DCS: Iraq - Coming 2024

[Quiet-Tiger]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:48 PM, Wing said:

Hopefully Kuwait will be included. You can’t simulate post Desert Storm ops without Al Jaber & Kuwait TBH...

At least for the short run we are looking at a map of Northern Iraq. Sort of area shown below. I posted on the 2024 and beyond and to my surprise I got this...

@QuietTiger1968

7 days ago

The only part of Iraq with that sort of mountainous terrain is the northeast area near Mosul and Erbil. Unless we are getting a Map of all of Iraq, we are looking at the ISIS area. The Syria, Turkey and Iran border area rather than a Gulf War (Kuwait) area of Iraq. So it would appear the Iraq map will be the area immediately to the east/northeast of the Syria map. I can't wait to see the area on offer.

 

@nickgrey4136

7 days ago

Dear Sir, very smart analysis, you are spot on! Many thanks and kind regards, Nick

 

[Quiet-Tiger]

On 1/7/2024 at 12:38 PM, durka-durka said:

This is excellent news NineLine.  Prepare for the SMEs on this one!  If you're able to answer any of the below questions, It would be appreciated:

1. What was the reasoning for expanding south, and leaving the North out of your plans?  I know you won't be able to make everyone happy, just curious. 

2. In the 2024/beyond video, are you able to tell us what the regions of Iraq were showcased?  I saw Baghdad, but I'm thinking specifically of the valley in 3:42 and the mountain range in 5:46?

Nick Grey responded to my guess posted on the 2024 and beyond video as follows. I posted a picture of my guess elsewhere in this thread. 

@QuietTiger1968

7 days ago

The only part of Iraq with that sort of mountainous terrain is the area northeast near Mosul and Erbil. Unless we are getting a Map of all of Iraq, we are looking at the ISIS area. The Syria, Turkey and Iran border area rather than a Gulf War (Kuwait) area of Iraq. So it would appear the Iraq map will be the area immediately to the east/northeast of the Syria map. I can't wait to see the area on offer.

 

 

@nickgrey4136

7 days ago

Dear Sir, very smart analyisis, you are spot on! Many thanks and kind regards, Nick

[norman99]

14 hours ago, Quiet-Tiger said:

If this is correct, that’s disappointing. No carrier ops at all for Hornet and Tomcat fans.

[Exorcet]

2 hours ago, norman99 said:

If this is correct, that’s disappointing. No carrier ops at all for Hornet and Tomcat fans.

The initial area may lack water. I doubt the final map will only cover land. Kuwait has a coast, and if the map is focused on the Gulf War, it has to be there.

 

The bigger question, in my opinion, is how much water will we get. Will we actually be able to place carriers where they operated (ie not 5 miles offshore) or will we have to place them where the map allows because we have no other choice, like the Black Sea.

[Stratos]

This would have been the best of both worlds, but who knows what ED has planned.

 

[Quiet-Tiger]

5 hours ago, norman99 said:

If this is correct, that’s disappointing. No carrier ops at all for Hornet and Tomcat fans.

Apparently ED will eventually "IN THE FUTURE" add the southern part of Iraq. Probably after Afghanistan is done.

[Quiet-Tiger]

2 hours ago, Exorcet said:

The initial area may lack water. I doubt the final map will only cover land. Kuwait has a coast, and if the map is focused on the Gulf War, it has to be there.

 

The bigger question, in my opinion, is how much water will we get. Will we actually be able to place carriers where they operated (ie not 5 miles offshore) or will we have to place them where the map allows because we have no other choice, like the Black Sea.

The 2024 Iraq map will not have any blue water. As confirmed by Nick Grey the initial map will be Baghdad north and include the borders of Syria, Turkey and Iran. The Iraq Iran war area was mostly fought in the southeastern part of Iraq. I'm not sure why they selected northern Iraq. I'm assuming the response I got on the 2024 and Beyond video was actually from the real Nick Grey.  

Edited January 13 by Quiet-Tiger

[Exorcet]

4 hours ago, Quiet-Tiger said:

The 2024 Iraq map will not have any blue water. As confirmed by Nick Grey the initial map will be Baghdad north and include the borders of Syria, Turkey and Iran. The Iraq Iran war area was mostly fought in the southeastern part of Iraq. I'm not sure why they selected northern Iraq. I'm assuming the response I got on the 2024 and Beyond video was actually from the real Nick Grey.  

