ETO Battle of Britain campaign Mark III

[33lima]

About seven miles out, I roll right so as to offset our approach from the target. Ideally, I want to come in behind them, so if they're crossing our path, I've got a 50:50 chance of being right first time.

I happen to leave the TAC displaying aircraft instead of switching to 'all' or 'ships', and get a shock when Bandits are suddenly spotted less than a mile away! Where did they come from?

The 110s are back, and this time, it looks like they're coming up after us.

Six miles from the target - if it's actually there. Still too high, but a bunch of heavily-armed Huns coming up from underneath. What to do? I decide that trying to evade interception now is pointless. We might as get on with what we came here to do, and take our chances with the fighters.

There's the shipping - I've ended out slightly in front of them! It's a single large freighter, escorted by four motor launches of some description. In the excitement, I order the boys in, without concentrating on the big ship instead of wasting bombs on the small fry.

At this point, unknown to me, the screenshots stopped being taken, apart from a couple which ended up as blank .bmps. Some time later, on the way home, the sim crashed altogether, so my tweaked texture budget file didn’t help. The one singular thing with this much earlier cessation of screenshots was that I took a lot more than usual, because of the action on the way to the target.

It’s as if taking a large number of screenshots results in some kind of limit being reached which first stops any more being taken, and then contributes to a CTD. No more than co-incidence perhaps, but the two phenomena do seem to occur together pretty consistently. Anyway I have cleaned out my screenshot folder (which had got VERY large) and will try using only FRAPS to take screenies, next time. I don’t know what other cause there could be, like a spawn failing eg calling one of the aircraft (like the FW200) which I have set not to spawn, or one whose service dates I have set outside the period (like the Hs123). I don't think it's overheating, but maybe some kind of memory problem is involved - I have 8Gb of RAM but just 1.5 of VRAM.

Either way, it’s a bit frustrating, though in no case has it prevented me from having an otherwise very enjoyable experience, usually missing out only on the landing and debriefing (and the impact if any of the mission outcome on the campaign).

As to what happened after the screenshots dried up…well I made another masthead-height bomb run on the large ship, but near-missed this time. Once again, no-one else hit anything, and they then started strafing attacks. Since the targets were mostly the launches, I decided to let this go on, while I made a couple of firing passes myself at what turned out to be an E-boat. I got some hits without doing any visible damage. I also got a nice close-up view of its rather nasty-looking automatic weapons, much more powerful than my single .303 peashooter. So after two runs I gave up and called the boys to order. The flak wasn’t quite as bad this time…or maybe I’m just getting accustomed to it!

About this time, those 110s finally showed up and we started taking losses. I pushed the nose down and ran for home, as close to the wave-tops as I dared. Repeated calls to reform brought no further answers, so I began to fear the worst. Any thought of turning back to help was abandoned when I realised there was a 110 coming after me! We played cat and mouse all the way back to the coast, with my air gunner letting fly any time the Hun came within range. A combination of this and my extreme low flying seemed to deter any attacks and none developed, before the Hun gave up and turned away. By this time, I was hedge-hopping across the Isle of Wight, the masts of the RDF station at Ventnor off to my right having given me my bearings as I came in.

At this point I would have pulled up and orbited to see if anyone else had made it out, but that’s when the CTD did what the Huns couldn’t manage, and put an end to my sortie! I didn’t sink anything or shoot anyone down, but I did survive a very exciting ride, and I’ll settle for that, if I must!

 

[Daiwilletti]

Crashes

Hi 33Lima, don't forget there is a log file in the root of your install - something like d3dlog.txt (set up with Ankor's shaders). Have a read to see if there are memory buffer overflows occurring. It should help with troubleshooting.

I was having regular crashes with my ETO setup. But strangely my test mule for campaign play in Pat's BoB is going without a glitch! One suspect for my crashes is I had an NVidia utility running 4x multisampling and supersampling. There is a suspicion of some sort of conflict with one or two settings in the utility, and Ankor's shaders. Hence I am now using the default and simpler NVidia tweaking utility for setting visual quality - seems to play more nicely with the shaders.

