OneEyeRoss

OK, and this is just me spitballing here: We knew where the SAM sites were....they were very evident. And not knowing if they were active or had been moved in the days prior to the balloon going up was part of the problem (same with the GSFG, which was my thing to worry about). So, if it leads to a bit of pucker factor, welcome to the immersion. Embrace the suck.

The more I fly this map, the more I enjoy it. Bad Hersfeld from the A4:

On the B275 east of Ober Mockstadt, on the way to Fulda

On B275 near Ortenberg, on the way to Fulda

Oh, this and the artillery script will be a lot of fun...

Hitting the log trains and the follow on forces was for sure a large part of the plan. The GSFG weren't expected to carry the whole fight, they depended on the follow on forces getting there. If you get a chance to check out SideKick's "The Balloon Goes Up" series of missions, they use the Caucasus map to simulate a Sov Attack and that is exactly the scenario - hitting the follow on forces while leaving the FEBA to the grunts and Army air. As for the artillery - that was the thing I worried about the most during my time with V Corps. We calculated the amount of ordinance (in tons) that could be hitting our position - it was not a heartening situation. (This was 1974 - 1980 time frame). The BM-21 with a double stack of rockets was the one that worried me the most for some reason. It only had a 12 mile range, but when you are 18-24 years old thinking about a 720 rocket barrage (one battalion of 18 launchers) hitting your grid square, and you are in a M577 thin skinned command post...

The guys at Split Air have never said they won't work on the Bronco - they are just busy working on another project right now. Once they roll out the new plane, they will work on fixing the bugs. You can still enjoy flying it, and if you stay in the cockpit you won't even notice the wheels.

I have been flying the Loach all over the 3AD area, Gelnhausen, Friedberg, Butzbach, Kirch Gons....some real fun. The towns don't look right (generic towns) but the roads are pretty well done. The CW map was made for helicopters!

There are some schloss and burg that really should be included, even though I do know it would be rather intensive work - some examples are the Burg Friedberg. While Friedberg itself is just a generic town, it really needs the Burg in the north part of town - it is a landmark that is used for navigation. (On a personal note, not having Ray Barracks was a let down, but I get it, there are SO MANY kasernes in Germany, hard to make them all).

The avenues of approach would have been through the Fulda area, either north or south of the Vogelsberg. South of the Vogelsberg you are on to Frankfurt aM. From there, they could hit the prepositioned depots around Mannheim and threaten Rhine Main AFB. If they went on the north side of the Vogelsberg, towards Giessen, there was a huge Army supply depot. These were the reasons that the GSFG would attack through there. Would it have been the main avenue of attack? No, that would have been the North German Plains, which are pretty much a soccer field...this would have brought the Soviets through to the North Sea ports, which would help isolate Germany from Western supplied arms. When I was in V Corps, we pretty much knew that we were screwed, but also knew that the Northern Plains were far more important (in the grand scheme of things).

Yes, agree. And, while we are at it, Ray Barracks, Ayers, Schloss and Coleman Kasernes. We have to have somewhere to stage from.... And some kind of Depot in Giessen. (The 8th ID guys probably want some love, too, but hey, they are grunts so they might not be able to use the computer....)

We (1/32 Armor, 3AD, V Corps, 74-77) were told that it was going to be Soviet Forces, probably a mix of the 79 Guards Tank Division and Infantry Divisions heading towards Alsfeld. (I haven't been able to locate our exact GDP area on the map, yet. Those 1:50 maps were used look a bit different than the F10 view). The general belief at the time was the the GSFG would be the first echelon, to hammer their way through the defense, and then the follow on forces would be E. German and Polish. We would get updates every so often about which units were moving around where when they went on exercises, so we would know if a different division would be the one we would face, but mostly we expected the armored division to be the main thrust. 79th GTD units: 17th Guards Tank Regiment (Saalfeld) 65th Guards Tank Regiment (Nohra) 211th Guards Tank Regiment( Jena) 66th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment (Nohra) 172nd Artillery Regiment (Rudolstadt) 79th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment (Jena)

And Giessen showing up as Gieben is just...wrong.

