Nice tip 
. I had no idea you could do that.
Well worth it, once you enable it.
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Dear friends,
The Autumn is here and our project is very close to another milestone. The next version 4.501 that will be released in a few weeks will contain very important improvements. For instance, after constructive discussions in our community, we have come to decisions on two aspects of the sim which are very important for the players: providing a required visibility level for the airplanes in a dogfight and modeling a pilot reaction to high-G loads. We’re working on both things right now and the result of this work should be released in the aforementioned update. Another addition will be the MSAA x8 graphics setting, but please note that it will put quite a load on your graphics card.
We have almost finished two neat features for Tank Crew as well: controlling a turret using your joystick or buttons and looking through the visors and view slits with the help of preset cameras. Good news for Bodenplatte owners: the long-awaited campaign for this module will be included in this update as well - its author Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov has much to tell you about it:
In today’s Dev Blog we’d like to tell you more about the new historical campaign ‘Wind of Fury’ that will be released for free for all Bodenplatte owners very soon.
It is dedicated to the No. 486 (New Zealand) Squadron RAF that flew Tempest Mk.V fighters and will picture the unfolding of the air battle in the skies of North-Western Europe since October 1st, 1944, till January 1st, 1945.
With the V-1 launch sites in Northern France captured or destroyed and this threat against the England territory eliminated, at the end of September 1944 it was decided to relieve the five existing squadrons of Tempest interceptors from the ADGB (Air Defence of Great Britain) duties and move them to the continent. Unlike Spitfires and Typhoons, Tempests could not carry rockets or bombs at the moment, making them inadequate for a fighter/bomber role, so the 2nd Tactical Air Force had tasked them with patrolling over own territory, intercept attempts against the German Me 262 jets and free hunting for enemy aircraft and road and railway traffic far behind the enemy lines.
The story of the campaign is based on the Operations Record Books of the 486th for the second half of 1944 and the historical works on the late war RAF and Luftwaffe actions available in English. After doing the research of the ORB, the most interesting missions were selected that were not too long to require the external fuel tanks which are not yet available in our sim yet. In reality, Tempests were flying with additional fuel tanks almost all the time and we’ll add them to the campaign later, but for now, you’ll be able to finish any mission with a default fuel amount.
There are no B-26 and Typhoon escort missions yet as well - these birds will be available a few months later in the Battle of Normandy Early Access program. We plan to add all the required, but not yet available, objects like B-26, C-47, Typhoon Mk.Ib, Spitfire Mk.XIV, Fw 190 A-6, Bf 109 G-6 Late as well as the British ground vehicles and artillery to the campaign at a later date.
It may appear counterintuitive, but having detailed reports on the squadron actions for many days and even hours may affect the campaign and its gameplay negatively if you use such data as is. During the long life of the IL-2 Sturmovik series, there were many attempts in the community to do just that, dramatize the historical documents or famous pilot memoirs word by word, but they reached only limited success, if not a failure.
This is caused mostly by the well-known fact that most of the missions were routine and repeating, ‘Groundhog Day’ type ones and enemy encounters did not happen in each one, but also by the peculiarities of the process of recreating real combat operations in a flight sim. Even when you select the most interesting missions with much action going around and that are not too long, you may have a rude awakening finding out that:
- several subsequent missions happen in the same time of day;
- direct time of day recreation makes a ground attack mission nearly unplayable during dawn or dusk hours;
- too few aircraft or vehicles participated in the action so the players will find the mission too dull and empty, even if real pilots back then thought that it was more than enough action for them (or vice versa, too many and the performance reasons come into play).
Such factors mean that simulated events will differ from reality even if it is possible to recreate them exactly because of the performance, convenience and gameplay reasons. In the practice this means that a takeoff can happen in a different time, there will be less allies, but more enemy encounters or more enemy aircraft in a certain dogfight, etc.
In general, Wind of Fury campaign will make you familiar with nearly the entire range of the real combat missions flown by Tempest pilots during the second half of 1944, briefly including the Battle of the Bulge, and will end with the Bodenplatte strike on the allied airfields on January 1st, 1945.
P.S. We would like to thank the community member @Obelix for his 4K skins for the Tempests of 486th squadron which were used to create the images for the campaign and his advice on the additional official Tempest skin with the invasion stripes that was added to the sim.
