French Indochina war

[General PB]

yep those are the same maps as the texas edu ones :)

the Vietminh forces only had two trainers in 1945, they once belonged to the emperor but their first operational flight was only in 49, first real air units was the 919 Transport Regiment with Yak-18 trainers on 1 May 1959 and only in 1964 did the Vietminh get access to combat aircraft

[+Wrench]

hush!!!! we don't divulge the location of where we get our exceedingly accurate charts on an open channel!!   (also one of the worst kept secrets around here!!!)

[+Wrench]

Here's an important question ....

since there is no readily and freely available P-63, what about using the P-39 as a sort of 'stand in'? It would at least give us another aircraft for the very early years. Since I've done a number of skins for Veltro's Airacobra, and have the template it's not a real problem to "fake" a P-39Q, in NMF for this

Thoughts?

[+Stratos]

It's ok with me. Maybe one day we will get a P-63, until then, better to use the P-39 than nothing. BTW Will be another campaign where I will be able to use Veltro P-39 JetCobra.

[Wilches]

Why not? Unless a good soul make a model model for us.

[+Wrench]

Just a small update.

still reworking the map --- many areas completely retiled. Concentrating on the airbases at the moment. We have a PSP runway 3 now, and an asphalt paved runway 2. The hardest part is trying to find objects of a WW2 type vintage. Monty's hangars and such are the closest around. Once the airfields are done then I can concentrate on rebuilding the cities themsleves. The rail yards will be the most work; they're time consuming as all get out to the the tracks aligned nicely (but nobody has laid more track around here than me!!! ) 

Will post some screenies later on

[+Wrench]

here's the promised screenies. sorry it took so long, it's been a screwed up day

2 views of Tan Son Nhut, one of the asphalt paving at Cat Bi

[Wilches]

First class... as usual. 

[General PB]

looks awesome wrench!

[+Wrench]

I just like sticking all kinds of junk inside hangars. Y'know, keep it out of the rain and such 

one of the things I'm saddened is, that the (almost) perfect period-specific "Hangar, Large" by MontyCZ, has no back wall when viewed through the door. Outside view is fine' the back wall is there. Has to be a 'facing' issue with the internal mesh. Pity we can't get it fixed.

[+russouk2004]

which hangar kev...send me it...will try make a false wall for yers

[+Wrench]

Thanks Russ!

here's the unit, lods, inis, OUT

is Monty even still around? Wonder if he has the MAX files, and can fix it. All the others are perfect

Hangar large.7z

[+russouk2004]

Just needs correct size now...can do that with a model...for reference..

[+russouk2004]

Try this.....compare it alongside old ...Kev and if too different or not correct...show me pics of them together so I can adjust if needed....

uses same name

Hangar large new.7z

Edited December 9, 2019 by russouk2004

[+Wrench]

I'll check it out later today! Thanks Russ!

[+Wrench]

That did the trick Russ! Many, many thanks! Now, I have to go back and rebuild a couple of airfields that I wanted that large hangar on.

Below is a TE view of Hanoi and the surrounding regions. You can probably guess, the "white lines" are roads.Highway 1 connects the southeastern tip of the SEA all the way to Hanoi and beyond

[Wilches]

As there will be no enemy air activity, I suppose that the ground war will be huge. Will French aircraft carriers be played?

[+russouk2004]

Kev....heres a blank front for hangar in psd....so you dont have the WW1 text

02hangar roof.psd

[+Wrench]

well, shoot! I just clone stamped it out on the existing skins

Yes, I have all the carriers (as well as the aircraft). But there seems to be a problem with the "CV Zone" in the Gulf of Tonkin/South China Sea. Even with NavalMap=TRUE, I'm getting CV spawning on land. Odd too see ARROMANCHES plowing through the fields east of Bangkok!! (actually, was kind of hilarious!! the launch went off just fine!) I think I'm going to need some assistance on figuring that one out. I REALLY want the CVs to work. OTH, "North & South CV stations" are still active in the targets ini, so when writing a campaign, you can station the 3 (4?) different bird farms there. But in single missions ...gggrrrrrr.....!!!!

Most, if not all, the carrier issues I'm seeing can totally be blamed on the Original Manufacturer (tm), as the map is far too small (and also only 63% RL) and there's not quite enough sea room near the Eastern Wall

[+Menrva]

49 minutes ago, Wrench said:

I think I'm going to need some assistance on figuring that one out. I REALLY want the CVs to work. OTH, "North & South CV stations" are still active in the targets ini, so when writing a campaign, you can station the 3 (4?) different bird farms there. But in single missions ...gggrrrrrr.....!!!!

