BOB a mistake ? --- The Battle of France

[Blood_Splat]

How long did the battle last about a month?

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by Rama
Quote...MAYBE we will see (made by third-party) 1 or 2 French planes and a minimap of somewhere in NW France some years after the release of SoW..... but that's probably the most we can expect...end Quote

Exactly what I was thinking.
MAYBE ...is good
but
FOREVER...is a long time...and very pessimistic.
If the BoF is popular enough it will be done. You never know, the right person/persons may show an interest. I know there was a group very interested in making BoF for SOW, but interest for whatever reason disappeared. Personally I have no interest in the BoF.

[Theshark888]

What scares me are the people who had an "interest" in the Pacific theater and how that went. Third party for SOW will be even more limited and that also scares me.

Chivas you are very optimistic about all of this-good for you. But the lack of work cannot be blamed on IL2. 1C and it's "associates" have used deception/excuses in the past-copyrights,car accidents, lack of sources, IL2 etc.

[Chivas]

The Pacific Theater add-on started small and expanded to a paid add-on. It was being done by a third party that eventually needed Olegs help to finish. It was never intended to cover all the Pacific Theater. Its a decent sim that had copyright issues and never deserved the bad rap trumpeted by a few people on the forums. At the time Olegs people were working on BOB and they had to be diverted to help the third party finish the Pacific add-on as soon as possible.

There is no conspirancy going on. Its normal business decisions complicated by many unforseen roadblocks, as anyone who has ever been envolved in a development understands.

I'm not sure why they consentrated so much effort on the Pe2 , 1946, etc addons, other than to milk alittle more revenue on the old IL-2 engine. My gut feeling is that the average computer couldn't handle all the features that Oleg intended for BOB, and/or they've run into some very difficult technical issues.

Whenever the SOW series see the light of day, I have no doubt it will be the new benchmark in combat flight sims. The only thing that scares me is the cancelling of further addons to the SOW series due to sales revenues killed by piracy.

[Rama]

Originally Posted by Blood_Splat

How long did the battle last about a month?

6 weeks, if you don't take in account the phoney war (who saw some "aerial fights only" also) before.

Originally Posted by Chivas

If the BoF is popular enough it will be done. You never know, the right person/persons may show an interest.

It isn't popular enough.... it's not a guess, the 6 years of IL2 third-party dev tells it.
So except if we will have "new blood" among 3D-artists in SAW, not much is to be expected concerning BoF.

[Chivas]

Originally Posted by Rama

It isn't popular enough.... it's not a guess, the 6 years of IL2 third-party dev tells it.
So except if we will have "new blood" among 3D-artists in SAW, not much is to be expected concerning BoF.

Personally I have no doubt its not popular enough. There are a few enthusiasts who could make it happen but hardly enough interest to base the start of a new series on.

[tools4fools]

Originally Posted by Rama

I quite disagree with this.

For main French fighters, we got:
- Morane MS406, used by Luftwaffe (Training), Finland, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy and Switzerland (ok.. the last didn't saw much fights)
- Dewoitine D520, used by Luftwaffe (training), Italy, Bulgaria and Romania (and a bit by Free French in North Africa)
- Hawk H75, used by Finland, Norway, RAF (Mohawks IV), Siam (fighting against French MS406), and USA (a few P36 did fight in Pearl Harbor)
The only remaining main fighter is the Bloch MB152, who could be AI only

For main French Bombers, we got:
- Loire et Olivier LeO451, used as light transport by Luftwaffe, and by Italy (the less used plane outside BoF, but important for BoF)
- Glenn Martin 167F, used by RAF as Maryland MkI in Egypt and Malta fights, and who was followed by Martin 187 (RAF Baltimore), widely used in North Africa theater, and who is not very different from 167F.
- Douglas DB7, used by RAF as Boston, and who was further developped under designation A-20... widelly used by Allies.
Most of other bombers weren't largelly used by French and can be ignored, or only AI (for the Breguet 690/693 for example)

Other than these, it stay only the observation planes (Potez 63x and Bloch MB.174) who could be AI.
That's 6 flyable planes (5 of them usable by other nationalities on other theater) and 4 AI... certainly not a small deal.... but also not THAT large.

Of course you could add a lot of crapy/largelly unused (even during BoF) planes... but there's no good reason to.

Spitfire, Hurricane, Me 109, Me 110 still are much more important than French fighters and much MORE USEFUL in future add-ons after SoW.

Same goes for the bombers. He 111, Do 17, Ju 88, Ju 87, Blenheim, Wellington, all more important than any of the French bombers and more USEFUL fo rfuture add-ons.

French planes did see some service afterwards but minor compared to above. None of the 5 planes mentioned by you would be a major player in any other add-on (apart from MS 406 in Finland).

Planes for BoB are much smarter to start with because next add-on will have many major players ready already.
If you start with French planes and go to second add-on it is almost as starting from scratch...because you will need LOT of new planes as French will afterwards play only MINOR role.

I mentioned that some planes can be used in some other theaters albeit mostly only in MINOR roles (except for MS 406).
So resources for first scenario of SoW series are much better used in planes that will be MAJOR players in many, many possible add-ons.

I love the French planes, in particular the bombers, the less 'ueber' the better for me, but spending a lot of time and resources to build planes which have only minor use in the future would be plain stupid seen from a business view point IMHO.

Just think going from BoB to the med, how many new planes needed for Allieds?
Going from France to med, how many new planes needed for Allieds?

To me calling BoB a mistake is...well...a mistake...
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[Rama]

@tools4fools:
I never called a BoB a mistake... I even said BoF will most probably never see the day

I just reacted to one of your statement, giving more info on re-usable BoF planes.
And MS406 isn't the most re-usable plane. DB7, GM167F, and to a lesser extend H75 are (at least for Med Front, and much more for DB7)

[tools4fools]

Indeed you didn't but the title of the topic does...it was rather aimed at that.

Maryland saw some use about 200 planes and afterwards used in med, but this is not really a MAJOR player in any scenario in my opinion.
But a lovely plane, would love to have a twin engine light bomber with 4 MG's for strafing....

Hawk 75 saw some good use, that would be more useful. Finland, France, Burma, Indonesia.

The DB-7/A-20 Havoc saw a lot of use indeed - but not much in BoF. Less than 100 used in action me thinks.

With a bit of luck it actually could go the other way around: maybe a good number of planes (Boston, MS 406, Hawk, Hurricane) important for BoF will be made over the years for other scenarios and at the end of the day it would just need few more additions (D520, Bloch fighter, Potez twin engine) for a BoF scenario...



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[FAW_SAUMON]

The battle of France should be impossible to circumvent in Storm Of War !!

I think that we hope for all that