ARMY GROUP CENTRE - OSTFRONT CAMPAIGN MEGAMAP
V 1.0
Army Group Centre is a 1:1 scale accurate depiction of the central sector of the Eastern Front in the period 1941-1944. It covers over 220,000 square KM and comprises the quadrant Polotsk - Smolensk - Vyazma - Bryansk - Gomel' - Bobruisk. The map extends from just east of Minsk to a couple of KM west of Oryol. In fact, a footsoldier walking off the eastern edge of the map on the Bryansk - Oryol road could be drinking a beer in a tavern in Oryol a half-hour later!
The map is suitable for Barbarossa in 1941 and the Soviet drive west towards the Dnepr in late 1943. It comprises the Oryol Salient west of the City of Oryol and therefore, is appropriate for much of the fighting in Operatsiya Kutuzov. And of course, it is suitable for the first week or so of Operatsiya Bagration in summer 1944 when Army Group Centre was largely annihilated. It is not suitable for Operation Zitadelle and fighting to the east side of the Kursk salient or Operatsiya Mars and the other fighting in the Rzhev salient as these areas are outside the scope of the map.
The rivers, towns and airfields are placed to the best of my abilities in exactly the correct place to achieve maximum authenticity of experience. Thus, a Pe-2 pilot flying out of an airstrip at Vyazma on a bombing run to smash the Bryansk rail head in June 1943 will be able to fly the appropriate distance on the appropriate heading, just as in 1943. Ditto all other operations.
V 1.0 features a fully textured terrain. Population has been limited to towns and cities over 5,000 people and further populating needs to be done for V2.0. In addition, population of cities and larger towns has been complete, but on an artistically fairly "basic" level, using existing stock city tiles and objects. There has been little attempt to "individualize" even the larger cities. Again, this is something I hope to improve in V2.0. Frankly, the task of populating a map this large was overwhelming for a single map-maker and I chose to get a partially complete product out to the public, rather than spend another 2 or 3 months making the map flawless.
I vastly under-estimated the amount of work that populating would require and I would welcome any co-operation on V 2.0 from talented guys who would like to help out with ideas or actual work on the map.
The major cities are however the appropriate size and shape and dimension that they would have been in the 1940's. I relied heavily on the brilliant website -
http://wwii-photos-maps.com/ and this was a game-changer. The site provides hundreds of Red Army and Wehrmacht period maps of the region and I would not have been able to do anywhere close to as well without the invaluable resource this site provided.
I had no access to period maps and photos of airfields. Location of these has been "guess-timated" from modern Google-Earth shots of existing airstrips and air bases. My theory was that most of these modern facilities would simply have been developed from the strips and bases that existed in World War Two. A few others were "roughed in" from history books and a few extra - the numbered air strips - were simply added by myself at locations on the map that would otherwise have been tactically wasted. (Thanks to Czech Texan for the excellent idea.) The airfields have been populated with the old stock "default" airfield objects. This will be changed in the next edition of the map and Zuti's Friction Mod used for a more realistic effect. The larger air bases will be remade with "concrete" objects and an appropriate base layout.
Only major roads and railways have been added at this stage of the map.
I made the deliberate choice at the commencement of the project to only include major rivers. Thus, there are no creeks or streams on the map appearing to be the size of Amazon or Nile, as occurred in the old Il-2 stock maps. I chose to do this for aesthetic reasons and also to make the map navigable by landmarks. A pilot can now spot and follow the river system as an orientation tool, just as would be done in 1941 or '44. By use of the road net and rivers, a fighter pilot flying a short-range mission should not even need a minimap.
The map uses almost all stock objects. The only additions are LAL R One's hangar objects and the bridge objects set - my apologies, but I don't know the creator of the latter. Both of these are included in Boomer's 4.10 megapack of objects at the following download sites:
00_Objects.7z ----------(122.03 mb)
https://www.mediafire.com/?rscgji00b44alh800_Objects_I.7z -------(132.72 mb)
https://www.mediafire.com/?jh00hd8dyyd6l8g00_Objects_II.7z -----(142.23 mb)
https://www.mediafire.com/?n52esjp8myxaeu600_Objects_III.7z ----(83.57 mb)
https://www.mediafire.com/?th7eh4f68874egr00_Objects_STD.7z ---(61.1 kb)
https://www.mediafire.com/?ro6pj73joy461v2The map uses several custom tiles and these are included of course with the basic download.
I hope to have a winter version of the map available in 2 or 3 weeks and a fall version at some point.
Add as follows to the all.ini:
m7_agc m7_agc/load.ini
I hope that this map adds a little to your flying and dogfighting pleasure. I have appreciated the endless encouragement and advice that I have received from the pilots on the discussion boards. I basically learned how to make maps from you guys and I am happy to give something back in return for all your help and patience!
The download link is -
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20072333/m7_agc.zip
Author
Topic: Beta V1.0 - New Map "Army Group Centre" 1:1 scale. (Read 21036 times)
