Stalingrad area from the air -- or, So Many Durn Trees!

October 2, 2017

It always strikes me as very odd in the game, that every square patch of land near stalingrad looks like a farmed field straight from Central or Western Europe.

And it is very strange, that there are trees lining every single road. I understand this is the case in densely populated Europe... but in the Steppes?

I have seen only these sorts of photos on the western approaches near Stalingrad in 1942, which do not correlate with the in-game map at all.

Thoughts?

Edited October 2, 2017 by Venturi

October 2, 2017

I recall making the same point at the beginning - got a considerable backlash. Kuban map is much the same.

What I would say is that I recall accounts of German soldiers talking about the steppe - but also that the fields were huge compared to what they were used to in Western Europe, seeming to stretch to the horizon. If you think of steppe as being uncultivated grasslands, then only the lower photos might qualify. The upper ones clearly show fields, to my eye. Around a largish settlement that is what you would expect: fields. A very large field left fallow would look pretty much like steppe grassland anyway, so it is hard to be sure what is being photographed, or what exactly German witnesses were actually observing.

So considerable uncertainty in my view.

Agree 100% about the trees - too many, even if they had been there to start with after just a few days of huge armies passing through most of them would be gone.

October 2, 2017

Yes, in many areas the textures are completely wrong. It's especially obvious in the area southeast of Stalingrad, that should be steppe with almost no agriculture. What's also missing are the typical balkas.

Once modding is allowed, I hope we will see a reworked version of the map. In Il-2 1946 there was a retextured Stalingrad map by Cyberolas that looked far more realistic compared to what we have in BoS.

October 2, 2017

Indeed, vast areas of the steppe were not cultivated. Also steppe is a natural grassland. You don't find many trees there for "biological" reasons. That you get trees there naturally is mostly due to the current global warming, as the soil tends to dry out. grassland requires substantial rain, making a good swamp if you plan on visiting it with heavy wehicles.

There are plenty of photos around showing many uncultivated steppe (like the OP) with only earth roads, making navigation by eyeballing rather difficult. Much more so than we have now in the game.

Here, more photos:

What is also of interest is that towns were very spread out and also very small. Farming was only proportionate to what the number of farmers with their rather simple tools could manage. So you see those patches of fields just around the individual towns, in a "sea" of steppe:

You can clearly discriminate the fields around the individual farms.

What we have now indeed resembles more what is actually cleared forest, what we have in western Europe. These forstest were covering large part of the continent north of the Alps. They were some sort of "Great Wall" in the west that stopped the Mongols as they came westward. Dense forest is not so cool if you're used to travel by horse. Last remainders of the virgin forest is now being cut down in Poland. But it explains why we have forest everywhere in western Europe unless you do something against that. Steppe "has just grass if you don't do something aganst that". Those "avenues" that we have in the game actually would have required someone go and plant those trees and make sure that they actally grow by cutting the grass next to it.

But even when most area is cultivated, it is difficult to get the looks right. If you are interessted in the size of fields etc., SWISSTOPO is a great ressource. You have a dense coverage of areal photographs of Switzerland back to 1926 that were the base of the maps. Switzerland was a leading country in creating maps from stereo images, giving most precise 3D maps. It is of notice how little the county changed until about 1950, when suddenly settlements and industry would take over what was mainly an agricultural country.

October 2, 2017

There are plenty of photos around showing many uncultivated steppe (like the OP) with only earth roads, making navigation by eyeballing rather difficult. Much more so than we have now in the game.

I'm reading Lipfert's war diary, where he describes a certain railroad line being the only point of reference near Stalingrad (can't remember the actual place now). So yeah, navigation was a challenge.

That being said, I don't mind that we have more points of reference to help us navigate in game. I don't enjoy Pacific because of the featureless blue sea, I wouldn't enjoy the featureless grass sea of the steppe either

October 2, 2017

I recall making the same point at the beginning - got a considerable backlash. Kuban map is much the same.

What I would say is that I recall accounts of German soldiers talking about the steppe - but also that the fields were huge compared to what they were used to in Western Europe, seeming to stretch to the horizon. If you think of steppe as being uncultivated grasslands, then only the lower photos might qualify. The upper ones clearly show fields, to my eye. Around a largish settlement that is what you would expect: fields. A very large field left fallow would look pretty much like steppe grassland anyway, so it is hard to be sure what is being photographed, or what exactly German witnesses were actually observing.

So considerable uncertainty in my view.

Agree 100% about the trees - too many, even if they had been there to start with after just a few days of huge armies passing through most of them would be gone.

The trees along roads are certainly the best defense against Il-2s the germans could think of!

October 2, 2017

I think of issues such as this as "poetic licence".

Im sure if the devs had given us a featureless landscape folk would have been up in arms about it.

Obviously I can only speak for my self, but I like "clutter" be it trees or other stuff.

As long as I get the "feel" of being in the area, I'm actually ok with this, be it 100pc factual or not.

Like others, i too, am not looking forward to the endless sea of the Pacific Theatre (but Im sure the devs have plans to satisfy the majority of users!)

It is an interesting point to observe, though.

Edited October 2, 2017 by OrLoK

October 2, 2017

When Mongols are mentioned,there was no wall of forrest stopping them in march 1241 to cross Veretsky pass in Carpathian mountains. They just had to defeat weak border army of hungarian king and then entered freely into its kingdom. Battle at Mohi (Battle of river Sajo) in April 1241 resulted in crushing defeat of hungarian king's army. King himself escaped from the besieged camp only with luck and stopped when reaching Trirog castle in Chroatia. Even Danube River was no obstacle for Mongols,as they simply crossed it in winter,when it froze.

Northern mongol army in Poland captured Krakow and Sandomierz and besieged Wroclaw . Just 2 days before battle of Muhi Mongols defeated joined polish and Silesian army reinforced by Knights Templar,Johannites and Teutonic Order,in battle of Legnica and plundered southern Poland.

What saved the rest of Christian Europe were not forrests,but death of Great Khan Ogotai. Mongol army leaders turned back to Karakorum for the election of the new Khan.

Same as in 1940 french did not believe that Ardennes can be crossed by mechanised army,hungarian king thought that Carpathian mountains are the "wall" that can't be crossed by army of horsemen. In both cases underestimating of enemy possibilities resulted in crushing defeat.

October 2, 2017

I think of issues such as this as "poetic licence".

Im sure if the devs had given us a featureless landscape folk would have been up in arms about it.

Obviously I can only speak for my self, but I like "clutter" be it trees or other stuff.

As long as I get the "feel" of being in the area, I'm actually ok with this, be it 100pc factual or not.

Like others, i too, am not looking forward to the endless sea of the Pacific Theatre (but Im sure the devs have plans to satisfy the majority of users!)

It is an interesting point to observe, though.

Exactly!

October 2, 2017

I think of issues such as this as "poetic licence".

Im sure if the devs had given us a featureless landscape folk would have been up in arms about it.

Obviously I can only speak for my self, but I like "clutter" be it trees or other stuff.

As long as I get the "feel" of being in the area, I'm actually ok with this, be it 100pc factual or not.

Like others, i too, am not looking forward to the endless sea of the Pacific Theatre (but Im sure the devs have plans to satisfy the majority of users!)

It is an interesting point to observe, though.

+1

October 2, 2017

BOS map textures are mostly unrealistic (steppe), all that small crop fields - were are Kolkhoz's and it's huge farmlands? Plus villages and cites look wired like parks - trees everywhere. More, as Kuban map is beautiful some things are hard to believe too - farmlands like in Normandy and all trees are leafy on mountains, zero conifers. I really don't know why.

Edited October 2, 2017 by 307_Tomcat

October 2, 2017

This makes me think of that scene from a movie about Howard Hughes where he was filming an air combat scene, but had to find a location where there were some clouds, because the sense of speed and movement in clear air wasn't as good as if there were clouds. Maybe the trees offer a bit of this as well.

Flat green/brown grass for a hundred kilometers would have been mightily boring.

