Western Front War by Maps

[Olham 164]

This was posted before, but maybe long ago.

This site brings you all the battles of the Western Front on maps - enjoy!

 

http://www.firstworl...esternfront.htm

 

Note: at the bottom click on "Click here" for many more detailed maps.

 

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Edited October 21, 2011 by Olham

[33LIMA 972]

Wow, those are really good and i Iove maps generally!

 

It'sa great pity the CFS3 map is so awful; P3 has tweaked it a bit but it would be so much better to have a map that corresponds to what you can see in flight, as do the maps in Flying Corps Gold and more recently as they do in First Eagles (in-flight one anyway) and Rise of Flight. Hopefully in P4...if not a better map, then in-game scenery which corresponds closely to a good printed one like these.

 

I must try using the RoF map when flying OFF, would be nice to get to know the names of more of the towns and woods I was flying over, even if the fixed RoF front line won't be right.

[Olham 164]

LIMA, there are plenty of maps in the download section here:

 

http://combatace.com...num__10__st__10

 

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Edited October 21, 2011 by Olham

[33LIMA 972]

Thanks olham I've got all those, but what I think's needed is a map which correspinds closely with the features seen in the CFS3 gameworldf. For example, OFF has a strange urban area which consists of about 4-5 rectangles side by side, just NE of the town I take to be Douai; this urban area doesn't seem to correspond with any town on the map. So I suppose I'm looking for a better map of the OFF game world rather than a map of the real one.

[Olham 164]

Well, all I can say is, that RABU's maps, which I completed with the airfield names, should be closest to OFF,

cause RABU is an ex-member, and he made those for the sim.

(NE of Douai lies Lens, and north of Douai is the much larger Lille).

[33LIMA 972]

Yes I know those map, like the 'Jasta 6'; map, which Ive printed out and use most as it's actually easier to read that the very finely-printed RoF one. They're very good. Lens is NW of Douai not NE tho - so I'm still at a loss as to what that rectangular urban area is, in OFF.

[Olham 164]

Ooops - got that wrong. NE - could only be Tournai then?

How far north-east?

[33LIMA 972]

I'll get latitude and longitude next time I'm there, I'd say within 10 Km of Douai. I'm fairly sure the town is Douai not the urban rectangles - if they weren't so big I'd say they look like a massive military encampment. Must fling a few bombs at it next time I'm passing by in my RE8, just in case that's what it is, and use labels to see if anything shows up there.

[Olham 164]

....and make some pictures! You made me curious now.

[33LIMA 972]

I took some snaps during a test flight for the 'Lead in the A**' Mod from my Albatros after seeing off a couple of Nieuports, but after all that excitement, I must have left the virtual lens cap on the camera as the pics didn't come out; seem to have forgotten all that observer training

 

Anyway I did note the latitude & longitude and comparing to Google Earth, OFF's Douai is exactly where I thought it was and as it should be, identifiable from the Rabu map, at 50 deg 21 min N, 3 deg 4 min E. The strange rectangular sprawl is just a few Km to the ENE at at 50 32N, 3 8 E, which is mostly fields in Google Earth, just West of Lallaing. The 'rectangular sprawl' consists of 4 closely-spaced near-rectangles of grid-pattern streets, each like a large trailer or caravan park, plus another 2 such squares offset slightly to the NW. Lallaing does have one similar block of streets but it's further East and the rest of the town is more like the usual 'spider web' pattern. Strange.

[Olham 164]

Well, after all, the CFS3 map was for WW2 - could it be a WW2 area, which doesn't exist anymore?

[33LIMA 972]

It's only in the OFF 3-d game world, that strange rectangular urban area, as far as I can see. There's no sign of it on the CFS3-based OFF map, nor on the RoF map - I even looked at the little set of maps that come with Flying Corps Gold, too, but they just stop about level with Douai. I'd assumed the OFF 3-d world represents the area as it was in WW1 rather than WW2 and wasn't expecting to see any post-1918 development; if that's what it is, it's not there now!

 

Maybe it's a sort of Gallic WW1 version of Brigadoon, that mythical Scottish village that just appears for one day every hundred years. Supposedly that tale is based on the older story of a German village. So, let it not be said that our French friends should not have their version, too, which only shows up in OFF. We should call it Offreville, or something like that :)

 

Still, I think I'll let it have a couple of Cooper bombs next time I'm visiting the locality on behalf of the RFC, just in case.

[Olham 164]

I just typed in your Longitude and Latitude, and I got a green marker; and below that marker,

there is a strange rectangular area. Have a new look in Google maps, zoom out if necessary.

[33LIMA 972]

Sorry that was a typo, should have been 50 23 not 50 32. Must steer clear of those late parties in the Mess

 

The funny thing is, if you go into Google Streetview in Lallaing at 50 23 N, 11 85 E, this looks from above like ONE of those OFF 'blocks' on its own, and in Streetview the houses with their double-pitched roofs look like they may well date back to that era. It's like the block has been 'cut and pasted' into OFF several times, next to itself. I doubt the area ever looked quite like that, tho.

[Olham 164]

Strange - I can't get Google maps to show the area again. I typed it in as yesterday, but no way - I don't get anywhere???

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

I think you have found the Bermuda Triangle of OFF--the place where planes disappear and strange UFO sightings occur.