MWiF Map Review - America

[Froonp]

Bolivia: The resource must surely be the Potosi silver mines. If so, then they are just southwest of Sucre.

Are the Potosi mines the otstanding resources of Bolivia ?
The WiF FE maps also show the only resource of Bolivia in this area, southwest of the country. Wasn't there something around here ?

[composer99]

Would a silver mine be an important enough strategic resource to be the 'resource' hex in WiF? Perhaps the resource is an abstraction of the aggregate of the strategic resources that Bolivia exported in the late 30's and early '40s.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

ORIGINAL: composer99
Would a silver mine be an important enough strategic resource to be the 'resource' hex in WiF? Perhaps the resource is an abstraction of the aggregate of the strategic resources that Bolivia exported in the late 30's and early '40s.

I think it's best if the resources on the map produced material necessary for war production or warfare in general. It's even better if we know that the mine, refinery etc. had any importance during WW2.

E. g. the Norwegian resource is the Knaben mine produced molybdenum. This material was used to strengthen steel and was particularly valuable in tank production. The Germans rushed in 1940 to get to the valuable Knaben mines to get the molybdenum for their tank factories. The Allies bombarded the mine several times to stop production.

So this resource is definitely a good choice for placing a resource in Norway. We even had cupper and silver mines, but they weren't so important for war production.

I think we have a similar situation in Bolivia. A huge silver mine was financially important, but not necessarily very important for war production.

[marcuswatney]

Paraguay's border is fine now.

The silver mines at Potosi are famous, and Bolivia's only resource. Silver is a war material: you use it to buy other things!

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

Paraguay's border is fine now.

The silver mines at Potosi are famous, and Bolivia's only resource. Silver is a war material: you use it to buy other things!

From this map, it looks like Bolivia has lot of natural resources, all in the southwest part of the country. Is it possible that the Potosi mines are so important that they dwarf the rest (Edit : Map from 1971) ?

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

Paraguay's border is fine now.

The silver mines at Potosi are famous, and Bolivia's only resource. Silver is a war material: you use it to buy other things!

Only if you are the owner. Why would one of the major powers want to buy silver from Paraguay?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
Paraguay's border is fine now.

The change is now in the game's map.

The silver mines at Potosi are famous, and Bolivia's only resource. Silver is a war material: you use it to buy other things!

I've looked into the Oxford Companion to WWII who says that :
"Bolivia was the allies' most important producer of tin" (page 111).

This, combined with the map shown above, makes me think that the RP represented in Bolivia represents the production of Tin in this country, which the map shows mostly in the southwest of the country. I think that makes the position of the resource right.

Edit : Wikipedia confirms that (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia) by saying :
"An increase in the world price of silver brought Bolivia a measure of relative prosperity and political stability in the late 1800s. During the early part of the twentieth century, tin replaced silver as the country's most important source of wealth."

[Froonp]

Brazil: The Amazon River Road is an anachronism. When I was on the Amazon in 1975, Manaus could still only be reached by river. It is a free port (truly), so the Amazon should be shown as navigable up to that point. In 1975 the only road out of the Amazon southwards began at Santarem, roughly where Amazon of Amazon River Road is printed ... and it looked pretty new. Northwards, the road network began at Boa Vista near the source of the Branco and ran to the border with Venezuela and onwards.

Indeed, the Amazon River, in MWiF, is navigable up to Manaus, simply because technically it is not a river. It is the sea, and the hexes around it are considered coastal. This said, Manaus itself is not considered a port. If it was, Carriers such as the Enterprise, or Battleships such as the Yamato would be able to dock here, and I don't think that it could really be possible.

About roads, there are no roads in MWiF, with a couple of exceptions. The Burma Road, the Arctic Road (Finland up to Petsamo), and 2 "river roads" that are indeed ways for the game to simulate the shipping of resources and supply along the said river. The road per see may not exist, but in the game it is a way to allow supply & RP transport to be done as if it were done by the river. There is one in Belgian Congo along the Kasai River, on which you can ship the Belgian Congo resource to Boma, from where it ships through convoys to the rest of the world. This simulate the transport on the river.

[Jagdtiger14]

Is that David Casper of A3R fame?

[Froonp]

For Marcus and Norman (and any other person who would happen to know the answer, or have an opinion) who seem to have lots of maps and to have travelled the world a lot [;)] :

This area of the map leaves me with a question :

The original WiF FE maps have a railway going from Campo Grande (Brazil) to Asuncion (Paraguay), but none of my 40s maps shows it, so I deleted it from the MWiF map. Also, my maps don't really show a railway going south from Asuncion, but I left it anyway, I did not want to have Asuncion isolated from the world. Do you think that there is a railway here ? (Campo Grande - Asuncion)

There also was a railway drawn on the original WiF FE maps between campo Grande and Santa Cruz (Bolivia) and From Santa Cruz to the rest of Bolivia. On my maps this railway stopped at about the Brazil / Bolivia border, so I stopped it here too (at Corumba, Brazil, in the Pantanal marshes). Santa Cruz is thus isolated from the world. DO you think it is OK ?

