I'll explain that as I have been a long-time whiner regarding CloD but then I fired up IL2:1946 the other day and my hopes were raised!
Launching the considerably aged 1946, I set up a mission at 10,000m with P-51's escorting Bombers and Luftwaffe ready to engage. As the mission progressed I started to look at the detail that has actually gone into making the sky 'alive' and how impressive my surroundings were.
I still have a smile on my face from racing after a 190, through multiple contrails that looked like scratch marks on a chalkboard while bomber crews called for help, tracer streaked across the sky, wings sheared off aircraft I attacked...it really just is an incredible experience (and all at 1920x1200).
Now, I know that CloD has had issues, we all know that. So what I did is look forward and think of what the scene I just painted would be like using the CloD engine. The new atmospheric conditions, the incredible cockpit detail (although I'd still like a Pilot model that could be switched on inside the cockpit for replays (movie-making essential)), the ground detail.
I imagined hugging the contours of the land in a P-47 or P-51 on a train busting mission, strafing engines and seeing the steam belch from the pierced boilers. Shooting tracks and derailing engines as they breach the broken steel.
Of-course I realise this is a way off. I know we are still in the infancy of the software (in comparison to 1946) and I hope that 1C support CloD for as long as they did with 1946. Blimey I'd snap-up an Aces expansion pack if it had P-38,40,47 and 51 included as I am sure many of the US players would (that would certainly bring some money into the coffers!)
So although my wait may be long and the development difficult and each patch not including what i really want, I have to look back at the battle I fought in 1946 the other evening and think that one-day, Cliffs of Dover will bring a similar smile to my face as 1946 did.
Time will tell, but I do at-least have belief
Cheers, MP