Potential for an "alt-history" dynamic campaign: First Indochina War

[Justicier10-7]

Now that the devs have opened up new possibilities with the dynamic campaign system, I got to thinking about the First Indochina War. The actual conflict was very one-sided in terms of air power, with the French having complete air dominance over the Viet Minh and mostly flying air support missions, transport, and recon. However, in the case of a hypothetical "what if?" dynamic campaign where communist forces deployed air power and support in a similar fashion to what happened in Korea... I think it would be an interesting conflict possibility for several reasons:

1. First and foremost, aircraft variety. Historically the French fielded a wide variety of piston aircraft, some of which would give the IL-2 devs another conflict zone to employ aircraft that are likely in the works for IL-2's return to WW2 Pacific. This would potentially include the captured Ki-43-II Oscar, and U.S. supplied F6F-5 Hellcat, SB2C-5 Helldiver, SBD-5 Dauntless, and AU-1 Corsair. In addition to these which could be used in IL-2: Pacific, there is also the possibility of flying the F8F-1B Bearcat, Spitfire LF.IX, B-26C Invader, and P-63C-5 King Cobra. On the Red side, again, thinking hypothetically, if Soviet and Chinese forces flooded the conflict with second-line aircraft in support of the Viet Minh, ranging from 1945-1954 vintage, there are a lot of possibilities for late WW2 Soviet piston aircraft, and early jet fighters, many of which have already been discussed in the Korea aircraft suggestions thread.
2. Vietnam as a conflict zone, without the more complicated 1960's and 1970's aircraft, would be a very interesting map to fly and fight over... especially given the new technology and mapping methods employed with Korea.
3. The timeframe. If the campaign could span from 1945-1954, there are many possibilities.

Not sure if many people would be interested in the conflict, let alone it being a "what if?" version of the actual conflict, but it would be one of the few potential venues to be able to fly the Bearcat and other WW2 era piston warbirds during the dawn of the jet age.

Edited September 21 by Justicier10-7

[Gungriffen]

That would require a new map, which wouldn't bad but if they just opened a "Failed Negotiations" where the 53 Cease Fire ended and fighting resumed they could include every jet up the Phantom. 

I'd stop before the Phantom though, once you reach the Phantom you're talking radar systems, BVR, and Missile combat but a lot of jets made in 54-57 were meant for Korea but the conflict ended before they were ready. 

Hell the F9F Cougar missed it by mere days arriving less then a month after the fighting had ended. 

A "what if" scenario of Escalation could include every Chinese and Russian Aircraft as well up to 1959/1960. 
Though once again once you get into jets with early RWR/Radar and missile systems it does become a very different game. 

They could throw the kitchen sink of every early, mid, and late jet based Gunfighters

Hell in a 1953 WW3 escalation scenario they could expand the map beyond Korea even deep into China and surrounding areas, honestly could expand across or Europe, Asia, and South East Asia. 

IL2 Korea could become a "what if" global 1957 WW3 (with a dynamic campaign) and might break out as the premier simulator.  

Like how IL2 Stalingrad became Great Battles, IL2 Korea some day might become Global Conflict (or something)

Edited September 22 by Gungriffen

[MJones]

I think the 'What if...' is the logical route to go with this series.  Korea was already a small scale limited WW3 although Soviet actions were kept quiet.  Formal Soviet intervention into Asia after the PRC offensive stalled in 1951 would allow lots of new Red kites into the mix.  

[kev2go]

11 hours ago, Gungriffen said:

That would require a new map, which wouldn't bad but if they just opened a "Failed Negotiations" where the 53 Cease Fire ended and fighting resumed they could include every jet up the Phantom. 

I'd stop before the Phantom though, once you reach the Phantom you're talking radar systems, BVR, and Missile combat but a lot of jets made in 54-57 were meant for Korea but the conflict ended before they were ready. 

 

 

 

Some people genuinely over-estimate the usefullness of early radar systems for BVR type of combat against fighter sized targets.... After trying the F4E in DCS, its very self evident the limitations of basic pulse radar. Namely all the noise from ground clutter interference makes it extordinarily difficult to discern a raw aircraft reflection. These radars are fine for intercepting bombers at high altitudes but nearly useless if flying even within a few thousand feet of the ground. Not to mention with Aim7E sparrow it takes 4 seconds ( reduced to 2 seconds for the post vietnam Aim7F) for the speed gate to properly settle in so even boresighting the radar at 5 nautical miles for a head on shot is not usefull against a fast closing target. The radar missile will not track target, not enough time. I would still take a green human RIO in a F14 ( because it has a PD radar) over the best scope wizard in the F4 because of said limitations of pulse radar technology. The later model naval phantoms  such as F4J had pulse doppler radars which eliminate ground clutter noise. The USAF chose to stick with more primitive radar on their E model phantoms because they wanted a internal gun instead which meant there was no room in the nose to sqeeze in AWG 10.

