Central Europe Cold War map 1980's-90's.

[Northstar98]

On 5/10/2021 at 11:07 AM, Tippis said:

While 400k km² isn't excessively beyond what some existing terrains already cover, the problem is that we're talking Germany here — it's not exactly empty flat plains and lots of sea. With the kind of detail needed for such a densely packed area, it would probably have to be only 250k at the most. Maybe one way around it would be make it even narrower on the north-south axis. Or even, sort of how it is done with Caucasus, make the “detail” area a diagonal rather than a straight line.

I absolutely agree with you. The issue though is that key areas don't fit on a 250k area. Maybe you could make the detail area in patches for stuff that you really need - such as the areas around the northern German plain (at least), and the immediate area around airbases.

I'm steering away from cities requiring high detail - in an ideal world sure, but I think here we have to compromise on them. Even at that - I'd only be interested in seeing cities on the north German plain.

I would be happy with cutting the map in half and going for just the northern third (border with Denmark to approximately N 50°55') and leaving the populated area around the North Rhine-Westphalia (Cologne, Essen, Düssledorf etc) as low density/low detail areas. The issue though is that misses out a fair bit of the Fulda Gap and basically all of the major US Air Force bases (Spangdahlem AB, Ramstein AB, Hahn AB and Rhein-Main AB).

Maybe an alternative is to have the northern German plains as the high detail area (so everywhere north of Hannover, but stretching to the western and eastern borders), and include Berlin, but have everything to the south as low detailed, apart from the immediate area around the key US air force bases. Cities not on the north German plains can take a hit to the detail and resolution (and more importantly object density) - obviously there should be something there but it doesn't need to be to such a high detail - something on the same lines as the density of cities on the Caucasus map would suffice.

But really the northern German plains and the Fulda Gap is probably the most important area to be highly detailed.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Northstar98
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[Pocket Kings]

17 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I'm steering away from cities requiring high detail - in an ideal world sure, but I think here we have to compromise on them. Even at that - I'd only be interested in seeing Berlin, Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Hanover, and maybe Frankfurt - but you'd have to skimp on the density quite a bit.

 

The place I'm most worried about is actually the populated areas in the North Rhine-Westphalia.

 

The only major cities that need detail are Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Nürnberg. They're of strategic value and close to the border. And by detail I don't mean every supermarket and bus station, but rather the important bridges, (supply) roads, airfields, helipads (didn't realize Berlin had so many back then, but makes sense) and so forth.

 

Yeah NRW, but far away from the action. Granted, airfields like Dortmund or Essen would've quickly taken by NATO troops as supply interlinks. But that doesn't mean the level of detail has to be near that of the inter-German border. I mean, once REDFOR comes close to cities like Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne, France is basically done. Continental war would be over. Therefore I believe the correct approach is concentrating on the hot zones. Any hey, maybe in ten years ED has the time and resources to give these low fidelity areas some improvement.

[Northstar98]

On 5/10/2021 at 11:47 AM, Pocket Kings said:

The only major cities that need detail are Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Nürnberg. They're of strategic value and close to the border. And by detail I don't mean every supermarket and bus station, but rather the important bridges, (supply) roads, airfields, helipads (didn't realize Berlin had so many back then, but makes sense) and so forth.

 

Yeah NRW, but far away from the action. Granted, airfields like Dortmund or Essen would've quickly taken by NATO troops as supply interlinks. But that doesn't mean the level of detail has to be near that of the inter-German border. I mean, once REDFOR comes close to cities like Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Cologne, France is basically done. Continental war would be over. Therefore I believe the correct approach is concentrating on the hot zones. Any hey, maybe in ten years ED has the time and resources to give these low fidelity areas some improvement.

Agreed, and I think the best hot zone is going to be the northern German plain. Fulda Gap would be brilliant too, but then we're stretching the area.

I am going to maintain though that those major airbases should be present, in high detail (to within a nautical mile radius at least).