Your Blenheim wingmen have a type = level_bomber in their xdp file. This means they will release bombs flying level. Interesting that after they have dropped their bombs, they revert to more tactical behavior, with strafing runs? Or have you converted their xdp to type=tactical_bomber? As mentioned in a previous thread, when I am attacking ships in a level bomber, I lead the wingmen down to an altitude (say 8000 feet) where flak is not too bad, but they are more accurate. The default mode is that they will approach the shipping from astern, but sometimes they will attack directly from wherever they were given the "Attack" instruction.

Fingers crossed your glitches are over, those mission reports are riveting

 

[33lima]

Thanks for that Daiwilletti. I have kept three post-CTD d3d8 log files and these are the only lines that look suspicious:

0.44: TextureManager::ReadTextureInfo - [PropDisk] not found.
..........
0.47: TextureManager::ReadTextureInfo - [ShipWake] not found.
.........
2696.33: FakeDevice::CreateTexture - Usage = 0, Format = 894720068, Pool = 1, Width = 2048, Height = 2048, Levels = 12 - FAILED. HR = 0x8007000E
.......
2696.42: FakeDevice::CreateTexture - Usage = 0, Format = 861165636, Pool = 1, Width = 2048, Height = 2048, Levels = 12 - FAILED. HR = 0x8007000E
.........
3032.41: create_minidump - Unhandled Exception 0xC0000005 at EIP=0x7015EC (dll base is 0x734A0000)

(the earliest log file doesn't have any 'FAILED' statements, the other has one, the third has the two above).

I don't know what a memory buffer overflow would be reported as in that file.

I have an NvidiaInspector profile set for cfs3.exe and while the AA is turned up quite high (16x) I'm not using multi-or supersampling. The only thing that looks non-standard in that profile is that Antialiasing compatibility is set for 0x004412C1, not sure if I did that or it was one of the many presets that come with the utility. I could try removing cfs3.exe temporarily from that profile and setting what I want in the Nvidia driver control panel.

Strange that it would play fine for most of the mission, then CTD only towards the end, on the way home, when I doubt much that is new is loaded.

AFAIK my wingmen are flying the same Blenheim as the player one (ETO_BlenMk4_59_40) and its .xdp setting is for a level bomber. I haven't had eyes on one at the point of bomb release, but I have definitely seen them make steep strafing attacks, which they seem to revert too after bombing - I suppose making a level strafing attack would be quite hard

 

[33lima]

59 Squadron, Staverton, morning, 13 July 1940

Once again, a few clicks on the campaign speed setting allows me to move on a day rather than have to start over, at the cost of giving up any influence on the campaign. Despite that, the situation on the grounds doesn't seem to have got any worse, and we haven't had to change bases. There are still no ground targets available - don't our own troops trust us? So we're off after ships again. This time it's a target further south, north-west of the Channel Islands.

As usual, we've eight Blenheims, with a similar number of Spitfires to keep us company. A look at my map gives me a better picture of where we're going.

Time to get weaving! The Dutch Fokker D.XXI in one of the blast pens, next to the short-nosed Blenheim I, must be an escapee from the fall of the Continent. I sincerely hope he won't have come all that way, just to be around for the fall of Britain, too.

Once airborne, I make a quick check, via the Tactical Display, to make sure there are no nasty surprises awaiting us in the air. Which there aren't.

But if it's all clear, then why are our Spitfire friends throwing their aircraft about like that? Surely they're not just showing off?

Hmmm...I don't much like the look of that.

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Sure enough, the Spits go haring after something up there, on our right.

The objects of their attention are our opposite numbers in Dorniers. Foolishly, they don't seem to have brought any fighters with them. They'll soon have ours for company, instead.

Which leaves us able to form up in peace and set course to the south.

This time, the Huns aren't after our airfield. They're going for a nearby bridge - you can see some of the bombs bursting on or near it, between me and the other Blenheim in the pic below.

It's getting very tactical, this air war. I have to admit that I'm fretting at having to go chasing ships, when we could be bombing the enemy on our own soil. But ours not to reason why, and all that.

