Moro River Map Pack

[Ithikial]

So for the last few months two things have dominated my life. A heavy workload (projects timelines hit the pointy end, budget season here in Australia and a tender all at the same time), and my latest spend fest keeping Amazon and Book Depository alive with a large book order has been slowly devoured.

I've always known bits and pieces about the Moro River Campaign but I did a book order and picked up a good number of titles from the NZ and Canadian viewpoints of the battle and been slowy getting through them. Wish there was something as comprehensive from the German point of view.

Anyway this was Monty's last campaign in Italy before departing to prepare for D-Day. It caught my attention for a number of reasons:
- The atrocious weather and trying desperately to launch an offensive in horrible conditions.
- Even this early in the war there was suggestions that 'Jerry Was Done in Italy' after Salerno. Very similar with what was to occur later around the planning for Market Garden.
- The variety of forces involved, but they were virtually equal in strength as they went into the December battles along the Adriatic coast.
- Interestingly many of the same forces involved here would be moved and fight again at the later Cassino battles.
- Though Cassino is the more famous, some units here like the NZ division lost more troops here than in that more famous battle a few months from now.
- The siege / WW1 nature the battle turned into as the weeks of December 1943 went on.

Anyway I was planning some sort of campaign but decided instead to focus on making some maps and maybe a scenario or two down the line, especially for the Kiwi's at Orsogna. I felt the Gustav Line module with only 1 NZ scenario was a little unfair, given their involvement in the theatre.

The maps below are what I have been working on. Yellow boxes have been started, in both cases the map scaling and elevation work are done. Red boxes are on the to do list as I really like the engagements that occurred there. Note a couple of maps or scenarios from this region have already been done by others.


Yellow (Ithikial) - San Leonardo. Canadian attack and hold against Panzergrenadiers and Panzer support over open ground. A squadron of Canadian Shermans went in and owing to the poor weather only five made it to the town itself with the supporting infantry.

Red - Cider Crossroads. Surprised this hasn't been done yet. Unless I'm missing something...



Yellow (Ithikial)- Orsogna. The bane of the 2nd NZ Division. Between the 3rd of December right through until they left the line the Kiwi's couldn't break into this town despite almost having it surrounded at one point. The citadel on a cliff's edge limited viable approaches and allowed the 26th Panzer and 1st Fallschrimjager to hold them at bay. A handful of NZ troops even mutinied over continued assaults against it towards the end.

Red North - Arielli. German held for most of the time that cut the Orsogna - Ortanna road limited the ability for Armour to move in from the west to assist the Canadians on the coast. If Orsogna fell was a the likely next major defensive line. Also a launch pad for German assaults against the Kiwi's. Originally taken by the 5th British Division.

Green South (Mad Mike) - Melone. Allies never seriously wanted the town as they focused on Orsogna. Germans again managed to hold it throughout the campaign, forcing British Paratroopers and NZ Armoured forces to hold troops here to keep the Germans from exploiting their position. Though the Germans never really had the desire or ability to do so.

Anyway in game pics soon but yeah my eyes are bigger than my stomach. Anyone wants to pitch in and help please let me know.

 

[Mad Mike]

Hi @Ithikial,

I would like to try making a map in CMx2, and the Melone map just looks small enough to be a good starting point.
Do you have any more background info on this, maybe period maps or something like that?

Also, is the boundary you painted in Google Earth more or less fixed, i.e. do you have something specific in mind for this or is it just generally providing the map?

Cheers,

Mike

 

[Ithikial]

Mad Mike - all yours if you want it.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id...a=X&ei=5EeJU5mZLsuXkwW80YGQCg&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA
I hunted down a copy of this book and it has a chapter (the shortest of the book) on the push by the 22nd NZ Motor Battalion towards Guardiagrele. The force were ambushed in Melone after faulty scouting the night before indicating the town wasn't defended. Unfortunately it's difficult to find anything really on this fight as it's a side show to the Orsogna battle by the NZ'ers which in itself was a sideshow to the Canadians on the coast. Sorry can't be much more help than that at this stage. But it is a good read.

Some others:
http://balagan.info/2-nz-division-timeline-sango-river-to-orsogna
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-1Ita.html <--- Really good NZ Division source.


On the map side, I am yet to find a good source of period maps other than the odd mud map drawn in a few books I've read around the campaign. Double checked, no mud maps of the Melone approach. I've been using Google Terrain maps to build up the elevations and placing buildings and then working back from there - knocking out modern looking buildings etc. Sayingthat if you know a good source of 1:50,000 Topographical maps of this part of the world please let me now.

 

[Mad Mike]

@Ithikial

Thanks for the links, I will read through your second link to get a better overall understanding.

With regards to topo maps of Italy, I think I can be of help:

http://www.pcn.minambiente.it/viewer/

This is quite a handy website, which allows you to select 1:25000 scale topo map overlays for virtually all of Italy, as far as I can see.
Since everything is in Italian, I've taken a screenshot showing what should be selected in order to view the 1:25000 maps:

Let me know if this helps.

With regards to the map, I went ahead to produce a first elevation / road network version, based on the following 1:25000 topo map cut-out (used as an editor overlay):

The dimensions are roughly 800m x 1800m.

Here are three impressions from the current status of the map:

1. View from East to West along the map:

2. View from Height 490 at Colle Spediale towards Melone and Colle Le Martino

3. View from Colle Le Martino towards the West and Colle Spediale

From creating this map so far I can understand very well why it should be rather easy to defend this with few troops unless the attacker has massive amounts of artillery and infantry. Should make for an interesting battle.

