[Dixiecapt]

Greetings

I have been talking to Mission Bug and WITH HIS PERMISSION, I am fooling around with a 1968 copy of the map for a USMC Tet Campaign I want to make.

I've worked on Hue, and the A Shau Valley. I'm working on the A Shau Valley SF Base, Khe Sahn Combat Base, and various LZs and villages for this campaign.

Here are some pictures of Hue... Khe Sahn is next.















New City


Tay Loc Air Base


1st ARVN Div HQ in the Citadel


Palace of Peace


West Gate (Main Invasion point)





Tu Dam Pagoda & Rail Bridge


New City - Treasury & Hospital Complex


New City - MACV Compound & Treasury

I Plan to make the player in a position to get in about Every Aircraft I can Stick in the North Provence that we have on IL-2.

[Deutschmark]

Looks very cool, am sure many will have much fun on it when it comes out.

Deutschmark

[Dixiecapt]

For the 1968 Version...

Khe Sanh

[Mission_bug]

The work you've done there Dixiecapt is truly outstanding the images you sent me really couldn't prepare me for the experience of actually flying around your new rendition of the old city of Hue in the sim, it needs to be seen up close to be fully appreciated. Your re-working of the city and its environs is superb, a far better job than I could have managed.









That airfield is certainly an experience not to miss, going in or out.

You've done a lot of the corrective work I've been meaning to do for some time such as the water courses and putting the railway station in the correct position, congratulations on a superb piece of work

I've hoped for quite a long time someone would alter the existing map and release it as a new map concentrating specifically on the US involvement from 1968 so I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out. To have added the complex US military infrastructure to what was in effect a map dealing with the imediate post WWII colonial era I think would have looked out of place but having two seperate maps dealing with each specific period should work extremely well.

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Dixiecapt]

Pete I'm just having a lot of fun!! :mrgreen:

Thanks for the permission and opertunity you've given me to work on a 1968 version of the map. Here is more I've done besides Hue City and Khe Sanh Combat Base...

P.S. You can't see it in the Khe Sanh pictures posted above, but there is is a network of fortifications that spider web all around the airstrip.


1968 Da Nang Airbase


A Shau Valley (Hotspot in the northern Province of South Vietnam. Used as an arm of the Ho Chi Minh Trail to get NVA and VC forces close to Khe Sanh, Da Nang, and Hue City.


A Shau Valley Special Forces Base (Over Ran in 1966)


A REAL shot of Khe Sanh you can use to compare with the post above about Khe Sanh.

[Fireskull]

Good work here on your South Vietnam map!


Fireskull

[Mission_bug]

Detail looks superb Dixiecapt, you just keep on having fun eh, I'm enjoying watching you put it together. The 1968 version of the map will I'm sure be outstanding, looking forward to the release.

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Dixiecapt]

Con Tien

Con Thien (Meaning the "Hill of Angels"), was a United States Marine Corps combat base located near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone about 3 km from North Vietnam. It was the site of fierce fighting from February 1967 through February 1968.






(Not the most detailed shots)

(Note I'm Concentrating on the Northern two provinces in South Vietnam for the 1968 Map, with special concentration on USMC sites.)

[Mission_bug]

More suberb detailing Dixiecapt, your project is coming along a treat. 8)

I've been busy myself adapting the detail of Hue you sent me for the original map.

The airfield has been removed and the area populated with dwellings to bring it in line with how it may have appeared during the French colonial era.
Your original detail has remained unchanged except for this area where the airfield was.







I've also altered the detail at Bien Hoe airfield slightly and added the railway station at Dalat. Two bridges previously added in Saigon that mysteriously dissapeared, one of my gormless moments no doubt, have now been restored and a bridge section at Cam Rahn Bay removed as has a road texture on the approach to Tan Son Nhut.

Wishing you all the very best, Pete.

[Dixiecapt]

Looks Great Mission Bug!

I will post some pictures of the 1968 map to post this afternoon! (ps, Check PM's)

[Anatoli]

Your map has been improved so much !!! I LOVE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There is a real atmosphere when flying on it !

Can't wait for the next release !!!!!!!! :wink:

Yes, I am a fan... :roll: :wink:

[Dixiecapt]

Phu Bai (1968 Version): home of the Marine 3rd Division.




Phu Bai Airfield, and Home of the 3rd Marine Division's Base.




