Germany Cold War Google map and mission resource project [Dev pushed to public]

[Whiskey11]

17 hours ago, MiGCap1 said:

 

Husum AB  is missing ... at the Schleswig-Holstein North-Sea coast west-south-west of NAS Eggebek. Ground attackers (Fiat G.91 until 1982, then Alpha Jets), much more important than the Brekendorf and other NLPs (road strips). 

Our A-Jets were practising HIND hunting back in the mid-1980s.

I'll have to recheck the data I uploaded to Git, but my personal KMZ file of this has Husum Air Base.  It might not be in that picture because of the way Google Earth displays pin names when zooming out.  We used an official airport publication for West Germany which listed all of the airbases, so I'd hope a fairly major airbase would be there given the absolute nitpicky detail the publication had about army heliports!

49 minutes ago, Pikey said:

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!

As with everything, verify any non double pins before deleting.  I have the Sam Site Overview KMZ file from another person, and there are a few places where I flat out disagree with the Pin locations for things... as a perfect example, it labels the ammunition bunkers near Hosum Air Base as a former Patriot site, when it's quite clearly ammunition bunkers.  Mine is also not perfect... some things are missing because cities have overgrown them, some of the headquarters locations of some of the AD units in East Germany are also best-guesses because of urban growth and the de-sovietification of East Germany.

[silverdevil]

i was stationed in wildflecken 1985-1987. there was a small strip where A-10s and A-1 cobras would operate. i saw it mentioned AAF but wanted to say there were armor, military intelligence units stationed there.

[OneEyeRoss]

On 3/16/2025 at 12:47 PM, silverdevil said:

i was stationed in wildflecken 1985-1987. there was a small strip where A-10s and A-1 cobras would operate. i saw it mentioned AAF but wanted to say there were armor, military intelligence units stationed there.

Wild Chicken.  Only went there a few times.  Once as a tanker, once as a medic with a Combat Engineer battalion.  They were blowing stuff up, so we had to bring the band aid box.  

[silverdevil]

5 hours ago, OneEyeRoss said:

Wild Chicken.  Only went there a few times.  Once as a tanker, once as a medic with a Combat Engineer battalion.  They were blowing stuff up, so we had to bring the band aid box.  

haha. yes. permanent party there was a challenge.

fun fact. Shaquille O'Neal lived there with his family when i was stationed there. i knew of his dad (SGT) in finance detachment. shaq played basketball on the post school team.

[OneEyeRoss]

14 hours ago, silverdevil said:

haha. yes. permanent party there was a challenge.

fun fact. Shaquille O'Neal lived there with his family when i was stationed there. i knew of his dad (SGT) in finance detachment. shaq played basketball on the post school team.

I was assigned to the Clinic at Yakima Firing Center.  Permanent party at a firing range is always "fun"....

[graveyard4DCS]

You can also look at russian ressources, there is plenty of information regarding the Cold War era. 

For example, this website about DDR air defense is a gold mine : https://rtv-pvo-gsvg.narod.ru

[Swiso]

On 3/15/2025 at 2:25 PM, mwd2 said:

Is there any 'real' military plan for NATO/Warsaw Pact when Cold War goes hot?

Here a collection of WP war plans:

https://phpisn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/colltopic647e.html?lng=en&id=14944

[Swiso]

On 3/15/2025 at 6:03 PM, Mqxle said:

It is called General Defense Plan:
The General Defense Plan (GDP) of NATO was a regularly updated operational plan for the NORTHAG (Northern Army Group) and CENTAG (Central Army Group) in the event of a defense scenario. These plans, classified as "NATO-Secret," are now publicly accessible in the German Bundesarchiv .

The Warsaw Pact's attack plan aimed to annihilate the 1st German Corps and the 2nd British Corps in a pincer movement. The first wave of the attack was intended to break through the combat zone of the Dutch 1st Corps on its left flank, driving a wedge between it and the 1st German Corps. This would have forced the Dutch to bring in reinforcements from the Netherlands, causing a critical delay of 1-2 days. The 3rd Assault Group of the NVA was to advance via Uelzen and the Munster training area to the Weser River, aiming to cut off the British and German corps. The natural bottlenecks of the Harz and Weserbergland would have significantly restricted the mobility of the British forces.

Braunschweig played a key role in preventing an early encirclement and was to be defended primarily from the south. Both sides were aware of this threat, which is why the GDP included provisions for the deployment of German and British reserve divisions. The Warsaw Pact's objective was to reach the Weser and Rhein rivers within a week to decisively influence the course of the war before US Reforger troops could arrive.

NORTHAG adhered to the doctrine of "Forward Defense," which involved a 24-hour delaying action up to the Elbe-Seitenkanal near Uelzen. The outcome of the war was expected to be determined within this 24-hour period, as it was assumed that all forces would be exhausted by that time.

@PikeyI have Stasi documents from the GDR containing intelligence information about NATO FlaRak (surface-to-air missile) positions that were to be occupied in the event of a war outbreak. These are not fixed SAM (surface-to-air missile) positions but rather coordinates where mobile systems, such as ROLAND, would be stationed. If there is interest, feel free to send a DM. Also @Whiskey11 just in case you missed my DM on Discord

Hi, thanks for the information about the General Defense Plan ! 

One question... I've clicked on the link you provided, but is there a way to download those documents in a PDF format ?  

 

[Swiso]

On 3/10/2025 at 12:20 AM, Pikey said:

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.

Don't know if these documents could be useful.

nato-order-of-battle-mod-8.doc BAOR-July-1989.pdf

[Andrei]

I'll have to bump it out of sheer usefulness and the fact it's on the last page.

