The Rheinland map

[danielprates]

What can I say about the new map? It looks wonderful, it left me really in a lack of words. Much to my surprise, it runs even smoother than Kuban; maybe its the smaller number of trees being rendered. Even a low pass above a high density city didn't low my FPS enough to be noticeable.

 

The very first thing I did was to take off from near Cologne to see if the Gothic Cathedral was there. And there it was, in it's full glory. The last time I saw such a great rendering of a city like that was in CloD's London map - say what you will about the game, but the map was irreprochable, with it's dozen or so actual London landmarks. But as good as it was, BoBp easily surpassed that with the Rheinland map.

 

Many, many thanks to the dev team for this labour of love.

 

[Zooropa_Fly]

A map named after a Rammstein song was always gonna be good

 

S!

 

Ok the song was Deutchland, but it'll be the next one !

Edited September 30, 2019 by Zooropa_Fly

[CanadaOne]

And the Rhineland map has some BIG AZZ CONCRETE AIRFIELDS!  Longest runway I found was in the NW corner, can't remember the name.

 

It's a very nice map.

[danielprates]

Aw yeah, I have forgotten about that. Now there is a strip you can actually take off a 262 from! Maybe a heavily laden 111 too!

[jollyjack]

Hurray, no more tree and drink endings !

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

3 hours ago, -=-THERION said:

....... Just one small stutter over Cologne, only one! ...

 

I found with my old ASUS AMD R7 360 2GB OC card V Sync should be on. A brief stutter usually happens when new kids (items) are spawned ...

Edited October 1, 2019 by jollyjack

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I love it so far but there are no Ruhr dams and the Market Garden bridges do not look correct especially Arnhem.

Edited October 1, 2019 by AeroAce

[theOden]

46 minutes ago, AeroAce said:

I love it so far but there are no Ruhr dams and the Market Garden bridges do not look correct especially Arnhem.

 

I saw 15 threads below this one where you haven't posted this yet, you might wanna hurry up.

[-TBC-AeroAce]

3 minutes ago, theOden said:

 

I saw 15 threads below this one where you haven't posted this yet, you might wanna hurry up.

 

I made my own thread about this and then saw this one. Your 7.5 times exaggeration is quite funny.

 

Please quote these 15 times.

Edited October 1, 2019 by AeroAce

[[DBS]Browning]

4 hours ago, AeroAce said:

I love it so far but there are no Ruhr dams and the Market Garden bridges do not look correct especially Arnhem.

 

You have your own thread complaining about this. Do you really need to soap box about it here as well?

[Bremspropeller]

7 hours ago, danielprates said:

Aw yeah, I have forgotten about that. Now there is a strip you can actually take off a 262 from! Maybe a heavily laden 111 too!

 

And by coincidence, that's where the real jets actually took off from. :)

 

Let's call the Rheine-Achmer area "Jet Alley" :D

 

[Bremspropeller]

Just did a quick flight over eastern Westphalia to check out the area. I started in the Rheine/ Hopsten area and flew east...

Turning southeast over Achmer airfield. The wooded ridge on the rightern half of the picture is the Teutoburger Wald, leading southest to Bielefeld and Paderborn.

The wooded ridge on the leftern part is the Wiehengebirge - leading to my old hunting...err...flying grounds around Porta Westfalica, where the Weser river punches through the ridge.

Puffs of flak over Achmer. Maybe the invitation I had wasn't all that sincere after all?

Abeam Osnabrück - heading southeast.

The Wiehengebirge in plain view. It's a bit of a misnomer, as "Gebirge" usually translates into "mountain range", but as Westphalia is flat as a pan, anything goes as a mountain for the people living there.

The Wiehengebirge is a very popular gliding area, where sailplanes, paragliders and hanggliders mix to have fun. It usually ends up having the sailplanes buzz just shy of the trees at high speed, trying not to hit anybody else. The guy with the right wing-tip to the ridge has the right of way, turns are made away from the mountain.

That little notch in the ridge is called Bergkirchen. There's a little church in the notch. Going slightly to the right, there are some high-tension wires (well, today anyway) that can be tricky to see and might *cough* surprise you running low on the ridge...

Coming close to Porta Westfalica. Today's airfield is just above my right wingtip. The town is not depicted on the map - neither are lots of other towns like Minden, Bad Oeynhause, etc.

I guess this was a compromise of having the map run at sufficient frame-rates. I can live with tha compromise.

That's about what ridge-running looks like seen from the cockpit. The steeper the slope of the ridge, the more updraft is generated, hence the faster you can go...

Having crossed the Porta where the Weser river crosses the ridge, I'm now above the Weserbergland (same ridge, different name).

That road is the Autobahn - it's the A2 traversing East-West from Berlin to the Rhine River cities.

 

I followed the Weserbergland up to the beginning of the Süntel, where I was politely asked to turn around west. I could see the Ith ridge, leading southest into the Harz mountains (couldn't see the Harz, but I was pretty low). Up northeast, one can see the Steinhuder Meer (lake to the west of Hannover).

I'd have to do some high altitude recon to see if those are depicted, too.

Here's a topographic map to explain the general area:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Karte_Niedersaechsisches_Bergland.jpg

 

Overall it's a nice map with fairly good accuracy. The only drawback is the omission of smaller towns, but that is a compromise to be made for playability, as the number of objects would REALLY skyrocket, if any town or farm was depicted. Not to mention the time of development for the map.

 

I'd give it a solid 4.5 stars out of 5.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Bremspropeller

[J2_Oelmann]

I mentioned in the Update discussion thread allready. The Ruhrgebiet is missing. From Duisburg/Essen eastwards to Dortmund it should be almost one continous city with lots of factories. Not sure If this can be done, but this is a big major landmark.

The Baldeneysee (south of essen) was layed dry during the war. Close to it, to the south was a big fake factory for fooling allied Bombers.

 

The Krupp Villa (Villa Hügel) in Essen would be a nice easteregg/Feature. It hast auch a prominent position that its very obvious that it is missing 

Edited October 1, 2019 by J2-Oelmann

[JG4_Sputnik]

I think the map is "Ok". Especially now that the FS2020 videos came out the other day - It is clearly a compromise between time/money/fps of a rather small team. I'd love to see more landmarks on it since I like to just fly on the maps for flying sake.

 

Maybe when the new engine gets out they can stuff more objects in it but for now I think I can live with it (especially since they have added so many other features that makes the sim even greater).

[Bremspropeller]

1 minute ago, JG4_Sputnik said:

I'd love to see more landmarks on it since I like to just fly on the maps for flying sake.

 

Me too!

 

I cannot say I was disappointed not seeing the Herrmansdenkmal at Porta Westfalica (see video below for reference) and I'm quite sure there's no Armin either in the Teutoburger Wald.

But then again, the map area is vast and with the amout of towns in that area, it's hard to get the FPS right or spend less than a decade building the map.

 

Then again, one has to remember that this is a map to fly combat on, not to practice VFR flying. Even with the Ruhrgebiet missing (well, it's the armpit of NRW, no hard feelings there ).

The amount of fighting (9th AF and 2nd TAF) wasn't too pronounced in the Ruhrgebiet - it's more of an 8th AF and Bomber Command thing.

I certainly can live with tha compromise.

 

Porta Westfalica area (keep in mind there's been lots of housing development in the past 70 years). I'd consider a mental reduction of 50% of real estate seen in the video to get an idea of what the area probably looked like in 1944/45.

 

[J2_Oelmann]

Aerial pictures of Essen in the 20s:

https://www.waz.de/staedte/essen/722-luftbilder-zeigen-essen-1926-zwischen-karnap-und-kettwig-id11189922.html

Baldeneysee during WW2:

 

I knwo everyone wants his most famous landmark included. So I could rather live with generic cities, if those have the correct size.

Edited October 1, 2019 by J2-Oelmann

[Zeev]

For me it runs with frequent stutters at 4K. All the other maps runs smooth without any issues at 60 FPS.
I assume its an issue with either more buildings and larger cities or either performance or both.
I hope they fix it.

[JtD]

I also find the Ruhrgebiet not sufficiently looking like the industrial heart of Germany. The cities look a bit too much like towns, if they are there at all. It takes a bit of getting used to.

