Stimpak's New Maps (Nienburg released!)

[Stimpak]

Moving the Jever map from the Polish Faction thread to here.

Map and old .fp9
Fixed .fp9

[Stimpak]

With little else on my backlog, I think it's time to start working on yet another new map. There's a few candidates I have in mind, but my only restrictions are that they take place in NORTHAG.



One is the Wahlstedt-Bad Segeberg area. You can see an older, small map attempt here that used the trial version of Hexdraw. Now that I have access to better resources however, perhaps it can be remade and expanded...


Papenburg, with it's auto testing track, Ems crossings, and shipyard have been on my mind for awhile.

Maybe somewhere in the Ruhr... but I feel the Soviets would make a point of evading such a highly urbanized zone.

Maybe you guys could decide.

[Stimpak]

Decided upon Bad Segeberg. [;)]

Work was started roughly a week ago, may as well post current progress while I work out small issues:



Large portions of forest in the northern half are missing, as are the two towns of Wahlstedt and Bad Segeberg itself, capital of the district region.
The district, home garrison of the 6th PzG Division's 18th Panzer Brigade, supported by the 67th Jäger Battalion. It's primary garrison appears to be in the town of Boostedt, which is only 3 kilometers off-map from the northwest edge.
In the event of war, I could see these units deployed to the gap at Groß Gronau, between Lübeck and the Ratzeberger See, where Warsaw Pact forces likely would have been moving through. As the brigade is lightly equipped with Leopard 1A2s, their mission would likely involve screening tactics and convoy harassment, before falling back to a last stand in their garrisons within the Segeberg District.
For time I considered adding the Danish forces as an independent faction, but saw little need as they lack indigenous technology, and LANDJUT integrates them with the 6th Panzergrenadier Division regardless.

As for the Warsaw Pact forces, FCRS seems to send most of the local Soviet forces further south, with the 2nd Guards Tank Army fighting the British near Bad Bentheim, and the 3rd Red Banner army sort-of being everywhere. The only unit here, screening the northern flank of the 5th NVA (Who I sent on their 1983 attack plan through Lüneberg and Soltau) is the Soviet 94th GMRD. Any other early action here before the arrival of the Polish Front (Along with the NGF) would be airborne and naval brigade actions against Denmark itself. So as always, thinking up a scenario here will require some clever thinking... [:D]

Otherwise, I'll keep up on this map and hope to have it released sometime next week. [8D]

[Plodder]

Nice use of shading and light there! If you want the darker areas of the water to blend into the light areas more, try a Gaussian blur on the dark areas.

[Stimpak]

I've just begun shading the riverbanks right now, I neglected them while my interest was drawn elsewhere. Thanks for the advice.

[WildCatNL]

Very impressive. I love the farmlands background, forest shapes and the two-tone waters.

The elevation in the forested hills isn't as easy to read as in farmland; perhaps using a wider margin from the sloped hex sides, subtle variation of forest color (lumiosity) with elevation or wide hillshade on the W and SW downslopes make elevation stand out better.
Also wondering if the roads will fit in better with the terrain (and float less on top of it) when given same thin outline as the buildings and stream outline.

I'll stay tuned for further updates!

btw, wrt forces, have you considered an early landing from the USMC and USN air support?

William

[Stimpak]

AFAIK, USMC and USN assets would have been concentrated further north in Norway, Iceland, and possibly even raiding Soviet naval bases (eg. at Murmansk). Equipment of the LANDJUT seems to suggest more of a "Speedbump" role rather than trying to actually hold Denmark. The Soviets likely would have had a stranglehold on the Baltic with only NATO submarines targeting convoys there. Otherwise it's fair to assume that the vast majority of the naval weight would be thrown around protecting convoys in the GIUK gap.

Map has been updated with more roads and Wahlstedt. Northern bank was shaded (Pending adjustments). The roads appear to float above the map because they have shadows, which in hindsight may have not been the best idea [:D]

[Stimpak]

Mostly done now, pending labels, and fixes to the shading in some areas.

[Rincovsk]

Fantastic work Stimpak! Enjoying a lot your new factions as well!

[Stimpak]

Near-final version:



And a test scenario...



Perhaps I'll develop it into a full-fledged scenario.

[Stimpak]

I am proud to say that the map is ready for an initial release version.
I'd like to thank everyone for the kind words and support, once again.

