Gustav Line Beta AAR Round Two PEANUT GALLERY

[ForwardObserver]

To the approximate location which I pin pointed on Google Earth

the red line is a Google Earth Route, following actual ground elevation, so we can appreciate the actual intervening slopes.

Taking into account the unavoidable distortions due to the 8 meters resolution and the grain of the action spot grid, I think Bil did quite a good job to preserve the tactical value of main terrain features.

[ForwardObserver]

Same as above, but looking from North to South

[ForwardObserver]

And about the vegetation in the map, here there might be a case for making it closer/denser, but nothing like shrubs or rock outcroppings (as was more the case in the Cassino area)

[newlife]

Nice pics. As regards to using today's maps for vegetation, there has been 70 years of growth of that vegetation, so today's maps are not useful for knowing what it was back then. Any level of cutting back or growing up is possible in that time. Massachusetts was 95% deforested 100 years ago. Now it's mostly forest.

[hoolaman]

Well I don't really have time to argue about it. Just read the account of the real battle anbd look at the pics: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-A-Small/USA-A-Small-3.html

Of course there were trees, but not many. The valleys were steep and cut by "draws" including muddy creeks. Look at google street view will tell you the terrain off the road was not favourable to tanks. Tanks are mentioned only pushing along the road.

I don't think CM is very good at modelling the type of fighting in Italy anyway. There are no 3D rocks, no 3D rubble, and the entrenchments do not represent the kind of well established defenses the Germans had.

[ForwardObserver]

Fair enough. But I do have some time, and I find this quite an interesting topic addressing the kind of problems one has to solve when working out maps for wargames

Actually, by looking closer, I spotted that there is a quite significant elevation feature which is missing in Bil's map:

This crest didn't quite show up on Google Earth's satellite images, and I'd bet my money that it isn't either on Bil's source map.

[ForwardObserver]

I need to "walk" all the way to the outskirts of the village to take a good look on GaJ guns position

[ForwardObserver]

Looking back, it's quite obvious that the road wasn't going all the way up the crest, it rather squiggled around it towards the East

[ForwardObserver]

Regarding the "terraced" terrain which you think means prevented AFV's operating in the area, if one looks at it, can't other than agree

People don't plant or build houses on slopes, they tend to level the terrain. I'll need to check in depth the account you linked, but I'd be surprised if they are describing precisely the presence of vegetable gardens/vineyards on the sides of the ridge. If so, you found one problem in Bil's map, I think he'll be happy to solve.

Regarding how good or bad CMx2 is at representing terrain. See my remarks above regarding the available resolution and sources. I don't think it does a perfect job - it can't - yet I think that it allows a remarkably good degree of fidelity when it comes to portray actual terrain, enough as to capture the tactical relevance of actual terrain features.

Graviteam's APOS engine allows for a much more faithful portrayal, but I think that making maps for APOS isn't as easy as it is for CMx2, nor does APOS have quite a few things I miss from CMx2 when I play it.

[dieseltaylor]

Lovely stuff on the terrain. Great to "walk" the road sections. It does confirm my memory of grass length not being particularly long in a Mediterranean type climate.

Also that when designing maps sometimes it is better to go for the essence of the battlefield as the game engine really cannot provide all the detail that exists.

The nailing of multiple vehicles with one shot ....... solid shot a given in certain circumstances but explosive filled AP. I suspect that the game does not model it but HE would be the shell of choice?

BTW I am not reading Bill'sAAR so I can have a surprise with what happens next ; ). SO how close they were together etc I know not.

[MikeyD]

In Italian theater timeframe I believe (not 100% sure) U.S. 3 inch gun was firing solid shot. Regardless, a burster charge round may pass through the thin armor of a HT without even realizing its there! I recall someone once set up a test map to see how many M3 half-track hullsides an 88 APHE round would pass through before the burster charge went off. I believe it was like 4-5 hulls through-and-through, but the game may have been tweaked in that regard since then.

About firing HE, that's been an ongoing bone of contention. Some people have claimed the AI selectes HE to fire at light armor too often. If the chance is high of getting a HE kill the AI will often elect to preserve its AP rounds for bigger game.

[Hister]

If anything Bil should have added more fields on that map then currently exist and try to mimic the terraces that existed there.

[womble]

That house looks post-war to me. If it is, that terrace simply may not have been there.

[umlaut]

People don't plant or build houses on slopes, they tend to level the terrain.