We will continue our Dev Blog with another important change that affects the aircraft visibility - update 4.501 will include the atmospheric haze setting. It will be adjustable in Quick Mission Builder for your liking and can be set by an author in other missions. The minimal setting corresponds to the haze level in the current public version while higher values will look like these screenshots. By the way, you can see the progress made on another important thing on them as well 
We’ll finish with a short report on the Normandy development. Here’s our hero of the day - USAAF pilot in early war uniform and without the G-suit that was introduced in the theater later.
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Ahhhhhhh. Much needed.
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Update 4.501
Dear friends,
We just released the new update - 4.501. Its shifted version number means it is a kind of a milestone and it really is. First, the research we did on the community opinion on the aircraft spotting allowed us to make many improvements to this important part of the sim. The distant LOD scaling system has been adjusted, their lighting has been made full, atmospheric haze option and an increased MSAA level have been added. We’re sure that this update will make the online multiplayer experience totally different from how it was before. Now our next target, for the next update, is the improved pilot G tolerance model we do after asking the community taking the account the new reference data provided by the community members.
Please take in attention: adding Haze option to the mission format makes previously saved .msnbin mission files obsolete. Delete them and save the new version using .Mission files.
In addition to these very important changes, today’s update brings you the new campaign ‘Wind of Fury’ by Alexander =BlackSix= Timoshkov that is included in the Bodenplatte module. This means that our promises on what Bodenplatte will include are finally fulfilled. Of course, it doesn’t mean we’ll stop improving it, for instance, now we plan to improve the Rhineland Career mode.
Also, P-39L-1 “Aircrobra” (Battle of Kuban) and Bf 109 G-6 now have 4k quality external texturing created by Martin =ICDP= Catney. The work on bringing all the aircraft in the sim to 4K texturing continues.
Tank Crew gets the last planned features for its release in this update, making 4.501 a milestone for it as well. The new turret and gun control mode and fixed visor cameras were requested by the community for a long time and they are available now.
We think that this update will mark an important step for our sim and we hope you’ll enjoy it!
Main features
- The new scenario campaign “Wind of Fury” is now available to all owners of the Bodenplatte project for free;
- P-39L-1 “Airacobra” and Bf 109 G-6 fighters now have 4K quality external textures created by Martin = ICDP = Catney;
- The long-range LODs scaling system for aircraft has been adjusted. Aircraft spotting at short to medium distances, especially when using wide camera angles, is greatly improved. The visibility at distance has been adjusted to be closer to reality.
- Alternate Visibility has been renamed Enhanced Visibility: this mode gives a much greater increase in aircraft visibility at long ranges compared to the new standard visibility. At medium ranges, visibility is also significantly improved compared to the old Alternate Visibility option;
- MSAA x8 option has been added, but please note that this level of AA is very demanding to the graphics card performance;
- The atmospheric haze density option has been added to the Quick Mission Builder. Its minimum value corresponds to the haze density available earlier;
- Dawn/Dusk Fog option has been added to the Quick Mission Builder. This option is available only when the haze density is set to half of the maximum value or more;
- The haze density option (from 0.0 to 1.0) is now stored in a mission file. Radiation fog appears at dusk if the value of the haze is more than 0.5 and the weather preset name contains an odd number at the end. The denser haze makes it easier to spot other aircraft against the background of the landscape when the distance from the observer to the target is much less than the distance from the observer to the landscape behind the target. This can be used when designing multiplayer missions for game servers;
- Distant levels of detail (LODs) of the aircraft now have the same surface material setting as closer and more detailed LODs, making the lighting of distant aircraft much more realistic and enabling reflections and glints when the relative position of a contact, an observer and the light source(s) is right;
- In a multiplayer game, a tooltip has been added to the list of game servers when hovering the mouse cursor over the difficulty preset icon. This tooltip displays all the difficulty settings of this multiplayer server;
- This information is also available in the multiplayer server lobby (“About the server” section);
AI improvements
12. AI wingmen keep the optimal climb speed when the wing leader is far and higher;
13. AI aircraft now use combat and emergency engine modes for a fastest possible climb when following the terrain;
14. AI fighters now more actively attack maneuvering targets at lower speeds;
