Gulf of Carpentaria

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Cobra says there was a field on Thursday. He also said we don't need to add others in the area - I suggested one on the East side of the Gulf. Do you have a date for Iron Range - or a location? Should it start as a level 0? Is it on the road system and/or a port location? If not we cannot feed it at this point - I am not going to redo pwhex if I don't really have too. We have delayed too long on this - and surely the situation is better than it used to be (in terms of potential base locations). But adding a base that could be supplied is something I can do in the location file without reprograming pwhex - if we can justify the slot.

Never mind. We HAVE this airfield already. It is called "Portland Roads" in RHS.

Uhhhh did you look at the sites I posted, or am I on your "block" list?????[&:]

NOTE:Iron Range was inland only 16km from Portland Roads, and was the original home of the famous "Jolly Rogers",90th Bomb Group.

I do not have a block list. [But since I write on PLA and am unpopular in CCP - which has a 2 million member "computer militia" that attacks people they don't like - sometimes I do have to engage in actual computer warfare!]

Apparently you do not understand the way we code hexes in WITP. Scale is 60 miles (that is 100 km) per hex. So Iron Range and Portland Roads are the SAME hex. But I did rename it Iron Range - OK. Still - it has a port and the port is Portland Roads.

Nor can we put in all those airfields as separate entities. IF they are in a present base hex, they are part of the base airfield rating (or should be). A high rated "airfield" usually is more than one strip. Used to be (in design) that there was a difference between airfield and hex - but not as released. And we really do not have enough slots to put in every hex on your list either - although any important one we can. I think we are there. You need to look to see if you agree? and point out any case you think is omitted. I have not only added every field Cobra asked for - I added one of my own (Timber Creek) - at least as a location that could become an airfield. I tried and failed to add more - so the track from Cloncurry West would work - but failed to find any proper location at all - even today.

Oh, don't get me wrong..I did not expect all of those bases to be included.I was of the impression you were seeking names/dates/places for other bases anywhere in Australia, so, I provided YOU with all (or most) of them. This way, you can pick and choose.
(I feel "Winton" might be a good field, just because it provides a spot for short-ranged planes to "bounce" further north.

I am very aware of the size of each hex, this is why I pointed out the very close proximity (16klicks) for the Iron Range field from that port, (which had been mis-labelled on the new map panel.(Sorry Cobra)..[:)]

For the work done, I think Cobra and Sid make a good team,(productive enough to pace each other.)

[el cid again]

I see - thanks.

OK - FYI - in Level 7 - we are "shrinking Australia" (the mind boggles at what that might mean?)

We needed more room at the SW map edges - and we had observed some range issues. Andrew volunteered it is about 30% "too big." [RHS uses the CHS map system even if we have modified the art - and the pwhex - it is hex for hex the same. Level 6 only adds a primitive map edge movement track.] But in Level 7 we are doing a major change in the area of Australia. One effect of that is going to be making "hopping" by short range planes more practical.
Also cover of CAP of nearby places more efficient, attacks by tactical planes more likely to reach target, rescue more likely if you lose the plane, and other similar iimpacts. I believe that Australia is going to be less vulnerable because the air units are more efficient and the land units have a lot less area to defend. [1.30 times 1.30 = 1.69 times the area] We were not able to shrink it all the way - but Cobra says 20% shrinking looks OK - so we are going with that.

[These are map projection matters - and you must distort something to get a flat map on a round globe]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

I see - thanks.

OK - FYI - in Level 7 - we are "shrinking Australia" (the mind boggles at what that might mean?)

We needed more room at the SW map edges - and we had observed some range issues. Andrew volunteered it is about 30% "too big." [RHS uses the CHS map system even if we have modified the art - and the pwhex - it is hex for hex the same. Level 6 only adds a primitive map edge movement track.] But in Level 7 we are doing a major change in the area of Australia. One effect of that is going to be making "hopping" by short range planes more practical.
Also cover of CAP of nearby places more efficient, attacks by tactical planes more likely to reach target, rescue more likely if you lose the plane, and other similar iimpacts. I believe that Australia is going to be less vulnerable because the air units are more efficient and the land units have a lot less area to defend. [1.30 times 1.30 = 1.69 times the area] We were not able to shrink it all the way - but Cobra says 20% shrinking looks OK - so we are going with that.

