That is an early look. You can see the blurry photo imagery of Port Stanley Airport as the video starts.
I wonder if they’re going to do the bigger RAF Mount Pleasant base, or set it pre-1986 or something?
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Curious, did the recent PG map set the stage for faster development of maps, as the hornet is (supposedly?) doing/going to do for fixed-wing modules?
Might very well be. The unification that happened with 2.5 must have speeded up development a lot too.
I thought part of it was that a lot of these maps actually started development long ago but required 2.5 to be done first. Sort of like how building a house traditionally takes several months, but if there is a delay in setting the foundation and all the other materials are delivered to the site on schedule, once the foundation is done you no longer have to wait for anything you can just build at full speed.
The final finish date doesn’t move, but the time it appears to have taken to go from start to finish compresses.
I kind-of-sort-of hope not. The PG map is, IMHO, incomplete. It is missing several airfields, not just in the South west and western portion (Oman, Qatar, etc) But there are at least one Iranian airfield not present.
I’ve done my homework and I realize that the primary focus from the beginning is the strait of Hormuz (SOH)…so I’m not going to complain about Busher AB and Kharg Island missing. However, when you think about how any air war in the Gulf–to include the SOH–would play out, rear area bases, now missing from the map, would be employed.
BTW, the SOH is an international strait within the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. What does this mean for us in DCS World? Well, actually nothing.
But if you want to play by the rules, in peacetime a military aircraft may only transit the SOH…that is from one end to the other, keeping over the water. It can then turn around and comeback. Any military actions such as locking on a radar, shooting or dropping anything (I’ m pretty sure that includes flares), and conducting reconnaissance (yeah right…we promise we won’t) is prohibited as is any type of maneuvering other than flying a normal transit route. There are also rules for shipborne helicopters–it might be logistics flights and SAR only.
Why do I mention this? I think it is one of those tidbits that can add to a mission scenario…perhaps spark a conflict when one side r the other breaks the rules.
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PG isn’t finished yet, not by a long shot. The Black Sea is, and I think Nevada is finally complete? Not sure about Normandy as I don’t have it.
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Well, the eastern corner of it is, anyways. Crimea, Turkey, etc. aren’t exactly done. Don’t get me wrong, at least we have a map over the whole sea, but I’m pretty sure the terrain detail is simplified outside of the Russia-Georgia-Abkhazia-South Ossetia area!
In relation to the scope set by ED, the Caucus is complete. ED said they might go back and work on it again eventually, but don’t expect that any time soon.
I’d rather they invest in Italy and the Balkans coast…
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That makes entirely too much sense. DCS: Laos '95 inbound.
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Hmm, if we get an A-6, A-7… 
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Whoops, that’s too close to a good idea. No Coastlines!, no other countries!, no references to any other conflicts that may or may not have occurred within that geographic region in the past.
Laos '95: it’s a thing, probably.
The 600 lb gorilla in the room, is Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. I recall that LOMAC / FC1 had pretty much the entire peninsula, but not DCS world.
We do not discuss politics in this forum and I am not about to now. I do think from a sales perspective, this is a volatile topic. If ED/DCS took a position, one way or theater, it would hurt sales, so they left it blank. I have no problem with that.
What I would like to see is a couple of Turkish air bases. Every Caucus mission that starts with “…so this A-10C squadron just showed up in Georgia…” is a long stretch of reality.
However, Turkey is NATO and as such can easily play host to USAF F-15s and A-10s, French Mirage 2000 and Gazelles, USMC Harriers, etc. as well as a plethora of NATO AI aircraft…even land basing FA-18s in Turkey is better than explaining how a US Carrier snuck into the Black Sea in violation of the Montreux Convention.
Even is one can buy off on a squadron of F15s or A-10s in Batumi, there is no way the AWACS and Tankers are going to be there too. 
I realize the politics can be very sticky regarding Crimea and the Black Sea region in general, which is why I don’t make a huge deal over it; just that from my perspective of a “battle arena,” it’d be nice to be able to base aircraft in Turkey or Crimea, regardless of who/what currently controls the soil. I’d even like to utilize the western coast if at all possible, but once more it’s not a big deal. As a whole, the Black Sea is handicapped for a lot of scenarios, but by golly we have the map, Imma gonna use it! Plus it’s part of DCS World and therefore free, which is nice.
Ideally, I’d have a simple “two coast” map roughly the size of the Black Sea region with some cities and airbases spread across the coast, maybe a few islands in between, then call it “Virtual World” and make it part of DCS World as the free map, from which we could just play out fictional NTC-type scenarios, but I’m sure that’s a bit more work than one would want to do for a free product. In reality, that’s kinda what the Black Sea/Caucasus map has become.
Actually I’m looking at fixing the Balkans into the Caucus map. I think I could sort-of fit coastal Croatia (minus the Dalmatian Islands), part of Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo and part of Serbia.
The only difficult part is Aviano Air Base…I’m thinking “USS Aviano”…using a carrier.
My ED (or third party) map/theater wish list given current aircraft, ships and ground forces in priority order:
- The western Korea Peninsula - centered on the DMZ. West to the China coast and as far east as they can go.
- Northern Norway: From Vestfjord to a few dozen miles above North Cape. Enough sea room to the west and to the east, the Kola Peninsula, to just beyond Murmansk
- The eastern Baltic. From about the Kaliningrad Oblast east to just beyond St Petersburg, far enough north to include parts of Finland and Stockholm.
- The Taiwan Strait area.
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Still way too much sense. DCS: Antarctica. No bases, no structures, no wildlife, just snow over ice.
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Y’all ain’t thinkin’ straight. Laos '95? CIA black ops, Mi-8 and UH-1H campaigns… Part of a secret project for sneaking in special forces teams in search of the ultimate weapon: the Phlebotium Machine!
Antarctica? Do I need to remind you of The Thing? We’re just going to quietly imagine that the film version of Aliens vs Predator doesn’t exist.
That would be just like going to work… But I’d love a map like that! 
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In the days before computers (PCs…I’m not that old), there was a board game called Tactics II…a game board map, little cardboard counters for armor, infantry, HQ sepecial units, etc, movement limits based on type of unit and a dice roll system when it came to battle…Red vs Blue…it was pretty cool.
I took the cardboard counters and worked up an Antarctica scenario using a National Geographic map. Premise was that vast reserves of oil had beed discovered in Antarctica and Blue and Red were fighting over it. I think that could reasonably be made into a DCS Map…maybe.
This conversation has sparked an idea with me. The limits of even the Caucus map force a mission designer to make at least one unrealistic choice, putting the “rear area” planes up in the war zone. E-3As, KC-135s, big transport…the “high value-low quantity” aircraft are always based well away from the “FEBA” (Forward Edge of the Battle Area).
It would be cool if ED could add “off map” air bases at the major compass directions N, NE, E, SE, etc.a hundred or so miles from the map. That would put one at each edge and one at each corner. Obviously these bases could not be attacked or overrun but that is realistic. Example: RAF Mildenhall is located among the sheep pastures of Suffolk England, UK. It supports a USAF refueling wing and a USAF social ops group, pretty safe from any war in Europe but easy flying time to get there. Just a thought.
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