Greetings, fellow CFS enthusiast, and thank you for downloading this mission.
This is a CFS1 stock mission originally titled The Cobra's Fangs. It has been converted and modified to play in CFS2.
You will be flying from the American side, so the mission will be found under the American section in the mission setup screen.
The objective in this one is to attack the German tank groups retreating from the Normandy area. As part of Operation Cobra you are assigned to inflict damage on those enemy tanks.
Your goal is to destroy one whole group of tanks (4). It can be either Blutwurst or Bergmann group, but it cannot be a combination of the two. You must destroy one whole group, before any single tank makes it to their second waypoint. You should have plenty of time, but you don't have time to be goofing around. Get in there and get the job done, then head back home.
Just extract the contents of the zip file into a temp folder and then cut and paste or drop and drag the .mis and the .dyn files into your CFS2 mission folder.
You will also need to copy a few sound files from your Cfs2 Sound folder into your Cfs2 Sound/Action folder, if you'd like to have some status messages while flying. (Specific files listed in the sound.txt file included in this package) *I also included some of the CFS1 american sound files to spice up the mission a bit. They are in the included sounds folder.
You will need the Avhistory 1US_P-51D30 from Netwings.
You will also need the mz-bf109g-6 from Akemi's.
And I also used the Ground Crew tanks in this mission, as I feel they are much better than the stock ones. Get em in the CFS2 section under CFS2 stuff at the Ground Crew web site.
***If these links are dead or inaccurate, try getting help on one of the CFS forums out there for updated locations.***
This mission was one of the missions you could download off the official Microsoft CFS1 site. It was one of about 3 mission zip file downloads that included missions, tutorials, and other nice little things.
All initial attempts to convert this mission ended in crashes to desktop. What I ended up having to do was remake the mission from scratch so that it would be ok. I know my way around a mission file pretty well, but some of these CFS1 conversions have "quirks" to em that are just mind-boggling. There must be a comma in the wrong spot, or some eye-aching bit of code that causes this, but I have been unable to find it. There was one other mission that did the same thing, but I scrapped it, as it wasn't "fleshing" out like I wanted it to.
Since I had to rebuild it from scratch, the locations and waypoints have been altered a bit, but it is basically the "same" mission in all the significant ways. Of course I added my own modifications to it, but the "core" objective remains very closely the same as the original.
This mission called for a P-51, so this time I decided to use one, as I know there are many "Mustang" lovers out there. I tried 3 or 4 and felt the Avhistory P-51D30 was the best choice. The ai likes launching those rockets early, but then the ai tends to "slack" on you afterwards. So make that initial attack work for you, or you may have to do the "lion's share" of the work yourself.
For the enemy plane, I tried a couple different ones, but felt that Akemi's "gustav" was the more aggressive. It is a good ai plane, and the frame rates are very playable using it, even on my old box.
This one turned out pretty well I think. I have played it quite a few times. Once I re-built this one from scratch and got past the "ctd" issues of the original conversion, all is fine. It was quite easy to build from that point on.
So a note to all of you doing conversions yourself. If you have "ctd" problems, you maybe should build from scratch. Just keep looking over the original version to get your locations, and units, and other such info down. It's a bit of a headache at times, but it is the only solution to the "ctd" problem that I found.
Here are a few tips, but you'll have your most fun experimenting for yourself.
As always it was designed to be played at 100%. It should play fine on other settings as well, but it was not tested on any.
This mission was designed and tested using warping, I can make no guarantees how it will play in real time.
****If you modify this mission, make a backup copy first. Some hand edits were done to the mission and
dynamic files. I eliminated the automatic "you must survive goal", and I also adjusted the ai skill levels. These things will
be overwritten if you run this mission through the mission builder.***
I would suggest either editing by hand or using Keith Bedford's mission editor to make most adjustments.
I'd also recommend installing some form of European CFS1 runways. During testing I just used an old set of bare runways that have NDB's included. I got them at Sim-Outhouse. They are called European Runways for CFS2 ~ Mk. II. These match up to the european runways listed in the airbases.dat file, so there is none of that annoying adding runways to the airbases.dat file. It is fine to check your advanced info screen in other words. I believe there are plans for a new Azeville base in the works. When it comes out, I will most likely do a little patch for this mission, re-adjusting the takeoff position.
I deleted all objects from your starting base. They just make the load time longer without really adding much to the mission.
I have included ditching (like C. Burgess uses in his missions) in these missions, as I like it, and find it helpful in the cases where you just can't make it home. You just need to be outside the base area (about 1 mile from base or less) and come to a stop, then cut off your engine. I have found that doing this inside enemy territory miraculously let's you evade capture. At least it has every time I've done it so far.
There are several more of these CFS1 stock converted missions also available, and possibly more on the way. It just depends on the potential of each one. If I discover some aspect of them I like, then I will invest the time necessary to complete some more.
I also have other "experiments" sitting on my hard drive if I can get around to completing them, stay tuned...
Enjoy, and make that German retreat an unpleasant one.
This package is freeware and cannot be sold for any reason. You may post it where you like, just so long as all original documentation (this HTML file!) is included as well.
If it blows up your pc, it weren't me that caused it. If my puny, ancient, much neglected pc will run it, then yours should too.
Use at your own risk, no warranty implied or offered. It plays fine on mine own system.
I can be reached at the following address.
Designed and tested on a PIII 600, windows 98 SE, 128 RAM, Voodoo 3 2000 system. (You can stop laughing now, I can hear you!!!) The same system I was playing the original versions of these CFS1 converted missions on. As the saying goes, "She ain't much, but she's mine".
All HTML on this page was done by hand using wordpad and tested on Internet Explorer 6.0. Not sure what it'll look like on anything else, but it looks ok with IE 6.0.
All grammatical errors are solely the fault of the author and cannot be blamed on anyone, or thing, excepting himself.
FvB missions are made under the influence of rock and roll (mostly the classic type). Play it loud!
LONG LIVE ROCK!!!
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