topographic maps on the internet?

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> SP:WaW Scenarios/Campaigns >> topographic maps on the internet?

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topographic maps on the internet? - 9/2/2002 10:28:42 PM

gnoccop

Posts: 162
Joined: 7/26/2001
From: Cento, Italy
Status: offline

Someone knows if exist some site where I can find some wwII free maps at a scale useful for SPWAW or CL? (I mean at a 1:50000 or less).

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Re: topographic maps on the internet? - 9/3/2002 1:05:43 AM

Voriax

Posts: 1719
Joined: 5/20/2000
From: Finland
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by gnoccop
[B]Someone knows if exist some site where I can find some wwII free maps at a scale useful for SPWAW or CL? (I mean at a 1:50000 or less). [/B][/QUOTE]

Might be impossible...I've seen few maps on such sites that describe one particular battle. But no large archives...
Maps are of course strategic information and zecret! :)

Voriax

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- 9/4/2002 8:50:41 PM

wulfir

Posts: 3091
Joined: 9/11/2001
From: Sweden
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Topographical maps of WWII might be hard to find, but in my very personal opinion it's not of life and death importence that the maps are made with absolute detail. :)

Many countries, particulary those in the west and especially those atractive to tourists have websites often with low scale (if somewhat crude) maps. They are modern and will not reveal much in the way of terrain, but still better than nothing.

Anyway, I think this site has a few topo maps that could be of interest:

[URL=http://homepage.mac.com/edk/maps.html]http://homepage.mac.com/edk/maps.html[/URL]

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- 9/4/2002 11:32:50 PM

gnoccop

Posts: 162
Joined: 7/26/2001
From: Cento, Italy
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by wulfir
[B]Topographical maps of WWII might be hard to find, but in my very personal opinion it's not of life and death importence that the maps are made with absolute detail. :)

Many countries, particulary those in the west and especially those atractive to tourists have websites often with low scale (if somewhat crude) maps. They are modern and will not reveal much in the way of terrain, but still better than nothing.

Anyway, I think this site has a few topo maps that could be of interest:

[URL=http://homepage.mac.com/edk/maps.html]http://homepage.mac.com/edk/maps.html[/URL] [/B][/QUOTE]

Wow!
Thankyou very much!

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- 9/5/2002 12:10:15 PM

OKW-73

Posts: 237
Joined: 9/1/2001
From: Cyberspace, Finland
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Well, how about using your local library? After all topographic hasnt tend to change during years so no matter if its new map of same area...also goverment has a services that provides maps (at least in Finland, its called "Maanmittaus hallitus", dont know whats it in english ), against small fee, but these maps are only the country you live on of course...

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- 9/5/2002 4:48:29 PM

gnoccop

Posts: 162
Joined: 7/26/2001
From: Cento, Italy
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by OKW-73
[B]Well, how about using your local library? After all topographic hasnt tend to change during years so no matter if its new map of same area...also goverment has a services that provides maps (at least in Finland, its called "Maanmittaus hallitus", dont know whats it in english ), against small fee, but these maps are only the country you live on of course... [/B][/QUOTE]

You are right, but I've very few free time, and it's hard to find time for a search at public library... :(
And also after the WW2 in Italy the road net is changed a lot! Now there are a lot of new roads where during the war there was only countryside...
If you need a strategic map of 1940-45 you can't use modern atlas (at least in italy, but I think in all the western nations).

Thankyou anyway for your advise.

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Post #: 6

- 9/5/2002 8:31:17 PM

AbsntMndedProf

Posts: 1780
Joined: 7/6/2001
From: Boston, Massachusetts
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Here is a site with some over-all maps. Not much good for details, but some might prove usefull, especially for those adventurous enough to put a campaign together. (The folks at the CL team might find it interesting too, if they don't already know about it.)

http://www.onwar.com/maps/wwii/

Eric Maietta

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- 9/5/2002 9:23:24 PM

Voriax

Posts: 1719
Joined: 5/20/2000
From: Finland
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Hello

You might also want to explore this linklist: http://battlefieldsww2.50megs.com/ww2_links.htm

I checked some of the sites and there seemed to be quite a few maps, though in many cases the scale was rather large.

Voriax

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Post #: 8

- 9/11/2002 9:19:44 AM

David boutwell

Posts: 353
Joined: 5/28/2000
From: Haymarket, Virginia, USA
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gnoccop,

What part of Europe are you looking to design a map for? If you are looking for free topo. maps, you are really limiting your options to the US. The US Geological Survey basically has every square inch of the US available at 1:25000 for free online. For other countries, you are going to have to pay. You can contact TDN in Holland, and France has "Series Blue" in either 1:10,000 or 1:25:000, I forget which.

In my personal opinion, Wulfir, when I go to Holland and tour the Market Garden battlefields one of these days, or the Ardennes, or Normandy, I hope to already know those areas like the back of my hand because of the amount of research required to put into my maps the amount of detail that I want.

When I read a book such as "Bastogne: The first Eight Days" or "Arnhem 1944", it is impossible to get a true picture of what is going on in a platoon, company or battalion sized engagement until I've created a SPWAW map of the area. Terrain is EVERYTHING in a battle. If you try to recreate a battle without putting into place the same terrain over which the battle was fought, you will get a totally different battle.

Take the Battle of LZ X-Ray, described in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young", and recreated in Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers". When modern SP gets up and running, you can bet your britches that the Ia Drang battles will be recreated. I think Wild Bill did some work on the battles once upon a time. If you remove the small elevation change called "The Knoll" in the movie, the Lost Platoon, which was a major factor in the character of the battle, would have been wiped out in the first few minutes of contact. If you remove the "Dry River Bed" from the edge of the LZ, the 7th would have been overrun as that shallow dip provided a defensive anchor for the defense of that edge of the perimeter. If you remove the large termite mound from the area of the command post, Joe Galloway, Hal Moore and the rest of the HQ probably would have been killed. I can name other examples of seemingly insignificant terrain in that battlefield alone that totally affected the character and outcome of that battle. Not reproducing them in on the map of that battlefield would make no since to me, as what you would be trying to recreate would not even be the same battle. You might as well just create some generic engagement.

If you like to play hypothetical engagements on generic maps, that's fine, but it beats the heck out of me why people in here are always saying that detail is not important.

If you had the choice, would you fight a historical battle on a super-detailed map or one that bears a vague resemblence to the real place?

If you prefer the former, then might it be that super-detail is not important to you because you might not have either the time, inclination or knowledge of map editing to make one?

Regards,

David Boutwell

"Out of ammunition. God save the King."

(in reply to gnoccop)

Post #: 9

- 9/11/2002 5:30:33 PM

gnoccop

Posts: 162
Joined: 7/26/2001
From: Cento, Italy
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by David boutwell
[B]gnoccop,

What part of Europe are you looking to design a map for? If you are looking for free topo. maps, you are really limiting your options to the US. The US Geological Survey basically has every square inch of the US available at 1:25000 for free online. For other countries, you are going to have to pay. You can contact TDN in Holland, and France has "Series Blue" in either 1:10,000 or 1:25:000, I forget which.

In my personal opinion, Wulfir, when I go to Holland and tour the Market Garden battlefields one of these days, or the Ardennes, or Normandy, I hope to already know those areas like the back of my hand because of the amount of research required to put into my maps the amount of detail that I want.

When I read a book such as "Bastogne: The first Eight Days" or "Arnhem 1944", it is impossible to get a true picture of what is going on in a platoon, company or battalion sized engagement until I've created a SPWAW map of the area. Terrain is EVERYTHING in a battle. If you try to recreate a battle without putting into place the same terrain over which the battle was fought, you will get a totally different battle.

Take the Battle of LZ X-Ray, described in the book, "We Were Soldiers Once, And Young", and recreated in Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers". When modern SP gets up and running, you can bet your britches that the Ia Drang battles will be recreated. I think Wild Bill did some work on the battles once upon a time. If you remove the small elevation change called "The Knoll" in the movie, the Lost Platoon, which was a major factor in the character of the battle, would have been wiped out in the first few minutes of contact. If you remove the "Dry River Bed" from the edge of the LZ, the 7th would have been overrun as that shallow dip provided a defensive anchor for the defense of that edge of the perimeter. If you remove the large termite mound from the area of the command post, Joe Galloway, Hal Moore and the rest of the HQ probably would have been killed. I can name other examples of seemingly insignificant terrain in that battlefield alone that totally affected the character and outcome of that battle. Not reproducing them in on the map of that battlefield would make no since to me, as what you would be trying to recreate would not even be the same battle. You might as well just create some generic engagement.

If you like to play hypothetical engagements on generic maps, that's fine, but it beats the heck out of me why people in here are always saying that detail is not important.

If you had the choice, would you fight a historical battle on a super-detailed map or one that bears a vague resemblence to the real place?

If you prefer the former, then might it be that super-detail is not important to you because you might not have either the time, inclination or knowledge of map editing to make one?

Regards,

David Boutwell

"Out of ammunition. God save the King." [/B][/QUOTE]

thanks for your replay!
My question was a kind of survey to know something new.
Actually I'm not sure what part of europe or also africa i'm looking for! :eek:
(Italy?France?Lybia?Somaliland?Benelux?...)
But i'm working on a little project for bring a strategic dimension on SPWAW for non historical battles and campaigns with PBEM opponents (a kind of boardgame using SPWAW for the resolution of combat).
So with CYBERBOARD (http://cyberboard.brainiac.com) I think to build a strategic map where deploy companyes, battalins and regiment; then the battle will take place using SPWAW.
For the begining (and testing phase with local friends) I don't need historical accuracy...
But if I can find some real map at a good scale (from 1:50000 to 1: 100000 or 1:200000), then I can use this for the strategic part of the game.
And then starting from this I can build a "generic" map of the battlefield, but without all the accuracy you like (due to the ammount of informations and time needed) :(

On the other hand, I like historical scenarios with maps like yours of Ahrnem (BTW a wonderful map and scenario!!!). And I like details too, but details are not always a must; in some cases they are not so important (i.e. in non historical PBEM engagement).

Thankyou also for the good bibliographic list!

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"Violence is the last resource of incompetents". (I. Asimov)

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Post #: 10

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