Marianas islands Map

Its nearly twice as far from Vladivostok to Guam as it is from Murmansk to Iceland - oh...and look at the map rather than open ocean you have to pass enclosed waters off Japan...

hardly the same is it? (Ignoring the size of the Pacific Fleet and the lack of capacity of Airbases for housing Backfire/Badger Squadrons)

Soviet Naval Aviation had staging bases for bombers on the Kuriles, for example on Iturup. 3500 km vs 2500 km is hardly twice as far. In geostrategic terms it simply means both are out of range for land based tactical air and in range for medium range bombers.

Sortie of the Soviet Pacific fleet into the Pacific would depend on neutralization of Japan and foward deployed US air-naval units just as much as sortie of the Northern Fleet beyond the Norwegian Sea would depend on the neutralization of Norway and foward deployed US air-naval units. Both is possible, while equally unlikely. I don't see a big difference here. In fact the Pacific Fleet would have easier access to the open ocean with the major naval base at Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, provided timely forward deployment of major surface units before the outbrake of hostilities. On option the Norther Fleet didn't have.

So what is the Cold War scenario that you could play on an Iceland map that you can't play on the Marianas map?

I think its a great choice for a WW2 map, if we had some actual WW2 naval aviation assets (yes I know, F4U coming soon ).

 

Modern map in the sense of DCS modern (Cold war-2012 or so) Terrible choice. But a map is a map, and I'm sure since its like 99% water it will be good performance wise, and after all the griping is done, someone will imagineer a decent "fictional" scenario or two. Maybe we can pretend dramatic global warming happens in 1986 water level rise and its Iceland or something for a RSR scenario.

Well if you including training scenarios, it's spot on for a modern historical map. For live combat imagineering is required like you said, but I think it's fine, conflict there is still somewhat plausible.

So what is the Cold War scenario that you could play on an Iceland map that you can't play on the Marianas map?

Without getting into the logistics of the Capacity of those Airbases to house substantial numbers of Bears/Badgers/Bombers etc...the key difference is...we can ALL imagine the Soviet Northern Fleet contesting the GIUK gap - in a cold war scenario to open access for Bombers/Submarines to the North Atlantic Shipping Lanes...

Coming out of the Sea of Okhotsk or Kamchatka and turning south a few thousand miles into the South-Pacific...why? As a prelude to an Invasion of Australia?

Kamchatka itself would have made far more sense (as I pointed out earlier) CVBGs and MAUs vs Soviet Land based assets...

Coming out of the Sea of Okhotsk or Kamchatka and turning south a few thousand miles into the South-Pacific...why? As a prelude to an Invasion of Australia?

That is the best reason you can think of for the Soviets to attack Guam? Let me help you out with some more:

-To neutralize the biggest Strategic Air Command base in Asia.

-To neutralize a major anti-submarine warfare base in WestPac.

-To neutralize the biggest US logistics hub for operations in WestPac.

-To attain freedom of operations in WestPac.

-To interdict vital SLOC to Asia.

Sure, North Cape, Kamchatka or Kuriles would have been more relevant areas. But these have never been for disposition, as the aim was to create a simple to produce, free map. And while the relevancy of the Marianas is rather low, the ratio of relevancy/"effort to make" of the Marianas is extremely good.

I was rather disappointed to read about the planned 1000x1000 km map size in today's newsletter. For a map whose main appeal is to provide sea space for naval operations, that is very small.

Let's consider a Backfire attack on a US CVBG. If we assume a supersonic dash of 200 NM and a missile launch range of 200 NM, that means that a Backfire will initiate its attack run over 700 km out from the carrier. With the mentioned map size we basically would have to always put the carrier on one map side and start to bombers on the other side of the map. With Guam at the center, Backfires could basically fire their missiles at ships around the island from the edge of the map.

Considering there is no major land mass for 2000 km in any direction around Guam, I was hoping this would be exploited to the fullest. It's all water after all (I think there is no harm to leave out some minor islands and atolls). I hope this will still be considered.

I'm very happy with the announced increase in water area. 540nm is a long distance for any fighter sized offering in DCS. It's a very good size for the F/A-18C in my opinion.

Considering there is no major land mass for 2000 km in any direction around Guam, I was hoping this would be exploited to the fullest. It's all water after all (I think there is no harm to leave out some minor islands and atolls). I hope this will still be considered.

Apparently there is a map size constraint with the current version of DCS:

Well DCS is still limited to size for one thing, secondly, Normandy is a 3rd Party map, we cant just take and merge it to ours.

 

Maybe one day, once Vulkan is here and we can break through the limit on map size, but right now this is where we are, we have to do chunks of maps. For fighter vs fighter, ginormous maps dont even really make sense, but would love to see the long range missions one day.

