Pikey

this is incredibly useful, thank you for bringing this to my attention. It's goign to take a couple of weekends to figure out the duplicates and overlaps and see which layer it fits in, but thank you!

I love hearing and reading about this stuff. We've got our hands full just getting units in there just now, I will try to circle back to get the information later!

Detmold please - huge Garrison at Hobart Barracks with small airstrip, gazelles and Lynx and CHallenger 1 when I went in '92!

Just by way of an update, I've got a lot of German data from a willing volunteer and we are in the process of merging that with the existing US and British data. The remaining list of things to do are; - Call the KML done and post it to GitHub so that people can pull and fork. - Perfect the script I have that extracts the KML data to a simplified csv. - FInish the script I made that spawns a unit named something appropriate - name | type. - Save the mission of all the spawns. - Review innaccuracy - I'll find out how badly converting coordinate twice is going to really be on the map. - Break it all back up into parts that would work for an STM file - Add the STM's and entire MIZ to this thread and uploads section. - Add the STM's and MIZ to GH so they can be refined in public. - Drink beer and fly.

I'd go with Northstars take on it, it would be faster to buy the high digit SAM team a lot of beer, and more certain. The nuclear warhead option would be fascinating for DCS, right?!

Exactly! The enemy of good is perfect. It will be good...not perfect

I have both the NIKE-Hercules and the Patriot site Some are still obvious or history can show them, but others are not. And if I had a penny for the way the German government turns old missiles sites into windfarms or solara farms, then I would power my PC through this! There's lots more to do, the issue is time, both my time and how much time has passed and when the sites were active and who by. We are talking generations since the Cold War and everything in the world has changed. The sites changed hands, from German, to US 3rd Army, back to German during the period 1945 onwards. One amazing example is an office in Nuremberg: The SS HQ there was captured by the 3rd Army and called both the South Barracks and Merril barracks until 1992 when it went back to Germany and then went through changes until it became the Federal office for Migration and Refugees. This is an example, but these things changed hands, so the perspective of a modern German is that this is Germany, but from a cold war perspective, these places changed hands and capturing the accuracy is somewhat open to 'debate'. In the same way, some Nike sites were replaced by Patriot sites especially after the withdrawl of Nike-Hercules in 1984 (approximately). So, those sites could be reused too. I must include the time before 1984 because it was so close to the start of the end and tells half the story, if that.

Oh dont get me wrong, this information is useful, but its out there. Its about actually placing it down to the coordinate Here's the filter of the air defences, Hawk triangle, Patriot Circle, Nike Hercules Blue arrow: But its not approximate by any means, its a nightmare. Here is a Nike-Hercules site in 2024: It's a solar farm. the site was decommissioned in the eighties. This is one of hundreds of examples and how much work it takes now that the landscape is being covered up. A lot of installations like Kasernes are now Lidl or housing. The people that served in them are at least 55 years old. What I need is the coordinates of ones I dont have, which is even harder than starting from scratch. Hope that makes sense.

Hi @MiGCap1 I have no French or West German installations, the US ones are lacking and the air defences are in a generic folder as they are theater specific,so I combined all air defences into either east or west then by type. I don't have any knowledge of specific theater sized West German sam sites that are not Patriot or Hawk, so if you have permanent sites that were active during 1960-1995, I'd like to get my hands on those. Most of the kml's overlap with samsites.kml although I saw a few generic AD sites that were not. Age is problematic. The gaps are the gaps where I have no information! If you have a kml of those parts you know about, please help out! FYI, nearly all installations became West German at some point in the last 30 years, the date range makes this a difficult task where the changeovers happen. Thanks.

