BN 6-22-12 - Cabbage Crates

[MackStones]

Friday,  June 22, 2012  - 22:00hrs Central US. (11:00pm Eastern US; 4:00am GMT)  
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This week's Special Mission mission is called "Cabbage Crates".  

   A siren goes. The door bursts open and an out-of-breath young pilot rushes in in his flying gear.

Pilot    Bunch of monkeys on the ceiling, sir! Grab your egg and fours and let's get the bacon delivered!
 
   General incomprehension. They look at each other.

Wingco    Do you understand that?

Squadron Leader    No, didn't get a word of it.

Wingco    Sorry old man, we don't understand your banter.

Pilot    You know...bally ten-penny ones dropping in the custard...(searching for words) un...Charlie Choppers chucking a handful...

Wingco    No, no...sorry.

Bovril    Say it a bit slower, old chap.

Pilot    Slower banter, sir?

Wingco    Ra-ther!

Pilot    Um...sausage squad up the blue end?

Squadron Leader    No, still don't get it.

Pilot    Um...cabbage crates coming over the briny?

Squadron Leader    No.

Others    No, no....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rKYL0tW-Ek

In honor of the classic Monty Python sketch, this week has a special mission involving a LARGE Luftwaffe bomber raid on London.  There are close to 100 AI bombers (Ju-88 and He-111) in a long "bomber stream".  In short, "cabbage crates over the briny".  

This mission uses the the 353nd Squadron's Cross-Channel modded map.  It is one of the large Channel maps, but seems to be much more fps-friendly.  

Being set on a large map, and using a London target, "The Blitz" will give the pilots a more historical feel to the campaign.  In short, Blue pilots will find that it's a long way to London from Calais.  They'll need to take lots of fuel if they wish to be able to spend much time fighting over England.  It's a 25-30 minute flight to London from the Calais airspawn (with longer for bombers), so expect an hour-plus sortie (assuming you survive).  Blue pilots who get shot down can, depending upon the time left in the mission, patrol the Channel to escort any outgoing AI bombers to the English coast, or escort any remaining bombers back across the Channel.  

Red pilots should stay in England, and have no reason to cross the Channel.  The action will be over England.

Each side has working radar.  It refreshes every 120 seconds, to reflect the inherent delays in the fighter control systems.  

Each side has airspawns, at altitude.  

Blue bombers spawn next to the bomber stream and can join in.  Blue fighters are nearby and can escort the bomber stream.  Red has airbases at the coast, and airspawns inland at Detling and West Malling.  The bomber stream will start in occupied France, cross the Channel between Dover and Margate, head to the Thames estuary, head due west up the Thames to targets in London, and then make a massive loop to the south and southeast, and start to cross the Channel.  Importantly, similar to the "Green Wave" and "The Ruhr" missions running recently, the AI bombers will loop back and head again to target after reaching the Channel on their egress.  

Blue human-piloted bombers do have targets in London.  For fps reasons, the AI bombers don't drop bombs.  The human bombers' objective is the large island in the Thames on the East End of London.  Basically, it's the first factory area in London when coming up the Thames from the east.  The target is the island, and not the thin factory area on the mainland to the north.  See the screenshot below.  I have added the large power-plant factories to the target, as well as some barrage balloons, to better highlight the target area.  

The time of day is set for late afternoon, and you get a post-sunset, early evening feel late in the mission.

Red has no targets.  Its only objective is to kill the AI bombers.

The planeset (a simple one) is as follows:

Spitfire Mk Ib, Spitfire Mk IIa, Hurricane Mk Ib, Hurricane Mk I BoB, Hurricane Mk IIb, and Beaufighter Mk IF

v.

Bf-109E-1, Bf-109E-3, Bf-109E-4, Bf-110C-1, He-111H-2, and Ju-88A-4.

I gave Red some better-armed fighters to help out against the bombers.  "Cabbage crates" are tough.

Please enjoy and let me know your comments.  Attached are some screenshots of the target area.

[RepublicofTexas]

Getting a new stud rig today.  Hopefully UPS will deliver in time for me to setup and loadup to UP3.0 RC4. Maybe I'll join you boys tonight!

[RepublicofTexas]

The game is up and running.  Hopefully I will be able to join the action tonight.  Now I just need to max out the settings.  Anyone have some specs they use on a high end rig they can share?  Water=3, Forest=4 kind of stuff.  Been years since I messed around with the conf. file.  Thanks.

[MackStones]

Well, thanks to those who flew. 

That one goes into the category of "Didn't Work".  Although many had good fps, too many have poor fps and some had unflyable fps.  That's the best map, fps-wise, that includes London, and it might be the culprit (along with my hubris is trying to push the envelope with all of the AI bombers).  In addition, even with upgraded aircraft, the RAF was having too much trouble taking down the bombers. 

It was a test to see what we could get away with ... and we learned that we can't get away with that mission.

[Joop]

In addition, even with upgraded aircraft, the RAF was having too much trouble taking down the bombers.

Howdy, Mack.

I just wanted to say, even though I had frame rates in the single digits, I was able to knock down two bombers (one in a single pass) and damaged a third that would likely have went down. I don't think that's an issue. It's all in the technique.

Thanks!

[MackStones]

Needless to say, I'm not surprised by a 4H-er with such an experience.  Good show, ol' boy.

[Gothkrieger]

Yes I was one of the one who got on at the beginning of the mission, both red and blue side.  Frame rate for me was unflyable so too for me, I would have liked to have flown it.  I know I can fly regular spits vs 109s with no problem, has to be the number of objects in mission for me perhaps.  Anyways I hope a solution can be reached.

[MackStones]

The underlying map has lots of objects (though fewer than the newer Canon maps).  We did a similar mission with almost 100 B-17s a couple times ("Green Wave") that seem to work well for most (albeit on a different underlying map - the Canon Channel beta map), as well as two other approx. 100-AI B-17s ("The Ruhr") on another underlying map.  The four-engined B-17s seem to be more demanding in terms of computer power, so I figured that the twin-engined Luftwaffe bombers would work out better. 

I was wrong.  I think it's the underlying map.  However, it might just be too hard for the average Red pilot to take down the bombers with .303s.