 

Oberhausen (1952)

 

Oberhausen, same area (BoBp)

(The lakes on the right side of the screen are post 1990 and belong to a shopping mall.)

 

But everything looks better with a P-38 in it.

 

(https://www.regioplaner.de/planung-raum/siedlungsentwicklung/historische-luftbilder)

Edited October 1, 2019 by JtD

[JG4_Sputnik]

Ouch. That's a few houses missing right there...

[danielprates]

2 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

Just did a quick flight over eastern Westphalia t(...) I'd give it a solid 4.5 stars out of 5.

 

Great writeup! The soundtrack for this flight of yours is here:

 

 

As for the other further posts, I think it's unavoidable that there are going to be things missing here and there. Other than some unreasonable folks, I imagine nobody expects a perfect map, that would require an amount of work that no-one expects the dev team to be undertaking. Other than scenery, the map serves a navigation purpose, so there must be easily recognizable landmarks like famous city downtowns (again the Gothic Cathedral comes to mind), rivers, docks (Rotterdam looks great too), a small city here and there ... given what we need, I think the team nailed it. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Chief_Mouser]

I think that the map needs more varied field systems. The ground around southern Holland and Belgium looks nothing like that further down the Rhine, and to be honest, during WW2 none of it looked like the current generic map does. I'm hoping for a remaking of the landscape tiles - just look at the Kuban map and you'll see how it's been done before. In the meantime, it's a good map to use our shiny new aircraft on.

[No601_Swallow]

15 hours ago, danielprates said:

...The last time I saw such a great rendering of a city like that was in CloD's London map - say what you will about the game, but the map was irreprochable, with it's dozen or so actual London landmarks.

 

 

Can't... Let... This... Go...

Yes, the landmarks themselves were wonderful (and included the "empty plinth" in Trafalgar Square!), but they were placed on a bland blancmange of nothingness. The railway lines looked like - I don't know - dry river beds? There were no docks, rubbish elevation, just generic "suburb" tiles everywhere. Such a shame. I've written elsewhere I'd have much preferred if CloD had done what BoM does - where Moscow is unapproachable but from the distance looks like a real city. Even if that had meant losing all those airstrips north of the Thames.

 

I still wake in the middle of the night, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, thinking how great CloD could have been if they'd, you know, finished the game. Sigh.

 

Edit: Sorry for going off-topic. The Bodenplatte map looks terrific.

Edited October 1, 2019 by No601_Swallow

[76IAP-Black]

Lets see if they update the map in the "Ruhrgebiet" later, cause thats the largest industrial area in Europe since the beginning of the 20th century. 
It was already reported during the development and i can imagine that there is not enough manpower behind the map development.

Can we collect here some pics of the missing cities on the map? Maybe it will help the Developers to recreate them in a future update.

[danielprates]

I think its fine just the way it is. Every man/hour and coin spent on this is not spent in the next big thing. Just around the corner there are dozens of "can I haz PTO" type of requests, do we really want it or other projects less that we want factories here and there, just so that a map that already is 95% good can reach 96%? It will never be "perfect", no matter what is done. I think this is a phyrric goal, honestly.

[JtD]

I think the link I gave above is an excellent reference. It has full coverage of the Ruhr area with detailed aerial footage dated 1926 and 1952 (and later). You can see what was there before and what was there after the war. You can find landmark buildings (I was looking for the Oberhausen Gasometer, which is huge (rightish on top edge of the picture I posted above)). You can see the proper road, rail and water infrastructure, as it was back in the day. You can put the proper houses in the proper spots, you can see the proper field sizes for more realistic field textures. Heck, you can put bomb craters (some of which are still visible in the 1952 shots, and in fact, can be traced up to 1998) in the historically correct spots...

 

It's all there, it's just a load of work to transfer this into Battle of Bodenplatte. I wonder if the community can help with this.

Edited October 1, 2019 by JtD

[Wa99el]

Fascinating. I have always waited for this map. I was out of flight sims the past years but this map brings me in again.

 

 I was making some historical investigations regarding the airfield near to Achmer. When I saw the screenshots of Bremspropeller (S!), I immediatly knew that this is Achmer. 

I think the map is brilliant because the map builders must have spent a lot of time into this project. I do not know which regions the map includes. But I can help if you want.

