Somehow I had never heard of Battle of Britain II: Wings of Victory during my most formative flight-simming years (Aces High II and IL-2 were my sims of choice in high school and most of college), and indeed I hadn't even given it a second look until a few weeks ago. Fortunately for me, ennui struck during the big block of vacation I just took, and I gave it the second look. Holy cow. It has:
- Literally hundreds of aircraft in the sky at one time. That's hugely exciting. IL-2 is capable of battles of that size, but I don't generally see them, and Rise of Flight can't handle that many.
- An honest dynamic campaign covering the majority of the Battle of Britain (from the convoy attacks and defenses over the Channel starting early July through to the cessation of daylight raids on September 15).
- The important flyables on both sides, well-modeled (as far as I can tell): the Bf 109E4 and 110 (C1?) and the Ju 87, plus gunner seats in the Ju 88 and He 111; the British only get the Spitfire and the Hurricane, but they don't need anything else.
- A real dynamic campaign, played from a strategic map that gives you the option to jump into escorts, scrambling flights, or patrols at your leisure.
- Fancy complex engine starts that I'll never see because of the dynamic campaign.
- A dynamic campaign, featuring painstakingly researched dispositions of British defenses, airfields, and industry, all of it blow-uppable, and nearly all of it with an effect on the course of the battle.
- Some of the best pilot AI ever seen in a flight sim.
- A playable Battle of Britain campaign, which reacts to actions taken by the player.
You may have noticed that I'm belaboring the snot out of a point here. I admit it: I love dynamic campaigns, and although I have maybe two flight hours in this game, I'm itching to document my failures in command and in combat. Below I've listed explanations of the options in the poll. This LP is running at two forums (Bay12 and Broken Forum), so I'll total the votes across both polls when I deign to invite audience participation in my decision-making.
RAF
Playing the Royal Air Force (wot wot pip ho old chap) brings with it, on the strategic map, a reactive style of play. It's a struggle to meet the larger numbers of the Luftwaffe with enough force to disrupt raids, minimize friendly losses, and shoot down bombers.
Playing the RAF carries with it the added pressure that the RAF won historically, and I'd feel rather foolish if I managed to blow it. On the other hand, I get to talk a lot about places with great British names like Hawkinge, Tangmere, and Biggin Hill.
I'd probably be dropping into Supermarine Spitfire Mark Is and Hawker Hurricane Mark Is in roughly equal proportion. The Spitfire is a superlative turner and nearly the 109's equal in speed and climb, although it stalls more severely and has a tendency to spin. The Hurricane is docile, durable, and 20 miles per hour slower than the 109, though it's capable of turning even more tightly than the Spitfire. Both RAF fighters have the early-war RAF armament, which is eight wing-mounted .303 machine guns. Such an armament spits out an impressive number of bullets, but it takes a lot of hits to down a bomber.
The objective for the RAF is to survive until September 15th.
Luftwaffe
Historically, the Luftwaffe was poorly handled, ordered by Hitler to start terror raids on London just as the raids against RAF assets were beginning to pay off. Since I fancy myself slightly less strategically incompetent than Hitler, I suspect I could do better than the Luftwaffe did historically.
The Bf 109E4, the ride I would usually drop into, is a better performer than the Spitfire, though a lesser turner (though not to the extent that a bad Spitfire pilot can out-turn a good 109 pilot [which isn't to say I'm a good 109 pilot]). It also has a mediocre armament, two low-velocity 20mm cannon and two 7.92mm machine guns; the cannon knock down aircraft very well but require accuracy. My gunnery isn't great, so I might struggle to score kills. Too, commanding the Luftwaffe requires a lot of working through menus and such that I'm currently unfamiliar with (since, y'know, this will be the first dynamic campaign in BoB I've played), and more generally it requires initiative. They're also the bad guys, and I don't normally play the bad guys. All of that said, I think the Luftwaffe campaign would be more interesting because there's more to do; the RAF campaign is mostly choosing which things are worth defending and trying to shuffle squadrons around so that they never reach the point where they're no longer combat-ready.
The objective for the Luftwaffe is to eliminate the RAF as an effective fighting force by grounding its squadrons, be it through lack of equipment, lack of pilots, or lack of morale.
July 10th-ish
Start during the convoy battle phase, which is mainly lower-intensity battles over the Channel. Playing the RAF, I'd have to avoid losing too many convoys for fear of being kicked out of the big chair; playing the Luftwaffe, I'd hope to engage the RAF in small numbers and begin the process of sending their pilots to watery graves in the Channel.
August 10th-ish
Start just before Eagle Day, the start of major German operations against the British mainland. The RAF's objective is to remain an effective fighting force; the Luftwaffe's is to take the fight directly to the RAF.
Poll
7 (63.6%)
Author
Topic: The End of the Beginning - Let's Play Battle of Britain II (Read 10374 times)