IL-2 Sturmovik Cliffs Of Dover and Desert Wings - Tobruk: Update 5.035

[Artist]

Greetings Pilots!

A new update is available on STEAM.

*** Various localisations improved [Localisation Team]

*** Mission Menu, Ground Control (7), Targets (1): Information on enemy targets is now an (Options =>) Realism setting. [Artist]

• If "No GroundControl targets" is checked, no enemy targets (air and ground) are supplied.
• The corresponding multiplayer server difficulty setting is "NoGroundControlTargets". See Server Administrator's Manual for details.

Bugtracker: https://www.tfbt.nuvturais.de/issues/1465, https://www.tfbt.nuvturais.de/issues/735, https://www.tfbt.nuvturais.de/issues/1468

*** The way Mission Menu, Ground Control (7), Targets (1) reports on enemy aircraft has been changed significantly. [Artist]

The major changes are

• aircraft on ground or flying less than 100m above ground/sea are not reported
• aircraft closer than 5,000m to you are not reported,
• bombers get information on fighters
• the distance supplied is now horizontal displacement.

A detailed description on this and how it works is in the Cliffs Of Dover Public Notes, The Mission ('Tab') Menu.

Bugtracker: https://www.tfbt.nuvturais.de/issues/735, https://www.tfbt.nuvturais.de/issues/1468

[Artist]

Forgot one important thing:

• bombers get information on fighters

[Rostic]

Not reporting about targets closer than 5km is misleading. I highly recommend in this case report "Target at your position" or something like that.

[ATAG_Colander]

Not reporting about targets closer than 5km is misleading. I highly recommend in this case report "Target at your position" or something like that.

If this is done, forget about bouncing someone without them knowing you are there.
Plus, I don't think radar was good enough to differentiate you from the boogie. This is a chain home radar screen:

[Little Bill]

I read the Public Notes and have a question.

"The biggest distance displayed is 15 miles (GB, US) or 30 km (all other countries), even if
the target is further away."

Why are the distance's not the same length? Or at least closer, 15 miles is about 24km. I am sure there is a good explanation, I am just curious as to what it is.

[ATAG_Colander]

I read the Public Notes and have a question.

"The biggest distance displayed is 15 miles (GB, US) or 30 km (all other countries), even if
the target is further away."

Why are the distance's not the same length? Or at least closer, 15 miles is about 24km. I am sure there is a good explanation, I am just curious as to what it is.

Nautical miles?

[Artist]

I read the Public Notes and have a question.

"The biggest distance displayed is 15 miles (GB, US) or 30 km (all other countries), even if
the target is further away."

Why are the distance's not the same length? Or at least closer, 15 miles is about 24km. I am sure there is a good explanation, I am just curious as to what it is.

30 km are 18.64 mi and 15mi are, as you say, 24.1 km (at 1609.344 meters/mile, the "mile" being the "international mile" or "statute mile").

The reason pilots sitting in aircraft of a nation using km as unit get an additional precision of +/-2.95 km at distances between 24.1 and 30 km is purely technical and a result of the underlying code that has to create the message both in text (info window) and speech (from recorded voice snippets). The additions in recordings (all supported languages), coding, and processing time are just not worth it: It's just a slight difference at 24.1 to 30 km distance, where it gives no real advantage.

There's even a kind of compensation (based on the same technical reasons): Between 15 and 24.9 the km are rounded down to 15 and 20, which gives less precision (+4999 m) than those with miles get in that range (9.3 mi - 15.53 mi, +1608 m). But again, we're talking about distances where it makes no difference at all. And, then again, the miles guys get only +1608 m precision while the km guys get +999 m.

Finally, this whole Tab-7-1 is more for gameplay (single player, dogfight servers) and does not aspire for realism: The mission builders have deviced much better radar systems (especially TWC!). That's why they can turn this off, now, too.

[Mysticpuma]

666.84mb update

[ATAG_Highseas]

666.84mb update

Six hundred and sixty six... (almost 7) mega bombs ?!

I'm gonna need to clear out the overhead lockers.

[Rostic]

If this is done, forget about bouncing someone without them knowing you are there.
Plus, I don't think radar was good enough to differentiate you from the boogie. This is a chain home radar screen:

Just a thought, if enemy aircraft closer than 5km away from you, will it be reported as enemy aircraft to another friendly aircraft that is more than 5km away from that enemy aircraft?
If will be, why it can't be reported to you?
If no, this means GC will have no info about enemy aircrafts in areas of massive dogfights?

