The Pacific Fighters
Website offers word that 1C: Maddox Games is planning on taking to the skies
once more in IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, a World War II aerial combat game that will
join the surprising number of alternate history games that speculate on how
World War II would have progressed had it continued past 1945. The game will include all previous IL2 content, and more, due next month. Here's
word:

Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers,
announced that STURMOVIK™: 1946, take off in November 2006 for PCs in Europe and
Australia. STURMOVIK™: 1946 is the latest instalment in the acclaimed Il-2
Sturmovik™ brand from award-winning developer 1C: Maddox Games.

STURMOVIK™: 1946 offers new campaigns, missions and aircraft as well as many
exclusive features. Pilots can fly the skies and fight enemies over the Russian
front, German occupied Europe, the Far East and the Pacific. STURMOVIK™: 1946
also includes all of previous Il-2 series content, thus bringing the most
respected anthology flight simulator to an astonishing 229 flyable aircraft and
over 300 total aircraft.

Key Features: New Aircraft – 32 new flyable fighters and bombers, including the
long-awaited Il-10 Sturmovik, the Mig-9 Jet fighter or the Arado Ar-234 Blitz
bomber; plus four new AI aircraft.

•New Maps – Large new historical maps of the Kiev region, a Manchuria region
map focusing on the border between the USSR, China and Japanese-occupied Korea,
a large bonus Burma map and an online Khalkin Gol / Nomonhan map.

•New campaigns - With nearly 200 missions, unparalleled realism and attention
to detail, the nine new campaigns will thrust players into detailed fighter and
bomber pilots missions for the German, Soviet and Japanese air forces.

•Alternate history - Three of the nine campaigns are a departure into
alternate history, focusing on hypothetical battles between the Soviet Union and
Germany in the year 1946 where WWII still rages on. Both the VVS and Luftwaffe
now have access to advanced jet and rocket fighters.

•New features – In addition to such exotic aircrafts as Soviet mixed-power
fighters, 1946 also adds an incredible variety of new ground targets, including,
for the first time in the series, trenches and bunkers that give a whole new
dimension to the ground attack aspect of the simulator.

•Nearly 1,000 new Paint schemes – The new planes, as well as many existing
ones, come with a host of historical paint schemes, showing many of the
individual aircraft or squadrons that served in WWII.

•Exclusive bonus - Making of, interview videos and screenshots of the new
features, plus exclusive screenshots and never before seen videos taken from
upcoming Maddox game: Storm of War™: Battle of Britain. A Detailed Plane Guide,
totalling over 450 pages of information, gives the low-down on every single one
of your 229 flyable aircraft, and allows new players much easier access to the
incredible variety of aircraft in the simulator.

you d..udes dont know what yer talking about! this sim rocks!! gfx kick ass still and the online comunity that i fly in is exellent(Hyperlobby)if you enjoy WW2 flight sims i suggest you go buy it now!you will NOT be disapointed. i have been flying this sim since it first came out and i cant wait for this new add on.the online combat is intence and extreme.NO other sim out there can compete!! ~S~ NORAD_woodstock

i dont think night fighters, or as the germans called them 'wilde sau', would make for a good combat sim. imagine going for hours without action. and if youre lucky you will hit something in the dark. radars did not offer much assistance as the english had already discovered the magic of chaffs (dropping aluminium strips) and the germans accidentally discovered radar stealth (horten flying wing with wooden skin using lead pigments). you spend more time watching radar scopes than maneuvering your aircraft. instrument flying is not fun. lets keep things during the daytime. its a combat sim, no?

I recently started playing these games with a friend of mine who is a veteran of the series and he says it's rock-solid now (though there's like 8 patches which have to be applied in order.) You can also get Pacific Fighters for like $10 now.

Yep, not too many bugs left in this engine, but a whole lot more aircraft added since the Pacific Fighters release. Although buying any of the other games now is silly, since this whole package, which includes everything (Forgotten Battles + Ace Expansion Pack + Pacific Fighters + Pe-2) will cost $30-40. Looking forward to it immensely, the Arado is going to be hella cool. GoGamer will be carrying it, so no worries about the USA getting copies. Not sure about Canada though.

TrackIR adds to the immersion of this game immensely as well. If you're into sims of any kind, the TrackIR is so worth it.

The Soviet got their jet tech by looting Germany after WW2. So if the war still rages on in 1946 how can there be Nazi vs Soviet jet battles?

Probably because the British (since they were actually farther ahead with their own jet technology than the US at the time) gave it to them.

What I would love to see isn't a continuation of a war with Japan or Nazi Germany but Patton getting his wish and moving onto dismantle the Russian military. That would make for some interesting air battles.

However, I did stay away from Pacific Fighters after the somewhat rocky release. Anybody know if they've fixed the problems and squashed all the creepy-crawlies in that one yet? I've not a played a really good Pacific-theater flight sim since PAW. But I don't want to pay for a half-assed one, either.

There were a ton of Pacific Fighters patches that fixed almost everything. I recently started playing these games with a friend of mine who is a veteran of the series and he says it's rock-solid now (though there's like 8 patches which have to be applied in order.) You can also get Pacific Fighters for like $10 now.

However, I did stay away from Pacific Fighters after the somewhat rocky release. Anybody know if they've fixed the problems and squashed all the creepy-crawlies in that one yet? I've not a played a really good Pacific-theater flight sim since PAW. But I don't want to pay for a half-assed one, either.