[CzechTexan]

View of Mandalay looking north. Palace and racetrack on northeast end. Airfield is further to the north...


View of Mandalay looking south...

[CzechTexan]

View of Shwebo and its airfield. New grass on the Shwebo plains...

[JIMMY99]

I don't think I'll use your new MapT because I've done too much with the present one now. I've been using those maps from the university of Texas to see where the forests are. By the way, that book you referred me to about the RAF Regiment has given me more information than I thought it would (after reading it). Thanks!

I wonder if anyone else is having problems with saving missions. That problem is most likely caused by not having some type of MODs object. I've only used MODS that were included in the UI 1.1 so if you have that you should have everything I use.

(the three bridges are on the map, south of Ye, lower right corner of map).

HI czech texan
well I also have problem for saving mission....The same recurrent problem with the fabfred THAI map...

if you have solutions...cause your map will be a must...
JIM

[CzechTexan]

Jimmy99, Thanks for the input. Do you have the UI latest version?

Is everyone else having this same problem of not being able to save missions? Is it working for anyone???

I wonder if FabianFred placed some objects on the map that are causing this conflict.
I'd sure like to find out the cause of this and I'm sorry for those of you who can't get the save to work.

[CzechTexan]

I discovered that neat little tool called Map_C_Toolbox. It's easy to use and simple. I used it to create the large map_C for the map of PuertoRico that MrOblongo gave to me...no problem doing it and then drawing some rivers.

However, I still cannot reassemble the big map_c for BurmaLower (newer smaller version)(Can't open either version).

Does anyone know how to do this for the newer smaller version of cztx_BurmaLower?
If you can, I'd like to get a copy

[MrOblongo]

You want a new map_c.tga ?

When i tried to edit the map_t of the map for the forests i could not open it. So i opened the tga with Nero picture viewer, saved it as a jpeg and then reopened it with GIMP to save it again as a tga.

You would need the full scale grey image to remake a map_c if i remember. maybe using the map_h...resize it and make the water black and land white. Then use the tool (which is much easier than the one in the tutorial)...

Ill give it a try.

[CzechTexan]

Yesterday I was able to reassemble the big Map_C. Obviously I was doing something wrong for the Tool not to work. I painted all the rivers I needed. Whew! I'm glad FabianFred already had the big rivers done because that is tedious work. It would be nice if someone could come up with an easier computer program to put rivers on map. Now, I just need to clean up some excess rivers that are in places that shouldn't be...they ran over a couple airfields hahha!

update:
finished drawing the necessary rivers and chaungs.
Used the Coastline Tool and wOw! That's an amazing little tool and simple to use. It cleaned up all the coastline, brought the land edges down to water's edge, and leveled out the rivers through the mountain valleys. I only noticed a few places where the water was a little higher than 0 but that has more to do with my raising elevations around coastal airfields. Looks great!
Next, I looked over the rivers and painted alot of the black spots that show. It's impossible to cover them all so I only did the main areas so forgive me if I missed a few.
I'm getting close to releasing this second version. Just need to populate some towns and test some airfields.

[flying_spud]

Looking good. Re. area of Burma it would be neat to include the coast of Arakan as this saw a lot of action, through to Mandalay etc. Burma plain was well served with roads, factories and railways, hence ground attack missions here often resembled those in NW europe in many ways.

Ideally don't go too far into Thailand/Indo-China as this is already well covered.

Calcutta, just into India, did see one massive Jap raid around xmas 1943 by both IJA and IJN. The docks being the target.

If anybody needs more info on the area, send me a message as I've quite a library on this campaign.

[CzechTexan]

The map i'm working on does include the Arakan area which is my personal favorite area. In fact, just yesterday I added many extra villages with houses + roads and recreated the "Admin Box" the best I could. I'm looking forward to recreating the air battles fought there during the two major Japanese campaigns in the area.

My main source bookS of info and maps is BURMA, THE LONGEST WAR and THE RAF REGIMENT.

I should have a new release beta version soon. It is totally different from the first version and much better IMHO. Burma is the most forgotten of all the forgotten battles and it deserves to have its place in the list of maps.
thank you for the comments!

[fabianfred]

Looking good guys!

The only reason i kept all that redundant area of Thailand to the East was in order to get in the AVG's main area including Kunming..... not essential to the Burma campaign..

same scale as the Thailand map so no real need for duplication...

as for objects on the thai map....don't forget those few 'Lost' objects...which hadn't been activated before...the extra bamboo huts and shelters...they need to be enabled too
viewtopic.php?t=8844&highlight=bamboo+huts

[flying_spud]

The map i'm working on does include the Arakan area which is my personal favorite area. In fact, just yesterday I added many extra villages with houses + roads and recreated the "Admin Box" the best I could. I'm looking forward to recreating the air battles fought there during the two major Japanese campaigns in the area.

My main source bookS of info and maps is BURMA, THE LONGEST WAR and THE RAF REGIMENT.

I should have a new release beta version soon. It is totally different from the first version and much better IMHO. Burma is the most forgotten of all the forgotten battles and it deserves to have its place in the list of maps.
thank you for the comments!

