Combat Flight Simulator 3 Mosquito

By Andrew Herd (26 October 2002)

ot that long ago, I reviewed Blue Arrow FS/JustFlight's excellent Mosquito Squadron for CFS2, little suspecting that CFS3 would be released with three versions of this extraordinary aircraft included as standard. Microsoft have done such a good job on them that the sim is almost worth buying just to get this plane alone, but as you might expect, CFS3 has weaknesses as well as strengths, and if you can forgive the quick and dirty writing here - I am just setting it down as I go along - this piece will let you learn about some of them.

The Mosquito, aka the "Mossie" and the "wooden wonder", had its roots in the 1934 DH88 Comet, which broke all records by flying from Mildenhall in Suffolk to Melbourne, Australia in a scant 71 hours. de Havilland followed the Comet up with the 1937 DH91 Albatross, which could fly a 6000 pound payload to Berlin and back; interestingly enough, the revelation that this was possible was greeted in Parliament with shouts of "Shame!" and "Why Berlin?" which shows how stupid some British politicians of the day could be. In fact, de Havilland were using the Albatross to test out the feasability of building a small and light bomber with the most powerful engines available, on the premise that it would be able to outpace fighters and reach its targets undamaged, and Berlin was an obvious target. The lukewarn response to the DH91 was extended to the new project, with the notable exception of Sir Wilfred Freeman, but Captain de Havilland went ahead anyway, backing the design of a plane which could carry the same payload as a B17 to Berlin - at 300 mph.

To begin with, the wooden construction made many aircrews sceptical about the plane, but the truth was that shell fragments that shattered metal metal spars made far less impact on wooden ones, ditched planes floated relatively well and the fire risk was hardly any greater. Birch ply double skins were used, separated by a thick layer of balsa; and R.E. Bishop, the chief designer, saw that the fuselage was made in two longitudinally-split halves, which meant that wiring and control runs could be installed at great speed, before everything was glued together with a formaldehyde resin that is still used for some homebuilts. Offbeat it may have been, but for its time, the Mosquito was a very advanced design.

Although it was initially designed as a bomber, de Havilland's team saw the potential for a fighter variant and started work on this project early on. This required a certain amount of subterfuge, because de Havilland were told verbally to stop work on the project on at least three different occasions by Lord Beaverbrook, who had charge of production for the war effort. Beaverbrook was undoubtedly relieved that he never put his instruction in writing, because the allied air forces would have been seriously damaged if this unique project had been killed off.

The Mossie served as a fighter; a bomber; for photo-reconnaissance; as night-fighter; with the Pathfinders; for weather reporting; a mine-layer; and it was fitted with a wide range of armaments ranging from .303 machine guns to a six pounder anti-tank gun. There was a even folding wing version which saw limited service as a torpedo bomber - and the plane which had once been known as "Freeman's Folly" went on to serve with the RAF well after the war. My mother (who rose to the dizzying heights of Leading Aircraftswoman) remembers working with them as a fighter controller at RAF Woodbridge in the late forties. As far as I know, the last one didn't go out of service until the sixties, which isn't bad for a plane no-one wanted in the beginning.

CFS3 has three different variants of the Mosquito on offer: a mark IV, a mark VI, and a mark XVIII. The B. Mk. IV was an unarmed day and night bomber that went into service in early 1942 - normally it had a 2000 pound bomb load, but by sacrificing range 4000 pound conversion was possible. In common with nearly all the bomber variants, the mark IV had a glass nose - in Microsoft's plane it is possible to see the pilots through it, which is eye-catching, but incorrect. I think there must be a missing bulkhead somewhere!

The F.B. Mk. VI was a fighter-bomber equipped with 4 x 20 mm cannon and 4 x .303 inch Browning machine guns. It was capable of carrying 2 x 250 pound bombs internally and two more on wing racks; alternatively a total of 8 rockets could be carried. CFS3 allows all these loads, including the 500 pound bombs which later mark VIs could carry.

The F.B. Mk. XVIII first saw service in 1943 and was a ground attack and anti-shipping fighter equipped with the original quad .303s and a 6 pounder 57 mm Molins gun with 25 rounds (visible in a stack in the cockpit in the CFS3 version). Of all the variants CFS3 has on offer, this is the most fun to fly, just watch the trim changes when you fire the Molins!

This is probably a good time to talk a little about the damage model in CFS3, which is far more sophisticated than the one in the previous version. Microsoft have gone to town on this and in addition to text messages about which systems have been damaged, there are visual clues in the color of the smoke streaming from your aircraft. The screenshot above shows what happens when you do a low-level attack on a railyard and don't jink enough: white smoke indicates survivable damage to coolant or fuel; continuous black smoke means burning oil or engine damage, telling you to get out while (and if) you can; critical damage shows up as black smoke and flames. With some types of minor damage, you may get intermittent smoke - when this happens, check the bird for bullet holes!

