Interview: IL-2's Oleg Maddox

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Douglas Helmer
Forum Administrator
publisher@combatsim.com

I'm also wondering...how are you going to make the game more human. For example....in AEW despite never seeing people, except when they bail out, it can feel occassionally like machine v machine rather than human v human. Only the good radio chatter prevents this in EAW.

When I get shot down and die I don't want to think "Bugger, I hope i saved game recently"...I want to think...."damn....I've let mother Russia down"

I'm sure when you have read accounts from pilots of the time the stories of lost friends, fresh enthusiastic pilots, pilots going mad...all these elements make the stories much more human.

Don't get me wrong the sim looks brilliant..but I think there is more room in ALL sims for the lives of pilots to be included. It wouldn't need to be much and B17 II is touching on elements of this issue.

Some ideas are...

When a comrade dies (or several) you could have a picture (or footage?) of a funeral service for an airman on base (there must be hundreds of authentic photos to use) and maybe some stats on that pilots success...failure and maybe even a made up bio on his family.

This is just one example of 1 aspect of war you couyld humanise in IL2.

What I do understand is the limits of time.

If all this will be more hard work than is realistic for an acceptable release date....thats life.

Hooroo!

PS : Congratulations to Russia on doing so well in the Olmypics here in Australia.

Again,

1) What are the flyable planes again?

2) What time period does it specifically cover, from time of German invasion to victory or a smaller bit of time?

3) What are the recommended system specs?

4) When you enter a campaign can you enter at any point or do you have to start at the beginning? Are you give a squadron from which you can not leave or can you switch during the campaign?

5) What pray tell will you be doing next? No specifics, just yes we have plans for another sim or no, we are out of the market.

Really, people- I'm not given to raving. But this sim really is that good.
Well, back to playing that tease of a demo!!

Couple of questions:
1. Did you fly or have you flown any ground attack missions, the raison d'etre of IL-2? If so how do they compare in the eval demo to ground attack missions in other sims you've played?
2. Was the documentation provided clear and concise? Does it bode well for the final manual?

quote:

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Originally posted by RichardG:
Great article Groucho! Good to see IL-2 is proceeding so well.

Couple of questions:
1. Did you fly or have you flown any ground attack missions, the raison d'etre of IL-2? If so how do they compare in the eval demo to ground attack missions in other sims you've played?
2. Was the documentation provided clear and concise? Does it bode well for the final manual?

Thanks!

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Thanks!
Yes- the majority of the missions in the eval disk are ground attack- some with the single seat and some with the two-seat variant of the Il-2. How do they compare to other ground attack missions in other sims? Wow- that's a loaded question- but I will answer this way:
They don't.
The A.I.(both air&ground, friendly & enemy) is excellent. The weapons effects are incredibly modeled. You can actually see what your objective is, and who you are fighting for.
An example-
There is one ground attack mission where you are to stop an enemy tank column. You start in the air (remember- this is an eval disk- you will start from your airbase in the release version if you wish) over an industrial town. Friendly tanks fire from the protection of smokestacks and buildings at the oncoming mass of armor, but they are badly outnumbered. It's up to you and your buds- er- comrades, to thin out the hordes. As you follow your lead in, you see that the PzIII tanks begin to scatter out of line, as if they see the incoming aircraft and panic- but only a bit. As you approach closer, the light playing on the tank's armor, small flashes of light twinkle as the tanks fire tracer rounds at your incoming flight. As the lead flight looses rockets onto the column, the tanks scatter wildly and accelerate towards the town. Deciding to same my heavy stuff for later, I fire into the fronts of the tanks, watching flashes as the cannon shells ricochet off the thick forward armor.
Dummy!
Pulling upto strike them from behind (everybody who ever read a Sgt. Rock & The Howling Commandos comic book knows the armor is thinner on the back) with my 37mm cannon. As I do, I watch the Lavochkins flying CAP tangling with the Fw190s overhead. Suddenly I hear the staccato machine gun fire behind me (excellent EAX surround sound support, BTW). Switching to external view (this I gotta see), I watch as my rear gunner swivels the twin flex mount MGs and fires at a Focke-Wulf that snuck in from behind. Flicking back to the front office view, I decide to continue my run at the south end of some northbound panzers. Squeezing the trigger, I hoot as flame gouts from the straggler's top hatch. Hot Damn!
Suddenly, a large ripping sound from the left...damn! That 190 got some rounds into the last five to seven feet or so of my left wing spar, tearing that section free! Holy borsht!
With that aileron fluttering over the tanks below, roll control is a tad, um, sluggish. But the gunner's firing has stopped...looking back, I see armor plating. Duh. External, however, reveals that the FW190 is turning away, black smoke pouring from beneath its cowl flaps. Suddenly, a howl like a metallic wounded animal fills the cockpit as a Lavochkin screams overhead and finishes the Fw off by blowing the 190's tail off. I limp toward home, find that that will take too long.
Time to put the kids to bed, my wife says, asking for help.
Time to set her down somewhere close, I guess. Still carrying a good head of steam, I decide to drop the flaps.
Mistake.
The blast that has mangled my left wing has also severed the flap torque tube...the right flap deploys assymetrically, immediately pitching me and my hapless gunner skull-first onto the steppes as the Sturmovik lurches uncontrollably into the damaged wing.
Smokin' hole.
OK, this is a condensed version of a couple of missions, but all of these events have occured on different missions. The feel is all there. This eval version lacked radio chatter, which would be a great immersion/SA help- the full version will have it. In Russian, if you want.
Guys, this is going to be the WWII sim that all others are benchmarked to, much as F4 is held up as the pointy-nosed savior. Blue Byte is a small company, and seem to me after talking to them as excited about Sturmovik as I am / we are. I doubt that hey will Hasbro this thing.
Simply put, it will rule.

