Tags
1968, BAT, Cold War, IL-2, IL-2 Sturmovik, Khe Sanh, lenny lipton, peter yarrow, Vietnam
This is the one-hundred-twelfth in a series of posts on the Vietnam War. See here for the previous post in the series and here to go back to the master post.
While I am still working my way through the Siege of Khe Sanh scenario set, I thought I’d toss in two more stand-alone* scenarios involving air support during the Khe Sanh fight. The contrast between these two and that first set couldn’t be more stark.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/school3.jpg?w=1024)
In the Under Siege scenario, part of the Wings over ‘Nam (1965-1973) by enry711, you find yourself on a wild and crazy ride that throws a bit of everything at you. You’re piloting an F-4, sitting on the runway at Khe Sanh and you’ve got to get your plane off the runway so you can aid in the defense of the base. Before you can even try to get in the air, though, you have challenges to face on the ground. Trucks, planes, and base support personnel are all running hither and thither. You first challenge is not to run into any of them while also not running into a wall or a ditch in your efforts to avoid them. It almost PAC_MAN like, where success came from learning the patterns after repeated failures. For me at least, it took a few untimely deaths to learn from where that next danger is going to appear.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/school4.jpg?w=1024)
The other scenario is labeled as ACS #7 within the USMC Career 03 The Vietnam War Tours by DixieCapt scenario. This one is more straight-forward and “realistic,” but strays for the usual fighter/bomber flights. The challenge on this one is that I just don’t know how to fly the DC-3/AC-47 (the Spooky also known as “Puff the Magic Dragon”). Part of it is I don’t have the gear to do multi-engine control as a reasonable simulation of the aircraft allows. The bigger part is I really don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m tempted to use the automatic pilot function to get the plane off the ground and to the target so I can see how the airplane’s legendary miniguns actually work in game. Do I have the patience? Isn’t that just cheating?
Maybe some other time.
Return to the master post for the Vietnam War or continue forward.
*Sort of. The second is a part of a multi-decade scenario package. It “stands alone” relative to the battle at Khe Sahn and in terms of my game play. This is the first of the USMC Career scenarios that I have tried.