Player controllable tanks improvements
15. New control mode allows aiming a tank gun using a joystick (or buttons);
16. Aiming the tank guns and machine guns with the mouse is more convenient;
17. Fixed cameras added to tank visors and other observation devices. Loader viewing devices are, most often, can be used from the gunner’s station. You can cycle the views using LShift + V keys;
18. The target marking cursor when giving orders as a tank commander is visible at any settings;
19. The current sight or observation device is indicated;
20. In multiplayer, a connected player in someone else’s tank will correctly see the messages from the loader and see the ammo information in the HUD;
21. The time required for repairing the tank systems outside the service areas is doubled;
22. The projectiles correctly penetrate the armor if they hit certain extremely thin areas of the object’s surface (a rare issue);
23. Ferdinand: the inverted direction of inclination of the panoramic viewing devices has been fixed;
24. An SPG AI gunner correctly fires at an invisible target by the order of the SPG commander (using the direction and range);
25. Fixed the issue where the AI gunner did not follow the commander’s instructions to choose the ammo type in certain situations;
26. Pz-III-M: the KFF 2 binocular periscope is functional (when using the camera selected by LShift + V);
27. SU-152 commander can’t use the panoramic sight when unbuttoned;
Other changes
28. Fixed an issue with parts of the canopy and cockpit instruments that could not be restored after repair;
29. Flare gun and sidearm ammo can be replenished in the reload zones just like other ammo;
30. SdKfZ 251 and similar vehicles and tanks can function as supply vehicles if set this way in the Mission Editor;
31. The dawn/dusk fog level has been corrected on Moscow, Stalingrad, Prokhorovka, Velikiye Luki, Lapino and Novosokolniki maps, it appears in the lowlands;
32. Due to the introduction of the atmospheric haze option, the issue of the dawn/dusk fog blinking near the horizon has been minimized;
33. The difference in the density of atmospheric haze is minimal when using the minimum (40 km) and maximum (150 km) visibility range options;
34. For a tank crewmember to recover from the loss of consciousness in the event of powder gases poisoning it is required for the air to become noticeably cleaner (now the loss of consciousness will last longer);
35. Fixed a graphical artifact at the base of the La-5FN headlamp switch;
36. Fixed the lack of sound when releasing or retracting the landing gear on I-16 and Ju-88;
- Added the Spitfire IX invasion paint scheme.
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Attention All Pilots and Tankers!
We are excited to announce the newest additions to IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles line-up – the Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38 and GAZ-MM 72-K vehicle mounted anti-aircraft guns!
These two unique and deadly vehicles are our first Collector Vehicles and they will bring a new type of gameplay to the Great Battles series. Now your airfield or supply column can be protected by actual humans driving or manning these rapid fire and deadly AAA batteries!
Our awesome partners at DigitalForms, the same team who built our amazing tanks for Tank Crew, are once again lending their considerable modeling talents to the GAZ-MM 72-K and Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38. When completed this will no doubt be must-haves for your IL-2 collection!
Pre-Sales of these vehicles are NOW AVAILABLE in the IL-2 Official Webstore . Regular price is $24.99, but pre-orders are available for just $19.99! The GAZ-MM 72-K is tentatively scheduled for release by the end of the year and the Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38 by Q2 2021.
GAZ-MM 72-K (25mm) Vehicle Mounted Anti-Aircraft Gun
The GAZ-MM was a double-axle 1.5-ton truck used for both general purpose and specialized purposes by the Soviet Union during WWII. It was a licensed copy of the American built Ford-AA truck, albeit a simpler version with a more powerful motor than the original GAZ-AA truck. At the outbreak of WWII the Soviet Union had over 150,000 vehicles in use and by the end of it’s production run there were nearly 1 million vehicles built. During the war, several different versions of the GAZ-MM appeared, some with no doors, bumpers and some with no front brakes and only one headlight. These changes were made to keep production costs and time as simple as possible. It was a rugged truck and served the Soviet Union well during the war.
The Soviet 25mm automatic air-defense gun M1940 or 72-K as it was known was designed for protecting infantry units from air attack. It was normally mounted on a four-wheeled carriage that could be towed by a truck or other vehicle. It had a slant range of up to 2.4km and could hit aerial targets up to 2km in altitude. The gun could also be used against ground targets and light vehicles if necessary. It was manned by a six-person crew and was an automatic weapon with rounds loaded from the top via a feeding mechanism. The 72-K saw extensive use by the Soviet Union’s armed forces for many years only being finally phased out in the 1960s.