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Bob "Groucho" Marks
"Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones."
-Major Kong, USAF/SAC
(As played by Slim Pickens in "Dr. Strangelove")

I had the chance to try out IL-2 at the ECTS show in London, and wrote a mini review over at the Dogfighter IL-2 BBS.
Here are the relevant URLs:

Part 1 - http://www.dogfighter.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000236.html
Part 2 - http://www.dogfighter.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000237.html
Part 3 - http://www.dogfighter.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000240.html

The threads also have more info and various questions and answers.

And here's a picture of Oleg and me after I finished trying out IL-2:
http://www.dogfighter.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/000267.html

Note the big grin on my face. Same thing happened to you Groucho ?!?

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C/O, Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'

Um, I don't mean to nitpick, but didn't Maddox say that the chatter will be in Russian? As in *only* in Russian, with English subtitles if you want?

I would like to say thanks Bob Marks for this preview. Really it isn't a preview evaluation version.... It is pre-evaluation not optimized yet version...

If you have questions for me concerning IL-2, please visit BBGC http://209.198.154.16/il2-e/boards/default.asp?id= .

There are a lot of info and forum, where I'm present often.

You screwed up dude, front or back shouldn't matter vs. PzIII with the 37mm, though you will need to score hits at the turret ring to pop it.

But you should NEVER rely on your TG in a Sturmovhik. That famous 'armor' ONLY extends past your bathtub. His station is little more than a hammock seat and canvas cover for the Beriesin.

Il-2 gunners bought the farm in greater numbers than almost any other WWII Soviet air specialty (I believe the Stuka was equally as bad, for both crew) and even if he is effective, you will only drive the 109/190 underneath where he will shoot 'under the crabshell', and up into the oilcooler.

And secondly, you should come in from a quartering direction, ideally with your formation split to 'pull' any return fire, assymetrically.

This will give you a larger (ground) target silouhette and crossing rate lead indication while 'routeing you out the other side' of the formation rather than over it's back and into the teeth of any secondary flak.

If realistic, whatever A/A you are taking is likely in trail or fixed behind the leading armored groups.

I'm not sure any of the German tanks had even a pintel 34/42 until a lot later in the war but _destroy the defense from behind_ (lolo, with PTAB/Guns or mixed-height dives with rockets) is a valid attack if you have the time and penetration to set up an unexpected attack axis.

Once these tubes are down, set up a 1-3K foot AGL 'Snake' or 'Wagon Wheel' _across axis_ of advance (matched to echelon or wedge as well as linear roadmarch).

Never come in low more than once as it gives enemy gunners a 2D flat-lead and makes getting away from the threat too 'shallow' an energy curve experience.

