Pacific

PTO would be a dream come true!

Nice to see Corsair and Zero are in the works, map and carrier aswell but they need to speed up development a bit.

PTO demand is quite high and market hungry as seen from PTO delay in il2.

Dogfights Corsair vs. Zero alone will quickly become boring but adding pto ww2 assets (AI bombers, carriers, fleet), map, two fighters per side and torpedo carrying fighter/bomber some nice battles could be recreated.

I just hope dcs PTO will go faster and better than Normandy!

Wouldn't it be awesome if ED finally created and followed through on a single concept; picking a timeframe, organizing 3rd parties and seeing it through? The possibilities of syntergy are huge.

The Idea

Timeframe: Late 1941 thru End 1942.

Area: Solomon Islands.

Aircraft Assets:

Mitsubishi A6M Zero

Nakajima B5N

Aichi D3A Val

Mitsubishi G4M Betty

F4F Wildcat

SB2D Dauntless

TBD Devastator

TBF Avenger

F4U Corsair

P-38 Lightning

Ship Assets:

(you wouldn't need to build each indificutal ship on singularly, although the numbers in classes were very limited)

Enterprise, Yorktown (Wasp was a short-hull version of the Enterprise class, but in a pinch...)

Lexington, Saratoga

Zuikaku, Shokaku

Hyru, Soryu

(There, with 4 CV models, we've covered a good portion of all carriers in service at the time. Maybe throw one light carrier in on each side in as well.)

Various destroyers, cuisers, battleships, but they are less important.

Is this a big order? Of course it is. But each step in this direction doesn't advance the value of all the other assets in this pack by only its singular value, but exponentially.

A single aircraft = okay, fun to fly... for a while.

A single aircraft with an AI opponent = now we can at least have battles. How good depends on how good (fitting) the AI is.

A single allied and a single axis aircraft module = Real competition with a huge number of possibilities.

Every piece added creates value in the pieces already available and those yet to come.

Add eastern New Guinea and New Britain and the Beaufighter and I don't know what else, but with minimal additional effort and value explodes again.

We could have a huge 5 course meal, with sexy waitresses in very short skirts :D , but all that is on our horizon is a thin vegetable broth and some bread. We'll not starve, and well be damn happy to get the first portion, but it's going to get very old very quickly :huh:

Couldn't agree more, right now their focus is all over the place making ww2 not so interesting in big picture.

What you wrote above is perfectly said and planeset/map is perfect choice(Betty with torpedo yummy).

Since it takes a huge amount of time to add anything to DCS, any first step Pacific project, that can be finished in a reasonable period, should be based on a minimum amount of additionally required assets. What we have now, or what is already announced is exclusively mid-late war stuff. US ground forces, P-51D-30NA, Essex class carrier, F4U-1D, AI A6M5 model 52 Zero, which will hopefully become flyable someday. Plus the Iwo Jima map once in development that will hopefully be finished one day.

Thus I would propose a 1945 Battle of Okinawa project.

The USN would at least need a destroyer as carrier escort and picket ship. Fletcher and/or Allen M. Sumner classes would be good candidates. Both also served throughout most of the Cold War, thus would generally be a good addition to DCS. Same is true for an East China Sea/Okinawa map, also highly useful for modern scenarios and carrier ops. It might even be the upcoming free map currently in development.

The incredibly flexible TBF Avenger would be great to supplement the F4U and offer a lot new gameplay elements. Torpedo bomber, level bomber, minelayer, rocket attacks, eventually radar equipped and ASW variants.

For the Japanese:

Yamato class battleship

Kagerō-class destroyer

Another late war fighter that can engage our Corsair on equal terms, such as the Ki-84, or N1K1-J/N1K2-J

If the map in the map includes the Chinese coast and parts of the mainland the Mitsubishi A5M should also be a candidate as an appropriate opponent for the I-16. The remaining airframes were later used for Kamikaze attacks during the Okinawa campaign.

The problem with Iwo Jima and Okinawa is that their focuses are so limited. You can basically do one battle each and that's it. Okinawa is at least a large island, so you could actually have a campaign, but it's still fairly small, and the only possibilities for variation are in the realms of fantasy, and if you want to go there, the Caucasus are now the Chinese coast; have at it.

The Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and New Britain would give over a years worth of some of the hardest fighting over different areas. The Mediterranean theater is the only one with more variety and possibilities.

At this point in time, there has been so little invested in creating a theater that no one can honestly balk at switching. The Corsair could be altered to be an early war version so that as little as possible of investment is lost, and there never was a need for P-51's over Iwo Jima or Okinawa.

Before build to big maps, a 3rd party need build a "map team" and learn work in the TDK, take acount the "problems" in the pass to build Normandy (by ugra-media) and Falklands (by RAZBAM), small maps with has taking great quantity of time to build, the same problem with build a "flyable" module. The same problem with the "planned" Headblur to the Viggen a Tomcat maps, on hold yet meanwhile get time to build a map team in a future. Leathernet by now, not confirmed a active "map team" to build Iwo Jima.

Wouldn't it be awesome if ED finally created and followed through on a single concept; picking a timeframe, organizing 3rd parties and seeing it through?

That is not the "target" by ED, They get free hand to all 3rd parties to build as you like, but ED has your plans (european teathre yet). Has the same situation with a Korea o Vietnam yet, no into the near plans.

I would not oppose a Solomons scenarios, in fact that would by my dream for a WW2 Pacific theater sim. But just don't think it can be realistically done in less than 5+ years. The Normandy map was released 2.5 years ago, we just got the first axis plane that actually fought over Normandy this summer and still don't have any transports, medium bombers or actual warships. ED already has quite of list of modules to finish or release (P-47, Mosquito, Me262, announced WW2 Europe map, assets pack update ...) + modern stuff and engine improvements (Vulcan, New Clouds, dynamic campaign, new FLIR renderer ...). 3rd parties so far have demonstrated that they can release about one module per year.

For an pure F4U campaign the three month long battle of Okinawa has more variety to offer. A small Iwo Jima and large East China Sea map could coffer over half a year of carrier warfare. Strikes against Japanese convoys in the East China Sea and airfields in the entire region prior to the invasion, close air support missions on the islands itself, strikes against the other islands of the Ryukyu chain and Kyushu, defending the fleet against massive Kamikaze raids or conventional attack, air combat against almost anything Japan fielded during the war including the latest army and navy fighters. Eventually, the Corsair equipped, British Pacific Fleet could be introduce too, useful assets if we ever get a Norway-Murmansk map.

Firstly, I'm not talking specifically about The Pacific™ being a 3rd party project, but were there to be some concerted effort, I do imagine at least one or two would be interested in taking part.

And B. just because ED has never tried to organize coordinating a thematic development, doesn't mean that they couldn't. I hold them for generally capable of learning to do thing better than before, so I of course do have a small glimmer of hope.

III. I honestly don't expect them to do it with regards to WWII in the PTO, just because they've never shown the least interest in coordinating any development of anything. I can only plant the seed and see if it takes root.

Cunctator,

I couldn't agree more! :thumbup: The Solomons campaign lasted from the invasion of Guadalcanal to the securing of Bouganville. Corsairs were involved in that from '43 on to the end. There are lots of possibilities for mission builders to recreate battles or just use it as a generic island chain with the Essex class carrier or not, as they see fit.

To me the Iwo Jima map makes absolutely no sense whatsoever! A much better choice would be Okinawa or maybe Guam with all of the associated possibilities you mention. Iwo is just too small and the Corsairs had relatively little to do with that campaign.

Captain Orso,

I believe that you are exactly correct in your comments. ED would be the likely "instigator" of a proper WWII Pacific theater of operations and could easily herd the cats in a single direction if they so choose. I believe that if the Hornet and Tomcat are any indication, with a little nod in the direction of the Harrier, they would realize how popular shipboard operations are within the DCS World community. After the aircraft has been "mastered" and the folks have sussed out how to deliver all their killer ordinance, the remaining challenge of getting back to the boat and aboard without damage or too much embarrassment is icing on the cake! :thumbup:

Here's hoping!:pilotfly: