GTC strat map vs 1943 US Army topo map

[mickxe5]

I scaled a section of a period 1:100000 topo map to match the GTC strat map scale. The GTC map turns out to be fairly accurate regarding the location of the road net, waterways and towns. You'd certainly be able to navigate between principal points of interest using the strat map alone if you were traveling that area circa 1944.

eg. the map control icons line up very well around Mouen-Colleville-Tourville:

[mickxe5]

On a related note...the topo has a 1000 yard grid (914m) which is approximately the size of the largest, old scale CC battle maps (960m sq). Some of the GTC map areas are less than 960m sq. Using 64 max-sized old scale CC maps you could cover all of the actual terrain involved in Operation Epsom.

To put the cozy scale of GTC another way, in most cases a machine gunner in the center of any battle map would be able to fire into all surrounding map areas.

[mickxe5]

And as it turns out, no surprise that the battle maps were modeled on this '43 topo map. Grainville-sur-Odon is typical as seen in a side by side comparison below. The road layout and railway position are almost identical on both maps. Buildings less so but generally similar. Foliage and walls/fences are mostly artistic license. Missing on the CC map is the standard issue French village church (circle with cross on top) and the stream winding along at the bottom.

[SchnelleMeyer]

Wow nice find! The mapmaker -I believe its Koen really achieved a close historical representation of the terrain fought over.

[mickxe5]

The CC4/5 Atomic maps were made similarly. They would scale down a ~3x3km section of map, depict only the major roads and represent a small village as a single bldg. Appropriate for GTC's smaller scale that ~1.5x1.5 km = ~.5x.5 km on the battle map.

As is usually the case, the accuracy of elevation differential is another story. The topo shows a ~20m drop from top right to bottom left while the GTC map is essentially flat as a billiard table. You'd need a bump map created from the corresponding 5m or 1m DEM to be able to automate the elevation coding and then manually flatten out the bldg footprints so one end of a bldg wasnt 2m lower than the other. This is one of my biggest gripes about the coding on CC maps - failure to take elevation into account w/r/t buildings. As a result youll often see firefights taking place thru the roofs of bldgs.

I was wrong about the missing église. St. Pierre is smack in the middle of town where it should be.

[mickxe5]

These '43 topographic maps are available at the University of Texas and McMaster University library websites.