[Norman42]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

For Marcus and Norman (and any other person who would happen to know the answer, or have an opinion) who seem to have lots of maps and to have travelled the world a lot [;)] :

This area of the map leaves me with a question :

The original WiF FE maps have a railway going from Campo Grande (Brazil) to Asuncion (Paraguay), but none of my 40s maps shows it, so I deleted it from the MWiF map. Also, my maps don't really show a railway going south from Asuncion, but I left it anyway, I did not want to have Asuncion isolated from the world. Do you think that there is a railway here ? (Campo Grande - Asuncion)

There also was a railway drawn on the original WiF FE maps between campo Grande and Santa Cruz (Bolivia) and From Santa Cruz to the rest of Bolivia. On my maps this railway stopped at about the Brazil / Bolivia border, so I stopped it here too (at Corumba, Brazil, in the Pantanal marshes). Santa Cruz is thus isolated from the world. DO you think it is OK ?

Campo Grande > Asuncion: '37 map = no, '48 map = no

Asuncion > Corriente: '37 map = yes (completed during the Chaco War), '48 map = yes

Campo Grande > Santa Cruz: '37 map = to border as you stated, '48 map = being extended, though I dont think it was finished til the 50s.


Some of these railways that are fictitious I think were added to make operations in central South America feasable (for america/patton in flames etc). Without these railways supply is pretty much impossible in any campaign to Paraguay unless you attack from Argentina. History shows this wasnt the case since Paraguay/Brazil/Bolivia/Argentina/Chile had many brushfire wars in this area, the Gran Chaco War being the formost. Poisonous water, no roads, terrible desert climate, and 10 foot deep thorn covered underbrush so dense that it was considered as effective as barbed wire.

You have to wonder...why in hell they fought for 2+ years over this most inhospitable land with so many casualties on both sides. The oil prospecting that they thought might be there turned up false. The League of Nations stepped in and failed 16 rounds of talks to end the bloodshed. It really only ended when both sides were completely exhausted.

Many scholars believe that the failure of the League in resolving the Chaco War is what gave imputus to the European Fascists to push the envelope with regards to the Rhineland, Ethiopia, Albania, etc. The League was a toothless tiger.

Interesting stuff.

[marcuswatney]

My 1942 map shows:
1.  a rail-line from Asuncion to Buenos Aires, much of the time along the west bank of the River Uruguay;
2.  a rail-line from Sao Paulo to Montevideo;
3.  but intriguingly no connection between the two of them;
4.  no east-west rail-lines across northern Argentina, and certainly not into Asuncion which is shown as a terminus;
5.  no railway anywhere near Santa Cruz in Bolivia
6.  the rail-line heading north from Sao Paulo (Brazil) going no further than Uberaba (about 500 km)
7.  the rail-line heading north from Rio de Janeiro going no further north than Belo Horizonte (about 400 km);
8.  the coastal rail-line from Rio de Janeiro ending at Victoria (about 500 km NE).
 
I wonder if the lack of connectivity may be to do with different gauges?  In 1975, I took the train from just inside the southern Bolivian border to La Paz - it was narrow gauge, Victorian (the ceiling rocked independent of the floor) and throughout the journey we were repeatedly overtaken by cars on the road beside the track.  Don't get me wrong - it was a lovely journey, the carriages redolent of some faded imperial past, but if that was the main line into La Paz in the seventies, I wouldn't have expected much in the forties anywhere in South America.

[marcuswatney]

I'm feeling bored, so forgive me while I enter anorak mode.
 
Clipperton: this atoll, 1200 km WSW of Acapulco, seems to have been given minor port status (if my zoom is working correctly) which is unreasonable, considering it has no harbour at all.  The lagoon is land-locked and stagnant, without fish.  Here is a map from 1956: http://www.molossia.org/pictures/clipperton-map.jpg .  It's fine to have it as a three zone land-mass, because Roosevelt wanted it as a trans-Pacific aircraft staging post.  He nearly seized it from Vichy (the nominal owner, but I think it was uninhabited) in 1941, and did do so in 1944.  But even today it is difficult to land there, so no minor port please.
 
Newfoundland:  Perhaps it has been noted (I've only seen a 2006 game-map), but in 1939 Newfoundland was not a part of Canada but rather a British Crown colony, so I suppose should have a CW and be a territory.  Good to see St Pierre and Miquelon appearing, though on the 2006 map their French sovereignty is not noted. (Wasn't there a third island the Free French seized from Vichy in this neighbourhood)?