Snake:

tank /
tank /``\
\______tank \
tank
\

Where \/ and _` equate with deflection turns into gunnery conditions and straightline extensions AWAY from return fires, designed to keep the ground track slow and put multiple targets under your guns, per pass.
Ideally, spaced out with your wingnuts so that every time your 'off' they're ON.

The Russians found, the hard way, that speed of onset doesn't matter (and can hurt your aim) in open steppe CAS but that _constancy_ of fire to kill as many tanks as possible in ONE PASS is critical.

Because the Germans, when they were preplanned attack present, or could GLI react fast enough to supply unit/rear area attacks, could rip the life from any but the Guards 'escort' units, almost at will.

And even the Sturmi wasn't really a match afterwards so you cannot dork about with single-shooter mentality of 'haul it around' multipass-CAS.

Rockets are nearly useless in the early RS.82 versions. They have an 'effective' range (won't fly straight past 200m) less than that of even the 20mm, though they will kill almost any period equivalent tank they actually manage to hit.

We found the same problem to be true later on with the Bazooka tubes and RP's.

However; as with the Tiffie, if you can localize any open-deck Flak you can at least 'scare them to death' as a valuable suppression tool before ripping the turret apart with guns and PTAB.

Iron Hand then CAS unless you don't plan on sticking around for more than that one pass or have 'alternate support assets' (MiG-3 and some LaGG's were used as fast-suppressors I do believe...).

Wagon Wheel is similar to snake (multiplane bearing and elevation split of return fires) and could be though of as an 'Offensive Lufberry'.

Again, keep the wheel moving /around/ as much as _in_ and you will find the flak cannot keep up, literally, with changes in slew rates for both traverse and elevation.

If you can command your wingnuts to use these tactics, I would be very interested in a followup to hear how much more success you had employing them.

Keep in mind, the war in the East was a slaughterfest unparalleled in aerial warfare history and the Soviets took it in the ear in 1941 especially.

Il-2 pilots were getting Hero Of Soviet Union medals after surviving a mere ten operational sorties and still they didn't stamp all that damn many bits of brass so anything you can do to extend your life expectancy has got to be an unqualified 'good thang';-)

SNAKE!

/\ Echelon Right Advancing /\

...../
Tank/
....\_Tank```\
............./
..........Tank
..............\
...............```\
..............Tank/
...................\
....................\

Where the damn periods are simply there to insert blanks for the silly text readers 'spatial comprehension'.

Done with threeships, Snake can also be doubled/offset so that parallel-sequential shooters tag team the enemy column march but _never cross over_ (spacing safety) each others sided-turf.

At least until the final evolution where both sides recover and regroup to the same friendly-line side for egress. Also called 'Nozhnitsi' (scissors).

really haven't time to post here anything,
but....

Where you got such info?

Il-2 pilots were getting Hero Of Soviet Union medals after surviving a mere ten operational sorties and still they didn't stamp all that damn many bits of brass so anything you can do to extend your life expectancy has got to be an unqualified 'good thang';-)

I'm personally know several Il-2 pilots, which did more than 100 or even more then 200 sorties and they have not Hero Of Soviet Union.

I only know the one doc where is stated that after 10 sorties the pilot of IL-2 got medal, when he destroyed big railway station with shells warehouse and it stopped for one week the invasion of Germans on that direction in 1942 year.

Oh, just one Q: are the ones of us that speak the involved languages able to turn off the subtitles?

There is just no replacement for screen real estate...if you know what I mean...

quote:

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Originally posted by Grifo:
Êñòàòè,Îëåã!Ïî÷åì áóäåò "ëèöåíçèÿ" íà ðîäèíå?

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ß íå çíàþ... Íàâåðíîå òàêæå äåøåâî êàê è âñå èãðû ïðîäàâàåìûå 1Ñ

As for impression. I don't think so.
We just found the area, where we can be strong for some time. I would like to be strong for a long time

You continue to amaze me at how well and often you communicate to your simming community. I have only seen this level of commitment to the simmers from one other developer: Flanker2's Nick and Norman.

This kind of investiture into the community is showing up in your product and is bound to pay back in customer satisfaction and devotion. Keep up the good example to other sim developers.

I wish you all the success and fun. Talk to you soon...

I understand. You must be an exceptionally busy man just now...

