Cota Mapmaker for BftB Scenarios

[FredSanford3]

Is it possible to use maps from Cota in BftB?

Also, is anyone out there in possession of Normandy area maps? Or other west front battle theaters such as Hurtgen Forest, etc.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Here's an elevation map of the area around Caen:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/fran ... -cop.2.jpg

[simovitch]

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

Is it possible to use maps from Cota in BftB?

Also, is anyone out there in possession of Normandy area maps? Or other west front battle theaters such as Hurtgen Forest, etc.

Yes, the conversion to BFTB will be fairly painless. I converted all the HTTR maps no problem.

Here is as good as it gets for Hurtgen, and a pretty cool website too. Go to the link "US kreigskarte 1944" near the bottom left:hurtgen

[FredSanford3]

Cool.

One thing I was wondering was if there was "broken" terrain in BftB. I hadn't seen any in the screen shots I've seen, and was wondering if that terrain type was gone or not. Flypaper for motorized units, especially AI-controlled.

[Huib]

I have some of them, the Huertgen from an US artillery observer pilot (1:25000) I have some WW2 era 1:50.000 maps of part of Normandy as well.
Greifswald University laso has a lot of maps online. Most of them are pre-WW2 but usable
http://greif.uni-greifswald.de/geogreif/?page_id=4484
The Huertgen is in the 52XX, 53XX, 54XX range I believe.

Huib

[simovitch]

Nice site their Huib, thanks for that.

FN: broken is still there:

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Franklin Nimitz

..... Or other west front battle theaters such as Hurtgen Forest, etc.

For infos regarding the Huertgen Battle you might want to check this site here: http://users.fulladsl.be/spb4981/ScoWeb.htm .

Main menu -> Images & Videos-> "Kall Trail" , then scroll down to the bottom, there is a map and photos showing the infamous Kall-Trail, which was selected as main supply route by the US Army, before launching their offensive in November. As you can see on the 4th image, the trail was not suited for heavy equipment/cars, let alone tanks, and I doubt that it was paved back then. A quote from that site:

"In retrospect, it can be seen that the trail was totally unsuited for the amount of traffic required, and was ultimately one of the main reasons the American attack failed."

I'd second that. This area/battle would make for a great BFTB scenario.

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Here is as good as it gets for Hurtgen, and a pretty cool website too. Go to the link "US kreigskarte 1944" near the bottom left:hurtgen

According to Eifelyeti, the map was printed in 1943 and was derived from maps from 1932-1939. That means the water reservoir "Heimbach", the "Kall"-Dam and the Rur-Valley Dam "Schwammenauel" are missing, so some of the key terrain features are NOT drawn.
The Kalltalsperre (Kall-Dam) was completed in 1935, Talsperre Schwammenauel (Schwamm.-Dam) in 1938, the Staubecken Heimbach (water reservoir Heimbach) in 1935. Looking at these dates, you can tell that the US Army map was based on outdated material.

@Franklin: For actual maps from 1944/1945 just check the US National Archive, there should be some situational overview maps covering the Ardennes offensive and Huertgen Forest. Some of them should contain actual (aerial recon) data.

If you want to double check the road layout in this area, to tell apart Reichsstrasse (major road - 1 lane/direction) from Autobahn (highway - 2 lanes for each direction = 4 lanes) and minor roads, since the local topographical maps usually don't give you an idea of the type of road, you should go here:

http://landkartenarchiv.de/cgi-bin/land ... karte_1941

You can navigate in the mini-map on the left ("Übersicht").
This map is the last public map issued by the German Automobile Club in 1941., containing 99% of the german road/Autobahn net, as the last Autobahn parts were still under construction in 1941 (finished in 1942, 40-60 km).

The guy running this online archive collects European and German Maps from mid-age to the 1970s/1980s. Members paying a fee via PayPal are allowed to display the maps in "medium" and "large" windows.


@Simovitch: I did not figure what these black lines on the Huertgen map (hurtgen) are supposed to display .... they look like this:

---(o)-(o)--- , the circles are filled.

Any idea what that is?

[simovitch]

Goodguy, according to the Key for these series that symbol represents "International Border".
Strange that it is doubled up along rail lines and Major roads.

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: simovitch

Strange that it is doubled up along rail lines and Major roads

Ha, yeah, check this part, southeast of Roetgen, in the Roetgen Forest (where it says "Wald" = forest) ... I don't think that's Luxembourg or some other imaginary mini-state, [;)] hehehe. Indeed, this is strange. On the other hand, the German roadmap I was referring to above, contains borders that look quite funny, as the Nazis, with their obsessive minds, regarded some parts of Belgium and France (not only Elsace) as being part of Germany, in 1941, so they either didn't draw borders in these regions, or they moved borders westward.

But I can't figure the borders on this map.