same with early heat seekers.I recall flying  a PVE sortie in CW Germany in a F-100D, running into a Su25 and affectively being in near infinite dogfight because even with Aim9J introduced in 1972 ( never minding aim9B) required me to get in absolute rear aspect which is very difficult to do in a active dogfight. So after getting guns on Su25 in a deflection shot, I damaged it, but had to disengage due to being critically low on fuel. These rear aspect IR  missiles are otherwise better for killing complacent players in MP that are flying in a predictable autopilot mode then someone that is aware of their surroundings. This doesn't change until the late 70s thru to early 1980s with the adoption of "all aspect" missiles, where now you can launch heatseeking missiles at planes at any angle.

Edited September 22 by kev2go

[Gungriffen]

Oh I'm not over estimating the usefulness of early radar systems and BVR.
I'm saying it's much harder to model bad equipment that good equipment and it took Heatblur five years to produce the F4 Phantom in a game that already had advanced Radar, RWR, BVR, Counter Measures etc.

If you want IL2 to be able to do that you're looking at what DCS had to do, 20 years of building an engine made to do that.
You're looking at 3-5 years per aircraft frame. 
It is a big deal to model that equipment correctly, in fact it's probably much easier to model a screen on like a F15 with a simple target icon and a AiM-120 that's going to hit 90% of the time. 
60's technology you have to simulate ground clutter, radar filter controls, missile behavior and justify a 70% miss rate. 

If they stop right before the Phantom revolutionized Air to Air Combat with Radar systems and BVR you're still doing basically WWII dogfighters at the speed of sound. 
Then all they have to do basically is model planes and alter the basic things like speed and turn radius. 

If you want DCS quality though, expect DCS Dev times. 

Edited September 22 by Gungriffen

[kev2go]

4 hours ago, Gungriffen said:

Oh I'm not over estimating the usefulness of early radar systems and BVR.
I'm saying it's much harder to model bad equipment that good equipment and it took Heatblur five years to produce the F4 Phantom in a game that already had advanced Radar, RWR, BVR, Counter Measures etc.

If you want IL2 to be able to do that you're looking at what DCS had to do, 20 years of building an engine made to do that.
You're looking at 3-5 years per aircraft frame. 
It is a big deal to model that equipment correctly, in fact it's probably much easier to model a screen on like a F15 with a simple target icon and a AiM-120 that's going to hit 90% of the time. 
60's technology you have to simulate ground clutter, radar filter controls, missile behavior and justify a 70% miss rate. 

If they stop right before the Phantom revolutionized Air to Air Combat with Radar systems and BVR you're still doing basically WWII dogfighters at the speed of sound. 
Then all they have to do basically is model planes and alter the basic things like speed and turn radius. 

If you want DCS quality though, expect DCS Dev times. 

Fair enough I understand what you are saying but part of why dcs dev time takes so long is because they are making fully clickable cockpit not just a individual  highly detailed  radar system. Personally I wouldn't mind partially clickable cockpits for i2, for setting up armament systems. Arma Reforger started doing this  by making the player hover over a helicopters armament panels to select which pylons to fire or program ripple quantity. Much easier then having to bind all those to keys or hotas. 

 

I've noticed even with much less complex modules dcs development times are long because some of these 3rd parties are doing modules as a side hustle and their developers have a day job. That and some first time 3rd parties take longer to get accustomed to that game engine.

 

It took 4 years just to get an F-100D, which isn't much more complex then a  F-86F  in terms of systems which ED had developed in less then a year.  F100 is basically just a F86 capable of mach 1 speeds and a bigger bombload. I don't know if development time would of been much shorter if they had done an F100D  prior to the installation of the apr25 rwr.

The other party that made f4u1d corsair , that project was in development limbo for around 9 years.  The community A4E skyhawk mod was slapped together in around 2 years of part time development.

So in comparison heatblur's F4E development time wasn't that crazy long when taken into consideration they didn't crutch on ED's radar or rwr model but created their own more advanced ones from scratch, coupled with an AI for the backseat. All whilst developing for 2 different simulators. Msfs snd some other military sim.

ED was able to scrape together F-5E within a year as well with a more primitive pulse radar simulation which i think is still relevant to bring up given that if a proposed cutoff is 1957 you are looking at some  single seat radar equipped fighters such as F101C for the USAF or the F8 crusader for the navy.

Edited September 23 by kev2go