Mark: Which campaigns will be available with Ostfront?
Ian: Murmansk:
- Soviet Navy Fighter
- Soviet Navy Sturmoviks (uses Chaikas, Hurribombers, A-20 and P-47’s as well as IL-2)
- Soviet Army Fighter
- Soviet Army Sturmovik
- Soviet Recon (new career type)
- Royal Air Force 151 Wing
- Luftwaffe Bomber/Torpedobomber (new career type)
- Luftwaffe Stuka
- Luftwaffe Fighter
- Luftwaffe Zerstörer (Bf-110)
- Luftwaffe JaBo
Kurland:
- Soviet KBF Fighter (mostly Lavochkins)
- Soviet KBF Sturmovik
- Soviet KBF Bomber (A-20)
- Soviet ADD Bomber (B-25)
- Soviet Army Fighter – Yak Regiments
- Soviet Army Sturmovik
- Soviet Army Fighter – Cobra Regiments
- French NN Fighter
- Luftwaffe JG54
- Luftwaffe JG51
- Luftwaffe SG3 – Fw-190F-8
- Luftwaffe SG3 – Ju-87
Schlachtflieger:
- Hs-123 (uses Cr.42 in ground-attack role with excellent skins by vpmedia)
Mark: Why did you add the Hs-123 campaign?
Ian: Firstly I’ve always enjoyed ground attack missions. Secondly it’s slow and that’s more my pace — I’m always turning down time acceleration in faster planes only to discover to my surprise I had already been on normal time. Thirdly I’m odd — I’m the kind of person who would fly a Po-2 campaign and this isn’t too far off that.
Mark: Will some of the campaigns progress to the point of moving your squad to other fronts such as to Leningrad?
Ian: No — both maps see the war end there. Kurland ends in May 1945 anyway and the units in Murmansk were by and large not relocated.
Mark: What can you tell us about the skins in this add-on?
Ian: 1. They are fantastic and the work of the better skin artists in our community. 2. They add such a lot to the game – instead of blank generic skins we have skins representing the units that fought in the campaigns. 3. You can never be sure that a Yak-9M, for example, is a Yak-9M from the skin alone. You might be up against a different IAP as the months go by and their aircraft are marked differently. And ditto for the Yak-9D, Yak-9T, Yak-9U and so on. You really need to look carefully — you can no longer simply identify aircraft by their skins.