1st Squadron South African Air Force Summer 1942 Skinpack
by cheruskerarmin

These skins are my very first works made and uploaded for the IL-2 community, they
are especially a thanks to all of you who gave me advice and assistance in different matters over
the years. Desert skins of the WWII SAAF units are still rare and so i decided to start with 1st SAAF huricanes. 


The 1st Squadron SAAF was one of the permanent opponent units of the axis forces in 
the western desert campaign from 1941 to 1943. 
First equipped with Hurricanes MkI they received MkIIa's in early november 1941, right before
operation crusader was launched (november 18th 1941 - january 15th 1942, see myother skinpack) to relieve the
besieged Tobruk garrison. 
The pilots of the 1st SAAF were fierce and proud fighters and most confronted by the 
three groups of Jagdgeschwader 27. In the countless dogfights they suffered much
losses, mainly because of the supreme performance of the Bf109 Friedrichs and pilots
like Jochen Marseille and other JG27 aces. 
But the 1st SAAF of course scored their kills amongst germans and italians too and had some aces in their rows.
The 1st SAAF carried out all sort of fighter missions, mainly fighter sweeps, bomber escort, convoy cover,
armed reconnaisance and ground attack (with guns only - even the MkIIBs were very rarely used as bombers). 
On february 15th of 1942 the battle worn unit was drawn out of frontline for refreshing when only six servicable 
ac were left. From early march onwards the squadron flew mainly non spectacular convoy and harbour cover above the nile delta and alexandria/egypt. 
They returned to frontline again in on 23rd of june, then equipped mostly with MkIIbs (there were still anumber of MkIIAs). Remarkable action was made on the afternoon of july 3rd, 
when the 1st SAAF flew a successful stuka intercept mission, shooting down 14 most likely italian ju87.
The incident is still celebrated as the stuka-party. 
Around mid(?) september 1942 the 1st SAAF received Hurricane IIc's and beginning on november 4th the unit finally converted 
to Spitfires.           

This skinpack was made for the stock game MkIIb.   

 
It is a semihistorical skinpack, containing 8 'historicals' and brought up to full squadron strength
of 12 aircraft (most missions were flown with lesser numbers).  It represents aircraft flown mainly
during the summer of 1942.
I spent a long time with research, there are very few well photographs so far, a lot showing parts of hurris only, but i think these
hurricane paintschemes overall look very historical now. The historical birds are recognizable
by a pilot's name or 'UNKNOWN' in the file description.

If you have useful informations
like good photographs of 1st SAAF hurricanes in the western desert i would be very interested
to see them. The depicted aircraft could be included in an updated skinpack.  
All serials of the semihistorical aircraft are from the approbiate MkIIa production batches and 
a lot of weathering was applied as i like this very much. 
The 1st SAAF flew their hurricanes at the time of operation crusader (and much later still) 
with (partly very rough) handpainted codes (some ac didn't have codes at all or just squadron code).  The camo pattern was RAF desert scheme
A or B, (mirrored and colours viceversa as well) with some variations. Spinners were red, the roundels (new C and C1 type introduced july 1942
but old type A, A1 and B were used as well to the end of august) had the orange inner of the SAAF instead of the red used by the RAF, RAAF and RNZAF. 
Cpt Le Mesurier's had a special variant of fuselage roundel. Very few personal markings like the leaping springbok are known.  

Last but not least these skins couldn't be made without the excellent provided work of the 
template makers, mainly  Friendly Flyer and FBS. They had much work with these skins than i had. 
I have used additonal bits and pieces of other skinners
and their are all credited on the skins.
THX a lot to all those guys!!

I'm aware these skins may still have some flaws but they are made as best as i am
able to do so far. There are optimized to blend well with the 4.09 MTO map in perfect mode.

The archive contains a mission file '1st Sqn SAAF Lybia Summer 1942' to quickly watch the full squadron flying in historical formation on the
4.09 desert map.    

Anyway have fun with these hurricanes and please give me a note if you wish to include them in your own
publically uploaded works. These skins are free for non-commercial use. Please do not reupload them on any website without
my permission.
  
I would appreciate very much if you leave any comments, those are encouraging me like most
skinners or mission builders for eventually making more works for the public. Even a bad review
is better than none.
       

cheruskerarmin@freenet.de


References:

Kagero publications
1st SAAF (Ray Connell)webpage admin
SAAF forums community
SAAF museum/SANDF archives Pretoria
Fighters over the Desert (Ring/Shores)
History of JG27 Africa (Ring)
Squadrons of the SAAF and their Aircraft(Mclean)
85 Years of SAAF(Brent)
and many others... 



 

  
    

      