[composer99]

Many Newfoundlanders are still rather ambivalent about being part of Canada even today. It's an interesting story, although one that has more to do with the fate of the Newfoundland forces in the First World War than anything to do with the Second.
 
That aside, I believe the Newfoundland issue was settled (see posts #137-138 in this thread), as it is a CW territory in WiF:FE.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
I'm feeling bored, so forgive me while I enter anorak mode.

What does this mean ?

Clipperton: this atoll, 1200 km WSW of Acapulco, seems to have been given minor port status (if my zoom is working correctly) which is unreasonable, considering it has no harbour at all.  The lagoon is land-locked and stagnant, without fish.  Here is a map from 1956: http://www.molossia.org/pictures/clipperton-map.jpg .  It's fine to have it as a three zone land-mass, because Roosevelt wanted it as a trans-Pacific aircraft staging post.  He nearly seized it from Vichy (the nominal owner, but I think it was uninhabited) in 1941, and did do so in 1944.  But even today it is difficult to land there, so no minor port please.

Good Marcus.
It was not a port on the original WiF FE America map (neither the mini nor the full size).
I don't know why it appeared on the MWiF map.
I propose we delete it.

Newfoundland:  Perhaps it has been noted (I've only seen a 2006 game-map), but in 1939 Newfoundland was not a part of Canada but rather a British Crown colony, so I suppose should have a CW and be a territory.  Good to see St Pierre and Miquelon appearing, though on the 2006 map their French sovereignty is not noted. (Wasn't there a third island the Free French seized from Vichy in this neighbourhood)?

Already done last year. Both for the Newfoundland as a CW owned Territory, and as St Pierre & Miquelon showing their French sovereignty.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
I'm feeling bored, so forgive me while I enter anorak mode.

What does this mean ?

Clipperton: this atoll, 1200 km WSW of Acapulco, seems to have been given minor port status (if my zoom is working correctly) which is unreasonable, considering it has no harbour at all.  The lagoon is land-locked and stagnant, without fish.  Here is a map from 1956: http://www.molossia.org/pictures/clipperton-map.jpg .  It's fine to have it as a three zone land-mass, because Roosevelt wanted it as a trans-Pacific aircraft staging post.  He nearly seized it from Vichy (the nominal owner, but I think it was uninhabited) in 1941, and did do so in 1944.  But even today it is difficult to land there, so no minor port please.

Good Marcus.
It was not a port on the original WiF FE America map (neither the mini or the full size).
I don't know why it appeared on the MWiF map.
I propose we delete it.

Newfoundland:  Perhaps it has been noted (I've only seen a 2006 game-map), but in 1939 Newfoundland was not a part of Canada but rather a British Crown colony, so I suppose should have a CW and be a territory.  Good to see St Pierre and Miquelon appearing, though on the 2006 map their French sovereignty is not noted. (Wasn't there a third island the Free French seized from Vichy in this neighbourhood)?

Already done last year. Both for the Newfoundland as a CW owned Territory, and as St Pierre & Miquelon showing their French sovereignty.

Ok - for March 15th.

[warspite1]

quote:

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney
I'm feeling bored, so forgive me while I enter anorak mode.
 
What does this mean ?

 
In slang an anorak is a person, typically a man, who has unfathomable interest in arcane, detailed information regarded as boring by the rest of the population, and who feels compelled to talk at length about this information to anyone within earshot.

[marcuswatney]

Couldn't have defined it better myself, Warspite1.  I believe it originated from train-spotters who huddle at the end of platforms in anoraks writing down lists of incomprehensible engine-numbers in small notebooks.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: marcuswatney

Couldn't have defined it better myself, Warspite1.  I believe it originated from train-spotters who huddle at the end of platforms in anoraks writing down lists of incomprehensible engine-numbers in small notebooks.

I worked with a bunch of train buffs in the 1970's. A group of about 6 of them went out at 2:00 AM one night to go down to a trestle in south Philadelphia to watch a train go by/under. Its 'importance' was that it was the last ever mail train from Washington D.C. to New York - the service was being discontinued. A mail train was a train on which the mail was sorted en route from one city to another. So in the middle of the night they were watching a darkened train go by at 60 MPH knowing that inside there were a bunch of guys sorting mail. Oh, the excitement! Oh, the joy!

[cockney]

Ah trainspotters, the Brits will know who Dwayne Dibley is and is to my mind the pinnicle of the Trainspotter. For the poor souls who don't know Red Dwarf, I'm sure a google of Dwayne Dibley will be most enlightening.
 
BTW sorting mail on a train in the dark, one wonders where the expression going postal comes from?????