Question for Russian speakers

[Philippe]

I've just made a north direction pointer using a Cyrillic S. Before I go crazy trying to get the colors to blend correctly, is this how you indicate north on a Russian map? The compass rose tends to be a western nautical-influenced usage. I've looked at a (very) few Soviet maps and couldn't find anything beyond scale indicators and the orientation of the text to suggest which way north might be. I realize that maps were almost like guarded secrets back then.

If there is no appropriate period north indicator, what, as a russian-speaker, would you rather stare at: an arrow with a Cyrillic "S" on top of it, or an arrow with an inexplicably western language roman alphabet "N". I suppose I could also come up with a Cyrillic "N", but I'm not sure what it would stand for.

I don't have enough space on my hard drive at the moment to load up IL-2 and figure out what is written on the russian compass to indicate north.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Philippe:

I've just made a north direction pointer using a Cyrillic S. Before I go crazy trying to get the colors to blend correctly, is this how you indicate north on a Russian map?

I can't recall seeing compass roses on Russian maps, but I donlt seem to have many examples to hand. I do, however, have a copy of "Poligon" no. 1 vol. 9 which includes a sketch map of an aerosan raid on Zubets. This indicates North using a simple arrow with the letter "С" labelling north and "Ю" labelling south.

All the best,

John.

[Philippe]

Thanks. That's the confirmation that I was looking for.

(For the alphabetically challenged, Cyrillic uses what palaeographers refer to as a lunate sigma -- aka "c" -- for the letter "S".)

Maybe if I make enough bells and whistles for the not yet existant slavic edition I can convince BTS to sell a special edition to the armed forces of Byelorussia, the Russian Federation, and/or the Ukraine. Assuming they actually get paid in hard currency they could use the proceeds to defray the costs of updating the CMBB model to accomodate multi-turreted Soviet tanks. I would be really surprised if there were any plans for including them in CMx2.

[Philippe]

I've posted a German and a Russian north indicator together at CMMODS. Here's what they look like:

Thanks to Image Shack for providing free hosting.

I made them with a darker border, so if you feel these get lost in a large landscape just recolor in Paint using the paint can. I got good results with several shades of dark green and burnt umber.

[John Kettler]

Philippe,

Soviet maps were indeed closely held items, and if you'd ever seen one you'd know why. The amount of detailed information in their maps, if you're used to, say, U.S. 1:50,000 tactical maps, is nothing short of astounding. If you can find a copy of TM 30-548, Soviet Topographic Map Symbols, you'll see what I mean.

Regards,

John Kettler