Scenario: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by wulfir

Old habits die hard.

Historically the Soviet/Russian art of warfare has been more amazing in theory than in practice. Maybe they have reached their 2020 goals etc ahead of time but I doubt it.

It was amazing in practise as well...when it was actually performed and not when Soviets were doing knee-jerk reactions to stop the Germans onslaught in the early years. Examples can be found in Operation Bagration, the Vistula-Oder offensive and Manchuria. In the Cold War they simply perfected an already proven system, while NATO was struggling to find a plan that didn't involve "push the red button after the Soviet tanks penetrate our lines". NATO finally found a doctrine that offered better chances of winning tactical victories, hoping that this would translate into operational success (something that they did not have as a concept until the late 80's IIRC) and relying on technological assets. Problem was that the Soviets were already thinking operationally and wars are won on the highest levels, not on the number of battles one side wins (and historical examples are abundant).
Having said that, modern Russia is not USSR. Because of the massive disadvantage in every field compared to the latter, they have to change the way they fight and actually it seems they are doing it. Yes, it won't be a smooth transition, but no country has that good fortune. And they did have a chance to see it in action in Ukraine. Will it be enough to enable them to fight the top tier NATO nations? I hope we won't have to see. But don't underestimate the bear.

[wulfir]

Anyways, a couple of years ago I started building a German/NATO vs Russia campaign set in southern Estonia.

The idea was a that the player would command a mixed battle group of somewhat unready NATO forces during the initial stages of a Russkie invasion...

I experimented with adding an element from a different OOB into the fixed German core force - here an attached Dutch mech inf coy - I did not intend for the player to be able to refit destroyed units and that the campaign would only last 5-6 battles...

Didn't really turn out that great. Stopped working on it halfway through. Buuut, if anyone wants to kill some time, here it is..., the Russians won't be all that problematic in this setup...

[Mobhack]

Oh, and looking at my random rectangle, I picked a large castle it seems, at Medininkai. An odd type - an enclosure castle, i.e. mainly a whacking great curtain wall with a keep tower tucked away in one corner.

[Mobhack]

The venhola maps have a button to save the data - and it saves to map999, which in 999.9% of all users saves is already titled "auto saved map" or whatever, since that is the auto-save slot. So that has a CMT file already associated.

It will open a save dialogue - usually save to your downloads folder.

Now, simply drop it in the game's maps folder (overwrite any existing map999) and then open map999, save off to another slot with appropriate name (if keeping it) ASAP.

If you dont have an auto saved map in 999 - go into the map editor, dont do anything, then save the blank map as map999 with a file name and do the above process.

[DRG]

This is the terrain Venhola creates for the game just east of the Coordinates Andy supplied...... the KEY is to look at the mini map.. the mini map was redone a couple years back so that every contour is a different tan/ brown with the darkest indicating the highest ....



......so if you see terrain showing on the mini map but it's not on the main map you haven't defined the contours using flood file.

This program is, IMHO, stellar top notch work. I am VERY impressed with what this can do

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by DRG

This is the terrain Venhola creates for the game just east of the Coordinates Andy supplied...... the KEY is to look at the mini map.. the mini map was redone a couple years back so that every contour is a different tan/ brown with the darkest indicating the highest ....



......so if you see terrain showing on the mini map but it's not on the main map you haven't defined the contours using flood file.

This program is, IMHO, stellar top notch work. I am VERY impressed with what this can do

Indeed. Impressive. Thanks.

[Grant1pa]

[quote=shahadi;836800
Indeed. Impressive. Thanks.[/QUOTE]

I've been using the map generator: http://www.venhola.com/maps/

almost exclusively to generate maps for scenarios. It is a perfect tool to get correct topography for locations and adds realism to scenarios based on specific locations or conflicts.

It has it's limitations though I consider them minimal. One of the problems is including streams or lakes into the topography. This is an issue with SPMBT and from previous discussions, I know it is one that we live with.

Therefore, when I generate a map that has what I consider essential waterways, you have to re-work the map a little (if possible due to the terrain), to lower terrain to zero for those streams you wish to include (essential if you want water crossings or bridges). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I used to spend significant time in exactly placing roadways and buildings as depicted in the venhola program map, into the SP map. Now I cheat. Unfortunately, the map generator hex numbers don't carry over to SP, so if you want to exactly place features, you have to mechanically count hexes in SP. So I'll put start and end points for the major roadways, and then find reference points between them to fill in the roadways from a visual inspection of the map. I do the same for the secondary roadways. You'll find that in counting hexes, you sometimes encounter what appears to be a incomprehensible route in reference to terrain (my geology background kicking in), so I move the road slightly to match the terrain.

I do the same with towns. The map generator's scale and that in SP is differing. I put in the general aspect of the town roadways visually. It works for me.

Cheating doesn't give you an exact representation of the map, but it provides the more general context of features to terrain. Plus, it's faster (now I do maps in a week that took me significantly more time in construction before).

Additionally, as provided previously by other posts, I use google maps and go to the roadway view to show me trees and other obstacles which I try to emulate in the map.

The best part of Venhola is the ability to rotate the map. This way, you can place the main roadway that you are using for your advance or the OPFOR's advance across the map lengthwise. This is a superb tool that gives you the best orientation for the scenario.

I've learned some other tricks of the trade in using the program such as obtaining the correct coordinates through google maps, screen printing the Vehnola map for reference later, and most importantly, writing down the coordinates you finally select ahead of time so as to re-draw the map at a later date. There are more.

I highly recommend scenario developers to use this tool.

Tom

[wulfir]

Originally Posted by Grant1pa

Additionally, as provided previously by other posts, I use google maps and go to the roadway view to show me trees and other obstacles which I try to emulate in the map.

I download the height map and send myself the mnap link. Then I open the map link on my spare computer so I won't have to move between the map program and the game - saves time, I guess it would be possible to solve with two screens as well.

I too like to compare with google earth for trees and fields.

For some countries there are other maps avaliable that will give you additional information not least on place names, like;

For Norway:

http://www.norgeskart.no/

National Land Survey of Finland:

https://asiointi.maanmittauslaitos.f...aikka/?lang=en

They will pretty much give you the name of every stream and little hill.

[dmnt]

Originally Posted by Grant1pa

I've been using the map generator: http://www.venhola.com/maps/

I've learned some other tricks of the trade in using the program such as obtaining the correct coordinates through google maps, screen printing the Vehnola map for reference later, and most importantly, writing down the coordinates you finally select ahead of time so as to re-draw the map at a later date. There are more.

Thanks for the feedback! There's this L-button on top right corner that gives you the direct URL to the coordinates you picked. You can then bookmark that URL (open it in new tab for example and then bookmark) so you can always come back to the map later on. Current zoom and position aren't saved, though.

[DRG]

Yes, I am very impressed with that tool as well. Superb work

Don