Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: ewilkie

Too bad about the transparencies and no contours.

In fact, it would be nice if the maps could be scanned from copies of the actual field maps used during the war. Then I suppose you would have a slightly different map for the Axis and the Allies. Since the maps would be different, that means maps are not always accurate - so they would have to be modified in real time as more intel was acquired...

over the top maybe, but more intriguing than 3D units!

The ultimate in fog of war....if only...

Well we did use scans of the original British maps ( GSGS series ) from WW2 as the underlay from which we drew the maps. This has been the case for HTTR, COTA and BFTB. I admit there is an undeniable attraction to using the original maps but these can often be cluttered or the printing blurred or due to shortages in ink colouring can often look pretty awful or inconsistent with their neighbouring maps. You would be amazed at how many have purple tonings throughout, while others have brown or red. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Well we did use scans of the original British maps ( GSGS series ) from WW2 as the underlay from which we drew the maps. This has been the case for HTTR, COTA and BFTB. I admit there is an undeniable attraction to using the original maps but these can often be cluttered or the printing blurred or due to shortages in ink colouring can often look pretty awful or inconsistent with their neighbouring maps. You would be amazed at how many have purple tonings throughout, while others have brown or red. [:)]

Interesting. Those "purple tonings" sound like they are blue line(blue prints) made from mylar maps. Out of curiosity, is there any way(or method) to import digital data such as DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) or vector line work into the map builder?

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Interesting. Those "purple tonings" sound like they are blue line(blue prints) made from mylar maps. Out of curiosity, is there any way(or method) to import digital data such as DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) or vector line work into the map builder?

I assume that it still will be possible to use an imported map as a background, making it vectorized by hand through the map editor. It is a tedious process for larger maps but goes rather fast as soon as you get the hang of it. I have not really seen any more competent map editor in a wargame than what Panther games have offered so far.

ORIGINAL: wodin

ORIGINAL: ewilkie

Too bad about the transparencies and no contours.

In fact, it would be nice if the maps could be scanned from copies of the actual field maps used during the war. Then I suppose you would have a slightly different map for the Axis and the Allies. Since the maps would be different, that means maps are not always accurate - so they would have to be modified in real time as more intel was acquired...

over the top maybe, but more intriguing than 3D units!

The ultimate in fog of war....if only...

I believe you could take the realism one step further by using German maps for the German player and allied maps for the allied player. I re-read "When Trumpets Fade" in anticipation for BFTB and remember quite a few passages where different views of the terrain affected the battle heavily regarding possible crossings, tracks and minor roads.

It would not offer that much surprise when you re-play a scenario, but it would offer a quite novel feature.

ORIGINAL: Pergite!

I re-read "When Trumpets Fade" in anticipation for BFTB and remember quite a few passages where different views of the terrain affected the battle ...

I never read that book, but I bought the HBO-adoption (1998) on DVD a couple of years ago, it's pretty interesting. I wonder, though, why don't you read a book covering the BFTB? [:)]

ORIGINAL: TheReal_Pak40
Out of curiosity, is there any way(or method) to import digital data such as DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) or vector line work into the map builder?

No, not at present. It's on our wish list. Well to be precise we would like to overhaul the map classes in our engine so they are based on industry standard GIS classes. They would of necessity be a superset of these as we would need additional data. Then we could write a simple conversion program that would allow import and export of digitised data using these industry GIS classes.

This is a very big job.

Have you looked at ProSim games and the fan made tools for creating maps from DEMs?

ORIGINAL: Pergite!


I believe you could take the realism one step further by using German maps for the German player and allied maps for the allied player. I re-read "When Trumpets Fade" in anticipation for BFTB and remember quite a few passages where different views of the terrain affected the battle heavily regarding possible crossings, tracks and minor roads.

It would not offer that much surprise when you re-play a scenario, but it would offer a quite novel feature.

Exactly what I men't when I said the ultimate fog of war....people forget we didn't have the sort of maps you can buy from a garage today back then...even the size of hedgerows was wrong and caused chaos during Normandy.

Also I really enjoyed the film When Trumpets Fade....overlooked in my opinion...never ead the book though.

I don't mean to blame terrain alone for the whole disaster that happened at the Dieppe landings, but I do remember the size of the rocks on the beaches were enough to prevent any progress even up the shallowest incline by the Canadian & Britt tanks.  That was the first time I learned that small rocks could act as perfect anti-tank trenches..

They were then forced to only move along the shore of the beaches, and literally drove the treads of their tanks right over countless bodies both dead and dying that were strewn along the shore.  Christ!  Even the Nazi's never did that that to them.  If the Western drivers hadn't admit it later, you'd swear this had to be Russian tanks using their own infantry for traction.

