MWiF Map Review - America

[fiveof6]

Except for the first hexside off of the Colorado River (where that river backwashes up the Gila River) the Gila River should be deleted as a terrain feature. It is intermittant at best, and when flowing is so shallow a person could walk across. I've attached a satellite photo showing the entire river being channelled through a few pipes on an elevated road. The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges.

[fiveof6]

Here's the hexside of the previous post. Kevin

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: fiveof6

Except for the first hexside off of the Colorado River (where that river backwashes up the Gila River) the Gila River should be deleted as a terrain feature. It is intermittant at best, and when flowing is so shallow a person could walk across. I've attached a satellite photo showing the entire river being channelled through a few pipes on an elevated road. The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges.

Well, it depends upon what is being represented by the river. In the southwestern US, many rivers are dry or underground for at least part of each year. The river bed is still a militarily significant feature in many cases. As an example, I have often driven US Highway 101 between San Francisco and Paso Robles (call it halfway to LA from SF). As you pass King City, the river there (I forget if it is the Salinas River or another one) is often all but dry by mid-September. The highway bridge over the river bed (or a similar span built by combat engineers) would still be a locally significant tactical objective given that the bed is a few tens of feet deep with steep, eroded banks. The river bed would be better than most castle moats.

On the level of a WiF hex, I think easier crossing points could be found outside King City, but at the local level, it would have an impact on operations. Maybe the Gila River is in a similar situation that covers more of the "hexside". It is kind of hard to tell how steep the banks are in the photos, but they are clearly there.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

ORIGINAL: fiveof6

Except for the first hexside off of the Colorado River (where that river backwashes up the Gila River) the Gila River should be deleted as a terrain feature. It is intermittant at best, and when flowing is so shallow a person could walk across. I've attached a satellite photo showing the entire river being channelled through a few pipes on an elevated road. The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges.

Well, it depends upon what is being represented by the river. In the southwestern US, many rivers are dry or underground for at least part of each year. The river bed is still a militarily significant feature in many cases. As an example, I have often driven US Highway 101 between San Francisco and Paso Robles (call it halfway to LA from SF). As you pass King City, the river there (I forget if it is the Salinas River or another one) is often all but dry by mid-September. The highway bridge over the river bed (or a similar span built by combat engineers) would still be a locally significant tactical objective given that the bed is a few tens of feet deep with steep, eroded banks. The river bed would be better than most castle moats.

On the level of a WiF hex, I think easier crossing points could be found outside King City, but at the local level, it would have an impact on operations. Maybe the Gila River is in a similar situation that covers more of the "hexside". It is kind of hard to tell how steep the banks are in the photos, but they are clearly there.

Rivers in WIF do not affect movement, only combat.

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Mike Dubost

ORIGINAL: fiveof6

Except for the first hexside off of the Colorado River (where that river backwashes up the Gila River) the Gila River should be deleted as a terrain feature. It is intermittant at best, and when flowing is so shallow a person could walk across. I've attached a satellite photo showing the entire river being channelled through a few pipes on an elevated road. The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges.

Well, it depends upon what is being represented by the river. In the southwestern US, many rivers are dry or underground for at least part of each year. The river bed is still a militarily significant feature in many cases. As an example, I have often driven US Highway 101 between San Francisco and Paso Robles (call it halfway to LA from SF). As you pass King City, the river there (I forget if it is the Salinas River or another one) is often all but dry by mid-September. The highway bridge over the river bed (or a similar span built by combat engineers) would still be a locally significant tactical objective given that the bed is a few tens of feet deep with steep, eroded banks. The river bed would be better than most castle moats.

On the level of a WiF hex, I think easier crossing points could be found outside King City, but at the local level, it would have an impact on operations. Maybe the Gila River is in a similar situation that covers more of the "hexside". It is kind of hard to tell how steep the banks are in the photos, but they are clearly there.

Rivers in WIF do not affect movement, only combat.

Evidently, I was not clear enough in my statement.

It is my understanding that the combat effect simulates the inability of an attacker to bring his full numbers to bear, due to limited crossing points. I was making the point that even a dry riverbed can still limit the crossing points, thus, making the combat modifier not dependent upon the presence of flowing water.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

I was merely providing a fact about the rules. As for this discussion, I personally have no opinion about what should/should not be a river hexside.

[When I do have an opinion, I am usually quite straight forward about giving it. Indirect asides are just not my style.[:)]]

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: fiveof6

Except for the first hexside off of the Colorado River (where that river backwashes up the Gila River) the Gila River should be deleted as a terrain feature. It is intermittant at best, and when flowing is so shallow a person could walk across. I've attached a satellite photo showing the entire river being channelled through a few pipes on an elevated road. The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges.

One of the troubles with rivers is that irrigations and other human activities has changed the flow of the river over the years. It is hard to find out how the river was in 1930-50.

I cut this from wikipedia.
The Gila River and its main tributary, the Salt River, would both be perennial streams carrying large volumes of water, but irrigation and municipal water diversions turn both into usually dry rivers. Below Phoenix to the Colorado River, the Gila is usually either a trickle or completely dry, as is also the lower Salt from Granite Reef Diversion Dam downstream to the Gila, but both rivers can carry large volumes of water following great rain storms. The natural mean flow of the Gila would be 6070 cubic feet per second at its mouth into the Colorado River, second only in volume of Colorado River tributaries to the Green River. The Gila River a long time ago was navigable by boats from its mouth to near the Arizona - New Mexico border. The width varied from 150 to 1,200 feet (370 m) with a depth of two to 40 feet (12 m).

