B-17 G Hires updated # 2 version for European Air War.

This skin represents "Ten Horsepower", a B-17 G-30-BO, S-N 42-31763, from the 351st BG, 510th BS, based at Polebrook, 1944.  Two of it's crew were posthumously awarded Medals of Honour after this aircraft was lost on a mission to Leipzig on the 20th of February 1944.
As I could find no photos of this particular aircraft, the skin was made from descriptions of the a/c, and other B-17's of the same period.  It may not be exact, but is the best I can do with the available references. 

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Taken from "The Mighty Eighth" by Roger A. Freeman

A cannon shell exploding in a cockpit brought about another dramatic return.  It happened to a 351st Group Fortress among the leading waves of the Leipzig force.  A shell smashed through the starboard windscreen killing the co-pilot (F/O Ronald E. Bartley) and gravely injured the pilot (Lt. C. R. Nelson) who lost consciousness.  The bombardier of the floundering aircraft, assuming it doomed, called the crew on the interphone with orders to bale out, and jumped himself.  In spite of the carnage in the cockpit, some of the crew hesitated to abandon the bomber.  Sgt Archie Mathies, ball turret gunner and engineer, made his way to the cockpit, leant over the mutilated bodies and succeeded in regaining control.  He was joined by the navigator, Walter Truemper, and other members of the crew.

Although a freezing blast of air assailed them through the fractured windscreen, they elected to attempt the flight back to England.  They had difficulty in first extracting the dead co-pilot from the cockpit, and while they attempted this Mathies and Truemper took turns in flying the bomber, crouched down between the  pilot's seats using ailerons and elevators only.  When finally they had removed the co-pilot's body, Mathies - who had the most though very limited experience of piloting - took the co-pilot's seat.  From time to time he became so numbed with cold that Truemper and others had to relieve him for spells.

Having reached a lower altitude and escaped from hostile air space, Mathies continued on his own, but as neither he or Truemper had any experience of landing aeroplanes they decided to make for their home field and radio the tower of their predicament.  In veiw of the condition of the still unconcious pilot, Mathies and Truemper volunteered to attempt a landing while other members of the crew were ordered to parachute out over the base.  Meanwhile, Colnel Eugene Romig, Commanding the 351st, had taken off in another fortress with the idea of giving Mathies and Truemper stage-by-stage advice on landing as he flew along side.  Unfortunately, radio contact could not be established between them, so Romig then tried to fly close in, to try some means of visual instructions, but the damaged B-17 flew too erratic a course to allow this.

By then there were many anxious eyes watching the drama above Polebrook as the two aircraft orbited the field.  Romig radioed the control tower to tell Mathies and Truemper to parachute to safety, as he did not think they had the necessary experience to bring a crippled bomber in successfully.  The two men replied that the pilot was still alive and they would not desert him while there was a chance of landing the bomber.  They were then given permission to try and an officer in the tower radioed stage-by-stage instructions. 

The first approach was too high, so was a second.  Tragically it was not a case of third time lucky, for on the next approach the bomber stalled and crashed in a field killing both men.  The pilot whom they had tried to save was still alive when rescuers reached the wreck, but mortally wounded, he died a little later.

Truemper and Mathies were both posthumously awarded the Medal of Honour for their actions on this day.
2nd Lt. Walter E. Truemper - age 24, Navigator  Joined the 351st BG Dec 1943
S/Sgt. Archibald Mathies - age 24, was assigned to the 351st BG on 19 Jan 1944, and was killed while on his second mission, serving as an engineer/ball turret gunner on B-17 G-30-BO 42-31763 TU-A, "Ten Horsepower"

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Instalation.
Extract all the .tpc and .3dz files to your EAW folder, or if using a skin/file manager, refer to it's instructions.  This zip has been optimized for OAW use - simply ensure winzip's "use folder path" is checked, then extract the files to your OAW folder, and the skin will be put in an "A-06 HR G 351st" folder.

Extras included but not needed for instalation -
I've included both the batchfiles for PCX to TPC, and TPC to PCX for any prospective skinners out there, and a screenie.  To use the Batchfiles, just place the files you want to convert, the Batchfiles, and the Picpac / gpmtpc2pcx.exe's all in the same folder, and double click the batchfile.  If you don't have Picpac.exe or gpmtpc2pcx.exe, they are available at my Ad-ons page at Sandbaggers.

The skin uses an experimental "dithered" base layer to achieve the faded olive drab look.  This will cause some rippling or 'moire' effect at certain angles, but I think it's not a huge problem, and the 'new' colour makes it worth some hassles.  Thanks to Andy, FreddyB, Skylark, Claudio, VonBeerhofen, Tachyon and Crashin Jack, who all helped with suggestions aiming to fix this problem.

Credits -
Thanks to Col. Gibbon for the original HR-B-17 3dz, and for some of it's textures.
+mia for the use of some textures, and the BUMP I needed to finish this.
Paulo Morais and Binni for the original work on the chin turret.
Mosi for another timely BUMP,
Illu for the radio wire idea,
Charles, Andy + Pobs for the transparent shadow idea.
Sandbagger (in advance!) for hosting the skin.
Migge and Redeyes for the MEX file which is mostly their work.
Mr. Johnson for discovering how to fix the engine shutdown problems.
3dz mods and skin done by myself.

References-
"The Mighty Eighth" by Roger A. Freeman

If you have any problems, questions, comments or hatemail don't hesitate to contact me, either at the SimHQ EAW message board, or by Email.
Enjoy!

John "Chompy" Masters,
18th August 2004.
jdmasters@ozemail.com.au
http://www.sandbaggeruk.com/chompy.html
