Hidden Locales of BoP
 

With the PSN outage I thought this might be a fun and informative thread to start so others might be able to enjoy any hidden locales tucked away in some remote corner of their favorite BoP maps during a free flight or something. I'll go first with two that I've stumbled across recently while doing recon for my Battle of Britain and Battle of Stalingrad historical missions.

French Coast:
I think I might have seen this one mentioned somewhere in a previous thread, but if you cross the English Channel away from Britain, you will eventually come to the French coast line just before the boundary line for the map though it appears to be floating above the water, lol!

Stalingrad Airfields:
This one may or may not be known to many, but there are 7 airfields scattered throughout the Stalingrad map. There are 6 on the western side of the Volga that span all the way from the western boundary line to the northern boundary line. Then there is a single airfield next to a railway on the eastern side of the Volga a little ways southeast from a small light patch of land towards the "upper-middle" part that area. I think the most western of the western airfields is supposed to be the Pitomnik airfield as it appears to be larger than the other 6.

Cool Ruff. French connection has been checked out, but I only saw 3 Stalingrad airfields. Like landing new places.

Hey McQ59,

Yeah, it wasn't until last night when I was doing recon for my upcoming Stalingrad historicals, looking for any interesting land features to use, when I ran across the other 3 airfields. I've always known about the main 3 airfields on the Stalingrad map though I've always suspected that there was at least one more, somewhere behind Stalingrad. That area was just too big not to have at least one and when I found the other 2 on the western side of the Volga, I knew there had to be one more. It took me a while and it was dumb luck I found it while following one of the many railways that cross the map. I wouldn't even be surpirsed if there is another one somewhere on the eastern side that I haven't found, but so far I've only found the 6. The 2 new airfields on the western side of the Volga aren't all that far from the river itself and the northern one (Stalino?) is right near a railway. I can't remember off the top of my head if the western airfield (Pitomnik?) is near a railway or not, so good luck on your search.

Thanks bro. I have been around some and seen a lot of good stuff, but new airfileds are top notch candy. And while the company gets the lines fixed... :-)

Here are some better directions to the 3 "hidden" airfields on the Stalingrad map.

Western Airfield (Karpovka?):
Head to the western part of the map keeping to the west side of the Volga. At the left hand edged of the map you will see two small rivers jutting out from the edge of the map, not far from each other. The airfield is located between them, just at the tips of each river.

Northern Airfield (Stalingradskiy?):
The easiest way to find this one is to follow the railroad the runs in front of Stalingrad heading north. Its best to just use the map as the railroad sometimes disappears if you're trying to following it in flight. Just before Yerzovka (sp?) there is a bend in the track. The airfield is located on the right of the tracks, just southeast of the bend.

Abganerovo Airfield:
North of Stalingrad at Rynok, you will see two railroads that cross the Volga. They only appear on the map as they are absent in flight. Follow the track that continues east as the other splits off and goes north. Following this track, you will come to a light patch on the map that is just before a bend in the track. Right at the bend of the track, the airfield is sitting right there.

Also the airfields tend to be easier to spot on the winter map. Happy hunting!

Thanks again Ruff. I was out on a recon last night looking for the southern airfield there, but couldn't find it. Strange thing happend as it was like my engine (used a D5) strained from fatigue, and I wasn't able to climb after about 20 mins of flying. It just stalled and fell...
I'm gonna take a closer look :-)

Etna Italy Locals
 

Etna Runway: Head South West until you see Gerbini across the river the small runway is located right beside Gerbini.

Etna Manor House: Head North East towards Tavola and Belvedere Piano. The Manor should be above Tavola, but north east of Tavola. The house sits on top of a hill and is very noticeable due to its hight over the other buildings. Also in the front it will have two Bright Blue windows side by side.

Anyway those are what I have found so far in Etna.

@ McQ59

We'll I've been calling it the southern airfield because initially I thought it was more to the south until last night, lol! It's more to the west than it is south, so I changed the references in my previous posts, lol! Did you find the other 2?

@Cryptic Phant0m
I'll have to do some recon in Etna the next time I'm on. Thanks!

Nope Ruff, couldn't find the other two either. I was intercepted by the CL-match. A very sad story... (Except some Latinamerican magic realism a few sec. Messi... :-)
Your additional headings will be followed 2night :-)

The airfield at Gerbini is a small nice one. We used it in a historic mission a cpl of weeks ago. The Sicily map is quite cool as it's got a glitch too. I don't remeber the heading, but it is a small bay down there somewhere were you can fly "under" the shoreline and come up a bit inland. Not sure if it the glitch is like that in trainingmode as we did it online...

Got'em Ruff. The western between the two small rivers is a good field for bombers about He-111 size. What if the germans held the land west of Stalingrad and needed to knock out the T-34 production over at Red October, and a cpl of LA's was protecting from the northern... I think I got an idea :-)

Cool, glad you found them McQ59! Yeah, it's size leads me to believe that it's suppose to represent Pitomnik airfield which was the largest airfield inside the Stalingrad Cauldron. Most of the transports landed there during the Stalingrad Airlift and I know it was westward from Gumrak. In the Stalingrad book I'm using for research in my upcoming historicals, there is a two page graphic that lays out the encirclement of the 6th Army and both Pitomnik and Gumrak are illustrated in there. When the Germans lost Pitomnik on Jan. 16th, they shifted to Gumrak which in turn was overrun a week later. I'm planning on putting those two battles into my historicals, but I just haven't gotten that far ahead in developing the missions yet. I'm currently working on the mission that will cover the launch of Operation Uranus.

Found the five, but the sixth is elusive.

@ Zatoichi_Sanjuro

Western Airfield (Karpovka?):
Head to the left side of the map, keeping to the west side of the Volga. At the left hand edged of the map you will see two small rivers jutting out from the edge of the map, not far from each other. The airfield is located between them, just at the tips of each river.

Your first pic is actually one I didn't know about as you're missing the Gumrak airfield just south of the city itself. If there is indeed an airfield where your first thumb indicates, then that means there are 7 airfields on that map. Good work Zatoichi!!!

The more I play this game the more I love it due to its authenticity, lol! After checking through the Pitomnik wiki, there were indeed 7 airfields located within the Stalingrad Cauldron with Pitomnik near the center. The 7 airfields were:

Pitomnik
Bolshaia Rossoshka
Stalingradski
Gumrak
Basargino
Voroponovo
Karpovka

The Pitomnik is most likely the airfield at Krasny Pukhar while Gumrak is easy to identify. I believe that Stalingradski is likely the airfield at Krasny Oktyabr as that is the airfield used in the Gumrak and Stalingrad city CTA. As for the other 4, I'm not sure, but here is a link to a jpeg of the cauldron with the red circles representing each airfield.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...clement_it.png

Etna Manor House
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/picture...&pictureid=684

East of Vizzini Church:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/picture...&pictureid=685

Airfield at Comiso?
 

Don't know if our maps let us go this far. South of Catania near Raguso the place is called Comiso. Should be a German Airfield bombed at the begining of the campaign. Looks to be near the coast. I will look tonight, but good hunting if you do. Most other significant airfields aside from Gerbini look to be near Mount Erice and Trapani (other side of the island).