Edited February 14, 2022 by Northstar98
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[Pocket Kings]

39 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I am going to maintain though that those major airbases should be present, in high detail (to within a nautical mile radius at least).

 

Certainly, it's DCS not MSFS 2020, the military function trumps the visual appearance. I wouldn't even care if huge areas like north of Rhine / Ruhr, e.g. Münster and above up to Bremen / Bremerhaven look like plain fields with a few roads and occasionally some villages (there aren't many anyway).

 

The Fulda gap is important because of Frankfurt. And I'm not talking about the fairytale of Russian tanks that blast over the Autobahn and reach Frankfurt in three hours, take the gold and leave. There were only 10% of our gold reserves in Frankfurt during the cold war, maybe even less. The rest was in New York and in Kentucky.

 

The topology of northern Germany is so flat that NATO had plans to create a nuclear bomb alley along the whole border in order to stop the Soviet advance. In the south however, it's way more complicated to maneuver with vast tank units the Warsaw Pact had. Then, Frankfurt is the last hope for anybody on the continent. NATO strategy at that time was: Stop them in Germany or don't stop them at all and retreat, they don't dare to cross the Atlantic or the Channel.

 

If it's even remotely possible to model the Fulda gap and sourthern GDR border in detail, I'd accept the ugliest graphics in western Germany imagineable. But the way the preloading of map parts work I don't think it's a matter of user RAM, rather server RAM and of course development work hours.

Edited May 10, 2021 by Pocket Kings
typo

[kseremak]

I would prefer such map over practically any map we have in DCS. Rumble with Soviets and Warsaw Pact over Fulda Gap. Or maybe i would fight for the Soviets in Mi-24P, MiG-23MLA and MiG-29A!

[Northstar98]

On 6/4/2021 at 3:03 PM, kseremak said:

I would prefer such map over practically any map we have in DCS. Rumble with Soviets and Warsaw Pact over Fulda Gap. Or maybe i would fight for the Soviets in Mi-24P, MiG-23MLA and MiG-29A!

Same, though personally, I'd prefer the northern central, which brings Denmark into the equation.

But the US airbases near the Fulda Gap is a must.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Northstar98
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[Harlikwin]

You guys realize you'd be playing WW3 with like 100 units... Until DCS gets a million times better (literally) at dealing with things like unit densities and pathfinding this map is mostly pointless. I get the appeal though.

 

[Northstar98]

On 6/4/2021 at 8:50 PM, Harlikwin said:

You guys realize you'd be playing WW3 with like 100 units... Until DCS gets a million times better (literally) at dealing with things like unit densities and pathfinding this map is mostly pointless. I get the appeal though.

Only 100? 

But yes, completely agreed, though you can say the same thing about every map, this map, if it included the 2 main areas though, would be absolutely huge, and densely populated with objects, including a tonne of airfields. Oh well, I can dream.

But as for hundreds of units, this is a mission editing issue.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Northstar98

[Pocket Kings]

On 6/4/2021 at 9:50 PM, Harlikwin said:

You guys realize you'd be playing WW3 with like 100 units... Until DCS gets a million times better (literally) at dealing with things like unit densities and pathfinding this map is mostly pointless. I get the appeal though.

A full fledged war in the Mediterranean with a US carrier strike package and the Kuznetzov and Syria and Jordanian AF and Israels units would also not go down with 100 units, not even with 1000. I get your point, but then I could say simulators of the 80's had to get better a million times, simulators of the 90's too. Yet, we played them anyway and it was fun, as well as a little bit of knowledge regarding systems.

[Harlikwin]

32 minutes ago, Pocket Kings said:

A full fledged war in the Mediterranean with a US carrier strike package and the Kuznetzov and Syria and Jordanian AF and Israels units would also not go down with 100 units, not even with 1000. I get your point, but then I could say simulators of the 80's had to get better a million times, simulators of the 90's too. Yet, we played them anyway and it was fun, as well as a little bit of knowledge regarding systems.

