really good book

[jimski]

Those of you who still have time to read might seek out "Utah Beach" by Joseph Balkowski (Stackpole Books, 2005). A very detailed explanation of the planning and first days' action at the Utah Beach DDAy invasion, lots of maps with real scales for a good feel for the thing.

As far as CSF2 goes, the book has many details of the extensive bombardment missions (B26 numbers, bases, flight times and paths, ordinance, etc. etc.), plus the Troop Carrier missions that deposited two airborne divisions and gliders behind the lines, all again with bases, flight paths, altitudes, speeds in cruise plus plane handling during the drops, etc. etc, all you need to know for a good simulator mission build.

Lots and lots of stuff I never saw elsewhere but I am no scholar.

There were two navigation devices used that might be nice to duplicate in CSF2. One is the Gee nav device which I take to be a system that uses signals from several radio transmitters to locate the aircraft (maybe like a ground based gps). And the use of Rebecca/Eureka equipment close in to the drop zones where earlier pathfinder parachutists would set up the Eureka unit on the proposed dropzone which allowed the Rebecca usit on the C47 to home to the zone. I think it provided both heading and distance to the target but the range was limited, maybe 15 miles. But I am guessing. (There is also details of the ground lights used to direct the main force C47's to the dropzones.)

Jimski

[james007]

Jimski your subgestion fo good World war two reading is well taken. I believe the more you now about World war two the more you may enjoy this simulators.

I will try to get a copy soon. More is been written on D-Day and Pearl Harbor than any other single subject on World war two.

If you really want to learn about Word war two. I subgest for you to get to know other similar interesing sujects about World war two.

Not just about The European Theaters or the Pacific Theater but about the whole war in general.

If you see from the global perpective than you will really see how facinated this war really was. It was the worst time in world history but at the same time the most interesting. When it comes to World politics and significance events in a short time span. Nothing in the modern era compares to it.

So read about

Invation of Manchuria 1931

Hitler takes  power in Germany 1933

The China Incident 1937

Nomohan Incident 1939

Rhine river 1936

Checkoslovakia  Partition and Invation 1938

Austrian Occupation 1938

Polish tragedy 1939

Invation of Weastern Europe 1940

Japanese Expantion in Asia 1939 to 1941

Battle of Britain 1940

Invation of the Balkans 1940 to 41

Barbarrossa 1941

Italian Fiasco and Rommels intervetion Africa 1940 to 42

Pearl Harbor and the Japanese Blitz in Asia 1941 and
1942

Russian Counter Attack 1941

Battle of Coral sea and Battle of Midway 1942

Stalingrard 1942

Guadacanal 1942

I can go on and on. Now you see what I mean this was a global war and not just a European or Pacific war. This is one of things that I like about this communitty. Its how balance it is when it comes to being interested in air warfare representation of World war two.

Members get equaly exited with a new Bf 109 as with a new Ki43. They want it all and with this Sim you can do it all.

Enjoy your reading

Became a total World war two reader amature expert.

Thank you

James007

[jimski]

All true enough. No arguments.

I point out the "Utah Beach" book because it has the info a fellow needs to simulate a mission with some historical accuracy.

I think one of the "historical" problems with CSF2, and all the combat simulators that I have tried, is that they gloss over navigation. I suppose most of us travel over a long navigation leg with the "X" key and as a last resort with the tactical window to give us distance and heading. But back then in reality none of that was reality (although you might have a navigator who gave you distance and heading). There was no gps or vor or ils to get you home. (One would assume that adf transmitters were not turned on all the time, although perhaps in England after mid war it was possible to leave them on.)

Anyway, a little surfing showed that Gee was the same as what we called Loran when I was young (I'm old). Look at it as a ground based gps with stations emitting syncronised pulses. Your receiver measures the time difference between the pulses of the different stations and that will place you on a hyperbolic arc on a special map that has the station locations and the arcs drawn in place. Add a second pair of stations and you get a second set of arcs and you can thus locate yourself on the intersection of the two arcs. Quite accurate even back then, within 1/4 mile in England and within 1 mile over German targets if all goes well. By 1943 they say the Germans had it figured out by collecting bomber wreckage so were able to jam the radio pulses (or use the system themselves). Takes a very special map so I'd say this won't be copied in csf2. This system is sometimes called a RADAR navigation system by books that should know better, but it is not.

The rebecca/eureka device I saw while surfing had a cathode ray tube with a graduated face. The system showed a blip on the screen. The location of that blip told you to turn left/right to home to the eureka transmitter and also distance to the transmitter. Not sure if it was reliable enough to be used for bad weather landings but it was used in the DDay parachute drops. If you look at the old films you will sometimes see pathfinder troops with tripods with a gadget on top and those I assume to be eureka units. Range was said to be short, 15 miles maybe.

Jimski

[james007]

Jimski your are absulutely right in your observation. Thank you for your information.

I would to like see or make a mission or campiagn over the Nomandy Beaches as well.

Thank you for you input. I surely apprecite it.

My comments where not for you. My comments where for those who might would discount your Book solely because they are only interested in the Pacific Theater or vice versa.

It was basically intended for our communitty. To increase its knowledge of World war two in general.

Thank you Jimski and keep informing us and getting involved in the development of this program.

Lets not forget that this program now belongs to us. Its now up to us to improve to best of our abilty.

