IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad News

Dear Pilots, Tankers and Gunners,

Today we have a short Developer Diary for you that shows progress on the Normandy airfields and the cockpit our P-51B/C.

As with our Rhineland map, the Normandy map will include historically accurate airfields. Here you can see how we match up period photos with our in-game map as we build them.



And work continues on the P-51B/C cockpit and below are some WIP shots. Of course, there are some missing details as the work is ongoing and still quite early. We are confident the P-51B/C will be really awesome when completed.



Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team

285

Dear Pilots,

Today’s Developer Diary has two cool items to announce.

First, you can’t stage a Normandy invasion without some dashing British gents jumping out of airplanes. So, we built some.



Next, we are excited to announce that our next payware historical Scripted Campaign is coming soon and it’s called – Steel Birds!



Created by our master mission-specialist Alex “Blacksix” Timoshkov, Steel Birds focuses on Fw-190 A-5 operations in the Kuban theater in late spring 1943. You'll take on the role of the newly appointed flight commander in 5. Staffel of the II./Sch.G 1. Under the command of Hauptmann Frank Neubert this Gruppe has just completed a retraining program and has relocated to Anapa airfield to support the operations of the German 17th Army.

The campaign is set from April 14th to May 16th, 1943 and is centered around the struggle for a bridgehead at Novorossiysk (Operation Neptune), and two major Soviet offensives in the area of Krymskaya, which ended with the withdrawal of German troops to a new line of defense in early May.

The sharp increase of the Soviet air strength in the Kuban led to one of the largest and fiercest air battles ever on the Eastern Front. In this difficult situation, you have to strike artillery batteries, transport and armored columns, airfields and battle formations of enemy advancing troops.

We’ll have more about Steel Birds next week when we formally launch pre-orders for this historically bases campaign. Release is scheduled for August.

Some images from Steel Birds are below.





And finally, we have some images from the new Advanced Quick Mission interface that is coming later this summer. We saved our old “campaign” system technology and have laid it over the existing QMB to give you added depth for missions that can be created quickly. We think this will be an entertaining new feature that will allow you to fly missions with more structure, but not be as big a commitment as the Pilot Career or as simplistic as the QMB battles. This new AQM, alongside our other mission-making tools such as the existing QMB, Pilot Career and Mission Builder, plus all the great third-party apps like PWCG by Pat Wilson and EMG by SYN_Vander gives the Great Battle series an amazing number of options for creating entertaining mission content.



Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team

284

Dear Pilots,

Summer is here and it’s very hot in both Moscow and Las Vegas, but we soldier on still working mostly from our flats and homes. This week’s DD features just a couple items, but one is quite a surprise as you will see. But first, let’s admire the upcoming 4K skins made by our steadfast ally and partner Martin “ICDP” Catney. The ugly duckling has become a swan with these new textures wouldn’t you say?



With the new skins for the Hs-129, we are rapidly closing in on ALL planes in Great Battles being upgraded to the 4K standard. The Yak-1b should be next and eventually the Ju-52 will also get a refresh. The entire 4K upgrade has been a huge effort on Martin’s part as well as the previous contributions made by Francisco “BlackHellHound” Bindraban. Please join me in thanking them for their awesome contributions! A shining example of talented community members helping the developers and an effective international partnership.

And now a surprise that came about very recently, but one that has a its roots in Rise of Flight history and one that should end in a positive result for Sturmovik. Today, we share extremely early WIP shots of an important fighter design that saw action against both Soviet and American air forces and late in the war, alongside them. Can you guess what plane it is? There are very few types that have this distinction.

That’s right, the Romanian designed and built IAR-80/81 is under development by a third party that we feel has the skills to make it a reality. This will take some time, but we are confident it will come to fruition. Please enjoy this little tease and when we the mesh is further along, we will offer it for pre-order as we always do.



Why the IAR-80/81 exactly? Well, believe it or not, there is a lot of good reference information on this plane, so it is one that is possible to build by a single qualified modeler. A lot of what we do as a sim developer, can be described as the “art of the possible”. The IAR is indeed possible to make, so let's do it. And it’s a nice departure from our usual plane-set and is often overlooked in the history books. It will be sold as a Collector Plane, but it will certainly add some more historical flavor to the Battle of Stalingrad theater. There are some other planes we are working looking into finding a way to make. Your continued financial support is most important when we try to make new aircraft.

