MWiF Map Review - America

[Froonp]

Well, I've not yet finished, not even begun, drawing draft coastlines for America, but I wanted to see what the Great Lake Region was looking like in MWiF. I had heard that it was badly done, so I wanted to be sure.

And to avoid making an awfull first shot, I used a Google Map underlying Layer to try to have the contours of those enormous Lakes as right as possible from the start.

This was not an easy task, because these are 5 large bodies of water that have to be placed one from each other realisticaly, and each one must look like the real too. Also, there are the borders with Canada that is right in the middle (?) of 4 of those lakes, this adds to the problem of drawing and taking into acount the hexgrid.

To achieve the following draft drawing, I had to move Detroit 1 hex S from its initial MWiF position (who seemed wrong anyway), I had to draw Lake Huron (Middle one) & Georgian Bay nearly 1 hex south of its MWiF initial position, and I also had to distord some witdths and lengths, particulary on Lake Huron, but each one had a bit of distortion to handle the hexgrid.

I hope you all Americans will find them good looking.

[JagdFlanker]

slight adjustment for toronto and hamilton - both are on the coast so i pinpointed their exact location according to mapquest. ottawa looks fantastic [;)]

beautiful job!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice,

Nice from what I can tell (I lived in Rochester for 4 long winters). The hex NE of Milwaukee should either be made bigger or eliminated completely (I do not care which). That small sliver of land doesn't warrant being a hex (IMO).

[wfzimmerman]

Much improved!  Thank you. 

The resource hex in Michigan's upper peninsula corresponds, I think, to Iron Mountain, and  I wonder if some of the hexes in the UP should be mountains. They are small beer by global standards of mountains, but pretty rugged and wild even today.

The plain hex SE of the straits of Mackinac (linking upper and lower peninsula) corresponds to the minor port of Cheboygan and should I think also be forest.  I have driven along the coast road many times and the forest goes right up to the coastline.

The final E in Milwaukee is running into Lake Michigan.

It would be good to have the names of the Great Lakes as they are the largest fresh water lakes in the world (yay team!)

The state slogan of MInnesota (west edge of this image) is "land of 10,000 lakes," i think there should be a few lake hexsides in there to reflect this area of glacial moraines.

Cheers

Fred

[Zorachus99]

I know it's bizzare, but the great lakes should be at least one sea zone.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
Patrice,

Nice from what I can tell (I lived in Rochester for 4 long winters). The hex NE of Milwaukee should either be made bigger or eliminated completely (I do not care which). That small sliver of land doesn't warrant being a hex (IMO).

Yes, I saw a couple more quirks of this kind that I will try to eliminate.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

I know it's bizzare, but the great lakes should be at least one sea zone.

Size would warrant it. The Aral Sea too would warrant it, but I did not raised the question because I wondered if it was useful or not. If war goes to this point, it is useful, because Sea Areas allow for Ships and planes to patrol them, as well as supply to be traced for, and troops to be transported across them. All of which are impossible with Lakes.

History may warrant it too, because I seem to remember that there were training warships sailing the Great Lakes, especially a training Carrier.

The question for the Great Lakes would be :
- Can a warships sail from one of those to all the others, thus having one Sea Area ?
- Can warships sail from them to the Atlantic through the St Laurent ?

It would also need a rule to restrict its access to the possession of one keypoint such as London for the North Atlantic & Brest, or to the possession of some hexes such as the Kiel & Suez Canal.

[Hairog]

There were many ocean going ships in the Great Lakes. Very large oar frieghters still ply the Lakes and were vital during WWII. They of course have to go through the St. Lawrence lock system.

There were a great number of WWII mine sweepers built north of the Milwaukee hex in Manitowoc, WI. In fact they are building some more right now. They all had wooden hulls to fool magnetic mines.