Well, I believe you are probably dead wrong there.

Nowadays with access to heavy earth moving machines that might be the case, but in rural Italy in the first half of the 20th century these things were pretty much nonexistent. It would be much easier to make the house fit the terrain than make the terrain fit the house. And from my - granted limited - exeperience with italian villages this also seems to be the case when looking at the older buildings.

[John Kettler]

hoolaman,

The text confirms something I thought was there in the overhead shot. Terraces! This is transparently obvious in this piece from the Sgt Pyenta portion.

"Picking themselves up, the men started for the road, or for where they guessed it to be. Climbing up over the next terrace, they followed it for about 15 yards until they hit a double strand of concertina wire."

Given the way it's phrased, it's clear that area was terraced, which is tactically significant in modeling the ground and is a huge obstacle to armor. Note, too, the barbed wire (two rows of concertina), the mines, and the lethal nature of close-in SMGs.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

MikeyD,

For the time period, it would be Shot, AP, M79, Substitute Standard, which would certainly help with the multiple penetration scenario. Shell, A.P.C. M62A1, Standard was more difficult to manufacture, therefore took some time to field. Please see pp. 594-595 at this authoritative reference. Catalogue of Standard Ordnance Items.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13810984/Standard-Ordnance-Items-Catalog-1944-Vol-3

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

ForwardObserver,

Nice discovery. If only you had this, you could see the ground beneath the trees!

FOPEN SAR (Foliage Penetration Synthetic Aperture Radar)

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/fopen.html

Area above the road is the SAR image without FOPEN. Below the road is what FOPEN sees. Believe that would help considerably with your terrain analysis.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

That house looks post-war to me. If it is, that terrace simply may not have been there.

There were terraces, they show up in the wartime aerial recon photos. Whether that particular terrace was is another story. There has been so very much development and construction all over much of Italy in the intervening 70 years that one needs to be very careful about accepting a present day photo as proof of anything that might have existed then.

Michael

[John Kettler]

There were terraces, they show up in the wartime aerial recon photos. Whether that particular terrace was is another story. There has been so very much development and construction all over much of Italy in the intervening 70 years that one needs to be very careful about accepting a present day photo as proof of anything that might have existed then.

Michael

Regarding this part of the country, here's what the British official history says, cited here.

http://www.ourstory.info/4/e/4e4a.html

(Fair Use)

One hundred and forty miles north of Taranto the broken land begins. Thereafter, for many miles along the Adriatic, rolling ridges and valley bottoms succeed in monotonous procession. Where spurs from the central mountain spine approach the coast, the ridges are sharper and more irregular, the valleys narrower and more abrupt. Twenty miles west of the mouth of the river Sangro, the Maiella massif abuts into the lowlands; the countryside between the sea and the mountains increases in ruggedness. The ridges are high, hog-backed, and even razor-backed; the water-courses are deep-cut and steep-banked. The roads are of secondary class, and usually traverse the crests of the ridges, in exposed positions. The countryside is intensively cultivated, even steep rocky hillsides being terraced for garden, patches and vines; the ditches and terrace walls are lined with pollarded willows and larches. On stony and sparse ground unfit for cultivation, thick clumps of scrub and bramble grow. The tightly clustered houses of the villages stand on the crests of the higher ridges. These hamlets offered excellent observation points, and afforded cover for men and guns.

It was in such countryside that the enemy elected to make his first stand. A flexible defensive zone had been created, which the Germans called the Gustav Line. Its positions began on the Adriatic coast near the mouth of the Sangro river, south of the port of Pescara. The zone traversed the valley of the Sangro, to the southern slopes of Monte Greto. Thereafter the fortifications followed the line of the Volturno Valley through Central Italy, thence through the Mignano Gap to Monte Camino, and on down to the Tyrrhenian coast.

