Help needed with the old rus military 50000:1 maps

[H1nd]

And more precicely what is the height difference between contour lines in them? I can only find few numerical indicators for some of the contour lines but I have hard time guessing the rest of them. I am using the maps found from this site: http://loadmap.net/

All help will be much appreciated.

http://cluster3.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/pdf/soviet.pdf I have been using this stuff to "decode" all the map markers but i can't find any help to my contour line problem.

Cheers!

-H1nd

Edit: ehh I think I got it now so never mind! Nothing to see here, move along! But if someone can confirm it's 5 meters then all the better.

[benpark]

This site was very helpful for maps as well (mainly Poland, but still very useful):

http://english.mapywig.org/viewpage.php?page_id=6

[H1nd]

aye I think I have that one bookmarked as well but it's pretty confusing site for my limited brain capacity and attention span. but thanks anyway!

[TheVulture]

The answer is that it varies. Mostly they stick to 10 meter contours, with thicker lines at 50 meter intervals. If contour lines get too close together some of them aren't drawn. In some places with shallow slopes they use dashed lines for 5 meter contours.

Your best bet is to find the 50 meter contours and the numbers that indicate those heights and get an idea of where those lines go in your area of interest. Then you can figure out the intervening 10 meter lines where they are widely enough spaced. Then you follow those around in turn so that you know where they go and where they dropped in steeper areas.

Generally you won't have much luck looking at a small area and trying to figure it out. Find the 200 meter contour. Find the 190 meter contour. Follow it to see where it goes. Get an idea of where the major contour lines enter and leave the area you are interested in. It can take a bit of detective work.

[H1nd]

That is good to know

[herr_oberst]

I have copies of 10 or 15 German/Russian maps, and TheVulture is correct. Find a heavy line, note that height, find the next heavy line, note that height, then do the math between elevations for hte number of lines present.

Tracing them can be maddening sometimes when there's other data that obscures a chunk of close lines -- more than once, I've had to back out my elevation settings when a town name hid a turn in the contours.

[Combatintman]

Or crop the map to the desired size and create it as an image overlay on Google Earth mapped to the terrain and view it there to get an idea for the lie of the land.

It is what I do when making maps as I find trying to go with exact contour heights really painful. I just go with a sense of what is 'up', what is 'down' and to what degree they are different.

Looks like this:

[BletchleyGeek]

Scratch that, you're right. See example below:

[BletchleyGeek]

For whatever is worth, the map scan is 8 meters per pixel. I had to jump through quite a few hoops to figure this out (using OziExplorer to figure out the map dimensions from the longitude and latitude markings in the corners of the maps), and I think it's info worth sharing.

[H1nd]

Hahah this is funny as I was working in the editor with exactly the same hill that is in BletchleyGeeks example picture I guess i'm not the only one who thinks that terrain east of Borisov is "interesting".

[BletchleyGeek]

Hahah this is funny as I was working in the editor with exactly the same hill that is in BletchleyGeeks example picture I guess i'm not the only one who thinks that terrain east of Borisov is "interesting".

Nope, you aren't :cool:

[H1nd]

Attempting to link a image for the first time on this forum. Lets see if this works..

Edit: ayee it works! Can anyone tell me what is that circular thing in the middle? Some sort of road circle or what? It is found on these old soviet military maps immideately east of Borisov.

[ASL Veteran]

Lines like that usually represent 'firebreaks' that are something like 25 to 35 yards wide. They are typically straight lines though so the circular thing is a little odd. You could also probably take their presence with a grain of salt if the location is fairly remote.

[H1nd]

It actually quite central location in that area but it is not critical for my mapping project since I focus on the town north of it. I was thinking about the fire breaks as well but the circular form reminds me more of a military installation of some sort. Pre-war aa-installation perhaps?