October 2, 2017

Yes this is a subject which will create a lot of debate,we have the desert or Pacific def hardly any trees,must be better frame rates,i for one would prefer less trees,or more clumped together effect,the kuban map is outstanding,the best scenery in any flight sim,but I think later on more ground objects can be added to the game etc,now we are a fussy lot the revs have done outstanding work on the whole game,but I would prefer they get the air sorted to be better before anything else as dogfighting is the biggest part of the idea of combat flight sim ,I think the trees are way down on the revs list of things to improve an already outstanding sim

October 2, 2017

In a lot of flight simulations,you have the option off having tree levels on low med or high,so if you have a lower end pic you get better frame rates also then this would give everyone their own option,I think this would be a very good idea to bring along and would hopefully be a way to please everyone

October 2, 2017

When Mongols are mentioned, [...]

I didn't want to go that far, yes, they could defeat whoever they found, but there was no Mongol ruler in Paris. The point I'm trying to make that besides kicking ass, the area was different enough for them to not really go western Europe, even though they could.

Just that. Very different landsape.

October 2, 2017

As in cliffs of Dover you can turn the trees off if you want,I think an off,low,med,high option would work best for each map

October 2, 2017

Flat green/brown grass for a hundred kilometers would have been mightily boring.

You will enjoy the Pacific then, huh?

October 2, 2017

You will enjoy the Pacific then, huh?

Why, is there just a lot of water or something?

Actually, I like a lot of water far, far more than a lot of desert or steppe. The nice thing about IL2-46 was that you had enough maps to cover all types of terrain (including stunningly boring tracts of desert). But if you are only going to have three basic maps as you do in this sim, it's certainly nice that they have some interesting terrain features.

October 2, 2017

@ZachariasX there is no such thing as cutting down virgin forest in Poland. This is just EU propaganda against current government. I know this from first hand - my uncle is Forester in Białowieża, ppl like him are protecting forests.

Edited October 2, 2017 by 307_Tomcat

October 2, 2017

You will enjoy the Pacific then, huh?

October 2, 2017

@ZachariasX there is no such thing as cutting down virgin forest in Poland. This is just EU propaganda against current government. I know this from first hand - my uncle is Forester in Białowieża, ppl like him are protecting forests.

I'd be surprised if there is much "virgin" forest in Europe anywhere. It gets cut for farmland, then grows again, they gets cut again, and grows again. Where I am there are few trees over 100 years old for exactly that reason. Most of the larger trees I cut around here aren't more than 60 to 80 years old.

Cheers to your uncle.

October 2, 2017

This is my #1 pet peeve of the entire game.

October 2, 2017

@ZachariasX there is no such thing as cutting down virgin forest in Poland. This is just EU propaganda against current government. I know this from first hand - my uncle is Forester in Białowieża, ppl like him are protecting forests.

Driving last week from Gorzow Wielkopolski to Szczecin there was nothing but pine forests left and right

Mongols didn't get to Paris in 1242 as it was not their goal. Their task was to subdue Hungarian kingdom. An official casus belli was Hungarian king granting refuge for Cumans,who were considered vasals of Mongols. Their Northern army in Poland was a distracting force to prevent Polish,Silesian and Czech forces to come to help Hungarians. Mongols plundered Poland ,Moravia and Slovakia. And Slovakia is full of forests,hills and mountains

October 2, 2017

btw I adore the Normandy feel of some of Kuban. It means I can pretend im BoB'ing. YMMV!

October 2, 2017

@ZachariasX there is no such thing as cutting down virgin forest in Poland. This is just EU propaganda against current government. I know this from first hand - my uncle is Forester in Białowieża, ppl like him are protecting forests.

I am happy to be wrong.

October 2, 2017

Driving last week from Gorzow Wielkopolski to Szczecin there was nothing but pine forests left and right

These would naturally mostly be deciduous trees in virgin forests.

But I do my home work, here:

Mongols are not affraid of trees.

They even know what's best in life.

October 2, 2017

Given the nature of this forum, I am surprised that no-one has yet counted the houses in the towns on the Stalingrad map, estimated average household size, minimum calorie intake per head, crop productivity per hectare etc and therefor calculated whether the area of fields shown is therefore improbably extensive.

