South-East England needs WW2-ifying!

[dis80786]

Looking at two other threads (here and here) from elsewhere in these forums, I am in complete agreement. I'm sure many of you are too: the Channel Map in Early Access is good, but it NEEDS some work to make it great. At the moment we have a Jack-of-all-trades map, which will be usable by jets and WW2 planes alike. But it's not a WW2 map and it needs refining with both more of some stuff and less of other stuff to make it feel that way. It's worth condensing those two threads into this wishlist for convenience.

 

(I can't comment on northern France, but I should imagine the wishlist is similar! Can any French people shed some light?)

 

In summary, the following:

 

The area of SE England depicted in this map had little heavy industry in the 1940's. It was predominantly horse-and-cart agriculture, with seaside towns catering for London holidaymakers. The huge housing expansion on the South coast which is shown in-map started from the 1950's to house those misplaced by the Blitz, so for WW2 accuracy the vast majority of these houses simply didn't exist, and neither did all those industrial estates. This map is massively over-populated; even modern-day housing estates are represented! Removing post-1950's housing will help us with immersion and may help us with performance as, in most cases, these housing estates would have been open fields in the 1940's, saving GPU cycles. A fantastic reference site full of mapping done in that period can be viewed here.

 

Outside of the towns, Sussex and Kent were then (and are still largely) an agricultural landscape, and the inclusion of huge, random factories in the middle of nowhere, rather than barns, oast houses, churches and windmills, is immersion-destroying when scudding at low level over the trees after a German. But the omission of major landmarks not only renders VMC navigation far harder than it should be, but is frankly astounding when there is so much data available for free in the public domain. Others are a little more nit-picky and nice-to-haves. In no real order:

 

-Add the 16-or-so missing RAF airfields: full map here.

-Add Pre-Beeching railways: Cuckoo Line, Uckfield - Lewes, East Grinstead - Lewes,etc.

-Add Dover Marine Station (See link, here)

-Depopulate the map, nerf industrial estates.

-Replace out-of-town industry with farms: add oast house/barn/church/windmill assets,

-Add Pevensey/Bodiam/Rochester/Camber/etc. castles.

-Add Rochester and Canterbury cathedrals.

-Add Seaford Head and cliffs.

-Add a few bombed-out house assets (coastal towns suffered greatly from German tip-and-run raids; my grandmother was strafed by a Bf. 109 in Hastings! He missed, thankfully...) as well as pillboxes/emplacements/anti-invasion defenses/Chain Home RADAR stations, etc.

-Add anti-invasion defences to the beaches (see picture of Eastbourne beach later in this thread)

-Add missing piers, including Eastbourne.

-Add Newhaven Breakwater & Fort. Overhaul Port. Remove industrial estates on east bank & replace with carriage works. Add jetties.

-Dungeness: Remove Nuclear power station (yes, really...), remove Lydd-on-Sea;

-Add Dungeness & Belle Tout lighthouses

-Add Whitstable Harbour.

-Remove all reservoirs (1970's constructions).

-Remove: Sovereign Harbour marina at Eastbourne: not built until 1990's.

-Add Coastguard cottages at Birling Gap and Cuckmere Haven

-Add famous seafront hotels in Eastbourne

-Add Martello Towers.

-Add Hastings Bathing Pool, Harbour Arm and net-drying huts at Rock-an-Ore.

 

Perhaps a large majority of people flying over this map have no idea what the south of England actually looks like, and to some of them it doesn’t matter at all. But why is hell raised if every rivet is not present and correct on the aircraft we fly (right down to an unpainted screw on a botched repair on the instrument panel of the new P-47D), yet ignore the terrain it flies over? Have the lessons of the Normandy map been learned? Why not raise the bar slightly for the the maps too?

 

Any other glaring omissions/requests/praise?

Edited June 18, 2020 by dis80786
Typos, 404 link, Hawkhurst Branch (it's there!) Tilbury PS & Dover Castle (it's there too!) reference removed.

[Alicatt]

I'll second your list as the map does look a bit too modern in places and sparse in others where large buildings were/are.

 

Also the many missing airfields in the region where most of the UK's defence was concentrated.

[crazyeddie]

The Channel, or as we know it in the UK, The English Channel, goes all the way from The Western Approaches to The North Sea, so this map isn't actually a Channel Map. It covers the sea area known as The Strait of Dover, so you could correctly call it the Strait of Dover Map if you wish to give it a nautical name.

 

That said I am reminded this is just a game, so it worries me not. You may call it whatever you like, no blood will be spilt on it and I'm sure we can still enjoy it, warts and all. :pirate:

 

Late Edit: See next post down: I support dis80786's view, it could be astounding.

Edited June 9, 2020 by crazyeddie

[dis80786]

Also the many missing airfields in the region where most of the UK's defence was concentrated.

 

Absolutely right, and I included a cracking link to a website detailing these missing airfields.

