.

You’ll mostly face off against Bf109s though later in the campaign some Romanian IAR80s show up and these provide a surprising challenge as that fighter is not nearly as fast or well armed but its quite agile and its a challenging foil versus the La-5 Series 8’s lack of sustained turn.

Other combat aircraft such as the Hs129, Bf109E-7, Bf110 and Ju87 all show up just to name a few of the opponents you’ll be up against. Never a dull moment out there to be sure.

I did find as I got through the campaign that I was gradually becoming quite a bit more proficient with the La-5 and I was very happy with myself when I was able to get into a firing position of a Bf109 and managed to bring it down with just a short burst of cannon fire. That’s the benefit of flying a 15-mission campaign with a single airplane.

After action reporting

After completing all 15 missions (and repeating a few), I came away with 16 light aircraft, 9 medium and 8 heavy aircraft destroyed for a grand tally of 33. Not too shabby!

Final thoughts

I’ve got very little bad to say about Iron Wind. It is challenging for multiple reasons but it does that while still feeling achievable and not overly punishing. Typically tight mission design, fast action, strong immersion factors, and no technical issues in sight means that this should be a fun campaign for fighter focused virtual pilots wanting to fly the La-5.

This is a challenging campaign at times but its not a boring one and its not one that pits you against impossible odds. You will often enter battles with roughly even numbers or abilities and it comes down to sound tactical positioning and good flying to win the day. Survival is ultimately the gauge of how you progress here so living to fight another day is paramount.

If you like scripted campaigns for the IL-2 series and don’t mind returning to the Battle of Stalingrad, I think Iron Wind is just about as good as it gets for action packed single player experiences in the IL-2 series. It’s fun, its relatively fast and it’ll challenge your skills at times. I honestly think that’s one of the best combinations you can look for.

Iron Wind is $9.99 USD on the IL-2 Sturmovik website store and also available on Steam.

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