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Well, if nothing else, it's a beautiful morning for a trip down to the Channel Islands. Incidentally I make no apologies for posting lots of Blenheim pics. It's a lovely model of a trim little aeroplane, the scenery is great and likewise the lighting. Truly this is a good time to be coming back to CFS3 and the ETO Expansion.

But I haven't come here to admire the scenery. There are ships to be sunk. Time to speed things along! But at the coast, I come out of warp prematurely...and we all know what that usually means.

There they are! Hun fighters at eleven o'clock low; 109s, by the look of it!

They're 109s all right, but our escorts are back with us and are rushing down to meet them. They're from Jagdgeschwader 53, in the period when some of them painted out their swastikas in a row over having to substitute a red ring around their cowlings for their 'pik as' unit badge. Apparently Goering didn't approve of their boss's choice of wife. But I digress...

Three cheers for Fighter Command! They might lack some of the skills we bomber crews have to acquire, but they're a fine bunch of people, really.

Unfortunately, one of the Messerschmitts gets past the Spitfires, and it looks like we could be in trouble. A Spit goes after him, but he's a long way behind and below - who will win this race?

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

To give myself something useful to do while waiting for an attack which I can’t do much about, I get a fresh course from the navigator/TAC. This reveals that the air combat is now drifting astern. It looks like our escort must have got the 109’s attention.

You may notice in the pic below that the instrument panel is a lot sharper than on previous missions - something to do with my anti-CTD measures, I think.

Anyway, the Spits have indeed saved the day - again!

We're barely offshore so soon as I can, I decide to save some time by warping the rest of the way to the target.

Yet again, this is interrupted before we've gone much further, with the coast at Weymouth still not far behind. I instinctively nose down to pick up some speed.

This time, the new arrivals are some Stukas. They don’t seem to have bombs, so maybe there’s a version I missed when I removed the ‘clean’ option from their loadout, so they would never fly a mission without a bombload.

Anyway our Spitfires seem unable to resist going after them. Which is understandable, but I'd rather they just stuck with us. Who knows what else we'll run into, out here.

Will we ever get to those ships? I'm beginning to wonder!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Nothing for it but to carry on to the south, towards the Channel Islands.

A little further on, we pass some shipping on our right. Enemy shipping, probably, but it can't possibly be our target. I'm tempted - a bird or a ship in the hand, and all that - but I decide to stick with the assigned target.

Another period of warp takes us to within ten miles out, at which point I decide to exit. I then start our descent.

Levelling out temporarily at about ten thousand, I can see the island of Alderney to our left...

..and as we get closer, I begin searching visually for the ships we’re to attack.

That must be them! Several large ships, possibly merchantmen, with just a couple of motor launches of some description for protection. I’d have preferred to have approached them from low level – this wildly high warp altitude really is a curse.

Unfortunately, the ships aren’t our only company!

One group of aircraft is likely to be our escorts. The other group isn't!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Nothing for it but to carry on to the south, towards the Channel Islands.

A little further on, we pass some shipping to our right. Enemy shipping, probably, but it can't possibly be our target. I'm tempted - a bird or a ship in the hand, and all that - but I decide to stick with the assigned target.

Another period of warp takes us to within ten miles out, at which point I decide to exit. I then start our descent.

Levelling out temporarily at about ten thousand, I can see the island of Alderney to our left...

..and as we get closer, I begin searching visually for the ships we’re to attack.

That must be them! Several large ships, possibly merchantmen, with just a couple of motor launches of some description for protection. I’d have preferred to have approached them from low level – this wildly high warp altitude really is a curse.

Unfortunately, as the Tactical Display shows, the ships aren’t our only company!

One group of aircraft is likely to be our escorts. The other group isn't!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

The aircraft behind are the Huns, and they're coming to get us.

But the ones to are right are our escorts, and they're already turning in to cut off the 109s – these Spitfire boys are certainly on the ball today!

Meanwhile, we have those ships to deal with. I want to bring the boys in behind the convoy and look for the tell-tale wakes. I see none. It looks like the ships are riding at anchor, or hove to, or whatever the matelots call it when they’re not going somewhere. I eventually realise I’m in front of the ships.

Sod it – I order the squadron to attack anyway, this time without picking specific targets. This is acknowledged smartly on the R/T and off they go. So far, so good.