 

That comment would be in reference to the initial map though. This may or may not have carrier suitable water, but we don't know exactly where the map will eventually expand. From the information so far, since Gulf War is one of the conflicts this map is supposed to model, that implies water:

  

On 1/6/2024 at 6:51 PM, NineLine said:

The Iraq map will initially be centred on Baghdad to best provide War-on-Terror and War on Isis scenarios. Later, the map will be expanded south to provide older scenarios like Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom.

 

[Oban]

15 hours ago, norman99 said:

If this is correct, that’s disappointing. No carrier ops at all for Hornet and Tomcat fans.

Remind me again of the water surrounding Afghanistan... Only land based hornets I seen in my 18 years in Iraq were Kuwaiti ones, never seen any operating out of Al Asad, Tallil, Baghdad or Balad, all bases I used to visit on a regular basis

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, Oban said:

Remind me again of the water surrounding Afghanistan... Only land based hornets I seen in my 18 years in Iraq were Kuwaiti ones, never seen any operating out of Al Asad, Tallil, Baghdad or Balad, all bases I used to visit on a regular basis

What about the Aussie ones?

[SteelPig]

6 hours ago, Oban said:

Remind me again of the water surrounding Afghanistan... Only land based hornets I seen in my 18 years in Iraq were Kuwaiti ones, never seen any operating out of Al Asad, Tallil, Baghdad or Balad, all bases I used to visit on a regular basis

I know at least one crusie video from a VFA operating over Afghanistan. Boat-based of course. 

[Oban]

3 hours ago, Stratos said:

What about the Aussie ones?

Ausies were based in Tallil, again never seen any on the flight line there. we had a compound on Tallil where we used to stay, now that's not to say they weren't there, most of the fast air was always staged in the HAS's (for obvious reasons) and used at night time, got to see a Kuwaiti F18 up close, real close, when I was on a Maritime contract out of Umm Qasr one day, when it flew over our vessel at tree top height !! We had allegedly strayed into Kuwaiti waters, and caused a massive diplomatic incident, as we had to USNSUPSALV officers on board

Just checked, the RAAF Hornets were based in Qatar

Edited January 14 by Oban

[Oban]

43 minutes ago, SteelPig said:

I know at least one crusie video from a VFA operating over Afghanistan. Boat-based of course. 

Lots of Naval aviation was used in Afghanistan during the War on Terror, my point was that ED are making a map of Afghanistan, when it's landlocked, and unless they encompass Pakistan, then there's going to be no carrier operations available on that map either.

[SteelPig]

21 minutes ago, Oban said:

Lots of Naval aviation was used in Afghanistan during the War on Terror, my point was that ED are making a map of Afghanistan, when it's landlocked, and unless they encompass Pakistan, then there's going to be no carrier operations available on that map either.

You are right, but it's same as with iraq map. If you expand the Afghanistan-map down to south you can have the gulf of oman and it's entry and it still would be smaller than the 3.1 million square kilometers the SA map has. So,we just don't know what is planned nor what is possible at the moment with the existing tech. Let's hope for the best. 

[ST0RM]

2024: "Subject to Change"

All southern entry of assets not based in Afghanistan, was via the "boulevard" through Pakistan. 

Edited January 14 by ST0RM

[IanC58]

All of the maps are just jigsaw pieces, we can piece them together now for various elements of say an 8 hour mission, trigger zones and rules can load each new map as each element of the mission is ticked off that you have planned and built into each map, downside is you would respawn in the air for say 3 out of 4 maps 

[Chenstrap]

Its a really odd decision for them to focus on the northern part of the map first. I understand the ISIS fight happened in the north, but we have the Syria map already to do exactly that. The south and east is where most of the interesting military action happened, and thats really what people have wanted for years.

I was really hoping we would get something like this for the first pass:

Have Baghdad as the rough northern boundary.

Eastern part of the map stretch into Iran including Dezful, Omidiyeh, Bandar Bushehr, and Khark Island.

The south should include Kuwait obviously and some part of the Gulf, but the Saudi region will need some creative/historical workarounds due to size (And MANY people are underestimating just how huge the region is). The closest major Saudi airbases are 600 miles from Baghdad (Thats 90 mins of transit time, one way, not including tanking), a distance far too large for people to want to use in day to day flying. I think a reasonable work around would be to use rework civilian Saudi Airports into military ones. Al Qaisumah airport and Rafha would be the best options.

