Iwo Jima

My first add-on release: Iwo Jima!

The island of Iwo Jima is not my first project, but it is my first add-on release.
Being a nice and small island, I experimented with gradation strips, and could create the island in 2 days. The result was this:



However, I hadn't quite got the hang of making mountains yet, nor putting in ground objects, so a day after I put the first release out on YSpilots.com, I felt I had to do a small make-over of the island.



I still have the first edition of the island of course, and both items are available here:

Version 1:http://www.4shared.com/file/37059040/cb56bee6/iwo.html

Version 2:http://www.4shared.com/file/37104471/61a3f167/iwo2.html

I think the second version is better in all respects though, except perhaps lag. The ground objects are in Fufanl in the Oranleed OHP map pack, and make it look pretty cool. My favourites are the guard towers.



The island of Iwo Jima has of course an interesting history being the first originally Japanese territory the Allied forces captured in the Second World War. I remember seeing the movies 'Flags of my father' and 'Letters from Iwo Jima', both by Clint Eastwood, and so I thought it would be awesome to create the island and fly close air support missions for the troops as they scramble up the shores.



Both movies talk about the battle for Iwo Jima that lasted for a long time, taking a heavy toll on both sides. I like the fact that Mr. Eastwood took the effort to tell both sides of the story, and to tell the history behind the famous picture taken on Mt. Suribachi at the time.



Mount Suribachi is the main eyecatcher on the island, being about 700 meters tall, and sticking out like that. But as you can see, the island has a bit of a different shape in my picture, even though you can see the resemblance. Two reasons for this. Older maps of Iwo Jima have the shape that I modelled my map on, the shape it was during the Second World War, but newer maps have an extended shoreline on the West side of the island. I think this might have changed in the last 50 odd years due to ocean currents washing up sand on that side, or perhaps man-made construction. The other reason is perhaps the way YS flight projects the 3d environment on the screen, making it look a bit stretched on the edges.


This was the map I used to model my scenery on.

I have also reshaped Suribachi in my second version of the YS scenery like so:

Of course, Iwo Jima has officially been renamed to Iwa To after WW2, but because of it's history it's still more known to the world as Iwo Jima. And, because I wanted to model the WW2 island, I have also named it as such. More information can be found on, of course, Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

I hope you enjoy flying in my scenery of Iwo Jima! Later additions to this map are sure to come when I can acquire a Higgins boat landing craft, which I can use to recreate the landing of the Allied troops, and make a .yfs file.