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This is my seventy-sixth in a series of posts on the Vietnam War. See here for the previous post in the series and here to go back to master post.

My next IL-2 scenario was going to be Midnight Raiders, a mission providing nighttime air support to a besieged Marine defensive position. As far as I can tell, it is a purely hypothetical setup. This was a mission that I had prepared for myself several versions ago; one of a number that was both ready and compatible with the BAT modification package. In my 2018 post, you may have detected, I was prepared for further struggles with old scenarios and compatibility. You may note that, come 2021, that didn’t happen; my experience with the scenario Blood Brothers was seamless.

Now, one of the allures of BAT is that it is designed to be a turnkey installation. Along with all the mods themselves, there is supposed to be an ecosystem of campaigns and scenarios which exploit the game’s expansions. The documentation for the Jet Age portion of the package sold me on a number of such premade adventures but, when I looked at it circa 2018, many seemed to be either works-in-progress or in need of some compatibility facelifting.

After playing the Blood Brothers scenario, I began to peruse the folders of the installation that I’d just completed. I was surprised (very pleasantly, I should say) that the mission folders for both the Jet Age and the dedicated Vietnam package were populated* with ready-to-go scenarios. It seems that what was promised to me a few years back has now been delivered.

The scenario “packs” seems to span three categories. The first are what I’ll call sample packs. A set of missions spread throughout the decade of war featuring different aircraft flying a variety of missions. The emphasis is on novelty, apparently trying to represent the Vietnam Experience (TM). Another flavor selects a single aircraft and provides a series of representative missions, typically occuring over multiple years. There are also packages focused on a single battle or a single unit – perhaps meant to be played as a “career” or as a role-playing experience for a single airman.

With this update, the availability of Vietnam scenarios goes from being a little thin-on-the-ground to, based on some superficial eye-balling, the most represented era of the Jet Age package. This makes a lot of sense. For anything post-WWII, the Vietnam War would represent the highest concentration of combat missions and enemy engagements to date.

A-1. It’s that important.

It’s a bit serendipitous that the next scenario I was going to play and the earliest scenario in this latest-version of the Jet Age mod are both flying the Douglas A-1 Skyraider. You may recall that this plane is one of the few aircraft that I have so-far managed to fly in IL-2. Several of the “packs” include A-1 scenarios, starting with the opening airstrike of Operation Pierce Arrow. This is from the ‘Nam War collection which focuses on (as far as I can tell) historical missions for six** different aircraft.

– Plenty of A-1 missions, real or imagined, to be had.

I’ve told you before about the massive learning curve I always encounter when I return to IL-2 after a break. This time is no different. As a naval mission, this scenario requires some additional interaction, all of which I’ve forgotten about and deleted all my shortcuts for. For example, in my first couple of go-arounds, I forgot how to work with the catapult*** and caused a mass-casualty event on take-off.

– American casualties are all too common when the pilots are completely incompetent.

It took a bit of reading and remembering before I managed to get myself to where, I think, I should be. Sort of. I still tumble off of the deck on every takeoff. Sometimes I can manage to get myself level before I dip a wing in the drink while other attempts have me tumble-in ass-over-tit. Yet, in all my tries, I’ve never managed to gin up enough speed to keep from dragging a tail, a wing, or a tank in the ocean. I know I’m bad but I’m not sure this is entirely on me. If I let the plane take off entirely on autopilot, it still crashes into the ocean (AI planes, by way of contrast, take off just fine). Maybe the catapult is a little underpowered or the runway is too short. Even the successful AI launches don’t look anything like the historical footage (see video, below).

– It’s going to be a very short ride.

Fortunately for my sanity, there is always the option to forgo both take-off and landing and just start the mission already in the air.

Skipping the carrier launch obviously makes it a lot easier to get to the “meat” of the mission – the actual ground attack. Alas, for me, this still does not make the scenario an easy one. Even over the “friendly” ocean, I struggled with getting the trim settings stable and level flight required a constant twiddling so as to keep from going off-course. Once on station I realized that, as admittedly bad as I am with air-to-air combat, I suspect I am even worse with ground support.

– You’re too low! Pull up!

It may or may not be obvious, but in the above screenshot I’m much lower than my mission parameters tell me I should be. In simply trying to get my rockets and bombs on target, I ended up in a fairly rapid dive at 300 ft instead of the flat bombing run from 1000 ft with which I was tasked. Luckily, I wasn’t hit on this pass but I also did no damage. The reality of the strikes on August 5th is that an A-1 pilot (Lieutenant Richard Sather) was killed in combat, his plane downed by anti-aircraft fire.

It’s probably more psychological than anything else – but I feel so much more useless being an unskilled pilot flying ground support. In a dogfighting scenario, I mix it up alongside my computer-controlled mates and, even if I don’t bring down any enemy planes myself, I can take some minor satisfaction in having flown a supporting role. When I fly over a target and all of my bombs splash down harmlessly in the ocean, it’s quite obvious that I’ve just burned a whole mess of fuel and fired a bunch of rockets to absolutely no purpose. My team would have been better off had I stayed in bed.

Not to belabor the point but my biggest problem stems from trying to casually pick up a flight sim for a day or two of fun. To succeed, I should probably either play these games in “arcade mode” or take the time to work my way up the learning curve. I’m really not in the mood to do either one. However, the fact that I have a dozen or so A-1 Skyraider missions which can serve to catch me up to where I am in Vietnam Combat Operations – this might just give me a chance to figure out how to drop a bomb or strafe a truck.

I’ll be sure to let you know what comes of it.

Return to Vietnam War master post or continue ahead for more.

*Albeit in many cases duplicated.

**Five of them are for U.S. Navy planes. There are six if you throw in the the Thuds and eight if you also include the two MiG sets.

***In case you’re similarly clueless and in my situation, I’ll briefly explain. The “chocks” and the catapult use the same function (which I had to add to the key map) depending on where you are on the deck. You can steer yourself to the launch position before engaging or simply hit the “autopilot” function, which will teleport you there.