I spiral down to one side of the flotilla and await developments before singling out a target of my own. I don’t have long to wait. There’s an explosion on the ship nearest me, as the first bombs strike home.

Then another, this time one of the launches.

Then another of the merchantmen is hit, on the far side of the group.

Then the ship in front of that is hit.

All in all, I reckon we’ve hit four of the bigger ships. Why our bombing accuracy is so much better than before, I have no idea, but it’s a very welcome improvement.

Right - now it's the turn of the boss!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

The aircraft behind are the Huns, and they're coming to get us.

But the ones to are right are our escorts, and they're already turning in to cut off the 109s – these Spitfire boys are certainly on the ball today!

Meanwhile, we have those ships to deal with. I want to bring the boys in behind the convoy and look for the tell-tale wakes. I see none. It looks like the ships are riding at anchor, or hove to, or whatever the matelots call it when they’re not going somewhere. I eventually realise I’m in front of the ships.

Sod it – I order the squadron to attack anyway, this time without picking specific targets. This is acknowledged smartly on the R/T and off they go. So far, so good.

I spiral down to one side of the flotilla and await developments before singling out a target of my own. I don’t have long to wait. There’s an explosion on the ship nearest me, as the first bombs strike home.

Then another, this time one of the launches.

Then another of the merchantmen is hit, on the far side of the group.

Then the ship in front of that is hit.

All in all, I reckon we’ve hit four of the bigger ships. Why our bombing accuracy - and speed of delivery - is so much better than before, I have no idea, but it’s a very welcome improvement.

Right - now it's the turn of the boss!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Bang! There goes another one!

The damaged ships are burning but not yet sinking, so I decide to try to finish off one of them.

I aim to pass diagonally over the two ships on the far side of the group. Bomb bay doors open! Flak, previously very heavy, seems curiously absent. Are the gun crews all on shore leave in Guernsey?

I'm still a bit high, so I decide to skip the first ship and let the furthest one have all four of my 250-lb GP bombs, by which time I’ll be nearer masthead height.

Right, here we go!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Bang! There goes another one!

The damaged ships are burning but not yet sinking, so I decide to try to finish off one of them.

I aim to pass diagonally over the two ships on the far side of the group. Bomb bay doors open! Flak, previously very heavy, seems curiously absent. Are the gun crews all on shore leave in Guernsey?

I'm still a bit high, so I decide to skip the first ship and let the furthest one have all four of my 250-lb GP bombs, by which time I’ll be nearer masthead height.

Right, here we go!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Sorry about the duplicate post, an edit that became a double - noticed to late to delete! Story to be concluded later.

 

[33lima]

Got him! The already-battered vessel takes another hit, roughly amidships.

Possibly two hits in fact, as there are just two waterspouts from my four bombs.

And where is the flak? Still no-where near me, I'm very glad to say. Maybe all those hits the boys got earlier have shut them up. Meanwhile, my target is rolling over to port.

Yes, there she goes. That'll be the end of her! In un-modded CFS3, the ship would probably have been vertical and half out of the water, doing an impression of Titanic on a bad day before disappearing within another few seconds.

While this rather more realistic nautical drama is playing out, other Blenheims can be seen buzzing around, doing what I'm not quite sure.

As I bank away, the stricken ship is over on her beam ends and clearly doomed.

Time to call it quits! I order the boys back. Spirits are high, losses are low - nil, I think - and I want to keep it that way.

However, there remains the small matter of getting everybody home, through skies filled with people who will want to stop us from doing any such thing.

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Right - time to take stock, while I wait and watch for the squadron to re-form. I've been concentrating on matters naval for the last few minutes. I now need to find out what all the flyboys are doing. Which is hard to say. There's several aircraft astern, Blenheims undoubtedly included, but there doesn't seem to be any aerial combat going on. Which is good news, of course, from our standpoint.

But first appearances can be deceptive. There's something going on, up there.

In fact, it's our escort shooing down one or more Dorniers. If these are the same people who were bombing bridges next to our airfield as we took off, I have very little sympathy for them, to be quite honest.

Anyway, we're still in the clear, so it's back to Dear Old Blighty we go.