I took the screenshot by Bremspropeller in order to show some stuff that I know from Achmer:

 

On the screenshot you can see:

 

Seester Feld: 3 Flak towers (Flak 38 "Vierling)

The Flak position in the "Seester Feld" consisted of 3 massive two-storey flak towers which were made of brick.

The position was built in 1939 on the edge of the southwestern area of the airfield, it was equipped with

light "Vierlings" anti-aircraft guns. The position was located in a straight line to the entry lane of the running

from southeast to northeast runway and served primarily to protect landing aircraft from allied low-flying aircraft.

Today only one tower is left.

 

Sources:

 

https://www.untergrundosnabrueck.de/luftschutzanlagen/objekt.flak-stellung-seester-feld-fliegerhorst-achmer-leichte-flak.html

 

Larberger Egge Flak towers

 

Several flak high stands on the ridge "Larberger Egge". Today only the foundations are preserved.

It is likely that these were flak high stands made of wood.

 

Sources:

 

https://www.untergrundosnabrueck.de/luftschutzanlagen/objekt.flak-stellung-larberger-egge-leichte-flak.html

 

Heavy Flak Bramscher Berg

The position of the heavy Flak in the screenshot is not correct but i wanted to show it. 

The real position is Grünegräser Weg, 49565 Bramsche. Until autum 1943 there was

a battery of 4 x 88 mm Flak. Then came a battery with 128 mm flak. No more informations.

 

In the past I collected several air photos of Achmer. With Photoshop I made a picture with

current aerial photographs from google maps. So I had the right scale. Then I put the old

recordings over the current recordings and transformed them until they agreed.

 

If you compare the old recordings with the new recordings, you realize that here and there some forests were different. 
Most forests agree with each other. The Mittelland Canal was narrower in World War II. After World War II, this canal

was widened in a large project. The river Hase has hardly changed at all and is displayed correctly in Il-2. 

East of the airfield on the river Hase are some smaller forests that did not exist there during World War II.
This is also shown by the aerial photographs. I have added 2 taxiways to the runways. These are also visible on the aerial photographs.

On the runways were white or light stripes. I have no idea what they were painted for. Maybe it is something else?

On the northwestern area of the airfield is a large building. Maybe this is a big hangar. The northwestern square was

occupied by Kommandantur and repair yards.

 

[Wa99el]

2 hours ago, 76IAP-Black said:

Can we collect here some pics of the missing cities on the map? Maybe it will help the Developers to recreate them in a future update.

 

I am from Recklinghausen. So I can help. 

 

I am making a little brain storm for prominent buildings

 

St. Antonius church Recklinghausen (Fotos) exists today

Gustav-Adolf church Recklinghausen (Fotos) exists today [Regio Planer 1952]

Rathaus (city hall) Recklinghausen  (Fotos) exists today [Regio Planer 1952]

grain distillery Boente (Fotos) exists today

Theodor Heuss Gymnasium (I think it was named Theodor Körner Schule in WW2) (Foto) exists today [Regio Planer 1952]

Petrinium Gymnasium (Fotos)

Freiherr von Stein Gymnasium (Fotos)

Hittorf Gymnasium Recklinghausen (Fotos) exists today [Regio Planer 1952]

Schloss Bladenhorst (Fotos)

to be continued.

 

I am able to make photos of the prominent buildings in Recklinghausen. Most buildings exist today.

Recklinghausen was not destroyed very much in WW2. So you can use the fotos for making textures.

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2019 by Wa99el

[J2_Oelmann]

2 hours ago, 76IAP-Black said:

Lets see if they update the map in the "Ruhrgebiet" later, cause thats the largest industrial area in Europe since the beginning of the 20th century. 
It was already reported during the development and i can imagine that there is not enough manpower behind the map development.

Can we collect here some pics of the missing cities on the map? Maybe it will help the Developers to recreate them in a future update.

Bottrop is missing, Gelsenkirchen is missing Buer up in the North, Castrop-Rauxel etc.