I believe they built a few subs there too. Capital ships have never been in the great lakes that I know of. I do believe they got a destroyer in a few times but never really felt the need for anything bigger. I do believe they could have because those ore frieghters are pretty large. Remember the wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

On a side note the USS Wisconsin wouldn't fit so they gave up on having it come to Wisconsin and have it as a museum in the Nauticus Museum near Norfolk, VA. It is very very cool. The last battle ship to fire a shot in anger in Desert Storm.

On another side note. The Great Lakes hold 80% of the fresh water in the US.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
I know it's bizzare, but the great lakes should be at least one sea zone.

I do not see a need for this.

In WIF sea areas are transportation routes for resources, supply, and land/air units. They serve no other purpose. Given that the Great Lakes are far from any salt water, and that the St. Lawrence Seaway was built in the 1960s (?), they are isolated from other sea areas. The area around them contains a lot of railroads so adding a sea area for supply and resource transportation seems pointless. I also have trouble envisioning an invasion fleet sailing from Detroit to take out Chicago. As another example, if the Axis were able to fly a naval air unit into the Great Lakes, it would not affect Allied logistics. If we are thinking in terms of an all-out Axis invasion of the US and fighting raging across the midwest (i.e., around the Great lakes), then the impact of a sea area for the Great Lakes would still be inconsequential - given all the other stuff that would be happening.

[Froonp]

I made some adjustements to the area.

[wfzimmerman]

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

I know it's bizzare, but the great lakes should be at least one sea zone.

Size would warrant it. The Aral Sea too would warrant it, but I did not raised the question because I wondered if it was useful or not. If war goes to this point, it is useful, because Sea Areas allow for Ships and planes to patrol them, as well as supply to be traced for, and troops to be transported across them. All of which are impossible with Lakes.

History may warrant it too, because I seem to remember that there were training warships sailing the Great Lakes, especially a training Carrier.

SThe question for the Great Lakes would be :
- Can a warships sail from one of those to all the others, thus having one Sea Area ?
- Can warships sail from them to the Atlantic through the St Laurent ?

It would also need a rule to restrict its access to the possession of one keypoint such as London for the North Atlantic & Brest, or to the possession of some hexes such as the Kiel & Suez Canal.

I am not sure what is the largest ship class that can fit through the St. Laurent, but ore carriers of many tens of thousands of tons routinely make the transit, and as noted there were two training CVEs, Wolverine and Sable. A rule limited to cruisers, CVEs, and subs would probably be fair. U-505 is currently deployed in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

Mackinac Island (the strait between upper and lower peninsula), Sault-St. Marie (to Lake Superior), and Detroit (Huron to Erie) are chokepoint hexes through which opposed transit would be extremely difficult.

No automobiles or mechanized troops are allowed on Mackinac Island, where Fort Mackinac is currently guarded by a vast array of horsedrawn carriages and fudge shops.

[wfzimmerman]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99
I know it's bizzare, but the great lakes should be at least one sea zone.

I do not see a need for this.

In WIF sea areas are transportation routes for resources, supply, and land/air units. They serve no other purpose. Given that the Great Lakes are far from any salt water, and that the St. Lawrence Seaway was built in the 1960s (?), they are isolated from other sea areas. The area around them contains a lot of railroads so adding a sea area for supply and resource transportation seems pointless. I also have trouble envisioning an invasion fleet sailing from Detroit to take out Chicago. As another example, if the Axis were able to fly a naval air unit into the Great Lakes, it would not affect Allied logistics. If we are thinking in terms of an all-out Axis invasion of the US and fighting raging across the midwest (i.e., around the Great lakes), then the impact of a sea area for the Great Lakes would still be inconsequential - given all the other stuff that would be happening.

Of course you are right in a strictly logical sense. I am taking childlike delight in hypothetical chrome.

But in a strictly tactical sense, it seems to me very likely that if there was armed conflict around the great lakes, light weight amphibious actions (division scale) would be part of it. It simply takes too long to drive all the way around one of the lakes! I too find it very difficult to imagine corps-sized amphibious actions in the Great Lakes. Maybe the rule should be CLs, CVEs, and subs only -- no TRs or Amphibs.