Eitherway, let's get straight to the point!
Includes the map .png, the map .fp9, and something extra...

As usual, the installation procedure is simply taking the maps from the maps folder, and placing them within your Modules/FPRS/Maps folder, and the surprise in it's own folder...
The map itself, Bad Segeberg, also ships with a custom-made scenario for the map:

WM_WGS Forest Fires

Scenario Size: Medium
Best Played As: Warsaw Pact

Date: 22 July 1989
Time: D2 + 4 hours (0432 Hours)
Location: Segeberg District, West Germany
Weather: Misty.

As the moon sailed over the cratered fields of northern Germany, Soviet forces began to move. Phase 3 of Operation Red Storm was in motion, the 2nd Guards Tank Army breaking their silence and driving deep into the west. Together with the 3rd Red Banner Army, they make their way towards Bremen, and eventually the Atlantic coast.

The 94th Guards Motor-Rifle Division however, is staying behind. Instead of following the rest of the army further south, they have been attached to their East German comrades in the 5. Armee. While the East Germans are driving through Soltau, the 94th GMRD is alone in screening the northern flank, where NATO's LANDJUT is holding. This screening action is dual-purpose: they will hopefully tie up NATO assets in Hamburg while attempting to open the way for the later Polish front to thrust into the Danish peninsula. Naval brigades and Airborne divisions are already on their way to capture major ports and bridges along the Baltic coast, holding them until reinforcements can arrive. In order for these to arrive unhassled however, the 94th GMRD must capture the local road net as well as clear out any pesky NATO defenses along the way. Success means opening a new reinforcement zone for Soviet convoys over the Baltic, while denying NATO their own. Failure means potentially suffering a setback via naval incursion, much like the UN forces had achieved against North Korea at Inchon, in 1950.

18th Panzer Brigade has been spending the previous day conducting recconaissance in Lübeck and as far south as Lüneberg, patrolling the region, they had curiously discovered no signs of a major Soviet incursion. It would have seemed that the Warsaw Pact was throwing everything it had at the Fulda gap...
At 0400 hours, July 22nd, an alert goes off across the board that the situation has changed. Commanding voices over NORTHAG call out and are then silenced, as jamming signals rush into the NATO communications net like tanks drive into their defenses. Contact with the 183rd and 184th Panzer Battalions, as well as the division's 6th Recon Battalion was lost early on and never recovered, leading to fears that they had already been engaged and destroyed by the Soviet forces...
What's left of the 18th now digs in at their garrisons within the Segeberg district. Located here is a critical road junction that the Soviets are sure to move on, as well as the large Bucholz Forstgutsbezirk, a large forest from which the lightly equipped 18th Panzer Battalion can defend, as well as harass passing Soviet units.

Soviet forces have now entered the district and are making their move, both to secure the road net and deny NATO forces a staging area in the forest. They come not with a hammer, nor a sickle, but with matches.
They come to start some forest fires.


The scenario itself is not formally balanced as of yet, and may be too easy for the Soviet player. The VP balance would suggest more of a scenario best played from the NATO side. [:'(]

[Rincovsk]

Nice! Will give it a try! I have to say...your maps looks great! Lots of aesthetic improvements when compared with the EGerman pack...beautiful!

[Stimpak]

I've learned quite a bit since then, indeed [:D]
I'm glad with how helpful and supportive everyone has been. This absolutely won't be my last map, but the next one will of course run into the usual problems of indecisiveness...

In the meantime...





(These are just edited images. I'm not actually making a WH40k conversion mod [;)])

[BeirutDude]

The east Germans, Poles, Dutch and Belgians look great!

[kipanderson]

Hi,

yup..clever stuff..

Keep the great work cong.. [:)]

All the best,
Kip.

[WildCatNL]

Great map, and, even more impressive, well researched back story and scenario.

Thanks!

William
p.s. also sent you email

[BeirutDude]

StimPak,

Mind if I use some of you maps and Nationality Mods to create some User Scenarios?

Al

[Stimpak]

Do whatever you want with it. I didn't invest any money into these and if there's none of that involved, then anyone can do whatever they want with my free stuff.

[BeirutDude]

Thanks! P

[BeirutDude]

Any chance of a map in the Kassel area? I don't know if I would ever have the time to learn the map making aspect!