[These are map projection matters - and you must distort something to get a flat map on a round globe]


FMI: Where is Winton? That is, what hex? And Cobra just had me add a location North of Darwin so you can build a fighter hop field if you want to do an offensive planned IRL but never happened?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
We needed more room at the SW map edges - and we had observed some range issues. Andrew volunteered it is about 30% "too big."

Not 30%. About 10-20% (from memory). In fact the entire outer edge of the map is distorted by a similar amount, although the error does get as high as 30% in some places, again from memory. Distortion around the map edge is an unavoidable consequence of depicting such a large part of the globe on a flat map.

As I once mentioned, you can "shrink" Australia to make it more consistent with the scale of the map centre, but you don't get something for nothing - doing so will increase the distortion in the sea areas near Australia, making the distance between Australia and the Solomons and/or Fiji and/or the DEI less accurate, for example.

Andrew

[el cid again]

Well - we don't mind more sea area - in fact that was our goal. If there is more sea represented in the missing Indian Ocean or Antarctic area - fine by us - we want it on the map anyway.

And using ship tracks - we get perfect ranges - by hex counting - between things on our extreme map edges - in place of otherwise distorted map edge hexes. By using a mini-map for Madagascar - with a barrier around it - we also can ignore the nearby map locations - and do to center of map scale - which Cobra did. We use "snakes" (shipping tracks that bend) to get ship ranges right and clever hex placement to get air ranges correct (with a few restrictions - like
"you can only air transfer to Aden from South Africa or Madagascar").

For whatever reason, we thought the distortion was 30% - and ended up concluding 20% "looked right" - so if it really was 20% we may have ended up pretty close. The major impact we found was that we had to "lay New Zealand on its side" more - to get ranges right to Tasmania etc. But that just made more room for the bottom shipping tracks (plural in Level 7 - there are two - we also gained range by adding two additional rows to the bottom of the map - works fine) - so that was not a bad thing either. More buffer room means almost no chance of detection/battle way down - and no need for a buffer zone to prevent it.

[CobraAus]

items of interest at the moment
1 Winton now located at hex 41-103 any wwii info
2 Longreach now located at hex 42-105 any wwii info
3 MacKay missing altogether of east coast Queensland any wwii info such as size port capacity
airfield OOB suff in general now located hex 47-109

bloodhounds needed

Cobra

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: CobraAus

items of interest at the moment
1 Winton now located at hex 41-103 any wwii info
2 Longreach now located at hex 42-105 any wwii info
3 MacKay missing altogether of east coast Queensland any wwii info such as size port capacity
airfield OOB suff in general now located hex 47-109

bloodhounds needed

Cobra

I have not found details of the fields yet..

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: CobraAus

items of interest at the moment
1 Winton now located at hex 41-103 any wwii info
2 Longreach now located at hex 42-105 any wwii info
3 MacKay missing altogether of east coast Queensland any wwii info such as size port capacity
airfield OOB suff in general now located hex 47-109

bloodhounds needed

Cobra

I have not found details of the fields yet..
I am gonna bet a "size 2" would be no stretch of the imagination since they were used for staging north.

This page tells of B 17's staging out of Longreach.
http://www.pacificwrecks.com/60th/today/1942/5-42.html

[m10bob]

How about some fields on the northwest side of Australia for staging?

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Well - we don't mind more sea area - in fact that was our goal. If there is more sea represented in the missing Indian Ocean or Antarctic area - fine by us - we want it on the map anyway.

I don't know why you mention the Indian Ocean and Antarctic, since that wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about the distances between Australia and other land areas on the main map. To repeat - the areas around the map edge are consistenty larger in scale due to the distortion introduced by the map projection. If you shrink one part of that map area (i.e. Australia) then you increase distortion elswhere by a corresponding amount.

If you are making or modifying a map you should try to keep it consistent. At least reasonably so.

Andrew

[el cid again]

It appears to me that if you go from the center of the map towards the left and bottom edges, you arrive at the Indian Ocean and Antarctic Seas respectively. If distortion increases as you move toward the map edges - and you did say it would increase sea area - then it seems to follow we end up with more in those areas. And that is just where we wanted more sea area anyway. Cobra reported no great problems re Indonesia, the Solomans, etc - and his product - which is posted - certainly seems to bear that out.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

How about some fields on the northwest side of Australia for staging?

My current preferences for additional bases in this area are Carnarvon, Port Hedland and Corunna Downs.

