Africa?

[Hellfish6]

Has anyone seen a TOAW map of central or Southern Africa? I'm working on one right now, but I'm hoping that someone can save me the effort...

 

[Ben Turner]

A friend of mine was working on a 50km/hex map of all Africa, but I'm not sure how far he got with it.

What are you intending to do with this map?

 

[Hellfish6]

Right now I'm planning to make a 5-year campaign based in southern Africa, 1975-1980. Essentially, it will involve the collapse of Portuguese Africa, the rise of the southern African guerilla movements (ZANLA, PLAN, etc.), the beginnings of the insurgency in Namibia and the fall of Rhodesia.

The map will cover most of Angola/Zambia and all points south, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

It'll be big - I think it's using 20 or 25km hexes. It's about 25% done right now , and I've found that OOB/TO&E research has been the easy part - making this map is NOT easy and is extremely time consuming. Finding accurate topographical and vegetation info is difficult (I'm using travel guides, for example) and I've spent about 9 months on this project, working an hour or two here and there.

 

[Amyrlin]

I started creating a map of southern Africa a while back but didn't get farther than the seacoast outline and some basic large-scale terrain... however it doesn't cover the area that you want, it stopped at far northern Namibia, around Grootfontein/Tsumeb.

The scenario was the one presented in Larry Bond's Vortex - due to terrorist attacks by the ANC before the end of apartheid, a far right wing, pro-apartheid government seizes power and invades Namibia. The Cubans in Angola then drive south to meet the South Africans whilst building up forces for a strike from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Botswana through the Transvaal toward Pretoria and Johannesburg. The Americans and British then get involved, Cape Province rebels and asks for American military aid, the Americans invade amphibiously at Durban and then bomb the Cubans to smithereens. That last bit would be hard to model, though, with only two forces...

 

[Bdr.Mallette]

I have a link for a good map finder.

It's pretty good for large scale.

Check out North Atlantic map for northern Africa, which is 75% complete, cut the map down to your liking than add some to the south to finish Africa.

http://go.hrw.com/atlas/norm_htm/africa.htm?ArdSI=2d78c3c75080cd678d7033b742df523c

Just click on which part of Africa ya want, or go up to the rest of world.

 

[Hellfish6]

I started creating a map of southern Africa a while back but didn't get farther than the seacoast outline and some basic large-scale terrain... however it doesn't cover the area that you want, it stopped at far northern Namibia, around Grootfontein/Tsumeb.

The scenario was the one presented in Larry Bond's Vortex - due to terrorist attacks by the ANC before the end of apartheid, a far right wing, pro-apartheid government seizes power and invades Namibia. The Cubans in Angola then drive south to meet the South Africans whilst building up forces for a strike from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Botswana through the Transvaal toward Pretoria and Johannesburg. The Americans and British then get involved, Cape Province rebels and asks for American military aid, the Americans invade amphibiously at Durban and then bomb the Cubans to smithereens. That last bit would be hard to model, though, with only two forces...

Heh -I love that book. I read it when I was 10 or so and have been enthralled by South Africa ever since.

Here is some of what I have so far:

http://bushfires.org/toawnamibia1.jpg

http://bushfires.org/toawrhodesia1.jpg

Someone did an excellent map of Zimbabwe a year or so ago - I originally based my work around his till I made a poor scale calculation and had to start all over again (a week later, I realized that I hadn't made an error at all - and that the map scale was different on one page than it was on a diff page. )

Ah well... fresh starts can be good.

Unfortunately, I'd also had a 90% complete map of East Africa a year ago from Khartoumb to Mombassa, but I lost it in a hard drive crash and I never had a backup. That was a tragedy... I'd spent a good solid three months of being unemployed working on that. :blab:

 

[Case]

Heh -I love that book. I read it when I was 10 or so and have been enthralled by South Africa ever since.

Ditto. The Cuban drive on Johannesburg would make a fantastic TOAW scenario...

By the way, http://web.archive.org/web/20030219015221/http://users.iafrica.com/b/ba/bal/ has heaps of excelent South African and Cuban TO&Es.