I could use some help from the armchair army to check the Google KML I am producing, before public release. Using a combination of KML's from Speedy on the army rumour service for the British and Soviet installations, a filtered SAMsite overview and my own work to collect, locate and organize the US installations I have over 1210 Google mapmarkers in the most complete rendition of 1960-1995 Germany's Cold War installations. The KML will eventually become a key reference resource for locations in the upcoming DCS map. Mission makers can check the details provided for targets and mission use. The KML will eventually be imported to DCS as a rough template of locations. I don't intend to place any objects as there won't be a 1:1 parity and there are clearly too many, but it is enough to add sites for your missions. The KML for Cold War Germany comprises of: Over 1200 placemarks categorised and colour coded (so far) The inner border reference line East and West Air defence sites (for West, the Nike Hercules is available for pre 1984 but dates are pretty tough to get) British American Soviet/E. German --Airbases and minor Helicopter airfields --Barracks and installations --Ammo Depots --Training Areas --Special Weapons Compounds --Stores --Fuel dumps/CEPS The rough time range for these is 1960-1995. What I am looking for initially is anyone interested in helping expand on this, specially if they want to zero in on, for example, enriching the US Kazernes with any reference links, tidying up the current placemarks, finding names for the unamed ammo dumps, checking the data with online references, etc. I'm definitely interested in anyone with knowledge of the Eastern European theatre, the locations and names of units and their stations, the airbase complements and time ranges. Also those with good knowledge of the FEBA and plans who can identify major themes that can be added to the KML or fill holes and gaps, such as the areas east of Luneburg and Hamburg, east of Braunschweig, east of Salzgitter and Northeim, etc. Please don't ask for the WIP copy, it will arrive here when its done. Feel free to add details of the theatre to this thread. Whilst I've seen a lot of resources online, its not the finding of the information so much as the time it takes to create a nice placemark with links, find the modern day geo coordinates from the resource that is now hidden under a Lidl or BMW factory and so on. there's issues of time and date filters which I havent even attempted. It will never be perfect but thats not the aim.

Until now the DCS ecosytem has lived in the 1-5m2 Radar cross section limit for the purpose of detection by radars. F-35 has, if you are willing to accept the data provided, an rcs three decimal points to the right of that, which render most of the existing in game air radars blind. We dont model the birds and the bees, but this is what an F-35 is, in size. The 90's SAM's in game will be useless, as far as I understand. The Airborne radars, are at least disadvantaged to the point where weapons first launch are a total surprise. In fact, BVR is a bit pointless in F-35 vs anything in DCS currently. DCS is an ecosystem where we want to do more than be a cockpit simulator. I do not accept that it is, currently. Those that like to learn a sequence, thats your game. However, there are thousands, that enjoy having some kind of match, or dare I say it, a 'game', scenario or structured event that goes beyond process. My ask is that ED consider the tools needed in which we can incorporate a module like F-35 seriously now and reserve developer cycles for that in the months ahead. Specifically: Dynamic RCS that exposes F-35 bay doors, gear, aspect to less favourable conditions. Some kind of air AI adversary(s) that can also behave more stealthily, and not just detect, tunnel and fire. (Preferably Russian origin) A suite of 2-3 Surface to Air Missile systems of more current technology that have a better detection chance (Preferably Russian origin) Red Coalition AWACS/GCI networks and systems with up to date detection capabilities. It doesn't have to be a completely seperate two-tiered game, but it will need something more to bridge that gap. The F-14 was an interesting example showing how a module could perform in a mixed technology environment, but the gap between 1m2 RCS and 0.0001 RCS and an AESA is a void that ED needs to fill else the F-35 module won't be able to "play a game" with anyone except the pilot and the systems.

This thread assumes secret systems, features and kits haven't been simulated before. They have, there's nothing new in another platform with secret stuff. ED simplifies and extrapolates all the time. From WW2 where the plane is not available anymore (FW190) to RWR behaviour, to sensor performance to weapons like AMRAAM. If this comes as a surprise, I hope your reality and immersion remain intact, but F-35 isn't changing anything significantly. This is what ED does, its its magic trick. It makes the simulation immerse and you feel its real. THose that can, will advise, those that know know better will attempt to bend their reality to whatever works for them.

I think the Jag offers something different to cold war and I'd love to see it with all its warts!

There's so many versions either side of the Night Attack I'd love to see. The Sea Harrier is my personal favourite but even the II+ is probably more popular for the younger crowd using the Top Trump style of weighted qualities.

Oh my goodness. This has been the longest wait for the last jigsaw peice to arrive. A type 42....I'm kindda overcome, I was organising my Falklands mission for tonight and you released this a few hours before. I'm so greatly thankful of folks like you and all the people in this community who continue to keep these dreams alive. On behalf of so many people, thank you Sir, for your efforts towards this. You win the awesome award for this week. Thank you!