[m10bob]

Our friends "down under" likely know these things already, but for the rest of us, most of those Australian bases on the lists above were civilian fields from the 20's and 30's.Some, (like Longreach) were military fields from WW1 !!..
Darwin was taking B 17's and Martin B 10's before the war, so if length to take-off and weight of plane are any consideration, I should imagine size 3 fields on some of the older places? (I don't think the Aussies waited for the war to start field inprovements everywhere?

BTW, totally OT, but I highly recommend Eddie Rickenbackers' autobiography, (written sometime around 1968 IIRC)..He was a major reason many American cities even thought of building airports. Even in the 20's, MOST cities thought them an impractical luxury, and Cpt Rickenbacker stumped all over the nation to promote them and the idea of strength in a civilian air economy.

[CobraAus]

Sid tells me we only have one more location slot left so that looks like the end of new aus bases at the moment
thanks for all the help and info guys

Cobra

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

Our friends "down under" likely know these things already, but for the rest of us, most of those Australian bases on the lists above were civilian fields from the 20's and 30's.Some, (like Longreach) were military fields from WW1 !!..
Darwin was taking B 17's and Martin B 10's before the war, so if length to take-off and weight of plane are any consideration, I should imagine size 3 fields on some of the older places? (I don't think the Aussies waited for the war to start field inprovements everywhere?

REPLY: BOTH Winton and Longreach claim to be the "birthplace of Quantas" (the Aussie airline if it isn't familiar).
Winton was first, then the initial "hub" (we would say today) moved "180 km South" to Longreach - presumably to facilitate larger aircraft - or be better located re routes in E Australia - or both. Since this occurred well before WWII - although Cobra asked only for Level 1 airfield development - I made Winton Level 2 and Longreach Level 3. Makay - on the other hand - seems not to have been a major field - so I made that start at Level 1. In all cases I set the airfield development potential level to the same value - so Longreach will build up to Level 6 and Winton to Level 5, but Makay only to Level 4.

BTW, totally OT, but I highly recommend Eddie Rickenbackers' autobiography, (written sometime around 1968 IIRC)..He was a major reason many American cities even thought of building airports. Even in the 20's, MOST cities thought them an impractical luxury, and Cpt Rickenbacker stumped all over the nation to promote them and the idea of strength in a civilian air economy.

REPLY: A very interesting fellow, he used personal political connections to force the USAAF to allow him back into the cockpit of fighter planes in WWII. Well overage for such duty - everyone in the bureaucracy "knew" it was a waste of resources - but it turns out he was right and the system was wrong. He won a second Medal of Honor! Not many people win even one of those, never mind when overage doing something they are nominally "unfit" to do! It would be much easier now than it was then: our fighters do not depend nearly as much on eyesight and do not (unless someone screws up) go into WVR tactical combat much - and even then our weapons technology confers what should be decisive benefits with respect to most opponents.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: CobraAus

Sid tells me we only have one more location slot left so that looks like the end of new aus bases at the moment
thanks for all the help and info guys

Cobra

Turns out there are two - possibly three (testing required on one). We will need them for unknown issues.
After that everything we add forces us to remove some other location.

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: CobraAus

Sid tells me we only have one more location slot left so that looks like the end of new aus bases at the moment
thanks for all the help and info guys

Cobra

Turns out there are two - possibly three (testing required on one). We will need them for unknown issues.
After that everything we add forces us to remove some other location.

BRILLIANT!!!![:D]

[el cid again]

I have "pre-removed" one location which is pure chrome in RHS only: Uranium City. Since you cannot use it - it is gone - and we have one more slot against the day we really need one.

[akdreemer]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

I vill make some more slots available, (deletes another Siberian Base!!!)
Because the war didnt make it to OZ the game has left out the swath of airfields developed, and only used for training. (Like Temora where I'm off to on Friday)

51 Operational Base Unit (OBU) was at Groote Eylandt (Top left of Gulf), 59 OBU at Millingimbi(Half way from Darwin to Gove)

43 Sqn (Catalina) would base out of Karumba (Bottom right of the Gulf)

Gove was used by 13 Sqn (Ventura) and PM Whitlam had a close call when based here. Millingimbi was used by Spitfires to protect convoys and by beaufighters to hit Taberfane which had Japanese bases.

I was looking at doing some Australian upgrading. I found this website extremely helpful:
http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/airfields.htm