And we continue to work on the new AQM feature, fuel systems with drop tanks, Air Marshal and even improved cloud technology. All of which I hope to show you pictures of in upcoming Developer Diaries.

And Jason continues to work with talented mission makers on new mission content and Campaigns which we hope to have localized and released soon.

On a serious note, the pandemic really slowed us down as we are prevented from being on our office and seeing each other face to face. Working from home is not always ideal for a collaborative effort like developing Sturmovik, but we continue to do our best and fill irritating personnel needs as soon as we can. We had hoped 2021 would bring a quick return to normalcy for us, but sadly it has brought a whole new set of challenges for us as a team beyond the usual technical ones as the pandemic sticks around. So please have patience with us and know that the team is doing their very best under less-than-ideal circumstances.

See you in the skies and on the battlefield!

The Sturmovik Team

Attention Pilots!

The weather in Moscow and Las Vegas is hotter than a fire in the cockpit, but that means it's time for the Annual Summer Sale!!!

The Summer Sale runs from 10:00am PST June 24th to 10:00am PST July 8th right here on STEAM.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/307960/IL2_Sturmovik_Battle_of_Stalingrad/

GAZ-MM 72-K - 25% Off

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]










Tank Crew - 50% Off
BOM – 75% Off
BOK – 75% Off
BOBP – 66% Off
FC1 – 66% Off
Hurricane Mk.II - 50% Off
Yak-9 – 50% Off
Yak-9T – 50% Off
Fw-190 D-9 – 66% Off
P-38 J-15 – 66% Off
U-2VS -75% Off
Ju-52/3M – 75% Off
Bf-109 G-6 – 75% Off
Yak-1B – 75% Off
Spitfire Mk. VB – 75 % Off
LA-5FN – 75% Off
HS-129 B-2 – 85% Off
P-40E-1 – 85% Off
Macchi MC.202 – 85% Off
Fw-190 A-3 – 85% Off
LA-5 Series 8 – 85% Off
Ice Ring – 50% Off
Blazing Steppe – 75% Off
Fortress on the Volga – 75% Off

https://store.steampowered.com/app/754530/IL2_Sturmovik_Cliffs_of_Dover_Blitz_Edition/

Cliffs of Dover: Blitz - 35%
Desert Wings: Tobruk - 20%

https://store.steampowered.com/app/244050/Rise_of_Flight_United/

All ROF Content – 75% Off

Enjoy!

See you in the skies and on the battlefield!

The Sturmovik Team

DD 283

Hello Everyone!

This week we are showing a Dev. Diary a little early because we have some vacation and Covid-related holiday time that interferes with our normal routine. So, before we take a little time off, here are some quick shots of the German Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38 in the actual game engine. As you can see the textures are not anywhere near ready, but it is starting to become functional including some of the damage model and the gunsights. Once again, our partners at DigitalForms have done a terrific job on the model.

In the images below you can see how a machine gun from a Soviet armored car shot up my engine and ended my mission. The sights on this German gun are quite different from the Soviet 72-K and maybe it’s a bit more user friendly? You’ll have to be the judge when you try it, but it sure is fun trying to knock down planes with either gun!





Again, the textures are not done and this is just an early Beta example and we wanted to show you that progress is being made. The Sd.Kfz. 10/5 Flak 38 will be ready for action later this summer.

In WWII aircraft news – the P-51B/C is scheduled be the next aircraft released as we work on other things like the V-1 ‘Buzz Bomb’. The P-51B/C will be released late summer; the exact date is unknown at this point, but we’ll have updated pics for you just as soon as we can.

In WWI aircraft news, Ugra Media is hard at work on several FC2 planes and the map, but the closest to release is the Pfalz D.XII. She will be ready for our next update.





Recently, when I collected the USAAF squadron emblems for BON, created once again by our friend Isaac ‘Solidkreate’ Chavira, I was inspired to make another poster. This time for the P-47D-22 with all the USAAF Ninth Air Force squadrons that will be a part of the Battle of Normandy Career. There are quite a few that flew the Razorback during that period.



….. and finally, a shot that you have been waiting a long time to see. A Bf-109 with something new under slung its belly. Functional drop tanks are being worked on for several planes, but it will take time to retrofit the aircraft that need them.



Enjoy!

The Sturmovik Team