While I love the way Frankfurt looks, I gotta say that for me (and this is, admittedly, just me) the countryside from Fulda to Giessen and Fulda to Gelnhausen is the best. I mean, c'mon. A big international city is a big international city. Seen one, seen them all. But the hills and crags, the rivers, lakes and ponds, the sugar beet fields, the Vogelsberg....those are the things the copter pilots and the A-10 guys need to be right. And, as far as I can tell, they are pretty spot on. There are some spots where the roads don't work right for "on road" movement of ground forces, but I am sure that will be corrected. But those valleys being where they should be, the rivers, all the things we needed for defense - there they are.

Those pile caps - wish I had one now. Ah, Reforger (Return of Forces to Germany). Took part in more than one, but not from the US, only from a unit in Germany. Different years we had different missions, sometimes as the aggressor force, sometimes as "damage control" to fix what got broke.

The more time I spend flying around the Vogelsberg, the more I enjoy this map. Flying along the roads is a real trip down memory lane. Sure, the towns and dorfs are generic, but they are in the right places, the roads and bridges are fairly well placed, the sugar beet fields are in the right spots. You can almost smell the sugar mills turning beets into sugar. (If you have never had the experience of smelling sugar beet mills, you are lucky). Now, to find the right spots to put SideKick65's Cold War missions into practice over the ground they really were made for!

I have to second that the generic towns could be better. The outskirts of towns like Bad Nauheim, which are newer (60-80 construction) have lawns and trees, but the older part of the town shouldn't be that green. The streets were narrow cobblestone with barely enough room for two cars to pass. But....it is still a great map. Flying around the old GDP is fun, and that is what the whole thing is supposed to be: fun.

Having flown a bit around the old stomping ground, I can say that the towns and cities are "representative" of the style of buildings I saw in Germany, but, they are not 1:1 renditions of the towns. Think about how labor intensive THAT would be. Flying over Ffm, I can say "Yep, that is Frankfurt" without seeing every thing I remember. There is only one cathedral in the Romer Platz, some bridges are missing, the Friedberger Warte is missing....but it is still Ffm. Of course, without Crazy Sexy or Dr. Mueller, I won't be going to Frankfurt on payday this month. Now, if I go north to Friedberg or Bad Nauheim, it is just a filler town...which is ok. I mean, I can follow the roads well enough to navigate and get to Schlitz or Lauterbach, so I am ok. Sure, it would be great if I could drive a jeep down town and get a wurst from the Imbiss like I used to do, but it isn't what the map is made to do. I can drop warheads on foreheads in the GDP, so I am a happy camper.

It looks like there are some bridges missing, at least on the road from Fulda to Alsfeld, then Alsfeld to places west towards Giessen or Friedberg. If you zoom in on where the path zigs the first time you will probably see a missing bridge.

Reminds me of the Friedberger Warte in Frankfurt aM. That was the only one that I ever remember seeing in the five years I lived in Hesse. Edited to add: I guess there are four of these in Frankfurt....Friedberger, Bockenheimer, Gallus and Sachsenhauser. Didn't ever see the other three, but I used to drive from Friedberg to Frankfurt and drove right by the Friedberger....and then 97th General was near it, as well.

If you are looking for a specific house or road, it might not be there. The towns are filled with generic buildings of the appropriate type, and just the major landmark buildings are there (kind of like Normandy II map). So, flying over Frankfurt aM, you'll see the Hauptbahnhof is in the right place, and looks pretty good. The Romerplatz, however, no so much. You know it's Ffm, but you won't find the imbiss you loved in Dornbusch, nor the Irish Pub in Sachsenhausen. Now, if you are wanting to defend an area from a RedFor advance through an expected route of advance from Fulda towards Frankfurt on either side of the Vogelsberg, this is a brilliant map. The terrain out there is spot on, with generic towns in the correct places, and the roads are more or less right. So, a road map or Google Earth this is not. It is, however, a great map for fighting the war that never happened.

The lawns in the towns is also not right. It is the generic long grass of the fields. But, I will also admit that this is a pretty small issue, since the map is just amazing.

I noticed this about Ffm. You know it's Frankfurt, but.... In the long run, as long as you can ID the major cities, the generic buildings are fine. Major landmarks are there, and the hills and rivers, the forested areas, etc. are in the correct spots. The Fulda/Bad Hersfeld/Schlitz/Lauterbach/Alsfeld areas look wonderful. Flying over in a Huey or Loach is great! Have to take the A-10 out later on and see how it goes.

I noticed Giessen right away.....

So, FINALLY done! And, so worth the wait. I can honestly say this is worth far more than I paid for it! Well done, UGRA!