Continuous black smoke with flames and a sudden reduction in the number of wings is a good sign that you have flown too low, as I did attacking a train. So far I haven't managed to bail out from a situation like this, so I am just gonna have to learn to pull up a little earlier! The trouble is that strafing locos in CFS3 is such good fun that I can't stop doing it; but the problem is that you have to fly at very low level and there is always some kind of flak. Don't even think of turning on "heavy" flak using the options menu, unless you plan to fly all your missions at about fifteen thousand feet.

The CFS3 mesh isn't much better than the FS2002 stuff, which will be a disappointment for anyone who likes flying on the deck, but there is no reason why you shouldn't import new mesh from one of the many packages available. However, there is a big difference in the quality of ground scenery, some of which is extremely detailed and all of which is great to look at; there are factories which must have taken hours of careful design, bridges, marshalling yards, depots, trains, tanks, truck convoys, ammunition depots and bunkers - and they all explode and burn in the most satisfying fashion. Alert readers will notice that shipping is missing from the list and although there is a Ju88 mission which involves an attack on destroyers, and ships feature in the campaign games, it doesn't seem to be possible to set up a shipping attack using the Quick Combat system, as far as I can tell at this brief an acquaintance. Neither is it possible to fly from carriers rather than land bases, which will annoy CFS2 carrier groupies beyond belief, but I shouldn't imagine it is beyond the wit of man to add carriers to CFS3.

Another feature of air to ground missions is the abundance of targets that present, so much so that if you lose the primary target, it can be tough finding it again, unless you have a good memory for buildings glimpsed out of the corner of your eye as you hurtle past at 300 mph. If by any chance you do manage to knock out everything in sight (problematic using realistic ammo loads) then you can always find a nearby airfield and strafe that, but bear in mind that bases tend to be very heavily defended and you are more than likely to find fighters at them.

Much has been made of the new CFS feature which allows you to swap from one crew position to another - in the Mossie that means you can squeeze into the nose and aim the bombs if you want. In the face of heavy flak, this requires nerves of steel, because the display engine often puts bursts right in front of you. In a real Mosquito, the bomb aimer had to crawl down a narrow passage into the nose; in CFS3, hitting F7 gets you there and you can adjust your aim using the joystick. Needless to say, this can be an exciting experience if you have a fighter on your tail and flak is bursting all around you, knocking you off course and spoiling your aim. Incidentally, notice in the screenshot that AutoGen trees are now confined to the edges of fields, which is much more realistic than anything FS2002 has on offer.

One peculiarity of the CFS3 flak is that much like FS2002 rain, in spot plane view, the only place you see it is around the aircraft. It would have been better to see it all over the sky, but the effect is fine as long as you don't stray from the cockpit or chase views.

Bomber intercepts are much more realistic than they were in CFS2. I remember commenting in the Sabre vs. Mig review that it felt really peculiar sitting in a Soviet jet fighter being chased by B52s at low level. In CFS3, that won't happen if you select the right option, the bombers keep flying toward their target in as good a formation as they can manage, which is much more realistic than having them come after you as if they were fighters. Another neat change in the new version is that you can select the altitude at which contact is made, which means that you don't end up scrapping with nothing on the clock but the maker's name. There still isn't an option to let you choose to start at a different altitude to your AI opponent, which is a pity.

Although bombers are much better supported, for some unknown reason, CFS3 only seems to know about dive bombing - you will not see your AI targets carrying out any level bombing. I may have missed something here, but it seems a trifle odd. It is possible that this behavior may be changeable when the SDKs start being released, but otherwise anyone producing a B17 AI addon is going to face a real challenge if they don't want their planes indulging in some extremely unrealistic behavior.

Though the new clouds are fantastic, weather is not one of CFS3's better features. You can choose the time of day: dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, night; the season and the type of cloud - but there are only 12 options for clouds, ranging from clear to a snowstorm. In between you get options for high cloud and various degrees of sky cover, but CFS3 has nothing like the atmospheric sophistication of FS2002 and crucially, you don't get winds. Given CFS3's title "The Battle for Europe", this is more than a trifle strange, because the one thing you can expect to see in the area depicted is changing weather - I haven't been able to go flying all week because of it and we have a 20 - 25 knot north-westerly as I type this. Few European air battles were fought without the influence of wind and weather having to be taken into account and it is odd that Microsoft have paid such scant attention to it. Imagine coaxing a damaged bomber back home against strong headwinds, or trying to bomb a bridge in a crosswind and the scale of this missed opportunity will become apparent.

I have just about burned out the keyboard here and something tells me I drank three espressos too many, but warts and all, I gotta say I am enjoying using this CFS3. CFS2 didn't turn me on much, to tell the truth, it was too arcade-like, but CFS3 hits the spot. Sure, it has its problems and it would have benefited from better weather, but it is a huge improvement on CFS2.

Next: assuming the coffee doesn't get me - the Typhoon, the Tempest, the jets and the missions.

Combat Flight Simulator 3 Preview Part 1