 

Its the same set of problems. I'm mostly hoping that Vulkan can let ED offload a bunch of that CPU intestive stuff onto other cores in some fashion which should enable these larger maps/scenarios. I mean even syria these days is pretty unpopulated if you need halfway decent performance. 

[Bremspropeller]

On 5/10/2021 at 12:20 PM, Northstar98 said:

 

I absolutely agree with you. The issue though is that key areas don't fit on a 250k area. Maybe you could make the detail area in patches for stuff that you really need - such as the areas around the northern German plain (at least), and the immediate area around airbases.

 

I'm steering away from cities requiring high detail - in an ideal world sure, but I think here we have to compromise on them. Even at that - I'd only be interested in seeing cities on the north German plain. 

 

I would be happy with cutting the map in half and going for just the northern third (border with Denmark to approximately N 50°55') and leaving the populated area around the North Rhine-Westphalia (Cologne, Essen, Düssledorf etc) as low density/low detail areas. The issue though is that misses out a fair bit of the Fulda Gap and basically all of the major US Air Force bases (Spangdahlem AB, Ramstein AB, Hahn AB and Rhein-Main AB).

 

Maybe an alternative is to have the northern German plains as the high detail area (so everywhere north of Hannover, but stretching to the western and eastern borders), and include Berlin, but have everything to the south as low detailed, apart from the immediate area around the key US air force bases. Cities not on the north German plains can take a hit to the detail and resolution (and more importantly object density) - obviously there should be something there but it doesn't need to be to such a high detail - something on the same lines as the density of cities on the Caucasus map would suffice.

 

But really the northern German plains is probably the most important area to be highly detailed.

 

 

 

The more you look at it, the more you have to realize it doesn't really matter how you'd skin the cat, you won't be able to cut out large populated areas. Other than the north german plains, there are few areas that aren't rather densly inhabitated. And even those plains aren't exactly New Mexico, as we'll see below.

Berlin has 3.5mil inhabitants (6mil metro area, including Potsdam). Hamburg has around 1.8 (5mil metro). Bremen has 0.5mil inhabitants (2mil metro). Hannover metro is about 1.1mil, Brunswick metro right next to it another 1.5mil. The Rhein-Ruhr Region metro area alone is home to some 10mil people (give or take). I think everybody gets the idea...

For comparison: The Beirut metro area has about 2mil people, but many of them live in highrises and the actual urban area is comparatively confined.

Then there's the issue with air-bases, which are several 100km from the border - a bit closer on the East German side, where some soviet airfields were quite close to the border. Mind you, a map with the entirety of Germany would have an imperial duckton of airfields, which would include major international airports, down to semi-permanent Harrier and chopper bases and Autobahn-runway segments on both sides of the curtain.

Another reasonable option would be a map that's just concerned with the inner-german border (Baltic region down to the Fulda Gap for simplicity reasons) and fleshing out maybe 100-200km on each side. Maybe build in some makeshift airfields. But then again would this be worth the hassle in the first place? I kind of doubt it...

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Bremspropeller

[Pocket Kings]

IMHO three things are inevitable within the next five years when it comes to DCS (and for the matter of the first assumption, games in general):

- Mass adoption of VR,

- the strive for more REDFOR units, which will be 90's and 2000's at best,

- which leads to the logical consequence: A cold war turning hot = Germany.

Now, if this will technically be feasable, I don't know. What I do know is the fact that graphics card companies held back technology and architechtural improvements for a couple of years now. I mean the first time I heard of Ray-Tracing it must have been 15 years ago, but definitively a good 12 years. And finally we have a somewhat working implementation for the consumer.

The CPU side isn't a problem anymore. Servers with core-counts into the 40's aren't rare nor super expensive these days. And RAM: I have a server right behind me with 384 GB of RAM, nothing special. Ten years ago it would've cost a good saloon car, 40k-ish USD. These days computing power gets cheaper every minute. Whether the DCS server instance can profit from such a high concurrency in CPU cycles, I don't know. As I said elsewhere, a well controlled step towards open sourcing parts of the code, ESPECIALLY netcode, could help tremendously.