There should be a Airfield in Gelsenkirchen-Buer:

The Parkstadion for the Schalke 04 soccerclub was build on it later:

https://goo.gl/maps/xVfb5nvfHrFeWceN9

 

The famous "Panzerbau 3 in the north of Essen is missing:

https://goo.gl/maps/es2ksTCEHRaSP7Hv6

 

Zeche Zollverein. A really huge mining complex is missing in Essen:

https://goo.gl/maps/Eh3TsWnS8UTLG6Mu9

Half Essen was target area:

 

And the Nachtscheinanlage:

https://goo.gl/maps/rZbM8Vy4zbgo2SRi8

 

And alot more.

 

The whole Ruhrarea is probably too huge to put in BoX. I would be content with generic city and industrial tiles with only the biggest factories and mines represented. This would still be a lot more then Moscow on the moscow map.

But being 1944 you could just make the most look like Stalingrad with full of ruin.

Edited October 1, 2019 by J2-Oelmann

[Wa99el]

Dampfbierbrauerei Essen Borbeck

Short name "Dampfe"

[Regio Planer]

 

15 minutes ago, J2-Oelmann said:

The whole Ruhrarea is probably too huge to put in BoX. I would be content with generic city and industrial tiles with only the biggest factories and mines represented. This would still be a lot more then Moscow on the moscow map.

 

If you take a look at the industrial areas of the Ruhrarea you will recognize that a lot of buildings are the same kind. 

So you do not have to creat new buildings for each section. For example coal mines, elementary schools, terraced houses, churches, post stations, train stations, etc. 

 

 

[jollyjack]

I sometimes wonder if a system like used with Navigation software as Google Maps or Garmin - TomTom could work for such large files to locate position of objects involved during the game. Of course real-live GPS is not possible here, but one can imagine that with 4g internet and fast provider servers there could be other options. Maybe a bit futuristic nowadays.

 

One then pays a fee to be a participant, like with other software providers like Adobe or VPN providers. Big Brother hiding around the corner though, Facebook, Google, they're coming even for your soul if you don't stop 'em.

[J2_Oelmann]

1330/7-7

The Gersteinwerk in the village of between Hamm in the East (Dattel-Hamm-Kanal is labeled) and Werne in the west.

It was/is a big coal powerplant.

https://goo.gl/maps/GP1r5cFT9ciBKbLA8

Hamm itsel again is on the eastern end of the Ruhrgebiet and should be quite loaded with targets as well.

 

@Jollyjack.

The new FLightsiumlator will work like this. Together with Bing

Edited October 1, 2019 by J2-Oelmann

[Gambit21]

Nice photo of a marshalling yard.

[Voidhunger]

7 hours ago, Zeev said:

For me it runs with frequent stutters at 4K. All the other maps runs smooth without any issues at 60 FPS.
I assume its an issue with either more buildings and larger cities or either performance or both.
I hope they fix it.

Yep I have stutters too with the new map. In full HD.

[I./JG62_Lord_Efe]

I‘m kinda disapointed by the map... 

1) you forgot to add a UNESCO world Heritage Site in essen (Zollverein)

2) there is not a single coalmine on the map ... not in the Ruhe area, Aachen or Ibbenbüren not that the Ruhe area is known for coal or something like that

3) i did send this links to the devs a while ago https://luftbilder.geoportal.ruhr/ arealimges of the Ruhr area from the Lust 100 years basically 

4) the lake south of Bochum (Kemnader See) was build and finished in 1979 ... 

 

It was clear to me that it wouldn‘t be Perfect but i didn’t expect it to be THAT effordless... 

[Oyster_KAI]

There are many duplicate textures on new maps, but I know this is WIP.......
I would like to see next DD say upgrading plan about Rheinland and Arras map.I'm sure new maps will standing on kuban and Prokhorovka's shoulders.

[Eldur]

On 10/1/2019 at 3:17 AM, danielprates said:

Aw yeah, I have forgotten about that. Now there is a strip you can actually take off a 262 from! Maybe a heavily laden 111 too!

 

I took that one off of Anapa which probably is one of the smallest strips in the sim

 

BTW I didn't check the Ruhrgebiet, but immediately noticed the lack of Solingen as well.

[Feathered_IV]

Is the whole map showing everything in an undamaged pre-war state?   

[Bremspropeller]

Yes.