That was a good lesson to learn about what happens in battle when you lack what seems to be insignificant data. 

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

ORIGINAL: Pergite!

I re-read "When Trumpets Fade" in anticipation for BFTB and remember quite a few passages where different views of the terrain affected the battle ...

I never read that book, but I bought the HBO-adoption (1998) on DVD a couple of years ago, it's pretty interesting. I wonder, though, why don't you read a book covering the BFTB? [:)]

There where too many damned trumpets involved in the west front [:)] I of course meant "A time for Trumpets". I Never read "Where Trumpets Fade" either, but I would be surprised if not the Hürtgenwald also will be featured in BFTB at some stage.

ORIGINAL: Obsolete

I don't mean to blame terrain alone for the whole disaster that happened at the Dieppe landings, but I do remember the size of the rocks on the beaches were enough to prevent any progress even up the shallowest incline by the Canadian & Britt tanks.  That was the first time I learned that small rocks could act as perfect anti-tank trenches..

Well, I don't know about those small rocks, but if you meant the pebble beach, then I'd agree and say that this is not totally tank friendly terrain. But for tanks, such a ground should provide a traction close to the traction provided by sand, well wheeled vehicles may be a different story. It seems like the armored vehicles had either been damaged or abandoned shortly after the landing. Some of them look as if they were shot up.

The tank at the water line threw a track probably caused by some AT- or mortar shell, or some hasty manouevre. All vehicles' hatches are open, so the crews may have bailed. There's a kind of torch on or under the front glacis of the Churchill tank in the front, I can't tell whether it's part of the tank or if it's been stuck in the ground in front of the tank, though. If it's part of the tank, then it's some early flamethrower version.

They had a hard time to get off the landing craft, already:

Where the wall in this sector was one of the showstoppers during their attempt to get the infantry off the beach, for sure:

I think the wall shown above is behind the Pier on the following picture, as the bright spot on the cliffs in the distance may be the house you can see on the other picture.
But it seems like the beach itself, where the armor had landed, did not have such a wall:

Oh this was an obstacle, for sure:

The German defenders at Dieppe had various positions that were surprisingly well prepared, like the MG-nest below. Mortar and AT positions were also zero'ed in on the beach. At least one MG Bn had been relocated to the Dieppe sector, prior to the landing. There's a debate about whether the Germans had received infos about a planned raid in the sector or not. Some German witness accounts point toward that direction, at least.

A German MG-position at Dieppe:



So, I tend to think the pebble beach wasn't the main problem at Dieppe.

Ok, sorry for going off-topic. [:)]

There's a debate about whether the Germans had received infos about a planned raid in the sector or not.

As I understand it, there was no need for info on this, as the allies had fallen so far behind schedule, that they were still on their way to the landing in daylight hours, when they were supposed to already have been attacking by stealth cover of darkness.

So, I tend to think the pebble beach wasn't the main problem at Dieppe.

Unless you ask the Tank Drivers of course.  There was another horror story about those thanks, I do remember quite a few tank crews drowned before even making it to the shores, not because of sunken transports, but because areas that were supposed to have shallow water in fact were much deeper, and some tanks were immediately plunged to their watery graves the second they rolled off the boats.

Anyhow, thanks for pic references.  Usually this is one event the allies would rather just sweep under the carpet and pretend it never happened.  There was a historical documentary the CBC did on this after interviewing the survivors on what happened, but then they got a tremendous amount of flack for it since it made the Canadians look like the worst combatants ever.  In fact, the CBC got sued by the Canadian Historical War Museum.  Well that's patriotism for you.

I think the biggest problem was that instead of aborting this in the early hours, which they were ready to do, a very few infantry had a bit of success in reaching some French houses.  By the time this small success had made its way back to top command, it had been exagerrated bit by bit through each link, until the final message relayed that just about all the forces were having success in penetrating.  So hence, more and more units were dumped off in droves right into the meat-grinder.

Hey Guys, how about you continue this Dieppe discussion ( which is interesting ) in another thread, thanks. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Good news. Paul has found and fixed the most likely cause of the out of sync bug. He has been running multiplayer games for a day now without them going out of sync. I will work up a new build on Monday and get the beta testers to thoroughly test it. Looking good. [:)]

Many thanks Paul. [&o]

So it's been a couple weeks since this was fixed. How's progress towards release? Have you handed it over to Matrix yet? I'm gonna be a first day buyer. When is that first day? [:)] Thanks