Europe map?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
I have this suggestion.  Correct me if I am wrong, but one of the weird things I recall about WiF is that partial Qattara hexes are impassable.  This gives a very odd feel to the desert war, especially since partial sea hexes are (of course) playable.  So my suggestion is to use the far better and naturalistic depiction you have created for the Qattara Depression straightaway, in MWiF1, but allow use of partial Qattara hexes, as is done in all other desert games.  Thus there is no change to the play of the game in the crucial area, but it does look soooooooo much better.

Well, I'd rather draw the Qattara Depression 1/3rd hex southward, so that the Suez hexrow is free of it.
If we say that partial hexes are not blocking movement, then there is little left of the Qattara depression.

Well, sorry for the double posting. I thought that the first one got lost.
Anyway, here is a drawing to support what I was proposing. A more acurate drawing, who respects the Qattara Depression hexes that we have in the WiF FE map, except one (the most NW one is now desert -- not a dramatic change).
Here, it is assumed that all hexes where QD is drawn are impassable and unable to stack a single air unit.

So, between what we have on the MWiF map and what I propose here, only the drawing changes, with 1 QT hex became simple desert. I think it is a good compromise.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Fine by me.

[marcuswatney]

I personally prefer the first depiction (Post 257), and having partial Qattara hexes playable (full Qattara hexsides are of course completely impassable), because this observes standard wargaming conventions.  The Qattara Depression is a lake with quicksand instead of water, so if you think of its edge as a 'shoreline' you can sense what I mean.
 
The unimportant hex 2SW Matruh becomes playable.  This is useful, as it encourages the CW player to defend closer to the historical battle site, where he can be attacked from only two hexes.

[Norman42]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

I personally prefer the first depiction (Post 257), and having partial Qattara hexes playable (full Qattara hexsides are of course completely impassable), because this observes standard wargaming conventions.  The Qattara Depression is a lake with quicksand instead of water, so if you think of its edge as a 'shoreline' you can sense what I mean.

Agree 100%. It should be drawn and represented as if it was a lake, which is essentially what it is. Just substitute sand for water.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Mike wanted to look at Europe next. So let's start with the United Kingdom.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Scandinavia received a lot of attention. In particular, Bergen is now farther north than on the WIF FE map.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

North Cape, the Kola Peninsula, and the White Sea.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Continuing the clockwise presentation. I trimmed the right edge here to fit within the 500 KB constraint for the forum. I'll do the rest when we get to the USSR proper.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Still struggling with the 500 KB limit. We'll do Stalingrad as part of the USSR.

[marcuswatney]

Is Lerwick a two-front port?  It's odd the way the zone boundary skirts it timidly.
 
Surely Bergen should have direct access to the Norwegian Sea, else why would the German player ever base the Bismarck there in preference to, say, Tronheim?

[marcuswatney]

The spurious red political border along the NE hexside of Petsamo has yet to be removed.
 
I do think ownership of Hango needs to be identified, for those not familiar with the history.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Turkey and Greece.

[Weirdness from Honolulu - does anyone else have Buddhist temples playing loud music past midnight on Good Friday?]

[marcuswatney]

The large lake in Northern Ireland really need to appear.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Western Med and Spain.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

The rest of France.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

This gives a better presentation of an area that was on the edges of previous screen shots.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

10th and last in the series. A better view of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

The spurious red political border along the NE hexside of Petsamo has yet to be removed.

I do think ownership of Hango needs to be identified, for those not familiar with the history.

That is a Finnish Borderlands boundary.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
Is Lerwick a two-front port?  It's odd the way the zone boundary skirts it timidly.

Edit (forgot to anwer first) : Only one because the WiF FE map has no port on 2 Sea Area on the North Sea except Scapa Flow and Plymouth on the North Sea (and Brest too). So I don't belileve that MWiF should give a new one, especially Lerwick who did not house the British Navy (nor the Kriegsmarine). If Lerwick was one, the importance of Scapa Flow would be totaly negated (it's importance in the game is unfortunately already smallish enough because of the absence of a supply source, so I'd not want to reduce it even more).

Surely Bergen should have direct access to the Norwegian Sea, else why would the German player ever base the Bismarck there in preference to, say, Tronheim?

Well, Bergen is at it is on the WiF FE map. On the WiF FE map it is a port on the North Sea only.
I don't know why exactly the Bismarck stopped at Bergen (I did not remember she stopped here anyway), but WiF does not represents Bergen as a 2 Sea Area Port. There are no 2 Sea Area Ports on the North Sea and Norwegian Sea by the way.

Maybe the Bergen stop is just a short stop, not represented at the WiF scale (2 months a turn), and WiF considers that Operation Rheinübung is simply a naval move straight from Kiel to the North Atlantic, with an interception in the Faeroes by the Suffolk & Norfolk cruisers in section 4 (who use suprise to avoid fighting) an ensuying combat against the Hood & Prince of Wales in section 3 with suprise for the Bismark who sink the Hood, and then a combat in North Atlantic Sea Area against the Victorious, the King George V and the Repulse, where the Bismark takes an Abort or a damage result, and a final interception in the Bay of Biscay by Force H's Ark Royal & Renown where the Bismarck get sunk, suprised in the section 0.

If Bergen was a 2 Sea Area port, the Kriegsmarine would have been permanently based here (why the hell stay in Kiel, where they can be in Bergen and escape by one of 2 ways instead of just one in Kiel), so I believe that the current representation is not so bad.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
The spurious red political border along the NE hexside of Petsamo has yet to be removed.

This is to show that the area NE of Petsamo (Rybachi peninsula) was given to the Russians when they demanded the Finnish Borderlands.

I do think ownership of Hango needs to be identified, for those not familiar with the history.

There is too few room to write "Finnish Borderlands" here.

By the way, what in your opinion is the right english exonym for Hango ? Hango (as you write), or Hanko as I wrote on the map.
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanko) says that Hango is the Swedish spelling and Hanko is the Finnish spelling. Moreover, the english speaking Wikipedia entry is Hanko rather than Hango.
If you look for Hango in Wikipedia you don't find Hanko.
So ?
Hanko or Hango ?