Road Network in COTA maps

[PyrosLambert]

This is a typical Pindus landscape

[PyrosLambert]

This is a view from Kalabaka

[PyrosLambert]

Another picture from Kalabaka and a section of a historical AAR.

Only part of 17 Australian Brigade, known as Savige Force, was in position at Kalabaka, and the medium battery and New Zealand field battery came under the command of the Australian, Brigadier S. Savige. There was no immediate threat except of air attack.

The valley of the Pinios narrowed just north of Kalabaka and the infantry of Savige Force was disposed across this steep-walled defile with the guns in support. Observation posts for the field guns were on the steep hills north of the town and ammunition was plentiful. An effort to get a truck across the river to equip an OP for better observation of the left flank failed, a wireless set was dropped in the water, and the men got thoroughly soaked.

The scene was like a fairyland. The cliffs looked like pipe organs and several monasteries topped them at dizzy heights. The river seemed to climb steeply into the hills to the west. Refugees still streamed through, many of them in uniform. Rain fell in a steady downpour and vehicles had to be moved frequently to stop from sinking into the ground.

[PyrosLambert]

[&o] "Women of Pindus" [&o]

The Pindus sector was left defenseless with a battalion under Col, K. Davakis. When attacked, this small Greek unit retreated. The Commanding General in the neighboring Macedonian front rushed two outstanding units to the Pindus sector to halt "Julia" before it could attack Metsovo. These units were a brigade under Col. Socrates Demaratos (an Epirotan who knew the area) and Gen. Vasilios Vrahnos. They unleashed along the Pindus front, a relentless counterattack which drove the Italians back. At this sector of the war in the Pindus mountains, an unprecedented phenomenon in modern military annals occurred-active participation of the local population, especially the women of this mountainous area. They are known as the "Women of Pindus." These women knew the mountains so they acted as guides, carried ammunition, disassembled canons, food, rifles, wounded and anything else on their shoulders and they helped build roads and kept them clear.

Pindus village

This is a typical village of the mountain Pindus complex.

Each of these villages was a supply depot for the Greek forces fighting at the mountain of Pindus.
The valuable supplies (food, clothes...) and ammo, were carried during the first days by the local population of these villages (on their shoulders )

[PyrosLambert]

Typical bridge of Pindus

[MarkShot]

Dave,

Seeing all these beautiful pics made me think ...

Do you think it is too late to add photo realistic 3D terrain to COTA before the release?

Thanks.

[Brady]

Again great Picks[:)]

[PyrosLambert]

ORIGINAL: Brady


Again great Picks[:)]

Thanks Brady, [:)]

For me, military history and the research of all the tactical details gives me pleasure,
perhaps even bigger pleasure than the actuall scenario and map designing. [:D]

cheers,
Pyros

[Major Disaster]

Obviously COTA needs a "Women of Pindus" bonus factor! [:)] Perhaps a more generailzed expression would be a local population support bonus. What would be even cooler would be to have errors in the maps that the Germans use but I imagine that would be really hard to program. But perhaps the German AI could be prohibited from using some of the dog trails when route planning. However, that can wait to an update. Meanwhile, it is high time to get COTA out the door! Hint. Hint. [:'(]

[PyrosLambert]

If you wish to add parameters in the game that add to the reality checks then there are over a dozen of these.
The only thing that you need to do is to make a deep and detailed historical research of the exact conditions and events during the conflict.

So besides the "women of Pindus", which was a decisive factor" during the early days of the Italian invasion, you should also take into serious consideration parameters like the following:

1. One extremely critical problem for the movement and transportation of all units (Allies and Axis) was the incredible traffic jam in the narrow roads during the retreat / advance.

2. The allies had enough time to prepare their initial defensive positions, place their artillery/AT guns to appropriate positions, but in some occasions (during their retreat) they couldn't retrieve those guns because of the time limitation.

3. From 16 April (but much more from 20 April), you must take into consideration (for all road calculations) a very important factor. The Greek soldiers (in some cases also Greek population) were marching from the frontlines towards their homes. This has created a chaos, confusion and additional traffic jam in almost all road axis.

There are many small details like the above...

cheers,
Pyros

[Agema]

Actually along those lines, and maybe I've forgotten or missed an existing post on this, but I've been reading up on the battle for Crete (Beevor) and at various points armed and violently indignant civilians seem to have caused the Germans some severe delays and occasionally some nasty casualties.