[Mike Dubost]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

I was merely providing a fact about the rules. As for this discussion, I personally have no opinion about what should/should not be a river hexside.

[When I do have an opinion, I am usually quite straight forward about giving it. Indirect asides are just not my style.[:)]]

OK. Sorry that I misunderstood.

[fiveof6]

I stand by my statement, " The Gila River is not on on the same scale as the Volga or Ganges. "

Kevin

[composer99]

True as that is, neither are most of the rivers featured as such in MWiF. The question is - should a military unit attempting to cross the Gila river (bed) in the 1940s encounter additional difficulties when making the crossing under enemy fire (which is the only time rivers have an effect in MWiF, during land combats)?
 
If the answer is yes, then the river should stay.
 
For MWiF2, this brings up the notion of making particularly wide rivers have an effect on movement as well as combat.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: composer99

True as that is, neither are most of the rivers featured as such in MWiF. The question is - should a military unit attempting to cross the Gila river (bed) in the 1940s encounter additional difficulties when making the crossing under enemy fire (which is the only time rivers have an effect in MWiF, during land combats)?

If the answer is yes, then the river should stay.

My opinion is that if the original CWiF map designer put the Gila River, this is for a reason, so the map is advanced enough for me to say that I prefer to stick to the rivers as we have them now.

For MWiF2, this brings up the notion of making particularly wide rivers have an effect on movement as well as combat.

THis is already possible by using lake hexsides.
Personaly I'd have made some hexsides of the Volga and the Dniepr Lake hexsides, so they are impassable.
Maybe same for some lengths of the Gange, and the Mississipi.
The Amazon is already made that way.

[fiveof6]

Regarding Tradition...

[composer99]

The Gila river can't be considered a tradition since it has only appeared with the conversion of the America map to European scale hexes. [:)]

[Froonp]

Hey, don't be mistaken, Steve and I consider the map done.

But from time to time, when I happen to find improvements that we can make to the map, I make them. Usualy they only are names.

Here I think I found one improvement, and would like opinions from people who know the area better than me to tell me if what I found is correct or incorrect.

This is about the Chesapeake Bay. Believe it or not, the wikipeding I did for the USS Robin in the WWII Quiz thread made me read that she made her shakedown cruise in the Chesapeake Bay, and that is a lot of times I see the Chesapeake Bay mentionned in various readings of mine, so I wanted to know more about it.

Reading about it, I saw that its only crossing points in the north is the bridge at Annapolis, so I wondered about the strait hexside that MWiF have placed from Baltimore to the hex SE of Baltimore (see screenshot below).

Strait hexsides (the double red arrow) represent bridge as well as ferry crossing.

So, I wonder if there was any ferry crossing from the Baltimore area to the hex SE of it during the 40s. Anyone knows ? If no one know, I'll leave it as is, because I usualy trust the original CWiF map designer.

[Froonp]

Map of the Bay from the Internet.

[Froonp]

Ah, also, would someone know the name of the river north of Richmond on the map below ?

And the name of the Potomac River's tributary shown on the map below ?

ORIGINAL: Froonp

[Froonp]

While looking after the Chesapeake Bay, I came to read about the San Francisco Bay.
Below you can see how it is represented as of today.
About that bay, I found a map about all the bridge crossings that exist (copied in post below), and discovered that the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (numbered 1 in the map below) opened in 1956 replacing ferry service by the Richmond – San Rafael Ferry Company.

So, if there was a ferry service on this crossing (shown on a map in a future post below), shouldn't a Strait hexside be placed between the Oakland hex and the hex to the west of the Oakland hex ?

[Froonp]

The Bridge crossing of the San Francisco Bay.

1 Richmond-San Rafael Bridge (It opened in 1956 replacing ferry service by the Richmond – San Rafael Ferry Company)
2 Golden Gate Bridge (completed during the year 1937)
3 San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (known locally as the Bay Bridge) (it opened for traffic on November 12, 1936, 6 months before the Golden Gate Bridge)
4 San Mateo Hayward Bridge (commonly called the San Mateo Bridge) (The original bridge, known as the San Francisco Bay Toll-Bridge, was built in 1929)
5 Dumbarton Bridge (The earlier bridge, opened on January 17, 1927, was the first vehicular bridge to cross San Francisco Bay)

[Taxman66]

Rivers:

The tributary for the Potamac has to be the Shenandoah river. The only others (e.g. Bull Run) are too narrow and too short to show on the map.

The river north of Richmand would be the Rappahannock. The name would be longer than the river on the map

On a side note I'm a little surprised that the Patuxent river (between D.C. & Baltimore) doesn't qualify. Maybe it just isn't wide enough?

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Taxman66

Rivers:

The tributary for the Potamac has to be the Shenandoah river. The only others (e.g. Bull Run) are too narrow and too short to show on the map.

The river north of Richmand would be the Rappahannock. The name would be longer than the river on the map

Looks right.
Thanks for your contribution Taxman !!!

On a side note I'm a little surprised that the Patuxent river (between D.C. & Baltimore) doesn't qualify. Maybe it just isn't wide enough?

Maybe the designer felt that the area already had enough rivers ?