We all know that a mass adoption of VR will force GPU manufacturers to revamp their current (broken) business model.

[WHOGX5]

6 hours ago, Pocket Kings said:

IMHO three things are inevitable within the next five years when it comes to DCS (and for the matter of the first assumption, games in general):

- Mass adoption of VR,

- the strive for more REDFOR units, which will be 90's and 2000's at best,

- which leads to the logical consequence: A cold war turning hot = Germany.

Now, if this will technically be feasable, I don't know. What I do know is the fact that graphics card companies held back technology and architechtural improvements for a couple of years now. I mean the first time I heard of Ray-Tracing it must have been 15 years ago, but definitively a good 12 years. And finally we have a somewhat working implementation for the consumer.

The CPU side isn't a problem anymore. Servers with core-counts into the 40's aren't rare nor super expensive these days. And RAM: I have a server right behind me with 384 GB of RAM, nothing special. Ten years ago it would've cost a good saloon car, 40k-ish USD. These days computing power gets cheaper every minute. Whether the DCS server instance can profit from such a high concurrency in CPU cycles, I don't know. As I said elsewhere, a well controlled step towards open sourcing parts of the code, ESPECIALLY netcode, could help tremendously.

We all know that a mass adoption of VR will force GPU manufacturers to revamp their current (broken) business model.

First of all, the strive for more REDFOR units does not lead to a logical conclusion of the cold war turning hot in Germany. REDFOR units are used all over the world and could be realistically used in the Caucasus, Syria, Persian Gulf; even NTTR could realistically use it as the yanks got a hold of some of those air frames. And this is just mentioning our current theatres.

Second of all, you can have a server with a 40 core CPU and 384 GB of RAM but that doesn't change anything. You still have to be able to edit and test the missions in the ME and units in DCS are real performance hogs. Just having a couple of artillery pieces or infantry units shooting at each other will cause a noticeable performance drop.

And when it comes to Germany, even though it'd be a cool map, I think a lot of people in DCS would prefer more varied and larger/less densely populated maps rather than the opposite. The reason Syria is such a great map is that it covers multiple nations and is so big and covers so many airfields and cities in a layout with such a varied geography that you can twist and turn it every which a way and come up with hundreds of scenarios without it ever becoming stale. A small map of Germany would be a bit of a one trick pony compared to some of the alternatives, like a Balkan map with some lo-fi slices of the east coast of Italy, or the Korean peninsula with some lo-fi slices of Liaodong & Shandong peninsulas as well as the Fukuoka prefecture. Maybe even a lo-fi Vladivostok as well if you really wanna go bananas but that really is stretching it.

[bies]

9 hours ago, Pocket Kings said:

- the strive for more REDFOR units, which will be 90's and 2000's at best,

I would say 1970s/1980s. 2000s Russian i.e. MiG-29SMT or 2000s Su-35 are totally impossible.

MiG-15bis early 1950s,

MiG-17 early 1950s,

MiG-19P mid 1950s,

MiG-21bis early 1970,

MiG-23MLA late 1970s,

MiG-29A early 1980s,

Su-17M early 1980s,

Mi-8 1980s,

Mi-24P early 1980s,

(Low fidelity Su-25A, MiG-29 9.12/9.13, Su-27S etc. - early to mid 1980s.)

But this is even more Cold War gone hot in Germany.

[Northstar98]

16 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

The more you look at it, the more you have to realize it doesn't really matter how you'd skin the cat, you won't be able to cut out large populated areas. Other than the north german plains, there are few areas that aren't rather densly inhabitated. And even those plains aren't exactly New Mexico, as we'll see below.

Berlin has 3.5mil inhabitants (6mil metro area, including Potsdam). Hamburg has around 1.8 (5mil metro). Bremen has 0.5mil inhabitants (2mil metro). Hannover metro is about 1.1mil, Brunswick metro right next to it another 1.5mil. The Rhein-Ruhr Region metro area alone is home to some 10mil people (give or take). I think everybody gets the idea...