By the way CzechTex I always enjoyed your missions over at M4Today! Great stuff, am really looking forward to this release, will fill a big gap for RAF, AVG, USAAF and IJAAF mission building.

Some of the airwar Burma books I've got include;

Air war for Burma by Christopher Shores 1942-45 (includes excellent detail on USAAF operations as well as RAF-SEAC, literally a day by day account of all allied ops in Burma)

Hurricanes over the Arakan by Norman Franks

Spitfires over the Arakan by same

The air battle of Imphal by same (the one map we do have!)

Japanese Army Airforce fighter units and their aces by Hata, Izawa and Shores

Bloody Shambles Vol 2 1941-May 1942 by Shores and Cull (also covers AVG ops in Burma and Burma/China borders, as well as detailed account of RAF and IJAAF missions day by day)

So if you need any gen just let me know, perhaps if you later decide to build missions or a campaign on your map.

[CzechTexan]

Flying_Spud, I also have AIR WAR FOR BURMA, MOHAWKS OVER BURMA, FLYING TIGERS, UNLIKE ANY LAND YOU KNOW, SILENTLY INTO THE MIDST OF THINGS but these don't describe the airfields as well or have as detailed maps as the others mentioned before.

I almost got the HURRICANES OVER BURMA. I'm curious, in this book, are there any good descriptions of airfields or fields locations? What is your opinion of this book? Can you give a description of it?

UPDATE: added seaplane bases at Fazilpur, Chittagong (CTG as my Bangladeshi friend spells it), Cox's Bazar, Maungdaw, Rangoon.
Still trying to correct taxi waypoints for CTG and Dohazari and Allanmyo...grrr. Those are giving me a big headache.

[flying_spud]

Czech,
I don't actually have "Hurricanes over Burma", only "Hurricanes over the Arakan". From memory I believe Hurricanes over Burma" is a pilot biography, so probably of limited value to an historic map-maker?

Airfields; difficult to find much detail save from original photos. "Airwar for Burma" does have a very basic contempory diagram of the jungle strip named "broadway", drawn by a Spit pilot, but that's about it. You've already got this anyway.

There are some quite sharp pics in the Japanese Army Airforce book, these show mostly grass airfields with dirt strips. One pic. on p.57 shows a line of aircrew in front of a grass covered earthern revetment - fighter size. Nearby buildings are made solely of wood/bamboo with what we would describe here in the UK as "thatch" roofs - dried grass or reeds/rushes and of 1 level only. Many trees are scattered about and these are often used to conceal aircraft - or perhaps keep them shaded. However some of the other JAAF fields look literally that - fields, bit like some of the strips in New Guinea, with quite long grass too, with trees only in the backdrop.

According to "Spitfires over the Arakan" RAF airfields were at Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Maungdaw, Buthidaoung, Rothedaung, Akyab and Toungup, all on or near the coast. The Japs operated from Magwe, Hiegu, Mingaladon, and Ma-Ubin, Heho and Loilem.Some near Rangoon, others much further inland.

From photos in the Arakan titles, RAF strips look mostly pretty basic and seem to mirror the Japanese pics in many ways - not surprising as these bases often changed hands! The Hurricane book has one pic of Hurries operating from "Red Road" in Calcutta, and this seems to be literally a metalled road somewhere on the city outskirts!

Can't see much concrete in the pics. mostly compacted dirt and grass areas, although obviously there must have been some all-weather strips because of the rains this region has. Most likely these were the already established bases prewar. Some prefabricated huts/small hangers are in evidence on some of the RAF strips, usually near the treeline. Plenty of tents are in evidence. Trees are both conventional types and palms.

None of the airfields seen in the pics resemble anything in the original game really.

Hope that helps a bit.

[CzechTexan]

Flying_Spud thanks for the info. Almost all of my airfields are dirt strips with many using different parts of the dirt strip or taxiways of the Imphal main field. I have the long asphault looking Imphal Main runway at Agartala, Feni, CTG and Dohazari as these were well established allied bases.

There is a description in the book BURMA THE LONGEST WAR about the material used on runways. Can't remember the name but it was some type of canvas covered in oil. This was also used when making the jungle road down the Myintha River valley from Kalemyo to Gangaw in the great offensive toward Meiktila. Many gallons of oil were used. I think it was like 1 gallon per square yard of road.

So I think this material can be represented by the long asphault looking runway.
by the way the airfields around Akyab were Japanese until about 1945. I've got details on who had control of the airfields and a long list of airfields (from a website, can't remember name). I built only the necessary and main fields (list is on previous page of this discussion thread).

One has to remember that the Japanese moved from airfield to airfield a lot, shifting planes from one area to another and staging for brief periods at forward bases with the major bases at places like Shwebo, Prome, Akyab, meiktila, Rangoon area.

I think I read somewhere that Toungoo Main had a concrete strip. I built it using dirt plates though. Toungoo-south is dirt using a section of the Imphal Main taxiway.

Solved the problem of taxiways giving me a headache mentioned earlier. Silly me, I was using Taxi waypoints for what should have been the Runway waypoints. I can rest easy now after hours of testing!

[flying_spud]

Looking forward to the end result!