Thank you

James007

[Woodlouse2002]

The Griffon Aviation Mosquito has a gps based gauge that recreates a radio navigation system by which you can select any airbase in you're CFS and fly there on two dials keeping the pointer at zero. I would check it out as it seems just the thing you're after.

[Hagar]

All you wanted to know about GEE here. http://histru.bournemouth.ac.uk/Oral_History/Talking_About_Technology/radar_research/the_gee_system.html

Click the link at the bottom to see the later developments like OBOE, H2S & Rebecca/Eureka.

[jimski]

Thanks for the tips and the links. The Bournemouth site certainly gives the info in a nutshell for the major nav systems that I am aware of.

The Griffon Mosquito i had in storage, having found a different Mosquito that was more frame friendly to my video card. Anyway, I unzipped it and copied the instructions for the nav set which is supposed to be a copy of the Oboe system. But per the Bournemouth site, and others, it is clear that Oboe worked in a totally different way. But that nav panel is, as you say, probably a reasonable simulation of the Gee system in that it works at long ranges and maybe to the same degree of accuracy. Gee was probably fairly easy to use given the right equipment, a lot easier than say celestial navigation.

By the way, back to the topic of good books, you might try to find "The Bomber Offensive" by Anthony Verrier. Mostly about things that led to the big fire raids over Germany by the British heavies. He points out that night bombers were always lost until the use of Gee and other gadgets and techniques came along a few years into the war.

Jimski

[Bombardier101]

What Woody's talking about is Oboe. I don't have a clue how to use it Woody? :-/

Now if only Lichtenstein, Flensburg & Naxos could be made into gauges

I bet some of you didn't know Lichtenstein had osciliscopes instead of a modern radar screen.

[Bombardier101]

PS: Polish Tragedy 1939 is also called Operation Wei

[Woodlouse2002]

What Woody's talking about is Oboe. I don't have a clue how to use it Woody? :-/

If I remember correctly (and please bare in mind I havn't used it for years) in the CFS one you had two windows. One was a gps where you selected your target. The other was two dials. All you had to do was keep the dials in the 9 o'clock position and eventually you would arrived within site of your target. It wasn't accurate enough to take you right over the target but it took you well within visual range.

Download the Griffon Aviation Mosquito package from here and give it a shot.

[Hagar]

If I remember correctly (and please bare in mind I havn't used it for years) in the CFS one you had two windows. One was a gps where you selected your target. The other was two dials. All you had to do was keep the dials in the 9 o'clock position and eventually you would arrived within site of your target. It wasn't accurate enough to take you right over the target but it took you well within visual range.

Download the Griffon Aviation Mosquito package from here and give it a shot.

It's Gryphon Aviation so you might have problems finding it. Gryphon is one of the sites generously hosted by Pete like my own Lair so you can get the package direct from their own website here. http://www.simviation.com/gryphon/cfs2/panels.htm

I don't remember ever trying it myself & don't know quite what they mean about having to set it up depending on the aircraft.

The bombsight must be specifically set up for an aircraft model. It is not "Plug and Play" to just any model in your hangar.

PS. Oops. Sorry, the link to the file seems to be dead so you can download it here. http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft16.htm

[Woodlouse2002]

Thats the bombsite. And although good has nothing to do with what I've been jabbering on about.

[Woodlouse2002]

Here's what I was on about:
http://www.simviation.com/cfs2aircraft22.htm

Download it and see for yourselves. I was wrong about most things in it's operation, but it works.

[jimski]

I gave the Gryphon system a try. Essentially you are to fly outbound on a certain radial of one station until you intersect a certain radial of the second station. (You determine those radials in a preflight routine described in the Gryphon readme.) I am pretty sure it will work but will take a lot of training and careful flying. I was trying to handfly the mosquito at night while figuring it out and will fit an autopilot for sure next time. I think the most difficult part is finding the first outbound radial and sticking to it. I was doing this over Hamburg, way beyond the normal useful range of real life Oboe and that did not help things.

While doing this I thought that if you had distance info to two stations instead of bearing info you would have the true Oboe system. I think that is possible in csf2.

Jimski

[jimski]

Just took another Oboe test flight.

Oboe worked with two radar stations (all in southern England but I haven't found exactly where yet) that tracked the bomber out to 250 miles (big transponder in bomber). Let's say one station was 200 miles from the target and the second 250 miles from the target. Bomber would fly towards target but not directly, let's say he heads south of target. Oboe station one tells pilot (by dot-dash-tones in headset) that he is approaching 200 miles from station and he turns north to put radar station one off wing and maintain that 200 mile distance, flying in an arc that will take him over the target. Second station also monitors him and when he gets 250 miles from station they tell him with dot-dash in headset that he is exactly over target and to drop bombs. He need never see the target.

Now...

...if you put two old "cfsgps" gauges in your cockpit and give them lat and long of two mythical Oboe stations, your aircraft will always have the distances to those stations. So you can easily simulate the Oboe mission. I just tried it. It works.

Supposedly it was very accurate, in fact they would compute the bombs drop path into the assembly so the pilot need only push the button when he got the tone from station two. Had to be done at about 30,000 feet too so radar could see him out to 250 miles. (Doesn't sound too accurate to me.)

Oboe was used also by the US bomber forces.

Now on to Gee.

Jimski