Most, if not all, the carrier issues I'm seeing can totally be blamed on the Original Manufacturer (tm), as the map is far too small (and also only 63% RL) and there's not quite enough sea room near the Eastern Wall

Hey, Wrench. Just post the water bitmap, and I'll look into it. A few painting softwares don't save 8bit bitmaps correctly.

However, considering how small the water area is in VietnamSEA, I pretty much doubt we can have CV stations as in stock IcelandNA. NavalMap=TRUE should only be used on terrains where we can have big naval battles, as that also affects strike missions to an extent. For other scenarios like this one, carriers should be static and set in campaigns. I had similar issues in the IraqWA terrains I released. The water area was simply too small given the 63% RL size, and so NavalMap=FALSE was kind of a forced decision.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Menrva

[+Wrench]

I tend to agree with you on the size issue. I did, however, leave the to stations (Yankee & Dixie) intact, just renamed North or South CV station. They should be usable in a campaign.

The _water bmp Itself is the stock VietnamSEA map (renamed to VietnamSEA_48). I think you might be right  about the "8-bit" save. Don't think PS is doing it correctly (oddly, some of my others are working ok, but they also have Red side naval forces)

Here's the stock map, and my modded one:

thanks brother (if you need the terrain itself, let me know)

VIETNAMSEA_48_Water.bmp

VIETNAMSEA_WATER.BMP

[+Menrva]

12 hours ago, Wrench said:

 I think you might be right about the "8-bit" save. Don't think PS is doing it correctly (oddly, some of my others are working ok, but they also have Red side naval forces)

I had issues with Paint.NET. The new _water bitmap I saved with PS does have the exact same size of the one from IcelandNA (just right click and double check the properties of both files). If it doesn't seem to work, then it's due to the water area size. In that case, ships spawn where they want, they disregard the info of the water bitmap (generally, in such instances I observed that Blue fleets always spawn on the lower left of the terrain, Red fleets on the upper right, much like in the stock IcelandNA terrain). I also suggest to save water bitmaps with MS Paint, it should do okay as well.

Here's the one I re-made, rename accordingly: VIETNAMSEA_WATER2.bmp

Also, little trivia: nobody seems to have ever noticed this, but TK's VietnamSEA is a mess to say the least; the small peninsula to the south (around the Mekong Delta) is completely cut, there's water instead of land! I had fixed this for my own use, but I will gladly share the fix (however, the TFD is based on the one using a different tileset from the WOV Gold expansion, so changes will have to be remade from scratch, I guess). What's even more amusing is the fact that both the stock water bitmap and the planning maps correctly show this small peninsula. I suspect that TK did not double check during the auto-texturing stage of the terrain's development) 

Edited December 12, 2019 by Menrva

[+Wrench]

You're preaching to the choir, my brother! The stock map, to put it gently, is seriously fucked up.

as to the "island", you're talking about the 3/3 section of map, near the label "Gulf of Siam"? . That would explain a great deal --- and means I have to move 3 cites, reroute the reads,  and rewrite a couple of truck routes. No wonder I couldn't resolve the placement based on my charts!

Well, that's only about an hours work retileing ....

I'm not going to fix everything on this map, just as many of the major faults as necessary.

[+Menrva]

On 12/12/2019 at 8:26 PM, Wrench said:

as to the "island", you're talking about the 3/3 section of map, near the label "Gulf of Siam"? . That would explain a great deal --- and means I have to move 3 cites, reroute the reads,  and rewrite a couple of truck routes. No wonder I couldn't resolve the placement based on my charts!

Nope, what I am talking about is even worse, look below;

I reckon that I was wrong in saying that this is a small peninsula; it's a rather important part of the terrain. In fact, some stock target areas/cities (you can see those small blue dots) are over water, where instead there should be a huge portion of land. The whole Mekong Delta is not there! TK should have doubled check.

Edited December 14, 2019 by Menrva

[+Wrench]

like I said, it's seriously messed up!!! Most places aren't with 25-50 km of they "Real Life" positions. I"m not going to change too mcuh, just in case someone (years) down the road wants to re-add all the 1960s stuff back into it.

Another thing I'm not going to do is make the swamp/cypress grove type of tiles, like I did for CubaOTC+ -- not that hard, but I don't feel like making another couple dozen tiles (tgas) 

Sometimes I think I'd have been better off using the CBI map, and just clear out the stuff that isn't in Indochina!!!