 

Given the lack of lots of cities, inaccuracies and the repetitive textures, I'll have to amend the rating to 3 out of 5.

I guess there's still some work done on it, so we'll see how the final product works out.

 

ATM it's a very nice map for trying out the new toys.

[Wa99el]

Hello I./JG62_Lord_Efe

 

I would like to mention the following: I worked on a North Sea map about 10 years ago for the old Sturmovik flight sim.

Since I am very interested in history and also read a lot of literature on World War II, I had a certain amount of basic

knowledge, which enabled me, to map the North Sea area in a historically correct trend. But I also added many

landscape details to the map that did not even exist in World War II. For example the national park Lauwerszee.

 

Previously, the Lauwerszee, named after the river Lauwers bay, was open to the Wadden Sea. After the storm

surge, out of fear of flooding, a dam was planned from 1953, which was completed in 1969. The bay became a

closed lake, now called Lauwersmeer.

 

There were also some land changes in the IJsselmeer.

 

You are right: Without the coal mines the "Pott" is not the "Pott".

 

On the other hand, I'm fascinated by how exactly you can now set forests and how exactly the rivers, canals and lakes are.

 

The Rhineland still is beta I think. So it is not the end of the developement. 

 

I have gathered the experience in map building, that in exchange with other interested people knowledge came along

and I was able to do some improve techniques and procedures.

 

For example airfields.

 

 

 

I learned to collect aerial photographs from World War II. I had to transform them onto maps from the present time.

As a result, the scales and distances of the old photos were correctly unified. When the graphics were done with

the transformed aerial photographs, I saved them on a plate, which I could insert into the il-2 map. Now I was able

to create the airfield with the corresponding objects. There is still a short video from this time available. Here you

can see exactly what I mean.

 

 

 When I built the North Sea map at that time, I first wanted the Ruhr area in the map as well. But after I had finished Hamburg and Bremen,

my logic and real reason forbade me from inserting the Ruhr area. With a small group of people you will fail on such a project.

 

Edit: It is not impossible to create the rhine ruhr area but you will need a bigger group of experts in that area and they should live in this area because they

can make detailed photos of prominent buildings etc. You also need test pilots flying over the area ust to see how stable the different computers are, when you fly over such a gigantic urban area.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2019 by Wa99el

[I./ZG1_Badger1-1]

15 hours ago, J2-Oelmann said:

Bottrop is missing, Gelsenkirchen is missing Buer up in the North, Castrop-Rauxel etc.

There should be a Airfield in Gelsenkirchen-Buer:

The Parkstadion for the Schalke 04 soccerclub was build on it later:

https://goo.gl/maps/xVfb5nvfHrFeWceN9

 

The famous "Panzerbau 3 in the north of Essen is missing:

https://goo.gl/maps/es2ksTCEHRaSP7Hv6

 

Zeche Zollverein. A really huge mining complex is missing in Essen:

https://goo.gl/maps/Eh3TsWnS8UTLG6Mu9

Half Essen was target area:

 

And the Nachtscheinanlage:

https://goo.gl/maps/rZbM8Vy4zbgo2SRi8

 

And alot more.

 

The whole Ruhrarea is probably too huge to put in BoX. I would be content with generic city and industrial tiles with only the biggest factories and mines represented. This would still be a lot more then Moscow on the moscow map.

But being 1944 you could just make the most look like Stalingrad with full of ruin.

I just realize that I live 5min from the Panzerbau 3 ? Borbeck 

[sevenless]

13 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

Yes.

 

Given the lack of lots of cities, inaccuracies and the repetitive textures, I'll have to amend the rating to 3 out of 5.

I guess there's still some work done on it, so we'll see how the final product works out.

 

ATM it's a very nice map for trying out the new toys.

 

I think in the end we all have to accept that even with the final map a certain amount of abstraction will be necessary due to priorisation of gameplay over accuracy. They could edit in 2 dozen of towns and landmarks and there will be still hundreds of areas missing and/or misinterpreted. It is just the nature of the beast of such a gigantous untertaking we see with this map.

 

I would like to see a few historically important places being edited in until final release but then I think it is time to move on, because honestly it is not possible to get everything 90% correct with this map. It simply is too huge and the landscape/towns have changed too much over the past 75 years.