Will there be small units of partisans in the game, or maybe are they represented by delays should German units reach certain areas?

[PyrosLambert]

ORIGINAL: Agema

Actually along those lines, and maybe I've forgotten or missed an existing post on this, but I've been reading up on the battle for Crete (Beevor) and at various points armed and violently indignant civilians seem to have caused the Germans some severe delays and occasionally some nasty casualties.

Will there be small units of partisans in the game, or maybe are they represented by delays should German units reach certain areas?

Historically at this point there were not any partizans.
But there were some Greek units that refused to surrender and found refuge in the mountains.

Concerning the population of Crete:

These people have a very harsh mentality and manners. Even today, every family has several arms (illegally) hidden in their houses.
They can easily kill someone for reason of honor (vendetta) and they don't obey easily to laws and regulations.
Even the official state (police) may find a hard time to enforce the laws.

During WW2, these people (even women) have gone berserk with the view of the German parachutists and they tried to kill them at any occasion and opportunity (while they were still at air) and with EVERY mean (tools).

Soon after the German occupation of Crete, the Germans gathered many groups of civilians and then they opened fire at them, killing without discrimination .

cheers,
Pyros

[Agema]

Yes, that detail is in the history I'm reading.

I think partisan is not entirely inaccurate. At Kandanos a force held a German motorcycle force rushing to the south coast for two days. As there were no Greek or British troops stationed there, this means that presumably there must have been armed irregulars (presumably citizens) taking action. This was on the 23rd/24th, before the nearest force at Kastelli Kissamou had been defeated, never mind the more distant units between Maleme and Canea.

[PyrosLambert]

Women of Pindos (Pindus)

[Golf33]

Quick response to this thread - it's all from memory so forgive minor lapses of detail (I could be one or two years off on map dates but I think not much more than that).

- the source maps we used were mainly 1940s series British maps which IIRC themselves seemed to be reprints of earlier Greek maps
- some maps were even earlier, 1916 or 1917, again IIRC these were reprints of earlier Greek maps
- the only modern map we used was that of Malta, as we were unable to locate a useable period map

- the New Zealand official histories quoted here were a major source for the game, along with the Australian official history and other sources, many of which are noted in a post from me on this forum

- every track or road on COTA game maps was either present on one of the source maps OR in a map taken from either Australian or New Zealand official history, or other reliable record of the period (for example the Leibstandarte volume dealing with MARITA)
- we removed a number of the tracks and roads that were shown on the maps either because reading the official histories made it clear that the marked track did not exist, or to ensure the difficulty of movement in an area was accurately rendered by the game engine as far as we could tell from the historical records

- the game doesn't just use road movement rates as a standard percentage for all roads of a given type; instead it slows movement on the road to take into account the slope as well
- the dashed road type ("track" IIRC) gives no benefit to vehicle movement, instead vehicles travelling in the area of the track use the movement rate of the underlying ground type, modified by the slope
- in some areas it is necessary to have a trafficable road even though none existed historically, because in the historical battle vehicles did move through the area, but in the game maps the scale slope effect would make the area impassable to vehicles without the road

- the main instances of 'civilians' fighting the German paratroops on Crete occurred away from the areas represented in COTA, as least as it was when I was last involved

- IIRC traffic jams are modelled in the game, I think it is that undeployed units occupying the same area suffer a fairly severe reduction in speed - Arjuna would have to confirm this though.

- the 1940 campaign was really hard to model - I found very few accessible English-language sources, and the nature of the campaign is a long way from the modern mechanised and motorised combat of other theatres and later periods of the war. As a result there is a certain amount of abstraction and a certain amount of best-estimate data where details weren't available to me. I think I've done a pretty reasonable job of it but it will have to wait until more people more expert in that particular campaign and with better access to original sources get to play the scenarios and judge how well I managed it.

Regards
Steve

[PyrosLambert]

Hi Steve,

you have done a very nice work, but you have missed some points (in order to achieve 100% historical accuracy)

ORIGINAL: Golf33

- every track or road on COTA game maps was either present on one of the source maps OR in a map taken from either Australian or New Zealand official history, or other reliable record of the period (for example the Leibstandarte volume dealing with MARITA)
- we removed a number of the tracks and roads that were shown on the maps either because reading the official histories made it clear that the marked track did not exist, or to ensure the difficulty of movement in an area was accurately rendered by the game engine as far as we could tell from the historical records

The main problem with your traffic network is not the quantity of roads but the quality of these roads.