This might be the most they can do, even with water.

Also they mentioned that it might expand in the future. So if I had to guess they'll release it to the public an a smaller size for mass testing and then decide if it's feasable to add more water.

AFAIK they've said 1000x1000km of total map area which is pretty big with a 400x400km land area. I'm not sure what exactly is meant by this (somebody clarify) overall the total land area for the whole of the Marianas is just over 1000km^2 which is tiny compared to the land area of other maps (Qeshm island by itself is nearly 1.5x as much).

I'm guessing that expansion is still very much on the table, it is a map that hypothetically should be much easier and quicker to build, have bugs/inaccuracies easier to fix as well as potentially being better for performance, simply by virtue of there not being much there while still having some IRL relevancy.

Who knows, maybe this map will be used as a basis to develop new map technologies, as we can argue there's far less to go wrong.

I'm personally holding out hope for a v. low-res accurate depth map (for developing underwater weapons and AI submarines, for instance the planned Mk63 and Mk40 air dropped bottom mines, present on the Hornet's planned weapons (Mk40 has even made it to the modelviewer)

Maybe a map that actually follows Earth's curvature? (while probably pretty low priority wise it makes sense if long-term a world map is up for consideration, pending feasibility).

You are obviously corect...but tell me that developing the Kurils and Sea of Okhotsk wouldn't have involved similar Water/Land ratios...little need for details land assets for placement and been a hell of a lot more relevent for US/Russia cold war scenarios (which is what our current plane set fits best)

I don't disagree. Yet I'm sure the same water/land ratio is exactly the point of what was given. NTTR in "blue" you might say?

Now with the news that its not 400km sq but 1000km sq for blue water and shipping, the intent is absolutely obvious, a free open water map with a US base on it.

The point of the land, whatever small amount of it, is to satisfy anyone with another module that doesnt work on a carrier, it's fairly obvious. So i guess it could have been "any" land, but what would be the most relevant type of land if it wasn't containing a place with US fighters?

It might be sad that DCS is lopside in its market, that I cannot argue with whatsoever, sir. Hopefully the US market will develop a more esoteric taste once the teen series is done and dusted, otherwise DCS will be dead... in the water, right?

AFAIK they've said 1000x1000km of total map area which is pretty big with a 400x400km land area. I'm not sure what exactly is meant by this (somebody clarify) overall the total land area for the whole of the Marianas is just over 1000km^2 which is tiny compared to the land area of other maps (Qeshm island by itself is nearly 1.5x as much).

 

I'm guessing that expansion is still very much on the table, it is a map that hypothetically should be much easier and quicker to build, have bugs/inaccuracies easier to fix as well as potentially being better for performance, simply by virtue of there not being much there while still having some IRL relevancy.

 

Who knows, maybe this map will be used as a basis to develop new map technologies, as we can argue there's far less to go wrong.

 

I'm personally holding out hope for a v. low-res accurate depth map (for developing underwater weapons and AI submarines, for instance the planned Mk63 and Mk40 air dropped bottom mines, present on the Hornet's planned weapons (Mk40 has even made it to the modelviewer)

Maybe a map that actually follows Earth's curvature? (while probably pretty low priority wise it makes sense if long-term a world map is up for consideration, pending feasibility).

From what has been advertised, its not low res at all and that's one of the complaints, that it took time to build land in accuracy when the most that was requested was water. The land is a bonus, and to some an unneccessary detractor or diversion, difficult to say which, we have it, it's done and now is not the time to worry about it. I would think chopper piltos will be happy, fighter piltos kindda meh and carrier ops will be absolutely behind it, whilst Russian airframes left out feeling a bit meh that DCS is lopsided. But only the intersection of Russian airframe pilots that also want a realistic scenario where they don't capture Guam because it's too far fetched. Cannot please all the people all the time.

Though, from a Cold War standpoint, Iceland and Guam are almost identical scenario wise. Both islands are a similar distance form Soviet bases and would have to be defended against Soviet bomber strikes. A Soviet amphibious assault of both islands would have been about equal likely (or unlikely). What would you expect to do with Iceland that you can't do with Guam?

The Greenland/UK Gap Map would be great! Keflavik, Reykyavik, Farro Islands, Jan Mayen, and Northern Scotland!

