From Saint-Valery-sur-Somme to Amiens

[lwalter]

These past days I visited these beautiful area of France and once back home, I wanted to see what it looked like from the sky in my favorite simulators.

There will be no pictures like for my Normandy trip comparison, but here are my thoughts.

This is an area well represented in our simulators (rich WWI and WWII history):

- IL2 GB Normandy and FC Western Front maps (only Amiens)

- DCS Channel maps (DCS Normandy 2 maps also has the Somme area, but it's not in the detailed area and you can notice that's it's not very good).

- FS 2020 world map

- IL2 CloD Normandy map (but I didn't fly it, as I'm still waiting the access to the private beta for VR).

 

The Bay of the Somme River overall shape is good in all maps. Saint-Valery-sur-Somme on the Southern entrance of the Bay is best modeled in IL2 Normandy. You can recognize the higher ground of the medieval city with its church and the modern part of the town with its harbor, train station, train tracks and main road. DCS Channel map is OK, but you don't really notice any of these buildings. I think FS 2020 is not as good as IL2. It's certainly more accurate and the satellite imagery should make it better, but the autogen doesn't work well here.

 

Following the canal brings you from Saint-Valery to Abbeville. IL2 Normandy has the best representation of Abbeville. There's a custom 3D model for the Abbeville cathedral. DCS Channel doesn't even have it, not even a generic church. FS 2020 does some autogen and it become a generic church.

 

Flying further East towards Amiens and following the Somme river, I noticed one great thing about IL2 Normandy and FS 2020, the river width variations are very natural. In comparison, DCS Channel shows a uniform strip of water, like is it was a "road of water".

 

Arriving in Amiens, all the maps show the famous cathedral. The overall layout of the town is rather ok (except for DCS Channel map where parts of the Somme river disappeared). Nevertheless, we see a few differences:

- IL2 Normandy doesn't represent the network of water and islands in the eastern part of the town. However IL2 Western Front, DCS Channel and FS 2020 do.

- IL2 Normandy shows the citadel, but IL2 Western front or DCS Channel don't. FS2020 probably misses it because it was transformed recently into a university campus and it's less visible from the sky.

 

Every time I fly over the IL2 Normandy map, I'm amazed at how well balanced it is and how carefully the developers picked the right monuments and little pieces of details that make the difference (even in small towns).

Once again kudos to the IL2 development team! 

 

(Some people here will tell me that IL2 or DCS are not for looking at the scenery. Yes, but for non modern periods of time, when satellite coordinates and GPS/laser bombs didn't exist, nor Inertial waypoint navigation, I like to have references and usually I use well known monuments, roads and rivers. That's why I like to recognize the towns, even more so when I know these towns  )

[Freycinet]

I was a week in Boulogne-sur-Mer, with detours to Touquet and St-Omer, this last week. We were lucky with the weather!

 

La Ville Fortifié in Boulogne is really lovely. Great trip. And the area was so green and lush!