[GoodGuy]

UPDATE:

@Franklin:

Go here to get a recent map of the Hurtgen Forest Battle area:

http://www.internetstadtplan.com/Huertg ... akmap.html

Make sure you have JAVA enabled.

This is not a topo-map, but if you use this as underlay for a historic topo map, you get the most accurate result, as this map contains ALL tracks and roads in the woods, and many of those were already present in 1944. Also, you can see the "Staubecken Obermaubach" (Water reservoir "Obermaubach", completed in 1935), which is another Dam-installation along the river "Rur". The Wehebachtalsperre (bach = creek, Wehe-Creek water reservoir) top left was completed in 1981, so you mustn't include that on the map.

Interesting key points tied with historical events are drawn here, like the surgical hospital-bunker in the town "Simonskall", Mestrenger Mühle (Mühle=Mill) - where the German 89th Inf Div organized the exchange of wounded soldiers/captives, Forsthaus Huertgen (forester's lodge Hurtgen) - which changed hands several times from September to 26th of November. The final attack on Huertgen was started on 26th of Nov., and - after 2 days of heavy house-to-house fighting and moving forward their tanks on 28th -, US troops managed to secure the town completely in the afternoon of the 28th Nov.

Nowadays, you hardly find a tree that is older than 50-60 years, as quite some parts of the Forest were destroyed by massive arty bombardments during these 3 battles, so a few parts may have a different layout nowadays due to restoration of the tree population in the 1950s.

Anyway, if you wanna create a Huertgen Forest map, you should have plenty of informations now.

[WildCatNL]

@GoodGuy
These borders most likely refer to the historic borders of Kreises Montjoie, a small German sub-state created in 1816, that was assigned to Belgium in 1920. Kreises Montjoie included Monschau, Roetgen, and other towns.
Source: http://www.territorial.de/rheinpr/monschau/landkrs.htm

[GoodGuy]

Thank you!

I was actually thinking about that, but I dismissed the possibility as I thought that the new administrative districts introduced by the Nazis ("Gaue" = districts) in the 1930s replaced the Prussian city/administrative districts. According to that source, these administrative districts were still in effect. Interesting.

[Guibix]

Hi all,
I made a map of Omaha Beach sector,[8D] but i didn't finished.[:(]
It's necessary to determine the areas of cultivation
If somebody want to finish it and/or make an scenario, can download it here.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TJ0LR0UJ

Greetings from Catalonia, Spain.

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Guibix

Hi all,
I made a map of Omaha Beach sector,[8D] but i didn't finished.[:(]
It's necessary to determine the areas of cultivation
If somebody want to finish it and/or make an scenario, can download it here.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TJ0LR0UJ

Greetings from Catalonia, Spain.

Guibix,

Here are some Omaha Beach maps that appear to show the vegetation:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/dday.html

You can right click on them, and save them as JPG.

It'd be really cool if you could get your map finished up! [8D]

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Guibix]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

ORIGINAL: Guibix

Hi all,
I made a map of Omaha Beach sector,[8D] but i didn't finished.[:(]
It's necessary to determine the areas of cultivation
If somebody want to finish it and/or make an scenario, can download it here.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TJ0LR0UJ

Greetings from Catalonia, Spain.

Guibix,

Here are some Omaha Beach maps that appear to show the vegetation:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/dday.html

You can right click on them, and save them as JPG.

It'd be really cool if you could get your map finished up! [8D]

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

Thanks Prince of Eckmül,

I finished the map. Tell me what you think, Thanks

OMAHA BEACH COTA MAP:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZJ9TWHVF

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Hi Guibix,

When I click on the link, it says that your file is unavailable.

[Guibix]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

Hi Guibix,

When I click on the link, it says that your file is unavailable.

Yes. I don't know why don't work, try this link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G320ZGP5

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Guibix,

You need to create the cache file inside the mapmaker utility.

It's the last thing that you do before you save your map at the end.

Then ZIP both of the map files up to make the download smaller.

[Guibix]

Arghhh!![:@]
Sorry!! I didn't know this.

Ok. Now i guess it's ok
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SSJZ8M40

Thanks Prince of Eckmühl for your help[&o]

See you!!

[Prince of Eckmühl]

ORIGINAL: Guibix

Arghhh!![:@]
Sorry!! I didn't know this.

Ok. Now i guess it's ok
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SSJZ8M40

Thanks Prince of Eckmühl for your help[&o]

See you!!

I opened your map in the map maker utility, and its very impressive in its detail. I never knew that there were so many bridges in Normandy!

However, the same map caused scenario maker to crash when I clicked on the terrain. I have no idea what might be causing this. I assume that you calculated the terrain tables and generated the map draw cache before you finished the map. I just dunno.

One way or the other, the map is going to be very nice when its completed. I have been looking for good underlay maps for Italy, but haven't had much luck. What did you use for your underlay of Omaha Beach?