Spain and Seaplanes

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Yes, I noticed the famous forts from the classic siege described in Ernle Bradford's book.  SF2 terrain making is always a balance between the desire for accuracy through bespoke tiles and TOD objects for individual features and the wish to keep tile and TOD variants as few and manageable as possible.  I lean towards the latter priority, to the perhaps ridiculous extent of using just one tree clump model and two building models across my entire tileset!  I keep these small to enhance the sense of speed when flying, since I find that some otherwise beautiful terrains have trees so big that low-flying planes seem to be moving in slow motion.  Realistically sized troops and vehicles are very difficult to see in time to line up for a strafing run, but contrast helps a lot.  One trick that I just discovered is to darken the texture file of vehicles to stop the camouflage working so well that they blend in completely with the ground.   I limit shadows to maintain frame rates and avoid distracting shadow 'popping', so darkening target objects offers a useful substitute.  Conversely, it is important to keep the contrast between TOD terrain objects and the tile background as low as possible so that one notices less when the objects pop into or out of viewing range.  

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I just finished making the MTO equivalent of my reduced scale Straits of Dover terrain as showcased in https://combatace.com/forums/topic/101179-european-air-war-reborn/.  As seen below, my latest effort has the same 45 by 32 tile layout, though it portrays a larger area of real terrain since each tile represents 5.1 km instead of the 3.3 km scale which I use in crowded NW Europe.  Both terrains saw constant air combat across the straits from June 1940, with the Allies gradually gaining the upper hand until they finally ended the stand-off by amphibious invasion 3 or 4 years later.  I used the same tiles and modelling techniques as in my SCW terrain, though with forests and scrubland generated only on tiles with an elevation range of 120 metres or more.  The towns and cities represent all those with 30,000 or more inhabitants in the 1936 census (as shown in Wikimedia historical population data).  Using rescaled HFDs and procedural tile selection made the process much quicker than my initial entirely manual efforts, and I have already begun retro-fitting these techniques to my NW Europe project.  I can now fly complete Allied and Axis combat missions in both theatres, and an obvious next step is to expand my modelled areas to London and Catania respectively to give a broader range of bases and targets.  With my SCW terrain also crying out for expansion, and with my current reading of White's gripping 1986 book on 'The Gotha Summer' constantly tempting me to create a WW1 variant of my evolving North Sea terrain, I am spoilt for choice as to which avenue to pursue first!

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My SCW and MTO projects have reinforced the importance of combining online and specialist hard copy research sources – neither alone is sufficient to provide the nuanced details one needs.  I am increasingly concerned that my used copy of Herrera's SCW seaplane book has still not arrived from Madrid, but Howson's big 1990 Putnam reference work on 'Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War' did just get to me in Chile at last after a 2 month journey.  Eagerly browsing its seaplane entries, I realised that my static Lohner conversion is wasted portraying the old Macchi M.18, which performed only liaison and training duties during the SCW.  I hence souped up my M.18 conversion as shown below by boosting its speed and engine power and adding a rear gunner using the PilotBalkans2B figure.  The resulting model looks much more like the Savoia-Marchetti S.62 than did my earlier stand-in of the Supermarine Walrus, despite sacrificing 3D guns, a spinning prop and visible damage.  The sturdier Walrus will make a better stand-in for the Curtiss and Felixstowe flying boats in my planned WW1 North Sea project.  I am meanwhile enjoying exploring the Sicilian coast in my favourite seaplane of all – the Regia Marina's single seat Macchi M.41 which I brought to life from Stephen1918's other static model.  It is a shame that this 'Riva Aquarama of the skies' was replaced in 1938 by the ugly and fatally flawed IMAM Ro.44 floatplane.  Howson's book also details how three Savoia S.55s (the type famous from Italo Balbo's mass long distance flights) played a minor role in the opening months of the SCW, but finding a stand-in for a big twin hull flying boat is asking too much even for me!