_AGGRESSORS Volume 1, Tank Buster vs. Combat Vehicle_, Text by Alex Vanags Baginskis, Illustrations by Rikyu Watanabe; page 25.

<<Although the bravery of Shturmovik pilots won open German respect, nothing could disguise the fact that the single seat Il-2 was a vulnerable aircraft despite it's strong armor protection.

The Il-2 attrition rate for 1941 was very high and was tacitly admitted by the Soviet command at that time when they awarded the title 'Hero of the Soviet Union' to Il-2 pilots who had flown just ten operational sorties.>>

Which leads one to wonder- would there have been mutiny in the ranks had we awarded CMOH's to SEA drivers who actually reached /their/ 'hump'?;-)

Keep up the good work there sir!

I have no doubt this will be an engrossing sim with an amazing feel of flight!

On a related note, if you are a fan of flight models, the best flight model in a jet sim has just been improved a great deal and not by co-incidence the programmers are also Russian! :-)

Bob, I think you'll have to claim that both these sims, "is the best flight modeling ever attempted for a home simulator."

A version, although I don't think it's the final of the Flanker 2.03 patch has been found here:
http://www.avault.com/pcrl/patches_temp.asp?patch=flanker2

Go get it and enjoy!

Thanks Oleg for realising your amazing vision for us all to enjoy!

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Cheers,

Stinger

Owner of the Flanker FBO
http://stinger.flanker-arena.com

I only hope they will be fair on the specs and not only write any Bullsh(pii)t only to try to burst sells.....

I agrea with your view on dynamic campaign's to a large part but it would be nice to have some local
continuity so if you take out a group of fascist tanks closing on a russian position one mission and wipe them out totaly on a very narrow area next mission you will see the wrecks (and mabe the wrechers?) were you left them and the line of defense might survive better in that few square killomiters.
Pint persdonal scheme

also i feel that when you rellese an expansion pack give more nonflyables as well (IE. fw189 uhu, bf110, tu2, pe8 etc.)
so someday mabey hopfully you can open up aircraft to user development.

look at ATF/FA/USNF and SWOTL leave it open so some day years down the line it could have a new lease of life.

You are doing the only flight sim of the Great Patriotic war you are responsible!!

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C/O, Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'

quote:

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Originally posted by Kurt Plummer:
Hi Oleg,

I understand. You must be an exceptionally busy man just now...

_AGGRESSORS Volume 1, Tank Buster vs. Combat Vehicle_, Text by Alex Vanags Baginskis, Illustrations by Rikyu Watanabe; page 25.

<<Although the bravery of Shturmovik pilots won open German respect, nothing could disguise the fact that the single seat Il-2 was a vulnerable aircraft despite it's strong armor protection.

The Il-2 attrition rate for 1941 was very high and was tacitly admitted by the Soviet command at that time when they awarded the title 'Hero of the Soviet Union' to Il-2 pilots who had flown just ten operational sorties.>>

Which leads one to wonder- would there have been mutiny in the ranks had we awarded CMOH's to SEA drivers who actually reached /their/ 'hump'?;-)

Keep up the good work there sir!

Kurt Plummer

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Ok.

Il-2 single seat:
Pilot experience was so bad.... They didn't use any maneuvres to escape attack of fighters. But many Il-2 Single seat of the 1940-41 year production was in service till end of the war. That shows another thing.

10 sorties: Yes I read about this in one book (recalls of IL-2 pilot). It was that to lif the battle spirit of all pilots in the first months of the war. There was only several such pilots which got the medal by such way (not only IL-2 pilots). In winter 1941-1942 has been build the new award system for fighters, fighters bombers and bombers, which had several modifications during the war.

Ranks. We can't make many groups of ranks for one side (Russia or Germany) with two system of ranks for Naval pilots and VVS (Luftwaffe). So we have two systems: only for VVS and Luftwaffe. I don't think that it is too bad At least we do it with the maximum possible realism.

S! No609_Compans.

16 players can play in a co-op game (i.e. one that features AI objects such as tanks, aircraft, etc.). 'Dogfight' mode (which could of course be organised into squad-based teams) can include up to 32 players ! These larger games don't feature any AI apart from AAA, (AFAIK).

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C/O, Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'

This says it all for Me-
Mines pre-ordered !

1st quarter 2001, meaning Jan- Feb ??