Going on tops of roofs?

[weapon2010]

Will this ever re-appear again in ww2 game?dependent upon the return of the flat roof?Were flat roofs at all prevelant in any theater?

[Chris Ferrous]

Factories and large public buildings may well have had flat roofs or at the very least a periphery which would have been readily accessible.

In addition these open tops would almost certainly have had a retaining wall of some sort amounting to anywhere between 0.3 - 1.5 metres in height which with sandbagging and loopholing could make quite a good firing position.

A reinforced building of that sort, even if brick skinned would take some demolishing, and might even survive a direct hit from a 1000lb bomb. (I think the roof would go skywards in that case though!)

[MikeyD]

The return of flat top roofs was briefly considered for 'mediterranean theater' CMFI, until the team Google Earthed practically the whole Island of Sicily and couldn't locate a single example. That was something of a surprise. Compare that to any random Google Earth shot of Syria which is almost exclusively flat-top. An interesting tidbit, scouring all of Sicily we were hard pressed to locate any chimneys either! So all the buildings got a thorough redesign.

[Michael Emrys]

Dear Mikey,

Unless you've found a way to get Google to travel backwards through time seventy decades, I'd take its testimony with a grain of salt or two. Even in Sicily, buildings get demolished and new ones constructed. That you were not able to find even one is, I agree, suggestive. But then, your survey for all I know might have been conducted late at night, after a long day at the job followed by a long evening of play testing accompanied by several beers...

Michael

[Holman]

I'm sure they didn't rely on Google Earth alone. WW2 was a very well-photographed war. There's plenty of evidence of what things looked like.

I imagine we'll see flat roofs with the Market Garden module as we enter the period of city-fighting in Europe. Norman villages didn't have factories and balconies, but cities sure did. John Frost has to stand somewhere to watch the armored cars come over that damned bridge!

[akd]

Roofs may not have been flat, but they were still accessible and not infrequently used as firing positions in built-up areas.

[Sgt Schultz]

If you have to have a flat roof, make the building two stories taller than needed in the editor, and then rubble it down as needed.

Looks sorta lame(maybe a "roof" flooring mod?), and weakens the structure, but it works for now.

-

[ChrisND]

I'm sure they didn't rely on Google Earth alone. WW2 was a very well-photographed war. There's plenty of evidence of what things looked like.

Google Street View was one tool, but not by any means not the only. Google Earth/Streetview, for Sicily and Italy, are actually pretty useful for telling which buildings and roads were present by looking at the construction of the building, the arrangement and spacing of the street and buildings, etc. To get an idea of which buildings were present during the time period we cross-referenced a few sources, Google Street View being one of them, along with period topographical maps and where available photos of the actual buildings/streets. This was especially important with Gela, because it has about doubled in size since the war.

[MikeyD]

Sicilian roof tiles are traditional to the area - REALLY traditional, going back to Roman times. 500 year old buildings with exactly the same roof construction next to 20 year old buildings. And there was remarkably little variation to be found. So no, Sicily did not transition wholesale to red clay shallow pitch tile roofs post-45. Germany, on the other hand, the level of wartime destruction and following American influence should cause one to second-guess every building design detail you see. Was pre-45 Germany really big on picture windows and attached garages?

[Michael Emrys]

Four or five years ago I did a Google survey of the Italian mainland—at the time I had just read Rick Atkins' The Day of Battle—and wanted to look over the places where the fighting had taken place. I was amazed to find that land which had been open farmland during the war had now been built over and was now given to suburban housing. Pretty much the only open space left was where the land was too steep or high to build on.

Michael

[Quintus Sertorius]

If you have to have a flat roof, make the building two stories taller than needed in the editor, and then rubble it down as needed.

Nice one! I'm going to try this out.

[MikeyD]

Might not work. Rubbled upper stories tend to be no-go areas. Rubble a 2nd floor and you may even find your first floor unaccessible!