The World of Liberty Forge: HMAS Sydney
Australian War Memorial Collection, Number: 301423
The ONLY reason I’m making this post, is because a sentient SU-27 Flanker has tricked me into having respect for the Australians.
AH THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN FLEET CARRIERS! If you’ve seen the Ready Room video we did on the HMCS Bonaventure, you’ll know a little bit about the state of the majestic class carriers in the day and age of DPTST4, which is they’re still going strong. Except they never appeared in campaign at all. (We’re gonna blame the Australians for this one too). Well in the early early days of DPTST4 Knife Fight, we fully intended to include the HMCS Bonaventure as a part of the campaign to retake the Falkland Islands, and then when it became the fight to defend Georgia, it turned into the HMAS Melbourne. At the time, this was very doable because our policy on mods was way different. We had access to a mod that added in all of the Majestic class vessels. However as DPTST4 struggled to maintain any real traction, we swapped focus. It became less about becoming the only modded ultra 80’s experience for DCS Multiplayer (something I still want to get back to) to becoming the only hyper realistic 80’s experience for DCS Multiplayer. And so the Majestics were scrapped, and while the A-4 made it into DPTST4, the HMAS Melbourne did not.
And then we started to look at something.
In DPSIM 1 we introduced a concept of analogues. Kind of a “Close enough” measure. This turned the Stennis into the Kitty Hawk, the F-14A into the F-111, and it made the Veinticinco De Mayo look a hell of a lot like the Melbourne. This should make perfect sense to most. The ARA De Mayo actually was a Majestic class, having been the Karel Doorman in Dutch service (Btw the Hunt for the Karel Doorman mission is still scrapped at this time but under review). This means that she’s structurally indistinguishable from the other Majestics. Even better is that RAZBAM never gave her any identifying markings, meaning she fits the bill of any ship we say she is.
Now we get into the bummer part. HMAS Sydney was slated to be in Liberty Forge as the primary fleet carrier for the A-4, but that’s under dispute right now. Instead, we’re making it out to be that the Sydney had been performing combat ops before even the Forrestal got on station, and when it’s inevitably struck and taken out of action, it will have long since done it’s part. The crux of the issue is the ED-RAZBAM dispute (Yes we’re all tired of it. No I’m not getting into it here.) Ya see the ARA De Mayo already wasn’t in a great shape before RAZBAM stopped developing, and right now it has some bad AI pathfinding issues. This makes it so that Sydney would more or less just be window dressing in theatre, and I can’t justify that since frame rates are a concern.
The Australians get sidelined a lot. Not just in DCS, but IRL as well. That’s a massive disappointment, since Australian forces were in historic conflicts ranging from WW2 to Vietnam. One day in the nearish future I’d really like a campaign that can show off the Australians as something above just a support option, but right now I have to keep waiting for their arsenal to be properly represented in DCS. We’re getting close though. The F-4E and the F-18C are already in DCS, so is the A-4 and the UH-1 so maybe it’s time to reexamine some options. If you have an idea for the Australians in DCS, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
