How to illuminate an airfield?

[Reflected]

...in WWII?

 

I'm looking for creating ideas how to make night landings possible in WWII. Placing "small smoke and fire" effects along the runway is a bit of an overkill. Exploding some trucks works better, but still not ideal. Does anyone have any good ideas?

 

Thanks?

[DonCalzone]

Not exactly an answer to your question but I'm using Reshade/ SweetFX to make things more visible in night ops. Also I'm always picking a date during full moon

[Woody01]

I use illumination bombs triggered by the F10 menu, works awesome and you can see them for scores of miles.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Woody01

[Captain Orso]

Way back before the Spitfire was released Bunyap was posting a whole bunch of research infos he was gathering for his campaign. Part of it was a description of was how the Brits organized night landings with diagrams and everything. Sorry, but I couldn't find the post. Maybe you could PM him.

 

IIRC the had some lights on tall posts like about 100 yards before the threshold and a bunch of lanterns facing the runway on one or both sides. The lights were not bright enough to be seen miles away. The had to use other methods if you were far from the field to get you close enough to see the lighting.

 

You might try some vehicle headlights, but I have no idea if that might actually work, and I'd kind of expect military vehicles to be blacked out at night so they probably won't do any lighting of a runway. Besides the headlight probably only are good for you to see, but don't light anything they shine on.

 

I think you will really need a mod of some kind to do this properly.

[Pikey]

Way back before the Spitfire was released Bunyap was posting a whole bunch of research infos he was gathering for his campaign. Part of it was a description of was how the Brits organized night landings with diagrams and everything. Sorry, but I couldn't find the post. Maybe you could PM him.

 

IIRC the had some lights on tall posts like about 100 yards before the threshold and a bunch of lanterns facing the runway on one or both sides. The lights were not bright enough to be seen miles away. The had to use other methods if you were far from the field to get you close enough to see the lighting.

 

You might try some vehicle headlights, but I have no idea if that might actually work, and I'd kind of expect military vehicles to be blacked out at night so they probably won't do any lighting of a runway. Besides the headlight probably only are good for you to see, but don't light anything they shine on.

 

I think you will really need a mod of some kind to do this properly.

I think the OP is looking for actual things he can use in DCS as opposed to what they actually did.

 

For example, using the DCS searchlights with a target task on a coordinate up the runway.

[ChuckIV]

Sunstag's Marston Mat Mod

 

Try using Sunstag's MARSON MAT mod. Maybe you can line up his mats and cover the outside lights with buildings, etc. Just a thought...

ChuckIV

[Reflected]

Thanks all. I'd like to stay clear of mods though. currently I have 5 burning trucks, those work pretty decently. I'll try the searchlight too.