Lapland Mod v1.1 Imminent :)

[Crossroads]

News news read all about it!

I've had great fun with my little modification. What started as a quick fix to add Allied Finland to EF2 OOB is about to grow into a quite serious mod in itself.

New additions for 1.1 are:

A complete Finnish III Army Corps OOB as it entered the Lapland War. I've read a ton of books about the subject, and as a result the Divisions and Brigades come with fixed, historic Regiments, with historical Regimental Commanders. I could have gone to battalion level in many cases, but thought better not overdo this.

Finnish OOB is now near perfection. New units with 1.1 have mainly to do with FAF:

- First, the Anti-tank Sqd '39 (Molotov cocktails and satchel charges) makes any early war scenario complete however.

- Fokker D.XXI (Huib: are you reading!) will again have the chance to gain the legendary status over the Winter War skies. The bitmap will be modeled after FR-97 , the airframe that served Ltn Sarvanto so well. Sarvanto was apparently the first WWII pilot to gain 10 kills, and gained fame with downing six enemy bombers in just four minutes.

Here's Mike / Warhorse's Fokker, work-in-progress: see how he's converted the wheeled landing gear into skis as they are supposed to be with FAF Fokkers!


And here's the finished end product. A work of beauty !!! Thanks a ton!








- Hawker Hurricane MkI. During Winter War, a dozen of these reliable warbirds were purchased from UK. As it was, they missed the Winter War by just a few days, but served well in the Continuation War. Only repainted after a thorough stint at the maintenance, they served with RAF camo for quite a while. A surviving Hurricane MkI seen below is being restored and put into display shortly. However, they are not touching the paint job, which still, after all these years, is the original paint put into plat somewhere at England in 1940. And, as UK declared war on Finland on December 1941, the supply of spare parts were cut, and last Hurricanes were stored in 1943. That is the reason why the warbird in the picture is still carrying the original yellow east front stripes in its airframe.

*** post split in two to allow for more pictures ***

[Crossroads]

*** post split in two to allow for more pictures***

- Bristol Blenheim MkI. At the time a very modern bomber, and was bought in numbers already in late 1930s. A batch of them was bought again from UK during the Winter War, and they were taken into action with no time to remove the RAF camo. Notably, JTCS only comes with a Blenheim MkIV, so a short nosed version of the bitmap was needed in order to have the plane appear from 1939 on







The sole surviving Blenheim (a "long-nose" Mk IV) at local Aviation museum:


- Junkers Ju 88-A4. Some 24 of these were bought in 1943, and served both in the Continuation War and Lapland War. This bitmap conversion courtesy of Mike / Warhorse. Thanks mate!







Many thanks to Mike "da man" Amos for helping me with the bitmaps

But there's more...

I am working on a What-If scenario which will have the Anglo-French Expeditionary Force actually making it to Winter War, having Brits and French fighting Soviet Union.

In order to do that, I have now pretty much migrated all the French OOBs and units from WF side of things to EF2 side of things.

Also, 98% of the Brits made it as well, some Free French and Ethiopian OOBs being the exception.

While at it, I thought why not bringing the US into EF2 as well?

What would you guys think of that idea? I guess that would offer great chances for some Post-WWII West-East conflicts. I could easily package it as an add-on to Lapland Mod if there is interest for doing so.

It has been great to see the new interest on Rising Sun scenarios, while Mike's Korean Mod saw some great new scenarios done for it.

Perhaps with version 1.1 this little mod comes to an age as well, offering interesting possibilities for scenario designers to chart areas so far being unaccessible to them?

I think I need a couple weeks to finish testing things, so any ideas or comments at this stage are welcome and may be considered.

:band of brothers:

[Crossroads]

And as a last addition...

Ladies and Gentle-e-e-men, please welcome,

for the first time in JTCS:

Dornier Do 17Z - The-e-e Fly-e-e-e-ng Penc-eel !!!

