Commemorating the 76th anniversary of Operation Varsity

DC3 Airways will be conducting a virtual reenactment of a part of the March 1945 Operation Varsity on Saturday 20th and Tuesday 23rd March 2021. The actual operation took place 24th March 1945.  Withi 6 weeks of the operation the war in Europe would be over.

The airborne forces had some 16% casualties in 24 hours. The town of Wesel, bombed by a force of Lancasters, was laid waste the night before. Such is the brutal consequences of total war.  This event seeks not to glorify or judge, but to commemorate the actions of those crewmen who flew low and slow in unarmoumed and unarmoured prop aircraft whilst under the most brutal anti aircraft fire they had ever experienced.
Following on from the airborne assault were 240 Americxan B24 bombers to drop at low level supplies. 15 of the B24's were shot down and scores more damaged.

Operation varsity was the largest single day airborne operation in history.
it's objective was to insert 2 airborne divisions, brish 6th and American 17th, in an area just north West of the town of Wesel.
The airborne divisions were to capture bridges over the Issel river and the high ground west of the small town of Hamminkeln.
In this way they could prevent artillery attack upon the forces conducting the river assault from the region of Xanten.

From 11 airfields in England and 12 in France the air armada carrying paratroopers or towing gliders, met up south east of brussels near the town of Wavre, before continuing in a 4 hour long stream of aircraft to their objectives.

Our event will  seek to emulate the troop carrier pilots that transported the paratroop component of the 17th US Airborne division.

We will use all 4 of the airfields that were used on March 24th 1945 with formations made up as follows:


XPLANE pilots -  LFOR Chartes - flight leader 1026 Johann

FSX pilots    -  XB54 Achiet  - flight leader 1056 Paul

P3D v4.5      -  LFXM (A80) Mourmelon le Grand - flight leader 996 Glen

P3D v 5.1     -  XA79  Prosnes                 - flight leader 1161 Roy 

Flight plans for each formation will be supplied using the historic routes. waypoints and short range navaids meticulously placed per mission order documents of the time.

Scenery has been creasted for 3 of the 4 airfields, with LFOR remaining as a stock airport for all concerned.

Effects for the visual and sound effects of 20mm and 88mm flak and also heavy machine guns with tracer fire etc. has been created to authentically represent the reception commite in the area. These were created based on intelligence maps of the time regarding AAA positions in the area and on first hand accounts of the actual flak encountered.

In addition to the ground effects, other effects have been assigned to landing lights, nav lights and beacon lights. Therefore these should only be switched on when instructed by a flight leader. 

A video of the event will be made for Sherman Kaplan's PR role but especially for relatives of C47 and glider pilots who are aware of the event via a Facebook group I belong too, which includes individuals living in a village near one of the airfields and who supplied me with photos of the airfields from the period.

We are soon going to be at a point where the files involved can be distributed via a webpage.

There is nothing more diffcicult or complicated about this event than a normal multiplayer flight. Instead of one formation we will have 4, that is all. Each group will be flying a flight plan as normal, with the additional help of flying close to the guy up front who will be doing the navigation, timings and instructing on what to do when.

All formations will be flying at 2000' and 140 knots.

It is recommended that a model set specifically for thsi event is created and tested, to include the flight replicas 36 x C47 model, which has no impact on frame rates.

regarding frame rates etc., for those with the slower end machines/graphics cards, it is suggested that you move the sliders for cloud draw distance, autogen detail, vegetation detail etc. to normal or less so that your simulation is running smoothly with no lag etc..

There is a lower resolution Ai C47 that you can add to your model set too and have everyone else drawn as that to alleviate any problems with FPS caused by so many participants.

A further announcement will be made in due course when the web page is available, and will include a full background of the event, installation instructions, navigation details etc..

For now, I have attached a map showing the routes we will fly.

Here are some informative website links too.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Varsity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s90UOiFu4-I&t=4s

https://armyhistory.org/operation-varsity-the-last-airborne-deployment-of-world-war-ii/

https://www.paradata.org.uk/event/rhine-crossing-operation-varsity

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/10-important-facts-about-operation-varsity.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qosWiCUSBlY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIyFNtnZLhE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ChIRp4Ltzs