As for the west, something a bit past Mudaysis would make a good western boundary. Would be a bummer to miss H2 and H3 but the line has to be drawn somewhere reasonable given Iraq is so huge.

The play area above would have provided good flexibility for recreating historical scenarios the Iran Iraq war, Desert Storm, OIF, and fights against a number of terrorist groups right out of the gate. It would also allow for great fictional scenarios such as US coalition vs Iran.

Edited January 15 by Chenstrap

[Shahriar0]

The northern part of Iraq is absolutely important and essential not only for the Mosul and fight against IS, but also because it was the focus of many Iran-Iraq war operations both air-to-ground (attack on army bases / oil installations of Kirkuk and Erbil) as well as air-to-air engagements. Many of the Iranian F-5Es took off from TFB-2 in Tabriz (just a tad north of the map provided above - which I truly wish it would extend further north to cover it.) This region is also where many MiG-23's were downed by Tomcats both in BVR and WVR combats (three in one engagement alone!)

This map also provides us ability to enact the H3 Airstrike (https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/H3_airstrike), which remains one of the most daring and successful aerial attacks in the history (eights Phantoms performing multiple refueling at extremely low levels in total radio silence to reach H3 and inflicting heavy losses to the Iraqi air force.) I could not have asked for a better start to Iraq map than this. Once map is extended to the south, it would give us an amazing opportunity to cover so much.

I personally cannot wait for the release of Phantom and the initial phase of Iraq map, to finally be able to fly at 50-100FT all the way from the Iranian border to the most heavily defended city of Baghdad and battle SAMs to attack the oil refinery there. Dreams are coming true! Thank you ED/Nick!

Edited January 15 by Shahriar0

[norman99]

On 1/13/2024 at 7:04 AM, Quiet-Tiger said:

Second question. Where would the BLUEFOR airbases be in a 1991 or 2003 scenario?

Seems to me this is tailor made for an 80s Iran v Iraq scenario. Nothing wrong with that, especially given the F4 in development. Unfortunately it's not really suitable for 90s & 00s scenarios that a lot of F-15E/16/18 customers have been longing for. Here's hoping it gets expanded in the future.

Edited January 16 by norman99

[BIGNEWY]

I would suggest waiting for more official detail on the project, we will share more news in a future newsletter. 

thank you

[IanC58]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

I would suggest waiting for more official detail on the project, we will share more news in a future newsletter. 

thank you

I cannot understand when you tease out a new product that you dont/cant give out the full details from Day-1, what or why exactly dont you know or wont say, its like you saying we are making a new car and it will be Blue.

[BIGNEWY]

14 minutes ago, IanC58 said:

I cannot understand when you tease out a new product that you dont/cant give out the full details from Day-1, what or why exactly dont you know or wont say, its like you saying we are making a new car and it will be Blue.

No worries, we know it can be frustrating for some but we have to wait until we are fully ready to release information. We have teased what is being worked on in 2024 and that our Iraq terrain is coming, as soon as we are ready we will have a full featured newsletter about the product and what we will deliver at early access in more detail.

thank you  

[Vakarian]

43 minutes ago, IanC58 said:

I cannot understand when you tease out a new product that you dont/cant give out the full details from Day-1, what or why exactly dont you know or wont say, its like you saying we are making a new car and it will be Blue.

Tease =/= reveal

[durka-durka]

4 hours ago, norman99 said:

Second question. Where would the BLUEFOR airbases be in a 1991 or 2003 scenario?

Seems to me this is tailor made for an 80s Iran v Iraq scenario. Nothing wrong with that, especially given the F4 in development. Unfortunately it's not really suitable for 90s & 00s scenarios that a lot of F-15E/16/18 customers have been longing for. Here's hoping it gets expanded in the future.

 

 

Mosul, Tal Afar, Kirkuk, Irbil, Sulaymaniyah (Early 2004, large runway, if a bit un-level, and civilian), Balad (Late 2003).  Those are not including FOBs, which are kind of all over the place.  I can't remember if Q-West was used as an airfield, or just a heliport. 

[norman99]

1 hour ago, durka-durka said:

Mosul, Tal Afar, Kirkuk, Irbil, Sulaymaniyah (Early 2004, large runway, if a bit un-level, and civilian), Balad (Late 2003)

After the initial invasion, and for the subsequent occupation, these would be correct. I guess it depends on which type of scenario one is trying to simulate.

Edited January 16 by norman99