Someone did an excellent map of Zimbabwe a year or so ago - I originally based my work around his till I made a poor scale calculation and had to start all over again (a week later, I realized that I hadn't made an error at all - and that the map scale was different on one page than it was on a diff page. )

I guess that that's my map you're talking about? I did it at 15 km/hex which in retrospect was a mistake - 10 km/hex would have worked a lot better.

 

[piero1971]

I'd sure be interested later in the year to use that map of Namibia and adapt it for a short scenario for WW1, as i have good oob for that time of boers, germans and British/South african forces there.

 

[Hellfish6]

Ditto. The Cuban drive on Johannesburg would make a fantastic TOAW scenario...

By the way, http://web.archive.org/web/20030219015221/http://users.iafrica.com/b/ba/bal/ has heaps of excelent South African and Cuban TO&Es.

Great site! Hadn't seen that one, but I did find a similar one somewhere... I'll see if I can dig up the link for it.

When I'm done with the map, I'll release it publicly so that anyone can use it - even if my scenario isn't done by then. That way I can also incorporate any corrections that people might have.

I guess that that's my map you're talking about? I did it at 15 km/hex which in retrospect was a mistake - 10 km/hex would have worked a lot better.

That was a great scenario! It gave me the motivation to do this current project.

 

[Amyrlin]

While we're on the topic, what would you all reccomend as replacements for the South African equipment not modeled in the TOAW database? As far as I can tell, there is no Eland armored AT vehicle or Oliphant main battle tank in the database... for my planning I put down the Tracked 90mm SPAT Gun for the Eland, and used the Chieftain (improved) for the Oliphant. Any help here would be appreciated...

 

[Hellfish6]

While we're on the topic, what would you all reccomend as replacements for the South African equipment not modeled in the TOAW database? As far as I can tell, there is no Eland armored AT vehicle or Oliphant main battle tank in the database... for my planning I put down the Tracked 90mm SPAT Gun for the Eland, and used the Chieftain (improved) for the Oliphant. Any help here would be appreciated...

The AML-60/AML-90 under the Recon vehicles (French) are almost exactly the same as the Eland-60 and -90s the SADF used. The Elands were license-produced AML-60/90s with some minor modifications to allow them to survive longer in bush conditions.

As for the Olifants, I use the Centurion (late). This works well for the Olifant Mk1A. The Chieftain is a newer, better armed and armored version of the Centurion and isn't a good match.

I don't know offhand what a good equivalent for the Olifant Mk1B would be.

 

[Ben Turner]

While we're on the topic, what would you all reccomend as replacements for the South African equipment not modeled in the TOAW database?

I'd recommend you create them using the BioEd.

 

[Hellfish6]

What is the BioEd?

 

[Gen_Electric]

A editor for the weapons. Ben Turner linked it here.
http://war-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21309

 

[Case]

I'd recommend you create them using the BioEd.

You don't need to. I had no trouble realistically modeling everything in the South African inventory using the default game units.

 

[Ben Turner]

You don't need to. I had no trouble realistically modeling everything in the South African inventory using the default game units.

According to my little book of Tanks, the Oliphant is "virtually a new vehicle" from the Centurions originally bought by South Africa. You might want to look at this in detail.

 

[Hellfish6]

The Oliphant Mk1B is an entirely new tank, but the Mk1A, which was used throughout the Bush War, is essentially no different from any other late-model Centurion (like the Israeli Ben Gurion version) and I think is well represented by what already exists in the editor.

 

[Amyrlin]

Thanks for the advice on South African units!

 

[irgun]

I have a map of South Africa and the nations which border her, if you want it I could email it to you, also have maps of Nigeria-Cameroon map. Ethiopia-Sudan map so let me know,

 

[Hellfish6]

I'd love to see them. I'm still plugging my way around my southern Africa map (working on detailing Angola now, with Namibia and the northern Cape in South Africa done).

Did you ever make scenarios for these maps? If you've got them I'd like to see those as well.

keenedder1 at yahoo.

Thanks