[ATAG_Noofy]

Just a thought, if enemy aircraft closer than 5km away from you, will it be reported as enemy aircraft to another friendly aircraft that is more than 5km away from that enemy aircraft?
If will be, why it can't be reported to you?
If no, this means GC will have no info about enemy aircrafts in areas of massive dogfights?

From reading page 5 of Artist's notes mentioned in the first post, enemy aircraft below 5km from you is not visible to you, but will be visible to other friendly aircraft if they are more than 5km away from this enemy, assuming there is not another priority enemy that he would see instead of this one.

The rules described on that page are very explicit.

[Rostic]

From reading page 5 of Artist's notes mentioned in the first post, enemy aircraft below 5km from you is not visible to you, but will be visible to other friendly aircraft if they are more than 5km away from this enemy, assuming there is not another priority enemy that he would see instead of this one.

The rules described on that page are very explicit.

The main trick, that if GC knows about enemy near me (less 5km) and can tell about this exact enemy to other pilot (more than 5km), why he do not want to tell me about that same enemy in my sector

[ATAG_Noofy]

The main trick, that if GC knows about enemy near me (less 5km) and can tell about this exact enemy to other pilot (more than 5km), why he do not want to tell me about that same enemy in my sector

I don’t know Rostic.
Maybe in reality if two aircraft are too close to each other then radar cannot make the difference between the two spots?
I don’t know if this is correct but it makes sense (to me)…

[56RAF_stickz]

With simple pulse radar as used then, a radar will not discriminate two targets covered by its pulse width. Chain home high used a 20usec pulse width. So its a simple calculation how far light will travel in 20usec ie about 20000feet(3.7miles). Co-incidentally it couldnt directly measure angle either (the beam width was 100deg) so the receiver had to be rotated to peak individual received signals(similar to how the airborne direction finding systems worked) - and then 2 or 3 towers could be used to further discriminate by triangulation. Chain home in some respects could detemine additional targets during it pulse width due to having separate transmit and receive antennas but the displays and signal processing techiques couldnt handle it - you just see extra width (obverlapping) return pulses.
No radar (well until the advent of synthetic aperture radar) could tell friend from foe. It required addons to detect IFF signals to do that

[Blitzen]

Does this update have any effect on those who are participating in the VR Beta ? Can we go out of Beta go to play regular Steam version, go back to VR Beta and have the changes incorporated there as well?

[Rostic]

With simple pulse radar as used then, a radar will not discriminate two targets covered by its pulse width. Chain home high used a 20usec pulse width. So its a simple calculation how far light will travel in 20usec ie about 20000feet(3.7miles). Co-incidentally it couldnt directly measure angle either (the beam width was 100deg) so the receiver had to be rotated to peak individual received signals(similar to how the airborne direction finding systems worked) - and then 2 or 3 towers could be used to further discriminate by triangulation. Chain home in some respects could detemine additional targets during it pulse width due to having separate transmit and receive antennas but the displays and signal processing techiques couldnt handle it - you just see extra width (obverlapping) return pulses.
No radar (well until the advent of synthetic aperture radar) could tell friend from foe. It required addons to detect IFF signals to do that

Nice to know, but I think Ground Controllers also used information from friendly aircrafts, groud forces and ships observing enemy.

But my questions was addressed mostly to developers about implementation in game. Mostly I just want to know reason why no report from GC about enemy that is closer than 5km to me but can be reported to other friendly players that are further than 5km from the same enemy aircraft.

[56RAF_stickz]

Hi Rostic - my reply was mostly aimed at Noofys comment before mine about determining close targets.

However you are correct in that if they could tell a third party outside 5km that, then they ought to be able to tell you. But the reality is, that in 1940, by the time they got that info to you, you would likely be a smoking wreck in the ground. And the ability to inform a third party would be nothing more than a bogie report, no numbers (obviously in this case at least 2 - you+1), no nationality nor even if a fighter or bomber. That sort of info relied on Royal observer corps, signal intercepts or dumb luck and if you had IFF and even that wouldnt help much with overlaying blips. It all took time lots of time, plus the smart filter table operators, who in most cases were doing the plot tracking in their heads, (who said women had their brains fried by maths). By 1944 it was feasible but not then.
Cant talk for devs but at a guess, this is a one size fits all basic implementation that prevents it being over-powering. Especially as radar development grew exponentially during the war on both sides. A lot of what was unlikely in mid 1940 was common by 1941.

The book "secret life of fighter command" plus the radarpges website with links to others can give a lot of this sort of background if you are interested.
I got trained on radar and spent my whole working life involved with radar in some form or another and it never lost its fascination for me even if retired and nowadays its nearly all software.

[Blitzen]

Thanks guys - I look forward to the day when all of this is "officially " released.