Nah… Thought it was XV Squadron 
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Ah yes, the famous “Fighting Fifteenth” from the Dacian campaign. There’s a lot of misconceptions about Roman military aviation. For instance, not many people realise that the decisive element for Octavian at the Battle of Actium was a squadron of torpedo carrying Caproni biplanes that wreaked havoc in Mark Anthony and Cleopatra’s joint fleet.
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I had no idea! Can you point us towards any sources for Pictish anti-aircraft artillery? In the interests of balance, I feel we will need to add this to the roadmap for future releases.
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Not sure I can help with the Picts there but earlier on during the invasion of Britain, ground attack aircraft came under heavy fire from local ground forces as can be seen in this recently excavated skeleton of an unfortunate bomb aimer that caught a nasty one in a low level run over Maiden Castle…
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Have they actually, you know, successfully fixed any of the bugs in the simulator of the day since then?
Nice one, thanks. A pack covering Iron Age Hillforts of Southern Britain is on the roadmap for 2025 so we can come back it then.
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Aah… the high G string no doubt.
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Our focus for this development update is the Wall’s milecastles. Designed as small forts they were built at regular intervals of approximately one Roman Mile.
The milecastles were built to a consistent overall design, with small variations on gateway type and either as “long axis” (longer than they were wide ) or “short axis” (wider than they were long).
In the original design of the system each milecastle was built with a north and south gate, providing the only access through the Wall itself.
It is perhaps an illustration of the mindset of the Legions that built Hadrian’s Wall that milecastles were built at the position required by the overall system regardless of whether the north gate was usable or not. Milecastle 37 for example opens to the north onto a sheer drop.
As defensive structures, the milecastles are thought to have housed small garrisons varying from perhaps eight soldiers to thirty-two depending on the number and size of the barrack blocks they contained.
We have created thirty-four unique milecastle models based on the evidence of excvated sites, each of which will be placed in its real world location. We can then allocate these models to the forty-four unexcavated sites to complete the Wall.
Milecastle & turrets artwork
Milecastle 42 today
Milecastle 42 in development
Milecastle 42 in sim testing (temporary textures)
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Looking forward to this. Will there be a driveable Roman chariot so we can explore in a period-appropriate vehicle?
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Well, we have talked about it but we are not the ground physics and SDK are quite there yet! You never know though…
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Please no more gimmicks or kids toys thanks
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Noted! Seriously though, I think what we already have in scope is going to keep us busy enough.
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PipsPriller:
Cudos to you and your coleagues for bringing us Hadrian’s Wall! I love the idea of using gaming platforms like Flight Simulator to explore historical sights, and Hadrian’s Wall was high on my wishlist forFS2020.
One of my early favourites was a recreation of ancient Babylon for FS2000 by a developer who gave his/her name as Raad Hermes. Utill I heard about your Hadrian’s Wall project, my favourite for FS2020 was Areographer’s Giza Pyramid Complex (see https://flightsim.to/file/25479/giza-pyramid-complex-historical-pack-version-1-0).
How do you plan to merge/blend your Handrian’s Wall into the FS2020 world of the 21st Century? I imagine you plan to clear everthing beween the ditiches north and south of the wall. But are you planning clear things as far south as the Stainway? And how are you planning to handle modern roads that cut across the wall?
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@MeusMagister Thanks for the feedback, it is great that you like the idea.
I had forgotten about the Giza complex pack and must go back and have another look at it.
And a great question. Right now we are indeed clearing everything from the path of the Wall, from Solway to Newcastle.
Right now the exclusion polys for the Newcastle section from Wallsend to the city centre end look like this:
We are trying to follow boundaries, rivers and contours etc in the landscape so the corridor will be variable in width depending on where you are. For built up areas, my ambition is to be able to drop the drone view to street level and see the Wall running along the end of the street.
We will also redirect two of the rivers to follow their 180AD course so that they align with the bridges that connected the sections of the Wall.
Once we have main path sorted we will then retexture the landscape to blend it as well as we can.
Roads that run across the line of the Wall are a bit of a work in progress and need a bit more thought!
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My pleasure. Thanks for taking on this project!
Since Hadrian’s Wall was not preserved intact, any way you choose to imgagine how it might have been done would be be ligitimate.
Off the top of my head, I could imagine major roads and highways burried in tunnels under the Wall and smaller roads re-routed through the original gates (or through modifed versions thereof).
If you picked a project like this, I am certain you have already looked a how the walls and gates of cities like Rome and Constantinople have been preserved.
What ever model you choose, I look forward to exploring it by air …or (@ OneToBeamUp3871) by chairot :-).
Cheers.
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Hi @MeusMagister, a quick update on our approach to integrating the Wall into the modern landscape.
After creating 80 miles of coast to coast polygons, when we stood back we realised that trying to blend them into the base landscape was both a mammoth task and one that ran real immersion breaking risks.
So, we are trying it from the other end instead. One of the things I hope will be interesting about the add-on will be seeing how the Wall still relates to and informs the modern landscape and settlements.
This has led us to try taking a more “surgical” approach by removing those structures that directly impede the Wall, turrets, milecastles & forts but leaving the rest.
In part, I am hoping we can create a sense that will be familiar to anyone who visited the Berlin Wall before 1989, of something that cuts through the landscape and everything within it.
For villages like Bowness on Solway or parts of Newcastle like Wallsend this means finding a fort in their midst.
A number of farms will disappear (interestingly many are on the site of turrets).
And in Carlisle and Newcastle, neighbourhoods will find themselves severed by the wall itself.
So far we have over 400 items to remove and blend in, with most of Newcastle still to do…
Still working out what to do about the roads!
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Hi all, @RobCap1966 and I will be at FSWeekend in Lelystad this Saturday and Sunday with the current versions of Hadrian’s Wall 180 and Arrows Across America, plus our research material.
We will be in the Old Schiphol Building - if you going to FSWeekend and would like to find out more about the projects do come and find us!
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Superb project! Love it, combining interest which I really into, flightsim and the roman empire! Was a real joy to meet you at FSWeekend! I wish you many luck with this project and hope that my advise help the project! Keep up the good work!
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Thanks and it was great to meet you too. And thanks for the advice, I will start following up your suggestion whilst I am waiting for my flight home and let you know how we get on!
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