In November 1941, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring decided to give 15 Dornier Do 17Z aircraft to the Finnish Air Force. No. 46 Squadron operated the Dorniers. The Finns used their Do 17 aircraft mainly for night bombing and against "soft" targets at the front, since the aircraft were considered obsolete – the speed and climbing abilities of the Do 17 were deemed inadequate by 1942 standards. [Wiki]







Took the values from existing Ju 88 bomber, then divided the attack values in the proposition of the lighter bomb load the Do 17 was able to carry.

Weapons data from weapons.pdt:

Ju88 Hard 24 Soft 102, with a max of 2500kg bomb load
Do17 Hard 14 Soft 42, with a max of 1000kg bomb load.

Sound about right?

Having a blast here, with all these new units !!! :yodeler:

[Crossroads]

I found an old propaganda reel on FAF Do 17s on a mission. Are they seriously showing they were attacked by a pair of I-153 bi-planes??? Dorniers arrived in November 1941 (oops, wrong date in my platoon files at the moment), so maybe it is possible.



Another one, showing what a rag-tag of warbirds from around the globe the airforce really was. German Jabo Detachment Kuhlmey (stationed in Estonia) seems to make an apperance on this one, so the footage must be late June - early July 1944. German 109s, Stukas, FW-190s, FAF 109s, Ju88s, Blenheim MkIs and MkIIIs, captured Soviet SB2s (or DB3s I am not sure), a few Do17s, ... a Pe-2 even?

[Crossroads]

"as a last addition" indeed... The next two aircrafts to be migrated into LWM 1.1:

Curtiss Hawk 75A

After the fall of France, Germany agreed to sell captured Curtiss Hawk fighters to Finland in October 1940. In total, 44 captured aircraft of five subtypes were sold to Finland with three deliveries from 23 June 1941

In Finnish service, the Hawk was well liked. The Finnish Air Force enjoyed success with the type, credited with 190⅓ kills by 58 pilots, between 16 July 1941 and 27 July 1944, for the loss of 15 of their own. [Wiki]





"After a night out in the town, the crew finds out they were supposed to put a winter camo in place instead of painting the town red. A quick splash of chalk paint, and nobody noticed anything!"



MS.406, and the FAF upgrade MS.406 "Bogeyman".

France donated 50 MS.406s to Finland for Winter War, out of which 30 arrived as of February 1940. After interim peace between WW and Continuation War, a batch of 57 fighters were bought from Germany, after their conquest of France. As the fighter became obsolete, as of 1943 they were re-equipped with powerful 1100 hp soviet M105 engines, and equipped with 20 mm cannons, and became like a new plane. Served until 1948.



Here's a upgraded "MS-318" Mörkö-Morane, or Bogeyman Morane, with a modern roundel insignia, as the plane looked like in 1948. Note the enlarged engine cooler. Equipped with a 20mm cannon to fire through the propeller.



I will however portrait a February 1940 scheme of original French camo of a non-converted MS.406 "MS-318", as portrayed on this picture:



And here it is!



By the way, many of the painted pictures are courtesy of Wings Palette. Thanks Mike / Warhorse for providing me with a link to this fabulous site: http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/78/78/0

[Kool Kat]

Petri:

Your enthusiasm is infectious!

Looks like your mod has really been a "labor of love." ;)

Thank you very much for your contributions to the CS Community and the Blitz!

[Crossroads]

Thanks again Mike / KK

Having way too much fun to call this "labour", though!

[Crossroads]

Good folks of the Blitz, take notice of the Fokker D.XXI Mike / Warhorse did for the mod! A work of beauty or what!

^^ It is in the first, opening post of this thread. ^^



Here's another vid, a document on Airwar over Finland in 7 parts. The document covers the years 1939-45 and the three wars of Winter War, Continuation War, and Lapland War.

There is some truly gorgeous shots of rarely seen planes in action. Recommended watching by the LWM crew!

Enjoy!




Here's the direct link to Youtube for a better viewing pleasure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLW9vFJ6q...p_play_all