Chapter Two. The Tiger Triumphs---The Story of Three Great Divisions in Italy. H.M. Stationary Office (for the Government of India), 1946

(Fair Use)

This sounds like pretty nasty terrain and confirms what I saw in the overhead imagery. The steep ground is heavily terraced, with grapes cultivated; the more level areas farmed. Then there's the pollarding, described and shown here. Ditches and terrace walls are lined with such trees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollarding

And here's the proof of how nasty terracing can be, even without pollarded trees. The terrace here appears to be about 4 meters high. Note man in blue. Others further up are lower, but this is infantry country, not armor country. This convincingly explains why armor was largely roadbound, per the accounts. Even if you could get armor up a 45 degree slope, the terraces all have grapes growing, with their support wires and vine trunks just waiting for a hapless drive sprocket to enter. This is near Corniglia, Italy and looks to have been there a very long time.

http://laughingtravelgods.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/italy-1561.jpg

This is near Ravello, Italy and would appear to bear considerable resemblance to the Santa Maria Infante situation.

http://meghansworldtravels.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/img_1781a.jpg

And if we look at this high oblique pic, taken in April 1946, we can clearly see both the intense cultivation and the terracing. What's neither looks pretty rugged. What I don't see is any kind of greensward.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/smallunit/smi-08.JPG

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

I'm wondering how you'd go about depicting such terraces in the map editor. Would you have to use "dirt road" for the "tread" part of the terrace, to force a level step on a steep slope? Would walls placed to the side of the road encourage the vertical "riser" part and show the requisite retaining wall? Perhaps someone with better map fu might be able to suggest an approach?

[Broadsword56]

Well, for one thing you need to hard-set elevations for each step at least 5m higher in order to make the vertical terrain drop, because adjacent tiles with less than 5m change make a more gradual slope.

The idea of a road piece as the "tread" is an interesting idea but then would you still be able to cover it with vineyaard? Or would the road force the vineyard to one side as it does trees?

For the terrain I'd use a mix of rocky and dirt, then place the bushes and brush and vineyards over that.

Other tips & suggestions?

[ForwardObserver]

Well, I believe you are probably dead wrong there.

Nowadays with access to heavy earth moving machines that might be the case, but in rural Italy in the first half of the 20th century these things were pretty much nonexistent. It would be much easier to make the house fit the terrain than make the terrain fit the house. And from my - granted limited - exeperience with italian villages this also seems to be the case when looking at the older buildings.

I see you come from Denmark, a remarkably flat country. In my homeland, which is not OZ, terracing hillsides for planting and or building has a long story, back to pre-Roman times.

[dieseltaylor]

The pictures chosen by JK are the extremes in terrace cultivation and one at least obviously in seacliff territory. Very illustrative though on how they can be. Incidentally I think there is a man in the picture and he is standing by a 6ft terrace - to the left and slightly up from the blue smudge. : )

In any event not all terrain was by any means as heavily terraced as the pictures shown. As for the lack of green sward its a black and white photo : )

Also the emphasis on vines has to be considered in the light of people who were often self-sufficient and may have a few sheep or goats, a cow, chickens, grow some wheat, and vegetables. With modern roads and cheap transport the supplying of cheap vegetables and flour made it unnecessary for the peasants to have subsistence crops and making your own wine would be a commoner use for the terraces. My gut feeling for Italy and France in the war years was that the countryside was still very much worked on a small scale.

Similar scenery exists in the Azores and Madeira that I have seen. In the East it tends to be terraced for paddy fields. In all cases the need for controlling water run-off to avoid erosion seems to be deeply embedded.

To the specific:

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/smallunit/smallunit-smi.htm

the whole story is quite a read - though it does note short grass .... and some pics do indicate vineyards

http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/smallunit/map-smi-02.JPG

has some nice spot heights and contours

I do wonder if Bill for lack of anyway to make terraces that obscured sight did use the long grass.

[ForwardObserver]

ForwardObserver,

Nice discovery. If only you had this, you could see the ground beneath the trees!

FOPEN SAR (Foliage Penetration Synthetic Aperture Radar)

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/fopen.html

Area above the road is the SAR image without FOPEN. Below the road is what FOPEN sees. Believe that would help considerably with your terrain analysis.

Amazing. I doubt though I'll get a Google Earth plug-in for that

[dieseltaylor]

I see you come from Denmark, a remarkably flat country. In my homeland, which is not OZ, terracing hillsides for planting and or building has a long story, back to pre-Roman times.

And I can show you plenty of house that are deliberately built into the hillside so as to provide an undercroft for the animals or crop storage in winter.

However you may prefer to look at the many picturesque Italian towns and see how they drop around the hillside. It is evident that Italian practice to accommodate the slope within the building. Unfortunately it is very hard to find photos that prove conclusively this.

However this one does show a single building accommodating the slope:

http://www.italianhousesforsale.com/comor/images/listing_photos/414_1casa640x480.jpg

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=old+italian+houses&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=old+italian+houses&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=CCAEF28AFEA31406EA460310623D3412A533D180&selectedIndex=131