 

That said I am reminded this is just a game, so it worries me not. You may call it whatever you like, no blood will be spilt on it and I'm sure we can still enjoy it, warts and all. :pirate:

 

Again, absolutely correct: it is only a game. But Normandy was a resounding miss for me and so, like many others, I was hoping for a better showing for WW2 this time around. My only point is that this map is enjoyable but, with a little more polish, it could be astounding!

[Alicatt]

Absolutely right, and I included a cracking link to a website detailing these missing airfields.

 

Your link in the original post gives a 404

I think you are referring to this map:

https://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/page.php?PgID=632446&ClubID=460

[Northstar98]

+ absolutely 1

 

Only one I'll disagree with is the bombed out assets as these can easily be achieved with trigger zones (provided they actually work of course, especially in multiplayer). Dover castle is also already present.

Edited June 13, 2020 by Northstar98

[RabidRider]

+1 Great work btw making that list. It is a beautiful map but it needs work and optimization.

[dis80786]

Your link in the original post gives a 404

I think you are referring to this map:

https://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/page.php?PgID=632446&ClubID=460

 

Yup! I've updated my link. Thanks for that :)

 

+1 Great work btw making that list. It is a beautiful map but it needs work and optimization.

I can't take all the credit, but thanks. Let's hope this gets read by ED.

[Alicatt]

Yup! I've updated my link. Thanks for that :)

 

I can't take all the credit, but thanks. Let's hope this gets read by ED.

 

Just emailed with Robin that made the map, he said that he had to cut down the number of airfields on the map as there were too many for him to handle comfortably, he said once he removed satellite airfields and those used by other services he had cut down the number by about 75% :shocking:

I linked this thread to him too, to let him see what we are discussing here.

 

Dear Alistair,

Thank you for your interest in my map.

You may not believe it but it took me 12 years to complete.

My original ‘plan’ was to confine myself to USAAF airffields in East Anglia where I arranged for a local Rotarian to the airfield to act as host to any visiting American veteran who wished to visit the site where he spent a dramatic period of his young life.

That was a great success but inevitably, the numbers dwindled as both veterans and the Rotarians faded away. So, I decided to start again, including RAF stations and fixing their precise location which Google Earth provided.

The importance of getting the precise location was that in many cases there was nothing left visible at ground level to suggest what was there during WW2, just a thousand acre wheat field.

Most were returned to agriculture or became industrial or housing estates, the concrete runways were removed as rubble to be used in building motorways.

Google Earth provided an aerial view which gave some tell tale clues - strange straight lines in farm land, forming a triangle.

I soon found that East Anglia was too restrictive and it in due course the whole of GB and N Ireland was covered. And a lot of time had passed.

To make the project manageable, I soon decided to limit the sites to those that were frontline and operational as was, for example, Tain.

That reduced the numbers by about 75%.

Which explains why Fearn was not included.

Whilst an RAF site it was a satellite, only used for training. After a year or so it passed to the Admiralty. I had also decided to exclude Fleet Air Arm sites.

So, I considered Fearn but didn’t include it.

I have ongoing correspondence with all sorts of enquiries - but then with over 600 visits to the map each week it is hardly surprising.

Yours

Robin Davies

Past President, Rotary Club of Cambridge.

[dis80786]

Just emailed with Robin that made the map, he said that he had to cut down the number of airfields on the map as there were too many for him to handle comfortably, he said once he removed satellite airfields and those used by other services he had cut down the number by about 75% :shocking:

I linked this thread to him too, to let him see what we are discussing here.

 

Pass on my respects to Robin. Absolutely outstanding work.

[Maffers]

Great post +1 for everything on your list. I'd add that all beaches would have been covered in obstacles throughout the war, it'd be great if that could be added too, as in the attached photo (which is Eastbourne).

Edited June 12, 2020 by Maffers

[Holbeach]

@ dis80786.

 

 

You can scratch Tilbury Power, as it was post war and replace it with another important target in the London area, such as Ford Motor Works.

 

 

..

[RabidRider]

Great post +1 for everything on your list. I'd add that all beaches would have been covered in obstacles throughout the war, it'd be great if that could be added too, as in the attached photo (which is Eastbourne).

 

Would be nice to have it look like that! Or the option to do so.

[Northstar98]

For owners of the WWII assets pack there are similar (though not exactly) the same kind of obstacles.

 

Only thing I have to add is some corrections to Chain Home RADAR stations,

[dis80786]

Great post +1 for everything on your list. I'd add that all beaches would have been covered in obstacles throughout the war, it'd be great if that could be added too, as in the attached photo (which is Eastbourne).

 

Great ideas here folks, keep them coming! I’ve added this one to the initial post, nerfed Tilbury Power Station, & Chain Home. I’m watching this thread and will add as the corking ideas come up.

Edited June 13, 2020 by dis80786

[speed-of-heat]

+1 Fantastic wish list, and some great observational spotting OP!

 

and the de-population and de-industrialisation of the SE coast should also be a massive boon to performance as well