Good-bye, Guernsey. Maybe we'll nip across on the ferry for a summer holiday, when all this is over and the Channel Islands are back in British hands.

It's easy to let the mind wander to thoughts of happy holidays in warmer climes on a fine day such as this.

But it's a little too soon to be making any such plans, as we'll find out before long.

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

For a while, all goes well. Feeling safer lower, I tootle along at a few hundred feet for a bit.

Nothing bad happens, so I speed up the process, courtesy of CFS3's highly time-accelerated version of warp. Which takes us up to over twenty thousand - then comes out, still over water, with what looks like a bunch of midges buzzing about, to our right rear.

It's actually a small formation of Junkers 88s, apparently unescorted and drawing attention from our own escort. Who are having an even more exciting time than we are, if anything.

Nothing nasty comes our way and finally, we approach the coast, on a reciprocal of the course on which we came out.

Just when I'm beginning to think we've now got nothing worse ahead of us than a rather boring flight back up to Staverton, Bogies are sighted astern.

It's no mere bunch of Hun bombers, this time - we're being chased by 109s! From the dreaded Invisible Pilot Squadron, to boot.

Pilots or not, they're after us, and we're in trouble!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

Throttles all the way forward and nose down, I race for the ground. But from the confused picture revealed by the Tactical Display, something seems to be happening with our pursuers, back there.

In fact, our ever-faithful escorts are in the process of rescuing us once again!

We're not out of the woods yet, though. We've left the air fight behind, but not one of the Huns, who has obviously eluded the Spitfires and is now close behind us, on our right.

I see the 109's guns winking and his tracers zip out towards the Blenheim he’s attacking. Then the smoke of hits. The Hun fires again, and this time, the hapless bomber bursts into flames!

For want of anything more useful to do, I switch to the dorsal turret and after jinking about briefly, the AI pilot settles onto the course for home, continuing to dive. Meanwhile, the burning Blenheim has peeled out of formation and is flying off to one side, visible just above the horizon.

The damaged bomber's nose drops and he goes down vertically, still on fire. If anyone got out, I didn't see them.

All this way, to end up losing an aircraft and probably a crew, just when we thought we were home and dry! And we're not there yet!

...to be continued!

 

[33lima]

The victorious 109 has followed his victim down. The invisible pilot now seems to be in residence, as you can see.

The beggar is soon climbing up after us again.

All I know is that he's down under my tail somewhere and I fear the worst.

By now, however, the ground is coming up fast. The Hun suddenly seems to lose interest, and drifts away to the south. We've made it!

Not only that, but the mission ended cleanly. It was rated a success, too! Even my new debriefing file seems to be behaving itself.

My personal tally lives up to my expectations, with two hits from four bombs and one ship sunk. Considering the boys damaged my target first, I'm happy to chalk that one up to the squadron.

After the operational and technical frustrations of the last few missions (fun though they were) it’s like the CFS3 sun has come out from behind the clouds. Fingers crossed it stays like that, though I'll not make any assumptions about whether I've really resolved my CTDs on the basis of just one mission. An action-packed and exciting mission it was, at any rate!

 

[33lima]

59 Squadron, Staverton, evening, 13 July 1940

Our second trip of the day is another anti-shipping mission - if I can work out why the campaign won't give us anything else I will fix this, unless it interferes with the fighter version of the campaign (which reasonably enough seems to offer only interception missions).

Once again, our route takes us down to the south of the Isle of Wight, but not so far out into the Channel, this time.

I decide to take two 500-pound bombs, instead of four 250s. We're soon taking off into clear blue evening skies, leaving behind our impressively-detained base.

Our to our right as I climb out, I can see some Spitfires; our escorts, presumably. They seem a bit agitated, although I can't see why. Incidentally, the blurry instrument panel is back, but I fixed that with a cfs3config adjustment after the mission.

I start a gentle turn towards the south, as the evening sun starts to sink towards the western horizon, bathing the English countryside in a restful golden glow.

There's nothing restful about the scene behind us, though. A small group of Heinkels is sweeping towards our base, pursued by our escort!

It looks like we got off the ground just in time!

...to be continued!