For comparison: The Beirut metro area has about 2mil people, but many of them live in highrises and the actual urban area is comparatively confined.

All of which I agree with, and as these are strategic targets, they can't really be left out.

16 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Then there's the issue with air-bases, which are several 100km from the border - a bit closer on the East German side, where some soviet airfields were quite close to the border.

It really depends what airbases you're thinking about.

Most of the major RAF airbases are indeed close to the border; RAF Bruggen, Wildenrath, and Laarbuch are essentially right on the border of the Netherlands, Gütersloh though is further inland.

16 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Mind you, a map with the entirety of Germany would have an imperial duckton of airfields, which would include major international airports, down to semi-permanent Harrier and chopper bases and Autobahn-runway segments on both sides of the curtain.

Personally, I think we should stick to either/or for the time being while possibly allowing for expansion in the future, if development resources allow. With that said, ED have been working on technology to support modelling the entire planet, though my guess is that it would be low-resolution mesh and textures, relying heavily on landclass and autogen. Buildings will probably be mostly generic, and airbases will probably also be fairly generic, but maybe with semi-correct layouts. Our current theatres would then replace the areas they cover, for those that own them.

But yes, there are an absolute tonne of airfields, even if you were to just include major airbases and highway strips. For semi-permanent stuff for the Harrier and helicopters, the map should probably be fitted for these but not necessarily with, leaving it up to mission editors to populate them (though requiring we get appropriate units and static objects). 

16 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Another reasonable option would be a map that's just concerned with the inner-german border (Baltic region down to the Fulda Gap for simplicity reasons) and fleshing out maybe 100-200km on each side. Maybe build in some makeshift airfields. But then again would this be worth the hassle in the first place? I kind of doubt it...

That would be a good idea, we'd miss out a few airbases but I'd take it.

And personally, a German Theatre of Operations would definitely be worth it, after all, this is the map that a majority of our assets would fit on, as well as being a theatre for a hypothetical conflict.

[Bremspropeller]

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

That would be a good idea, we'd miss out a few airbases but I'd take it.

And personally, a German Theatre of Operations would definitely be worth it, after all, this is the map that a majority of our assets would fit on, as well as being a theatre for a hypothetical conflict.

This is more or less what I was thinking about. The red line is a rough depiction of the inner german border. Shifting the eastern boundary to the polish border would yield a lot more EGAF airfields. The same is true vice-versa for BLUEFOR in the west.

To get more US airfields (and Pferdsfeld, Büchel WGAF airfields), the map would need to extend more to the south and west.

US Army airfields in Germany:

Spoiler

USAF airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/usaf-airbases.html

West German airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/german-air-force-air-bases.html

British airbases (many of them became german airfields later, Bückeburg, Celle and Faßberg became german Army aviation bases)
https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/raf-royal-air-force.html

The website is great, btw.

Highway landing site in West Germany: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/highway-strips.html

 

East German airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/national-peoples-army-air-bases.html

Soviet airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/soviet-russian-airfields.html

Higway landing sites in East Germany: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/east-german-highway-strips.html

Edited February 15, 2022 by Bremspropeller

[Northstar98]

9 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

This is more or less what I was thinking about. The red line is a rough depiction of the inner german border. Shifting the eastern boundary to the polish border would yield a lot more EGAF airfields. The same is true vice-versa for BLUEFOR in the west.

Looks pretty good! And covers the main area of operation.

Looks like we've got at least Laage and Briest air bases covered for the NVA LSK, several soviet airbases too.

I'd maybe extend it a little west, though there are some major BLUFOR airbases covered.

9 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

To get more US airfields (and Pferdsfeld, Büchel WGAF airfields), the map would need to extend more to the south.

