Welcome to the French West Africa carrier operations package! This is a set of thirty-six missions in six short or medium-length campaigns that center around the experiences the Vichy French and British in the struggle for Dakar, in what is today Senegal, during July of 1940 and September of 1940. These missions are a mixture of history and fiction. The missions for Operation Menace & Operation Catapult are historically-based, with some guesswork and extrapolation.
The missions for Operations Catapult and Menace are based heavily on the work of Dombral, whose work in the Mediterranean is under-appreciated. Perhaps in releasing this, as well as his other works for the Med I am helping him with, his talents in CFS2 will become more widely known. The missions are largely of his design, my primary contribution is on mission texts and “flipping” missions that were on either the British or the Vichy French side, but lacked the mirror image.
The two larger campaigns consist of fictional carrier operations between the British carrier Hermes, which was present off Senegal after leaving the harbor at Dakar when the Governor of the area declared his loyalty to the Vichy régime, and the French carrier Bearn. This clash did not occur during World War II, but the premise for the campaign could have easily happened.
In actual fact, the French aircraft carrier "Bearn" made her run to Halifax, Nova Scotia to transfer French gold bullion reserves and keep it out of German hands. While there, she was loaded up with twenty-seven P-36s for the French Air Force, six Buffaloes for the Belgians, twenty-five Stimson 105s, and forty-four Curtiss SBC-4 Helldivers. After the ship left Halifax the Dutch and Germans capitulated or were overrun, so the Bearn went to Martinique, where she remained until 1944.
My premise is that she received word about the threat to the French fleet, & raced across the Atlantic. En route, she learns about the attack by the British at Mers-el-Kebir and the Hermes' presence off Dakar and decides to exact revenge. She gets close to Dakar without being detected. In these missions, you would first fly the fighters and dive-bombers off to land at the two bases near Dakar, while the SB2U Vindicators remain on-board, and your task is to annihilate the Hermes between the carrier force and the fighters and bombers stationed on land.
For the British, your task is to defend yourself against the threat with the meager forces available to the Hermes; twelve Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bombers, & eight Blackburn Skuas. As the campaign progresses, your call for help is finally answered by the HMS Ark Royal.
This is my first and likely only foray into a “what if,” but I drew inspiration for this project from three sources. First, I credit Jagdflieger for his work on the “Flying Barrels” campaign, which is a work of historical fiction. I also give credit to Dombral, whose work in the Mediterranean has been a real treat to work on, and thoroughly enjoyable. Lastly, I also give some credit to UncleTgt, who released a fictional 1942-era Vichy French Bearn carrier force skin package. Though his premise centered on disrupting the Torch landings, it spurred my mind into developing a 1940 premise.
All the aircraft included in this package are the most modernized available, and a large amount of credit goes to Allen, Shessi, Captain Kurt, and UncleTgt for doing repaint schemes, airfile/.dp tweaking, along with creating multi-lod models for the Dewoitine D376, and the Curtiss SBC-4 Helldiver. Gaucho_59 has also contributed a few panel bitmaps for the project. I am also grateful for a CFS2-converted model for the Dewoitine D510, and new paint schemes by UncleTgt.
"Rami"
Submitted by Rami
The missions for Operations Catapult and Menace are based heavily on the work of Dombral, whose work in the Mediterranean is under-appreciated. Perhaps in releasing this, as well as his other works for the Med I am helping him with, his talents in CFS2 will become more widely known. The missions are largely of his design, my primary contribution is on mission texts and “flipping” missions that were on either the British or the Vichy French side, but lacked the mirror image.
The two larger campaigns consist of fictional carrier operations between the British carrier Hermes, which was present off Senegal after leaving the harbor at Dakar when the Governor of the area declared his loyalty to the Vichy régime, and the French carrier Bearn. This clash did not occur during World War II, but the premise for the campaign could have easily happened.
In actual fact, the French aircraft carrier "Bearn" made her run to Halifax, Nova Scotia to transfer French gold bullion reserves and keep it out of German hands. While there, she was loaded up with twenty-seven P-36s for the French Air Force, six Buffaloes for the Belgians, twenty-five Stimson 105s, and forty-four Curtiss SBC-4 Helldivers. After the ship left Halifax the Dutch and Germans capitulated or were overrun, so the Bearn went to Martinique, where she remained until 1944.
My premise is that she received word about the threat to the French fleet, & raced across the Atlantic. En route, she learns about the attack by the British at Mers-el-Kebir and the Hermes' presence off Dakar and decides to exact revenge. She gets close to Dakar without being detected. In these missions, you would first fly the fighters and dive-bombers off to land at the two bases near Dakar, while the SB2U Vindicators remain on-board, and your task is to annihilate the Hermes between the carrier force and the fighters and bombers stationed on land.
For the British, your task is to defend yourself against the threat with the meager forces available to the Hermes; twelve Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bombers, & eight Blackburn Skuas. As the campaign progresses, your call for help is finally answered by the HMS Ark Royal.
This is my first and likely only foray into a “what if,” but I drew inspiration for this project from three sources. First, I credit Jagdflieger for his work on the “Flying Barrels” campaign, which is a work of historical fiction. I also give credit to Dombral, whose work in the Mediterranean has been a real treat to work on, and thoroughly enjoyable. Lastly, I also give some credit to UncleTgt, who released a fictional 1942-era Vichy French Bearn carrier force skin package. Though his premise centered on disrupting the Torch landings, it spurred my mind into developing a 1940 premise.
All the aircraft included in this package are the most modernized available, and a large amount of credit goes to Allen, Shessi, Captain Kurt, and UncleTgt for doing repaint schemes, airfile/.dp tweaking, along with creating multi-lod models for the Dewoitine D376, and the Curtiss SBC-4 Helldiver. Gaucho_59 has also contributed a few panel bitmaps for the project. I am also grateful for a CFS2-converted model for the Dewoitine D510, and new paint schemes by UncleTgt.
"Rami"
Submitted by Rami
