The Pacific Fighters Website offers word that 1C: Maddox Games is planning on taking to the skies once more in IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946, a World War II aerial combat game that will join the surprising number of alternate history games that speculate on how World War II would have progressed had it continued past 1945. The game will include all previous IL2 content, and more, due next month. Here's word:

Today Ubisoft, one of the world’s largest video game publishers, announced that STURMOVIK™: 1946, take off in November 2006 for PCs in Europe and Australia. STURMOVIK™: 1946 is the latest instalment in the acclaimed Il-2 Sturmovik™ brand from award-winning developer 1C: Maddox Games.

STURMOVIK™: 1946 offers new campaigns, missions and aircraft as well as many exclusive features. Pilots can fly the skies and fight enemies over the Russian front, German occupied Europe, the Far East and the Pacific. STURMOVIK™: 1946 also includes all of previous Il-2 series content, thus bringing the most respected anthology flight simulator to an astonishing 229 flyable aircraft and over 300 total aircraft.

Key Features: New Aircraft – 32 new flyable fighters and bombers, including the long-awaited Il-10 Sturmovik, the Mig-9 Jet fighter or the Arado Ar-234 Blitz bomber; plus four new AI aircraft.

    •New Maps – Large new historical maps of the Kiev region, a Manchuria region map focusing on the border between the USSR, China and Japanese-occupied Korea, a large bonus Burma map and an online Khalkin Gol / Nomonhan map.

    •New campaigns - With nearly 200 missions, unparalleled realism and attention to detail, the nine new campaigns will thrust players into detailed fighter and bomber pilots missions for the German, Soviet and Japanese air forces.

    •Alternate history - Three of the nine campaigns are a departure into alternate history, focusing on hypothetical battles between the Soviet Union and Germany in the year 1946 where WWII still rages on. Both the VVS and Luftwaffe now have access to advanced jet and rocket fighters.

    •New features – In addition to such exotic aircrafts as Soviet mixed-power fighters, 1946 also adds an incredible variety of new ground targets, including, for the first time in the series, trenches and bunkers that give a whole new dimension to the ground attack aspect of the simulator.

    •Nearly 1,000 new Paint schemes – The new planes, as well as many existing ones, come with a host of historical paint schemes, showing many of the individual aircraft or squadrons that served in WWII.

    •Exclusive bonus - Making of, interview videos and screenshots of the new features, plus exclusive screenshots and never before seen videos taken from upcoming Maddox game: Storm of War™: Battle of Britain. A Detailed Plane Guide, totalling over 450 pages of information, gives the low-down on every single one of your 229 flyable aircraft, and allows new players much easier access to the incredible variety of aircraft in the simulator.