US Army airfields in Germany:

  Reveal hidden contents

USAF airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/usaf-airbases.html

West German airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/german-air-force-air-bases.html

British airbases (many of them became german airfields later, Bückeburg, Celle and Faßberg became german Army aviation bases)
https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/raf-royal-air-force.html

The website is great, btw.

Highway landing site in West Germany: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/highway-strips.html

 

East German airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/national-peoples-army-air-bases.html

Soviet airfields: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/soviet-russian-airfields.html

Higway landing sites in East Germany: https://www.mil-airfields.de/germany/east-german-highway-strips.html

Yeah, it's a fantastic resource, not only does it have the bases themselves, but it also details stationed units, NAVAIDs, and has reference material for several different decades, I linked to it in this post.

[Pocket Kings]

11 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

First of all, the strive for more REDFOR units does not lead to a logical conclusion of the cold war turning hot in Germany. REDFOR units are used all over the world and could be realistically used in the Caucasus, Syria, Persian Gulf; even NTTR could realistically use it as the yanks got a hold of some of those air frames. And this is just mentioning our current theatres.

Regarding the first part, I disagree. The Allied Forces stayed in Berlin for one reason only, and it was not to bring candy to the poor kids of Berlin: International law dictates that an occupied capital by a single foreign occupant leads to the occupation of the country as a whole within the borders PRIOR to the particular war / conflict. This stems from the times when the Law of the Seas was the only international law. The Soviets knew it, and fiercly defended Moscow, and the Americans knew it too. So the first and foremost step for the Warsaw Pact would've been: Get rid of any Allied Force within Great Berlin (legal term). Did you ever wonder why the French agreed to the foundation of the Bundeswehr? Among other minor reasons while hating the idea of German troops, they had to agree, otherwise the Soviet would've been easily able to stand on the other side of the Rhine within days, literally. Whether the United States would've respected international law in such a scenario, I don't know and I doubt it. Anyhow, I don't wanna derail the thread into a history lesson, only to show that Berlin = No. 1 and Rest of Germany = No. 2 for any military strategist of the cold war era. You even see it today: The Americans could not operate in the Middle East if they didn't have the assets in Germany like they still do.

Regarding the second part, that's true. I find the NTTR map very useful, but it doesn't get the attention, at least multi player wise, that it deserves. One talented mission builder could create great Red Flag scenarios there.

11 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

Second of all, you can have a server with a 40 core CPU and 384 GB of RAM but that doesn't change anything. You still have to be able to edit and test the missions in the ME and units in DCS are real performance hogs. Just having a couple of artillery pieces or infantry units shooting at each other will cause a noticeable performance drop.

I highlighted the magic word, Mission Editor. This thing not only looks like 90's, it performs almost as badly. But, I think that's a topic for another thread, though I believe it's general consensus.

11 hours ago, WHOGX5 said:

And when it comes to Germany, even though it'd be a cool map, I think a lot of people in DCS would prefer more varied and larger/less densely populated maps rather than the opposite. The reason Syria is such a great map is that it covers multiple nations and is so big and covers so many airfields and cities in a layout with such a varied geography that you can twist and turn it every which a way and come up with hundreds of scenarios without it ever becoming stale. A small map of Germany would be a bit of a one trick pony compared to some of the alternatives, like a Balkan map with some lo-fi slices of the east coast of Italy, or the Korean peninsula with some lo-fi slices of Liaodong & Shandong peninsulas as well as the Fukuoka prefecture. Maybe even a lo-fi Vladivostok as well if you really wanna go bananas but that really is stretching it.

Northern Germany isn't a densely populated area, especially the GDR part. Many villages and few larger cities. From the geographic standpoint, and the strategic, Germany has everything a great mission needs: Coastlines, waters, plains, mountains (of almost every feasable size), forest en masse, loads and loads of bridges, highways and so on. The only thing that doesn't exist is a beautiful desert. While your suggestions are very appealing and sound interesting, I still believe that the first bang would've happened in Germany. The fatal bang would've for sure happened along the inner German border.