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THE KUBAN CAMPAIGN 5: WITCH HUNT


WWCephas

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This mission may be a bit taxing on the eyes as it is a night mission launching at 4:15 AM (Full moon, clear skies).  Because of that you will need to be very careful with depth perception and horizon issues, although I have added what I can to help everyone out in this respect when designing the mission.  The mission is meant to be played with your standard 1.0 Gamma setting in the graphics options.  If your eyes have trouble (or your monitor is lacking) with contrast go ahead and bump the Gamma up to the max 1.2 if needed but try to keep it as dark as you think you can handle and still have fun. 

(Gamma adjustment does not require a full game restart but needs to be done in the Main Menu/Settings/Graphics screen before starting a mission)

As long as you can get your computer room dark, I think you will do OK, also your night vision kicks in after a few minutes and it gets easier to see, although bringing up the brightly colored map screen does tend to negate that.

Sooo… I hope you can bear with me on this one and hopefully enjoy this mission, I have played it through several times in testing and found it to be a blast.  It also is the most historical mission of the campaign so far, although I have tied several different actual events together into this one mission to suit the different aircraft attack profiles and the large number of WW’s we get on Tues. nights.

MISSION BRIEFING

We have taken Myshako airfield, but our ground forces have not been able to take Gelendzhik to the South as the terrain is too rough for mechanized vehicles to get around the bay.  The Soviets may have abandoned the Gelendzhik airfields but not the territory. Nightly bombardment by enemy artillery is disrupting us from bringing Myshako airbase into operation and during the day they lay quiet and camouflaged in the hills.

 

RED FLIGHT: Your mission for today is to take off at 4 AM during tonight's full moon while the artillery batteries are still firing and try to locate them by their muzzle flashes and destroy them. They tend to hide in the tree line by the coast at the Southern end of Novo Bay. (Sector 1420) The enemy is cautious though, and only fire for short periods before a different battery takes over and they may have also constructed decoy positions as well to draw your fire.

While flying in this zone you are also tasked with covering the JU-52 supply and medical evacuation flights leaving Myshako while they pass though the Novo Bay vicinity after they take off from Myshako to head West. It is not unheard of for the Russians to send night patrols into this sector on harassment missions.

(Designer note, you will be flying toward a forested steep hillside in the dark on the attack run, pull up early, really early if carrying bombs)

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BLUE/BLACK FLIGHT: By now I am sure you have heard of the nocturnal attacks that the Night Witches (Nacht Hexen) have been making against our Wehrmacht soldiers in the field.  Their incessant low level night attacks on our troop positions in the field have been very demoralizing to the men, if we were able to score some victories against these pests it would greatly help morale.

You will take off and fly East to the general area marked on your maps and search for them. This is no easy task; they fly low to the ground in U2V biplanes and are virtually invisible against the terrain from above.  Trying to fly low enough that they be silhouetted against the moonlit sky is extremely dangerous.  Also, since they are so slow, the closing speed on an attack is hard to judge and can easily cause a collision, so be careful.  We have coordinated a plan with the Wehrmacht units in the area though to try and defeat them.  They will make radio a call on our frequency as soon as they are detected in an area.  When you hear the radio call (screen message) race to that location, hopefully they will still be illuminated by the extra air defense spotlights we have been able to allocate to this sector by the time you get there.  You must act quickly though; these witches strike fast and disappear into the Eastern night.  It is not uncommon for them to make 40 sorties a night.

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GOLD FLIGHT: Your primary target is the destruction of the four bridges in Sector 1623-24 to disrupt enemy resupply convoys to Gelendzhik. Recent recon flights found the bridges to be wooden with no AAA support, so the recommended loadout is 12x SC50 bombs. After completing this task, search the roads in this area for any enemy convoy activity and destroy it. 

We also are looking for a pilot from your flight to deliver a squad of Fallschirmjagers to the coastal town of Betta before dawn (Sector 1724-8).

Fly with your fellow flight members as far as their bridge target area while inbound and then complete the journey to Betta from there.  In the dark there should not be too much worry of being detected by enemy air assets. 

Drop the men at 500 meters altitude at a heading of 090 and directly over the village center road at under 150 kph.  After dropping the men, circle offshore for a few minutes to verify if they were successful or not in their mission by watching for a green or red flare, and then RTB with the report.  The more accurate your para drop is the greater chance they have of accomplishing the mission.

If by strange  chance you spot enemy aircraft your fellow flight members will not be far away to call for support.

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Mission self Assignment:

 

Red: FW 190

FL WWSandman

– WWCraven

SL WWGreyWolfe

– WWDarkDiz

SL

-

Blue: Bf 109 G2

FL

– WWPlague

SL

– WWSitting Duck

 

Black: Bf 109 F4

FL WWCephas

– WWDriftwood

SL WWFawlty

Gold: Bf 110

FL

SL

SL WWZed  (Paradrop)

-

 

 

Edited by WWCephas
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They are not that hard to spot really, especially when firing.  Once they stop firing the decoys mess with your mind.  It is the flying into a hillside that is the dangerous part, don't get target lock if the sight picture is not good on the initial run in.

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Zed in for Gold.  Will volunteer for troop drop, but up to the boss if he wants me to knock sticks in the river instead..  if paratroops, please equip plane with a few extra mre’s. Zeus gets hungry and I don’t want gnawing on a troopers leg.

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4 hours ago, WWCephas said:

(Gamma adjustment does not require a full game restart but needs to be done in the Main Menu/Settings/Graphics screen before starting a mission)

You can make this adjustment in game. 

While in game / press ESC / click Basic Settings / Adjust, gamma, FPS, Volume, tech messages, etc. click Accept and your good to go. 

Really handy, I use this to turn tech message spam on when needed, off when I'm done.

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Another great performance by the WW crew.  All objectives completed, very low casualties.

The landing craft attack was a recreation of an actual event.  On Feb 4th 1943 800 Soviet Marines landed near Myshako after a separate failed attempt farther North the previous night.  The 800 men who landed took the field and setup a defensive line that was never broken, suffering heavy losses after months of holding out until the Germans were thrown out of the Taman Peninsula.

The Night Witches also operated in this sector, and while their tactics made them pretty much immune to reprisal attacks I found it interesting they operated in this theater.  They rarely took casualties with their stealth tactics though in real life, unlike the slaughter we unleashed on them in the game.  (got to make it fun though :) )

Also a Shout out to Zed for completing the Paradrop mission successfully.  Dropping at least 10 men in a 600 meter radius circle at night is a great job.

DarkDiz also excelled at sinking ships!

 

Thanks to all about putting up with the night flying, I won't say I never will make a mission like that again but I have no desire to do another... at this time.   Just wishing I put a Russian "Here comes the Cavalry" at dawn with dozens of fighters since everyone expected that to happen.

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It was a fun mission!

I put all of my trk and acmi files on the ftp server under WWDarkdiz, if anyone wants them.

I found out the the FW-190 A3 almost always will sink a landing craft, especially if you try and land on it!

Edited by WWDarkdiz
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I totally forgot I had my gamma adjustment set to 0.8 in the config file, and the file set to read only. I started the sim and initially couldn't see a damn thing. I took off, could see wingtip lights from my flight but that was it. Flew to the target area, and had the rest of ,y flight active on targets, those targets I was completely blind to. 

Finally crashed after a bad landing, replaned after working through the gamma adjustment. Now I can see! Never did spot much for artillery, but I did take out a lot of boats. **Note to self: 50KG bombs now are worthless for skip bombing. Use 250kg+** Also Note: Rearward glide-bombing works, big time!

 

2021-02-16.png

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