Greek mountains are extremely rough rocky formations.

The problem with the COTA road network is that most of the mountain roads should be completely inaccessible from vehicles, because this is a historical fact.

It is not a question of slow movement rate but a case of total prohibit of movement.
And this plays a very important role in real (historical) tactics.

For instance, in the "Tank at Platamon" map, the real facts are that the German could only move their tanks from the cart-trail passing through the castle ridge and then into the coast rail tracks!!

This action lasted 14-20 hours for covering a distance of only few kilometers.

You must also take into consideration that from the original 100 tanks only 25 made it to the other way of the ridge. From the rest of these (75) tanks (that failed to be operational) only 6-7 were damaged from mines or artillery hits. The majority of the immobilised tanks were damaged from road conditions (or stuck in mud/swamps).

Finally, you should keep in mind that NONE vehicle could bypass the caste ridge and move through the mountain mule-trails.

Now, concerning the COTA game... since I haven't played it, I can't judge it![:)]
But, I am curious to see how the Platamon map conditions will be simulated.

As I told you earlier, the whole issue is about real tactics... The NZ in Platamon didn't posses AT guns because they didn't expect to face a threat of the German Tanks at this unfriendly (for tanks) location...

ORIGINAL: Golf33
- the game doesn't just use road movement rates as a standard percentage for all roads of a given type; instead it slows movement on the road to take into account the slope as well
- the dashed road type ("track" IIRC) gives no benefit to vehicle movement, instead vehicles travelling in the area of the track use the movement rate of the underlying ground type, modified by the slope
- in some areas it is necessary to have a trafficable road even though none existed historically, because in the historical battle vehicles did move through the area, but in the game maps the scale slope effect would make the area impassable to vehicles without the road

Regards
Steve

It is not your fault, since you ignore the real ground conditions and the possible difficulties for vehicle movement. If you have invested in a small trip to the actual battle locations you would have probably figured out that the inaccessible areas for vehicles should have covered a considerably bigger part of your maps (since this [in conjunction with the bad weather] was the key of several defensive battles, especially in the Greek-Italian Pindus front).

But Steve don't worry, because for the 99% of the players, all the above historical details won't matter at all...the only thing that matters is if the game engine runs OK and if the scenarios are well balanced, which I am sure that COTA has very well achieved!

Only for real "lovers" of military history this could make a difference.

Anyway, you have done a very good work. [:)]

cheers,
Pyros

[Real and Simulated Wars]

Hello folks,
I have been following this thread since it was under other name and I just wanted to say to both Panther and Pyros thanks.
To Pyros: your knowledge on this campaign is unsurpassable. Thanks for the pictures and for sharing your knowledge. I'm looking forward for any of your mods (will you mod the out-of-the-box map?) and further analysis of the scenarios after the game is released.
To Panther: when I see the amount of effort you put into this release, I just cannot express with words the admiration I feel for your team. I'm proud to be one of your customers.
As for the accuracy of the maps, nobody expressed better the way I feel about this issue than Lewis Carroll:

"That's another thing we've learned from your Nation," said Mein Herr, "map-making. But we've carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?"

"About six inches to the mile."

""Only six inches!"exclaimed Mein Herr. "We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!"

"Have you used it much?" I enquired.

"It has never been spread out, yet," said Mein Herr: "the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.

From: Lewis Carroll - The Complete Illustrated Works. Gramercy Books, New York (1982). Page 727.

[Arjuna]

Nice one Chelco. That Caroll fellow was spot on, hey. [:)]

[JeF]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
Nice one Chelco. That Caroll fellow was spot on, hey. [:)]

Does it mean it is on the whish list then ? [;)]

JeF.

[PyrosLambert]

ORIGINAL: Chelco

Hello folks,
I have been following this thread since it was under other name and I just wanted to say to both Panther and Pyros thanks.
To Pyros: your knowledge on this campaign is unsurpassable. Thanks for the pictures and for sharing your knowledge. I'm looking forward for any of your mods (will you mod the out-of-the-box map?) and further analysis of the scenarios after the game is released.
To Panther: when I see the amount of effort you put into this release, I just cannot express with words the admiration I feel for your team. I'm proud to be one of your customers.
As for the accuracy of the maps, nobody expressed better the way I feel about this issue than Lewis Carroll:

Chelco,

Thank you for your compliments. [:)]

cheers,
Pyros