[composer99]

Given that the Great Lakes are not a sea area, why is it that Duluth is a port on them? [:'(]
 
Also, just thought I'd agree with FlankerLeader's assessments of Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa (especially the latter, given that is where I live!). The Lakes themselves look fine given the requirements to fit them into the hexgrid.
 
You may wish to change more of the hexes east and north of Ottawa to forest. Not only is Algonquin Park around there (although it may not have existed during the war, I'm not sure), but almost all of its environs are still heavily forested to this day, as anyone who has driven up around there can attest. Not to mention infested with countless millions of black flies and mosquitoes. [:@]

[Froonp]

Given that the Great Lakes are not a sea area, why is it that Duluth is a port on them?

Yeah, good catch !!!!
Anyway, I'll have some question to you people about some cities / ports in the US, as I saw some bizare things.

[JagdFlanker]

mr. composer brought up a good point about the big park/forests up there - i'm not too sure about the resource that is supposed to be there, but it can't hurt.

although it looks fine as it is if you prefer here is a more accurate assessment of the transport routes going north in the area - they all radiate from north bay which is the 'gateway to the north' (my dad/family was stationed at the NORAD base there from '86-'90)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Patrice,

The label for Georgian Bay should be farther east. The fifth Great Lake is Lake Erie.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Flanker Leader

mr. composer brought up a good point about the big park/forests up there - i'm not too sure about the resource that is supposed to be there, but it can't hurt.

although it looks fine as it is if you prefer here is a more accurate assessment of the transport routes going north in the area - they all radiate from north bay which is the 'gateway to the north' (my dad/family was stationed at the NORAD base there from '86-'90)

Thanks for the advice Flanker, I was just about to ask people about the railways north of Toronto.
I also wondered about the rail east of Detroit. Does it runs North or South from the small lake ?
On your drawing, I supposed that the 2 hexes with the G inside mean that you think these hexes should be Forest.
I added all of your suggestions to my draft drawing.

[Anendrue]

I do not own America in Flames but if someone does... It should answer all questions about sea zones and the lakes...at least I assume Harry addressed this issue. Especially if the US was to be invaded from marauding facists.

[JagdFlanker]

sorry - yes, the G's are green forest hexes - it actually wouldn't be out of line to make all hexes east, west, and north of those hexes (within canada anyways)to be forest too, with the possible exception of the sudbury resource hex slightly west of north bay.

i'm not exactly sure about how all the rivers will look in the end, but ottawa should be touching the ottawa river in the final map draft.

forgot i moved detroit a little as well

edit: i deleted another rail that is not supposed to be there

re-edit: i found a map of canadian rail lines:
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/m ... =2&r=0&c=0

and edited the map as such.

[Hairog]

Silly me of course the St. Lawrence Seaway was not completed until 1959. Duh. [8|]

The mine sweepers, subs and landing craft made in Manitowoc, WI were sent down the Mississippi system during WWII. The heyday of Manitowoc, WI shipbuilding was during World War II when 28 submarines were built. In fact, more than 100 vessels including landing craft, minesweepers and submarine chasers were constructed for the war. All made their way to the Gulf of Mexico and from there to where ever they were assigned. There were a number of mock invasions to test out landing craft etc. held on the western shores of Michigan. Nice beaches there.

So you'd have the equivalent of river warfare during the Civil War with torpedo boats trying to slip past the forts along the Ohio river etc. Probably wouldn't have happened even if the Axis had some how got to the US.

The ore freighters during WWII were still huge and their work vital to the war effort but they went from Duluth to the steel mills in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland etc. Most of the steel for WWII came from this route. The freighters had to stay within the Great Lakes system however. They couldn't get out into the Atlantic until 1959.

This fact might be worth while modeling. It would have been a huge setback to the war effort if these freighters could not transport the ore from Duluth to the steel mills. It would have taken enormous amounts of trains and trucks to do the same thing.