Phu Bai Helicopter Dispersal Area, meant to move men and equipment in mass by helicopter.

_______________________________________

South Viet Nam: The Rockpile
Friday, Oct. 07, 1966
Time Magazine

South Viet Nam: The Rockpile


The terrain was as tough as any the U.S. Marines had ever contested. It combined the horror of a Guadalcanal jungle with the exhausting steepness of the slopes at Chapultepec. Added to that were fusillades of bullets as ferocious as at Tarawa and showers of shrapnel that turned the forest into a tropical Belleau Wood. But "the Rock-pile," as Viet Nam's latest big battleground has come to be called, is weirdly unique.



There, just south of the inaccurately named Demilitarized Zone, a task force of six Marine battalions has been battling two entire divisions of North Vietnamese regulars whose apparent aim is to invade Quang Tri province. So far the Reds have failed. Over the past few months, Hanoi's hordes have shifted away from their old infiltration route, the Ho Chi Minh trail, which empties into the isolated Central Highlands. Instead, more and more have been striking directly southward into the populous coastal plain (see map).



The aim of the Marines' "Operation Prairie" is to cut those arteries from the DMZ and push the Reds so far west that they will once again be forced to use the trail.



Key to the fighting is "the Rock," a jagged, 750-ft. fang of granite that thrusts upward at the intersection of three river valleys and two enemy trails. During July's Operation Hastings, the Marines established a reconnaissance post atop the Rock, and a lone sniper fed by airdrops of C rations controlled the area. Now it is a Marine battalion command post, under almost steady siege and resupplied by heavy helicopters.





Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... z1YQ6SviWe

_______________________________________

Ho Chi Minh Trail System



I have added a important segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail System. I added the main trail which slips into Laos near the Rockpile where Route 9 empty into Laos. The main trail stays in Laos and crosses into Cambodia, with branches that dump into the middle highlands of South Vietnam. I have also added Route 9, which is was a major passage by Khe Sanh, and another important branch of the Ho Chi Minh trail going through the A Shau Valley.


Route 9 passing Khe Sanh with a sub-branch that dumps into the A Shau Valley branch.


Trails passing right under the Rockpile, showing the junction of Route 9 and the main segment of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

[Deutschmark]

Looking real good !!!

Deutschmark

[Dixiecapt]

1st Special Operations Squadron Campaign [1966-1969]

The Campaign I am planning will take a USMC Pilot with extensive WW2 and KTO CAS Expertise and have him transferred to work with a special forces group that is shifting their roll to be more closely linked with ground forces. (This did happen in vietnam, and will allow the campaign to be historical while allowing this to be a continuation of the USMC Career Campaign [1943-1969] I'm building up.

While at its initial home base in South Vietnam, Bien Hoa AB, aircrews of the 1st Air Commando Squadron (soon the 1st Special Operations Squadron) performed the first combat tests of the famous FC-47 gunship. At Bien Hoa the primary mission of the 1st SOS was to support US Special Forces and various USMC strongholds along the DMZ (Khe Sanh, Con Tien, and the Rockpile). Its primary mission after the move to the newly paved Pleiku AB was interdiction along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but its pilots and planes also flew cover for pilot rescue missions, and it continued to fly close air support missions for U.S. and Vietnamese ground forces.



(Note: I did a 1st Air Commando Squadron Campaign* for WW2 that is based on the their actions in the CBI = http://www.mission4today.com/index.php? ... ils&id=721 )

* The USMC Career Campaign [1943-1969] I mentioned isn't connected with the 1st Air Commando Campaign

[Dixiecapt]

Da Nang Air Base was the first major airfield used by the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Shortly after conventional ground forces began arriving in country in 1965, it became necessary to open a second airfield because of the heavy traffic into and out of Da Nang. Charles R. Gibson was selected to be the head engineer of the base. He and his crew broke ground in December and the base was officially operational as of June 1, 1965, when three A4-C Skyhawks from VMA-225 landed. It was involved in Operation Starlite on August 18, 1965, when the Marines made a pre-emptive strike on gathering Viet Cong forces who were preparing to attack the base.[2][3] By mid-October 1965, the base was home to over 80 A-4 Skyhawks from Marine Aircraft Group 12. Marine Aircraft Group 13 was also based at Chu Lai from September 1966 until September 1970