When loaded into the bed of a GAZ-MM truck it becomes a mobile AAA battery allowing you to protect an armored column, supply convoy, infantry unit or a stationary target like an airbase with accurate and deadly fire.
Our GAZ-MM 72-K can be used in both single-player and multiplayer scenarios and it will include several custom-made missions to demonstrate its ability at knocking down enemy planes!
Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38 (20mm) Vehicle Mounted Anti-Aircraft Gun
*Development pictures not yet available.
The Sd.Kfz. 10 or Sonderkraftfahrzeug (special motorized vehicle) was a German half-track that saw action throughout World War II and on all fronts in Europe and North Africa. Its main role was as a prime mover for small towed guns or liquid agents and it could also carry eight troops. Different models could be specialized for a wide range of duties.
It was powered by a Maybach 6-cylinder water-cooled gasoline engine. It had a semi-automatic Maybach Variorex-transmission with seven forward and three reverse gears. It could attain 65 km/h (40 mph), while the cruising speed was 45 km/h (28 mph). Steering was performed by both the front wheels and caterpillar threads. Shallow turns were done using the front wheels and sharper turns were done using the treads with one braking like a tank would.
Sd.Kfz. 10 /5 carried the Flak 38 anti-aircraft gun in its rear bed and fired a 20mm projectile. The Flak 38 was an improvement over the older Flak 30 design and it had a rate of fire of 220 rounds per minute and weighed 420 Kilograms. Its use was ubiquitous throughout the war in all German theaters of operation and was the most produced artillery piece of the war by the Germans. Later designs mounted four Flak 38 cannons together for an added punch. The Flak 38 could also be towed by trucks or other vehicles when not mounted on Sd.Kfz. 10 half-tracks. In the right hands this gun was deadly to low flying Allied fighters.
Our Sd.Kfz. 10 /5 Flak 38 can be used in both single-player and multiplayer scenarios and it will include several custom-made missions to showcase its ability to protect its airspace!
We hope you will like these new vehicles!
The Sturmovik Team
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I’m not sure about this. A pair of unarmored vehicles and they cost more than a plane?
Unless they plan on permanently cutting the price in half like 6 months after launch, I can’t see these selling that well at this price.
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Oof… hard pass for me.
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To be honest I thought it was some sort of April’s Fool.
Yeah, pass for me too.
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When I saw the initial announcement yesterday sans price I thought “well that’s a nice little extra for the Tank fans”. I was thinking $10 each! MAYBE if it was $25 for the pair I also would’ve agreed that’s decent enough.
$50 for both? By comparison, EA is releasing Star Wars Squadrons for $40. So…
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Yeah I pulled the trigger on that one instead. Looks fun!
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So…Chuck’s X Wing and TIE Fighter guides coming soon? 
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Dear Friends,
Today’s Dev Blog is one where visuals are more important than words. The Hurricane Mk.II Collector Plane has shown good progress lately and its development has entered the final stage. The work of recreating this bird for our virtual world started a year ago, it hasn’t been easy because of the many modifications you’ll get with it . Essentially, it’s not one aircraft, but several - you can choose the modification you want before a mission. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the final product. It’s creation is an interesting milestone for us. At the moment, the cockpit is being textured and its FM is being finished. You can see the Hurricane in the game engine on the following shots:
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Hispano Hurri is best Hurri!
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Whats that!?? 
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The Hurri is the first collector’s plane I’ve ever preordered.
I’ve preordered full titles before (Kuban, BP, and Normandy) but only bought the single planes after the fact.
It’s a favorite in CloD/Tobruk and I’m sure it will be here, too.
Great planes and the backbone of the RAF during the battle of Britain
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Lol, once again it seems that $20.00 to $30.00 is the end of the world and way overpriced for software content but a $1,000 dollar video card is A-OK, let alone a joystick, rudder pedals, and any other peripherals necessary that can run into the thousands of dollars to get the most out of the software. Imo, We are definitely a warped group when it comes to value versus cost. 
Considering I just spent twenty dollars at a fast food restaurant the collector pricing imo is not that unreasonable even at full price for the vehicle cockpits.
Wheels
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