 

[Lt. Smash]

Wow, Mike! That is a great resource. I was looking for something like that for my Operation Ladbroke scenario and now that you've shown it to me, I am sure I can find a way to put it to good use.

 

[Ithikial]

That's an awesome mapping source. Care to add it to the Research Encyclopedia?

 

[Ithikial]

San Leonardo
From the historical Canadian start lines. Town position is on the top of the deep gully centre left. Historically the Canadians went around to the right. Building this map you realise they were probably were within the German observation for the whole approach.


From the west from Villa Torre which was taken a couple of days later. San Leornado is in the middle of the pic, Canadian attack from the top of the picture.


Orsogna
From the historical NZ start position on the first attempt to take the town, Dec 3rd 1943. Channeled two companies on infantry up a ridge line to his the town at the top. Yeah didn't go well, even though the Germans were caught with their pants down.


The eastern approach along flat ground which was the approach for most other serious attempts at taking the town. The Orsogna cemetery as was used as base and COP. Had to launch attacks at the town while looking over their right shoulder where the German lines were located.


Yeah taken forever to get the elevations right and is a real time sink for these kinds of maps.

 

[Mad Mike]

That's an awesome mapping source. Care to add it to the Research Encyclopedia?

Done, created a new thread in the Research Encyclopedia.

 

[Ithikial]

San Leonardo progresses....


The 'guts of the town are placed' in their correct positions. San Leonardo itself in the distance. View from what would be Canadian start positions.

 

[Mad Mike]

@Ithikial

I just noticed that the old, period maps show a railway passing by Melone which is not there anymore nowadays.
See this map for example:

I guess you would like this railway to be included in the map?

It's no biggie (I hope), since I haven't progressed very far since the last update.
Just interesting how much even so "remote" areas will change in a couple of decades.

 

[Ithikial]

Yeah I noticed that when reading the books on Orsogna. Pretty sure it's the same railway that goes all the way to Ortana. I plan to include it on my Orsogna map when I go back to it. There's also a whole cemetery north of Orsogna that isn't there anymore as well. Was a pretty key position for the Kiwi's for most of the battle. That's the problem with some of these towns where the fighting was prolonged. The whole area was moonscaped by artillery and air bombardment it was largely built up again from scratch. I'd say include the railway but acknowledge it's not going to be a perfect representation regarding man made structures on the terrain. A 1943 Topographical map at the 1:25000 scale would be a gold mine right about now.

San Leonardo is still coming along well. About to finish up the guts of the map and move onto details. Still haven't decided whether I'm going totry to put a scenario on top of it yet.

 

[kohlenklau]

A lot of great work here!

 

[Mad Mike]

A lot of great work here!

Hi @kohlenklau

I have seen your idea to pick this up over at the BFC board. But as far as I understand it, it will be a Canadian campaign.

The thing is, I'm still working (very sporadical) at my Melone map, but this one would definitely involve the 2nd NZ Inf Division, and not the Canadians.

Don't know if you would like to include this into your campaign?
And what are your ideas about the timeframe to finish this?

 

[kohlenklau]

Hi Mad Mike,

No thanks. I will just focus on small area of Canadians around Ortona. When I do a scenario or campaign I always tie a small string around my finger to remind me not to let it bloat out of control and become too much work. I hope to see you do your NZ campaign some day. Good luck!

Thanks for the campaign unpacker tool by the way!

 

[Mad Mike]

Hi Mad Mike,

No thanks. I will just focus on small area of Canadians around Ortona. When I do a scenario or campaign I always tie a small string around my finger to remind me not to let it bloat out of control and become too much work. I hope to see you do your NZ campaign some day. Good luck!

No problem, if I ever finish the map, I will make a scenario with it, not a complete campaign (unless @Ithikial picks this up again sometime in the future, then it might get incorporated in a campaign).

Thanks for the campaign unpacker tool by the way!

You're welcome, always happy to see it is being used.

 

[Ithikial]

It's still on my radar like so many other good project ideas. Orsogna always appealed to me for a good winters fight and when CMFI:GL was released I was a little upset to see the Kiwi's get nothing more than one tiny (and infamous) scenario. Given all the work for artwork, OOB research etc, it's quite strange they got so little 'official treatment.' But hey, no idea what was going on behind the scenes at BFC.

Though there was two divisions fighting between the Canadians and the New Zealanders (the 5th British Inf, and the 4th Indian div IIRC) there is still the opportunity for a campaign linking the two flanks of this fight. The initial planning was that the New Zealanders were meant to capture Orsogna and use the Orsogna - Ortana road to roll up the the German flank. The campaign idea would be to try and make this happen. Kiwi's fight to take Orsogna and then roll down the road towards the coast and the Canadians fighting around Ortana. Have a look at Googlemaps of the region. Some good terrain to fight over for sure. Also remember the 2nd NZ Inf division had quite a unique OOB throughout the Italy campaign having one armoured brigade of Shermans (and a battalion of mechanised troops) and two brigades of infantry - so even if it's a bit fictional you've got a mini-Market Garden in winter like situation you could create. Just some thoughts.

Historically, when it was realised that Orsogna was a natural fortress the plans were altered somewhat and both flanks of the Moro River campaign were brutal affairs for the Canadians, New Zealanders and German forces involved. Orsogna actually never fell to the Allies during the fighting (despite being surrounded on virtually three sides) until the Germans pulled back in 1944 as the Gustav line cracked.