Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Orge Schwab]

Looks like the Osmington White Horse  - a nice touch. However, I see on Wikipedia this comment (actually referring to the Uffington White Horse):

"During the Second World War the figure, easily recognizable from the air, was covered over with turf and hedge trimmings so that Luftwaffe pilots could not use it for navigation during bombing raids."

This makes sense, as air raid precautions were very thorough, and it almost certainly applies to the many other chalk figures in England that could otherwise appear on the map. (Though personally I think they should have left the Cerne Abbas Giant uncovered, as it shows how hard the Brits can be  ).

Edit: The Long Man of Wilmington was "painted green to avoid it being used as a landmark by German aircraft."

[rogeroger]

Thanks Pete, and thanks  for the interesting info Orge. 

I wonder if they really bothered to conceal  Osmington White Horse as you couldn't ask for a better landmark in the area than Portland Island.

Anyway, I think Andy H, a resident of the area would be most upset if I didn't include the white horse.

Another interesting fact is that major Raf airfields were concealed by converting them into fake fields.

The dark lines across the airfields are a basic form of camouflage, in which tar was poured on to the grass to create hedges or the outlines of buildings, added to deceive prying luftwaffe aircraft.

Biggin Hill




Hawkinge





Kenley

[Checkyersix]

HA! That's lovely Nice job!

[Orge Schwab]

In similar vein, I believe the River Thames was camouflaged later in the war by means of large, floating rafts which were chained together and anchored in place across the estuary. They were designed to prevent Luftwaffe pilots using the moonlight reflected from the river surface as a pointer towards central London. In 1941, German bombers had been in the habit of flying up the Thames from the sea, using the light as a navigation aid. I'm afraid I don't have dates for the installation, or precise locations, but I do remember seeing pictures of them being removed after the war. Of course, this technique was also used on major rivers in Germany, and the Russians used massive floating platforms on the Black Sea as a base for AAA around Sevastopol.

[Drewm3i]

What an awesome project!

[rogeroger]

This last week I worked on two coastal airfields, Manston and Tangmere.

I copied the reasonably accurate building object placements from the Canon channel map, but created my own hangar and admin building ground layout plates as well as a concrete ground runway plate for Tangmere, the existing runway plates are too narrow and doubling up the plates with overlapping causes z buffer shimmering.

TANGMERE NEW






OLD


MANSTON NEW

OLD


I copied over the tree placements as well but for some reason the 2d versions only show in the unlocked Fmb but no trees show in the a mission, even with forests set to 3. I am refferring to the Furniture row of trees. They show up in  Canon map missions so it's some problem with the map or I am doing something wrong. If anybody has some input it will be appreciated.
I have tried with "_Fields_" included and excluded in the terrain file names.

I ended up creating volumetric trees to compensate. I have also replaced the Broad1 2d tree sprite with a volumetric 3d tree. They don't look as good as the opengl volumetric trees but they look better close up than 2d sprites.



bROAD1 TREE REPLACEMENT

GROUP OF TREES VOLUMETRIC


VOLUMETRIC RAISED TREE GROUP ON FORT PITT

[stanislao]

   Great job, I'm glad you are updating Canon's old airport runways, Canon's magnificent Channel map had an Achilles heel in airport runways, the various versions have in common horrible ultra-low resolution asphalt runways with an absolutely unrealistic effect, to be clear, a sort of grayish mud effect surface with indefinite edges and zig-zag corridors .. this has always taken away part of the pleasure of using these maps in my missions.....

 

[rogeroger]

Thanks Stanislao, I do want to copy these over to Canons maps at a later stage, and I totally agree with you regarding the nasty low res ground plates used for runways in the Canon map. I understand the weathered concrete effect he was going for, but the low res runway  textures don't look nice close up.
edit: I think he used these to save on framerates, which would have been an issue on the weaker systems back then. The  large collection of single ground plates he would have had to use to create accurate hi res airfield runways would have had a fps impact.

[rogeroger]

I discarded my single ground plate for Tangmere hangers and dirt roads as although it looks nice at altitude, it is low res at ground level. I have replaced it with hi-res stock ground plates instead, more work but a more attractive and historically accurate result I think.












I am currently building Hawkinge from scratch based on various images downloaded off the net.

[Kelso]

I have admired your diligence and patience for a long time.

[rogeroger]

Thanks Kelso!
Diligence and patience are easy when you enjoy what you are doing.

Great music and podcasts in the background assist in the process.
Best wishes for the new year, to you and your family.

[stanislao]

 
    Yeeeees!   I really like the new version of Tangmere!  Go like this!   
     And happy New Year!