[EvilBert VR]

Everything (NATO-wise) has been set up and is waiting to be forwarded to UGRA.

The categories are visible on the left side.

Just as an example:

 

 

[EvilBert VR]

Just Ammo and Material Depots (NATO)

 

 

And ADA Sites (NATO, coloured code refers to each nation)...

 

 

[winghunter]

You can overlay the kml in DCS Web Planner and Editor (load kml/kmz). If you need help converting it to a miz, hit me on discord.

https://dcs-web-editor.github.io/dcs-web-viewer-deploy/#

 

Edited April 22 by winghunter

[EvilBert VR]

2 hours ago, winghunter said:

You can overlay the kml in DCS Web Planner and Editor (load kml/kmz). If you need help converting it to a miz, hit me on discord.

https://dcs-web-editor.github.io/dcs-web-viewer-deploy/#

 

Hey winghunter, thx for reaching out. I am allready in the stage of adjusting some of the landmarks in the map as well as coding scripts for removal of some of the misplaced items (especially lightpoles on airfields) to try and create a more realistic environment on some of the airfields.

Cheers

[EvilBert VR]

All installations done! Woof! What a work and research!
Now hoping to get those thingies into UGRAs map!

 

[GrafRotz]

Is there anyone capable of convertig the Koordinates Lat Lon into DCS CCS?

I asked ChatGPT, but i am to stupid to figure out the exact rotation of the map and the zero point of the map.

My goal is to manipulate the mission file within the .miz to import VFR reporting points.

[Swiso]

4 hours ago, GrafRotz said:

Is there anyone capable of convertig the Koordinates Lat Lon into DCS CCS?

I asked ChatGPT, but i am to stupid to figure out the exact rotation of the map and the zero point of the map.

My goal is to manipulate the mission file within the .miz to import VFR reporting points.

Depend for which plane you need those coords.

Here a couple of mods that can help:

https://github.com/FalcoGer/CoordinateConverter

 

 

https://github.com/the-paid-actor/dcs-dtc/blob/main/README.md

 

[GrafRotz]

THX, but thats not, what I am Seaching for. Maybe I describet it misleading.

If you look at the mission file, all coordinates are in the cartesian system. y = -840958.26268815, x = -437048.15850737

What I need, is a tool to convert from lat/lon to that format. Perfect would be in Excel, so that I can convert real life koordinates in that cartesian format.
I used ChatGPT to help and yes, I gained a lot of knowledge, but I am standing still with the rotation of the map and the cartesian zero point. ChatGPT got a hint with calculation of difference errors and the rotation combined with Lat0 and Lon0 which represents the Zero Point. The Excel Solver finds those corrdinates - i guess by trying - to minimize the coordinate errors, but ... here it ends. There is something between stupid me and the rotation of the map.

In the end, i would like to massimport navaids and reporting points by editing the mission file. Easy done, no issues, if there is a conversion happening  Again, its not About LatLon MGRS whatever, but this pesky CCS or cartesian.

[buur]

@GrafRotz looked last year for a solution but didn't found one. Best solution is calculation the DCS coordinate system with the DCS API from real life coordinates.
DCS_func_LLtoLO
 

[GrafRotz]

1 minute ago, buur said:

@GrafRotz looked last year for a solution but didn't found one. Best solution is calculation the DCS coordinate system with the DCS API from real life coordinates.
DCS_func_LLtoLO
 

looks promising. Now I need to write them in LUA and parse into a file... 

[buur]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb GrafRotz:

looks promising. Now I need to write them in LUA and parse into a file... 

it is not so difficult. I'm not sure what exactly your goal is but maybe I done an example here: marianas-airways

And if you work with an equal string length in excel it is easy to create a lua file with a good text editor.

[GrafRotz]

10 hours ago, buur said:

: marianas-airways

thats exactly what i want, but without the connections of the airways.
Within the ME, you can set the initial points.

In the mission file it looks like that.

			["nav_points"] = 
			{
				[1] = 
				{
					["type"] = "Default",
					["comment"] = "",
					["callsignStr"] = "Siegessaeule",
					["id"] = 1939,
					["properties"] = 
					{
						["vnav"] = 1,
						["scale"] = 0,
						["vangle"] = 0,
						["angle"] = 0,
						["steer"] = 2,
					}, -- end of ["properties"]
					["y"] = -483295.52575995,
					["x"] = -215817.82661626,
				}, -- end of [1]

I found no other way than editing that file to import these en mass.
and at the bottom you see those cartesian format. Thats why I need to convert the originals Lat Lon.

[RVT2403]

If you still need (re)sources: Relikte got a very well researched and detailed set of documents listing all the units in West- and East Germany including foreign troops for late 80s based on 1989/90 data including equipment, barracks, remarks. Coordinates are in the appendix as well as primary sources used. These documents are on scientific level and well reliable.

Cold-War.de is THE forum for this kind of research - sadly seems to be down for some time now, but might be accessible via Internet Archive.

Can also try Geschichtsspuren. Guys on these forums can tell you all about cold war stuff down to which Sprengschachtdeckel (special lids found on most West German bridges covering the shafts for demolishing charges. To slow down Soviet advance) had been used when and where. Images and GPS files are visible for registered users only.

If you use infos from these sites, please value the excellent work these guys do by mentioning them as your sources. Cheers!

[GrafRotz]

3 hours ago, GrafRotz said:

: marianas-airways

Sorry for the Spam, but YOU are the greatest!!

null

And so it begins

[winghunter]

If you're a bit patient, someone is adding the waypoints to a miz with DCS Web Editor