D Day maps

Gary Grigsby’s War in the West 1943-45 is the most ambitious and detailed computer wargame on the Western Front of World War II ever made. Starting with the Summer 1943 invasions of Sicily and Italy and proceeding through the invasions of France and the drive into Germany, War in the West brings you all the Allied campaigns in Western Europe and the capability to re-fight the Western Front according to your plan.

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sprior
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D Day maps

Post by sprior »

I was at the D Day museum here in Portsmouth yesterday for aseries of talks on D day and one of them was about mapping.

This map was issued to the glider pilots and coloured so as to show in high contast in the prevailing lighting condition in s aglider cockpit:



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sprior
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RE: D Day maps

Post by sprior »

This map was used by air crews. The diagonal lines are the G beams and the ground details are deprecated:



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"Grown ups are what's left when skool is finished."
"History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse."
- Nigel Molesworth.

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sprior
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RE: D Day maps

Post by sprior »

Here's a planning map supplied to the troops of the area around Pegasus Bridge. benouville is marked as Venice, the River Orne and the Caen Canal as Portugal and Prague



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"Grown ups are what's left when skool is finished."
"History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse."
- Nigel Molesworth.

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zakblood
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RE: D Day maps

Post by zakblood »

benouville is marked as Venice, the River Orne and the Caen Canal as Portugal and Prague

i've never fully understood that ruse tbh, as most would know it's not that even with the most basic knowledge of geography, so name map changes for security seems to be not only pointless but a wasted exercise, but thanks for the share and thread btw

while dummy tanks and planes and false radio chatter from fictitious units is better
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HMSWarspite
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RE: D Day maps

Post by HMSWarspite »

The name change isn't for the map, it's for radio use in clear. It means everyone remembers the code names and can discuss things more freely. The choice of code name theme is arbitrary (you could have named them after flowers for all the difference it would have). Of course, once a map is captured the knowledge becomes available to the enemy, but for D Day it would have been assumed it was irrelevant by then
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