[Billfish]

My personal pref.. The map below covering a LOT of action. Rabaul a big deal, yet the campaign against Wewak the stuff of tactical legend. In kind with Cape Gloucester and the sea to the north, you have loads of action be it base attack, ship, sub, seaplane action, etc..

Also in my opinion a Rabaul map should place Rabaul central.....Then aspects of Army, Navy, Marine units could be applied.......In any case, you'll be hard pressed if you want a map where action happened to have actual bases where the allies would land at be it Wewak or Rabaul.



K2

[Scharnhorst1943]

What about a map with most of Bougainville and Rabaul in addition to the map you have now? OR what if you split Rabaul in half, and had a map with half of Rabaul and Bougainville and the other half of Rabaul and part of New Guinea?

[Skunkmeister]

Hi again Billfish...

I think I will continue the discussion with you here in this thread rather than over a Ubi.

My first thoughts were to bring a natural progression from the Slot map with a map of Rabaul, exactly what you call a New Britain map over at the Zoo.



But the guys in Team Pacific wanted to stray away from the Solomon area a wee bit more, and work on something that would have better replayability than a New Britain map. 3 hour long flights just to get to a target is not something everyone enjoys, so we are leaning on a bigger and better map of New Guinea.

Right now the Slot map is 825km x 600km approximately, so that is the size of the area we are going to focus on for our New Guinea map. There are people out there creating maps that are 1000km x 1000km or more, but we believe that the size of the Slot map we created offers a large area, all while keeping the scope of any future project within reason.

[Dleg]

I respectfully suggest the Mariana Islands, possibly including the Bonins and Volcano Isl, and maybe Palau.

The Marianas would be excellent for flight times - e.g. the 318th FG P-47 ground support missions from Saipan were often less than 15 minutes from takeoff-landing. B-25 missions in the same range. Longer range, but still short strikes from Saipan to Guam, Rota, and Pagan would add variety. It would also be an excellent setting for P-61 missions (6th NFG), and of course, carrier missions preceding and during the invasion battles. Some of the "Turkey Shoot" missions were conducted directly over Guam - the big Val intercept over Orote, for example.

If anyone is interested, I live in Saipan now, and I have collected quite a bit of references and info that would be of use, including aerial photos of all of Saipan c. early 1945. The recon photos from the pre-invasion strikes are available at the Bishop Museum in HI, and I might be able to get them (I have some now, but not showing air strips). I can help as mcuh as possible, though I know nothing of how to build maps.

[Scharnhorst1943]

I respectfully suggest the Mariana Islands, possibly including the Bonins and Volcano Isl, and maybe Palau.

The Marianas would be excellent for flight times - e.g. the 318th FG P-47 ground support missions from Saipan were often less than 15 minutes from takeoff-landing. B-25 missions in the same range. Longer range, but still short strikes from Saipan to Guam, Rota, and Pagan would add variety. It would also be an excellent setting for P-61 missions (6th NFG), and of course, carrier missions preceding and during the invasion battles. Some of the "Turkey Shoot" missions were conducted directly over Guam - the big Val intercept over Orote, for example.

If anyone is interested, I live in Saipan now, and I have collected quite a bit of references and info that would be of use, including aerial photos of all of Saipan c. early 1945. The recon photos from the pre-invasion strikes are available at the Bishop Museum in HI, and I might be able to get them (I have some now, but not showing air strips). I can help as mcuh as possible, though I know nothing of how to build maps.

What about the Marianas map we have now?

Are you suggesting a new map that includes Tarawa, Marianas & Palau?

Would all of that fit in one map? What are the distances from Marianas to Palau, or Marianas to Tarawa?

[Dleg]

Oh yeah, I guess I should have mentioned the "why" since there is already a Marianas Map.

The standard Marianas map has a lot of inaccuracies and honestly looks nothing like the islands. It looks like a chunk of Nebraska plopped in the middle of the ocean, with all these huge rivers everywhere.

In reality, the only "rivers" on the islands cannot even be seen from the air, the mountains are green and lush, and the flat areas were (at the time) covered in sugar cane plantations. The airfields look nothing like what was actually there, too.

The distance to Palau is about 400 - 500 miles, I think. Roughly the same to the Bonins, too. Tarawa is out of the question, I think - way too far. Perhaps thos distances could be cut back, for the sake of fitting on the map, and game play. But the Marianas themselves could be fit in at normal scale, I am sure. Guam to Saipan is roughly 120 miles, and contains Tinian and Rota in between. Pagan is about 180 miles north of Saipan.

Also, there is a lot of potential for three to four different maps, similar to the Slot. The first map would of course be the original Japanese installations. Second map would be the field-improved and improvized air strips a few weeks after invasion. Third would be partially constructed B-29 bases, and new fighter strips. Fourth would be full development of the B-29 bases, fighter strips, and training bases.

Anyhow, that's my sales job.

[Scharnhorst1943]

I wonder how everyone else would feel about having a Central Pacific map with several island chins in it, just the distance between island chains to be cut.

I would not mind having a Japan map with Okinawa at the bottom of the map, or a map of the Marianas with Palau ... I don't know how others feel about the innacuracy in distance. To be honest I prefer the shorter flight time, but that is me.

[Billfish]

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/new_guinea/

[Thrud]

we know this link and have used it in our research. What sucks is that they left out new britain and have everything else around it.

[Billfish]

cc, so then you know how to get the balance. Ok, just wasn't sure you'd seen it.

K2

[Kopfdorfer]

Hi Team Pacific

Firstly, your Slot map is super. I did get to fly on it for a few test dogfights, now if I can only figure out what I've downloaded that has screwed up my install I may yet fly there again.

In terms of your next project, there are several (nay many) areas that are worthwhile to consider. Rather than vote, I'd like to comment that I think this next map should be large, I suggest a combo of the entire northern end of the Slot including NE New Guinea, Rabaul, AND Bougainville.I know there are those who argue against long flight distances, but the fact of the matter is that this was one of the main considerations in the fighting in the pacific, and had a profound effect on tactics, strategy, and the equipment that was used.
If you wish to be historical be historical - it was a big area. If not make some maps with a pacific flavour, that are well thought out for playability rather than historic. Historic will always get my vote, and I am willing to fly longer missions; the length just puts more impetus on the mission designer to do a good job, and the player to fly a little differently.
Other areas to consider are Leyte Gulf (or the Phillipines as a whole), Truk Atoll and the Eastern Caroline Islands, and Darwin-Java-Sumatra with NW New Guinea.

Whatever you build rest assured I will fly on it and so will many others. I would like to know is there a Team NWE?

Best of Luck with it.
Is anyone working on broadening the choices re: more variety in shipping models esp tankers frieghters and barges, flying boats, etc, and Commonwealth weapons with damage models and movement models?
How about working on MTBs, subs and destroyers that actually fire torpedos, subs that dive, oh I am droning on.

Look forward to whatever it is.

von Kopfdorfer

[Crash_Moses]

This would be absolutely perfect for a Marine PBJ campaign. VMB-413 was intitially based on Stirling (just south of Bougainville) and then Kavieng until the end of the war.

[rollnloop]

a bit more to the south, with vella, would allow a campaign for Boyington's VMF214 second tour.

[Triad773]

a bit more to the south, with vella, would allow a campaign for Boyington's VMF214 second tour.

Yeah I've been interested in that too. Loved the TV show as a kid. It'd be great to fly some authentic black sheep missions.

Either way, which ever map Team Pacific makes, the community definitely wins

Cheers

Triad

[Dixiecapt]

Either way, which ever map Team Pacific makes, the community definitely wins

A-Men!