Here is a little illustration why I have a problem with the map size:

This is a Tomcat/Backfire fleet defense scenario. The red circle is the range at which the Backfire will launch their Kh-22 missiles at the carrier. The orange circle is the distance from the carrier from where they will start their attack run. The Tomcats will fight the fleet defense battle between those two circles. As you can see, even if we put the carrier at the center of the map, Backfire simultaneous multi-axis attacks are limited due the the map size (~300-060°). Also, Guam will always be in there, you cannot place the carrier outside of the air cover of land based tactical air if you wish for a scenario where the carrier is on its own (or you have to close your eyes and pretend that Guam isn't there).

Sure, you can make it work. But you basically have to lock the carrier in the same spot of the map all the time. I was hoping this map would provide more freedom for carrier placement.

From what has been advertised, its not low res at all and that's one of the complaints, that it took time to build land in accuracy when the most that was requested was water.

Oh sorry, I should've clarified, I meant low-res in terms of a hypothetical depth map, should one be developed, I was anticipating that the land would be of high detail.

As for pleasing everyone yeah, but same goes for everything really. I understand the issue with the illustration MBot provided, it doesn't actually leave a lot of room to manoeuvre for exclusive maritime missions mind you ED could easily double the width of the map without running into any more land aside from the Marianas (which again total of 1000km^2, and we already have most of that with Guam, Saipan, Tinian and Rota).

AFAIK they've said 1000x1000km of total map area which is pretty big with a 400x400km land area. I'm not sure what exactly is meant by this (somebody clarify) overall the total land area for the whole of the Marianas is just over 1000km^2 which is tiny compared to the land area of other maps (Qeshm island by itself is nearly 1.5x as much).

Wait a second. When someone writes "1000 X 1000 km" I understand 1000 km x 1.000 km = 1.000.000 km². A quick search on the internet tells me that Qeshm island is 1.336 km², which is about 1.5 x 1.000 km² but just a small fraction of the promised area of this upcoming map.

EDIT: now i see what you mean, sorry: 1.000 km² overall for all the islands together.

I think that when they wrote "Although the island portion of the map will be approximately 400x400 km, the overall map size will be 1000x1000 km" they made some mistakes because by looking at those islands in Google Maps it seems impossible that they make 400 km X 400 km = 160.000 km², like you wrote. They wrote that the initial size of the map will be 400 X 400: maybe someone got confused with that piece of data.

Wait a second. When someone writes "1000 X 1000 km" I understand 1000 km x 1.000 km = 1.000.000 km². A quick search on the internet tells me that Qeshm island is 1.336 km², which is about 1.5 x 1.000 km² but just a small fraction of the promised area of this upcoming map.

EDIT: now i see what you mean, sorry: 1.000 km² overall for all the islands together.

Yeah, so total map area (land and water) of Marianas will be 1000x1000km on release with a 400x400km land area (presumably this is just a closed in square focused on the islands, which sounds about right).

The total land area of the Marianas islands (so just counting the actual islands themselves) tops off at 1,004km^2 of which over half is Guam alone (540km^2) and when compared to just Qeshm island on the SoH map at 1,336km^2 there's really only a minuscule land area in comparison to other maps.

Yeah 400x400 encapsulates the top island Farallon(sp?), and Guam in a fairly tidy box. Now remaining space for the water for the 1000km2 box, well, I'm not sure how they will centre it but it's a very good point made above that even with that massive area, there's a lot of weaponry going to be covering it and if the centre point is Guam it will become an issue faster than if Guam is at the bottom edge.

It's an interesting topic on the limitations of size, even with water. Something not to do with size but game design perhaps. Hopeflly Guam is decentred at least quite to the south bounds.

Yeah 400x400 encapsulates the top island Farallon(sp?), and Guam in a fairly tidy box. Now remaining space for the water for the 1000km2 box, well, I'm not sure how they will centre it but it's a very good point made above that even with that massive area, there's a lot of weaponry going to be covering it and if the centre point is Guam it will become an issue faster than if Guam is at the bottom edge.

 

It's an interesting topic on the limitations of size, even with water. Something not to do with size but game design perhaps. Hopeflly Guam is decentred at least quite to the south bounds.

Eh it's a map ripe for map development - there's a lot less to remodel/revamp so maybe we'll get the size limitation increased - I understand this is speculative but hey. You can actually make the map 2400x1400km and not increase the land area at all while still keeping it centred on the islands

Damn... Never heard of the WW2 Island Hopping Campaigns of the US Marine Corps? Kinda important...

Though, from a Cold War standpoint, Iceland and Guam are almost identical scenario wise. Both islands are a similar distance form Soviet bases and would have to be defended against Soviet bomber strikes. A Soviet amphibious assault of both islands would have been about equal likely (or unlikely). What would you expect to do with Iceland that you can't do with Guam?

Rotten shark bro. :music_whistling:

Some good news :)

Excellent news indeed :)

Very cool

Some good news :)