October 2, 2017

Hard to know from a few images.

Modern starlingrad certainly has a lot of trees.

Edited October 2, 2017 by deleted@30725

October 2, 2017

Hard to know from a few images.

Modern starlingrad certainly has a lot of trees.

Near the rivers there are trees for sure, but that is not an issue point out by OP.

October 3, 2017

I only got one question.

Does this look like 20km west of Stalingrad, or does it look like France?

October 3, 2017

As far as "oh it would be so boring to have nothing but steppe" sentiment found here. Well I have a response to that.

It is SUPPOSED to be a SIMULATION. That's why I bought IL-2 BoX.

Not just a game aka "Battlefield: Airplanes".

I don't need a PC, hundreds of dollars of equipment, dozens of histories on the conflict and aircraft, and two decades of near-obsession level interest to play "battlefield: air" or its equivalent.

I suspect this is true for most who buy this sim. Or, this is the level of immersion they are after (even if they don't know it in the beginning... )

Edited October 3, 2017 by Venturi

October 3, 2017

The area was steppe naturally - but how much was by 1942? Hard to be sure without a contemporary survey.

The Stalingrad area has a "humid continental climate" - with 400mm (40cm) of precipitation a year, fairly evenly spread, it has plenty to support agriculture without irrigation, eg wheat which needs (edit whoops! 30-100cm), unlike the dry steppe areas further south and east. The only thing stopping intensive agriculture would have been the ability to deep plough the thick matted grass - no problem with steel ploughs even if animal drawn - and enough population to do the job.

I do not know the population of the area at the time (currently that Oblast is 2.6 million) but we are not talking about an area primarily populated by semi-nomadic herders.

Edited October 3, 2017 by unreasonable

October 3, 2017

Yes, nothing like a little hacking around to clear those grasslands and plant every square inch with wheat. Easily done by some, be sure.

October 3, 2017

I would like to see some kind of Megatexture technology implemented in flight simulator to get rid of repeated textures for resource limitation reasons.

October 3, 2017

The word you are looking for is 'procedural', but I don't have time to explain to you what that means.

Suffice to say that it doesn't involve giant bitmaps.

October 3, 2017

Ingame map of Stalingrad has a bit of Kalmyk steppe in the area south east of the city. Steppe like on the pics from Venturi is of area Kursk towards east to Voronezh and continue following the Great Band of Don to the city of Rostov na Donu (Donbas steppe with todays natural reserves like Provalskyi,Tryokhizbenskyi or Striltsivskyi Steppe). This area was almost untouched untill 1870s,when deposits of coal and iron ore were discovered in Donbas and mass migration of russian workers/miners/prospectors started. With this population boom came needs to feed the population and previous untouched steppe areas started to be changed into agricultural zones.

Ingame map of Kuban has all the fertile land east of Azov sea.But further east and north (of river Terek) starts large Kalmyk steppe,which in summer of 1942 devided Army group A and B.

October 3, 2017

The word you are looking for is 'procedural', but I don't have time to explain to you what that means.

Suffice to say that it doesn't involve giant bitmaps.

I'm sure what I meant. Procedural generated terrain is not the word, and please don't explain me what it means. This not exclude use that technology for flight simulator of course. You sometime act like knowledge and apprehension was limited for ordinary people.

October 3, 2017

I'm sure what I meant. Procedural generated terrain is not the word, and please don't explain me what it means. This not exclude use that technology for flight simulator of course. You sometime act like knowledge and apprehension was limited for ordinary people.

Calm down - nobody is insulting you.

The rest of your post I can't really make sense of.

October 3, 2017

Oh and I'm sure if their engine can support Megatexture as it were, or if it can in the future then they'll implement it if they see fit.

My guess is that even if they could, they wouldn't.

Procedural generation is more efficient.

October 3, 2017

Box is the first sim i dont notice repeating ground textures in.

Back on topic, anyone used google earth to make a comparison?

Yes, some years have passed but yhere should be some indicators.

Regardless, i trust the devs judgement on this one

Stalingrad area from the air -- or, So Many Durn Trees!

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