Situational Awareness Maps

[The Plodder]

Thanks, GoodGuy, looks like a great book.I'll check it out.

While I was adjusting the master for 24th December, I thought some of you might like this snapshot of the battle situation on the northern flank at 2100hrs. This map is inspired by Map VIII of the Green Book.

 

[The Plodder]

small update: All the bulge maps are complete (again ) and are now in Dave's hands. I'm now back to working on maps for HTTR.

 

[Kurt]

Top quality mate

 

[The Plodder]

Master map done. Onto the scenarios:

 

[GoodGuy]

Master map done. Onto the scenarios:

 

[The Plodder]

 

[The Plodder]

Things have been slow recently, due to being crazy busy at work and having to do some landscaping at home, but I've managed to complete the map for Joe's Bridge, which is set on Sept 10, and I've almost got the template for Sept 17 done. I just have to check on a couple of unit placements and a couple of vague unit boundaries.

I managed to get hold of a thesis called Fighting Spirit: Kampfgruppe Chill and the German recovery in the West between 4 September and 9 November 1944, a case study by Jack Didden that details the fighting for the Albert Canal and the capture of the bridge at Neerpelt which was extremely useful for finding out what units were involved there. It also goes into detail about the XII and VIII Corps' supporting operations of XXX Corps' flanks during Market-Garden which has been great in fleshing out the maps. Here's a preview of Joe's Bridge:

 

[rjantzi]

Hi Rich, I just wanted to check and see how things are progressing with the SAM's? No urgency, just looking for an update. I find they really do add to the immersion factor of the game and I'm looking forward to having them complete for all scenarios. Your work on these maps is really appreciated and definitely make a great game even better.

Cheers,

 

[The Plodder]

I got 5 maps in on HTTR before work and family took over my spare time, I was also feeling slightly burnt out. I'm currently taking a break but will get back to it soon.

 

[rjantzi]

Thanks for the quick response. I've recently bought a new computer and when I re-installed CO2 I have the SAM's for the Core Scenarios and Ride of the Valkyries. Is that correct for now or did I miss something in the re-install?

 

[The Plodder]

You should have maps for Bastogne too.

 

[rjantzi]

Thanks Rich, I thought I was missing something. I've tried re-installing the Bastogne scenarios and running the updater but I can't seem to get the SAM's. I've opened a Support Ticket to help figure this out. I appreciate your help.

Rob

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

I just tested the latest LNL Bastogne v1.0.2 installer and it does install the SAMs on my machine.

 

[rjantzi]

Thanks Dave. I was trying to re-install using my original Commanders Pack download (Ver. 1.0) and then running the updater. That didn't work for me. Your last message got me to re-download the entire Commanders Pack and then re-install the Bastogne scenarios. The SAM's are visible now.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Good to hear.

 

[papymaj5]

Hi Rich,

Hope things are going well with you. Do you have any updates on HTTR SAMs? You mentioned previously you had a few completed already.

Your maps are amazing BTW!

Jon

 

[kipanderson]

Hi,

yup...the style of maps really incredibly effective.
Congratulations to The Plodder.
As with most here have view hundreds of military maps, clever stuff to come up with a new look the works so well.
All the best,
Kip.

 

[The Plodder]

Hi Rich,

Hope things are going well with you. Do you have any updates on HTTR SAMs? You mentioned previously you had a few completed already.

Your maps are amazing BTW!

Jon

All good here, there's no update on the HTTR SAMs, I haven't touched them for a while.After getting the KOAD ones done, I was doing a bit of work on my West Berlin map for FCRS. Then it was off on a road trip home for Christmas.Since we got back, we've had some beautiful weather here in Wellington so we've been taking advantage of that while it's still the school holidays. My hobbies have been on the back burner except for browsing forums and buying more games for winter. I'll get back into it once the kids are back at school and the weather turns to crap again.

Hi,

yup...the style of maps really incredibly effective.
Congratulations to The Plodder.
As with most here have view hundreds of military maps, clever stuff to come up with a new look the works so well.
All the best,
Kip.

I'm glad you like them. It was a lot of playing around and seeing what works and what doesn't. The difference between the first and second versions is like chalk and cheese.

 

[The Plodder]

I haven't posted here in a long time so I thought I'd give you an update on what I've been doing. I've had a busy year with Real Life (TM) but Dave managed to convince me to carry on with the SAMs.

As you know the HTTR maps are now done and I've moved on to the maps for Westwall. I had a problem with this module in that the scenarios are set in two geographically separate areas, east of Eindhoven in the Netherlands and also Aachen in Germany. The Dutch scenarios wouldn't be too much of a hassle as they are covered by my master map from HTTR but I would have to make a new master map for Aachen. Making a master map in Paintshop Pro is a very laborious exercise and there was also the problem of the area being a border area so I was going to have to use 3 different maps with different projections as templates. It's not fun trying to line those up.

So the last week or so I've been learning how to use QGIS, which is an open source GIS mapping application. There is an excellent training manual for it and it really is a brilliant tool. For me, it's a game-changer. Using the STRM shuttle radar mapping data for elevations and some free GIS data for Europe, I managed to get a map made extremely quickly. I even played with the styles and settings to recreate the style of map from the Bulge and HTTR SAMs that I had made in PSP:



While that style is great, the elevations were originally only 200m so I didn't have to hand trace the rest of them. That took an immense amount of time just doing those ones. We don't have to worry about that any more so with a couple of tweaks, I've come up with this:



I can now show relief and hill shading . I'm currently going through the map and adding the cities as they were in 1944 and I'll also adjust the roads to 1944 standards. I have found a source of high quality period maps from here that are perfect for the scale of the map I'm making. Using georeferencing, I can add the maps as another layer to my master and then trace the cities and roads with a high degree of accuracy. Here's a screenie of me using the period map:



Once I've completed all that, which wont take too long as it's extremely easy to edit in QGIS, I can export the map into PSP and place the units and other symbols for the SAMS. This has really made it a pleasure to do now, going on to Greece and the Med doesn't fill me with dread anymore

 

[rocketman]

That artwork is simply stunning. Glad the dread is over