Notes on sharing Military History Bookmarks on Internet
LAST UPDATE: 07/29/2009
To support the things I am going to write, I will add before some prototypes of divisional histories, still "bumpy" and not so clear, but enough to give you an idea of the program's potentialities. They will be updated as soon as I'll have some new versions ready.
I am basing the following .kmz files on some Unit webpages of my website, that deals with the history of German Units in WWI, but the principles can apply to any miliatry unit of the history of the world, provided we have enough infos about their movements.
1) Kmz of 6.
Panzer-Division and link to 6.
Panzer-Division's page on this website.
2) Kmz of 1. Infanterie-Division
and link to 1. Infanterie-Division's
page on this website.
Here I put some notes on the Bookmarks' standardisation studying Military
History. We have to consider some things:
1) how the datas are shown on the virtual globe
2) how to structure them in order to be easily understood by the people researching
on similar matters
3) the possibilities given from the .kmz files
I am open to any hint and tip to make these principles work better. If you have any coment, please write me at info@okh.it.
The naming of GoogleEearth Bookmarks has to be studied deeply. What I suggest here is just my point of view, but I think we have to work on Bookmark name, that must be composed at least from Date and Unit Name (e.g. 1940/05/12 1.PzDiv).
Please remember that photos, links and text can enhance the chrono-geographical Datas could be added within the text field of the .kmz file.
Date:
I suggest the Japanese date system: yyyy/mm/dd hh.mm so that an alphabetic
sorting could also become chronological. In the last GE updates, with a simple
xml editor you can add timing to the bookmarks. This enables you to create animated
sequences to picture units' histories or battles, because the program shows
automatically the given position of the bookmark in the given date, and you
can specify this until to hour, minute and second level.
Unit Name:
The unit Name is also matter, and depends on the nationality of the Unit, his
naming and so on. As I deal mostly with German units, I usually write the German
abbreviation of the unit, trying to keep the Bookmark's name as short as possible.
The Unit Name structure has also to be made in a decreasing way, for example,
for a Company part of a Regiment, the Regiment Number goes before the Company
name (e.g. 1944/07/20 2.SS-PzRgt/2.PzKp).
After you have made many bookmarks about history units, you may want to order
them by name, and if you used the correct date-name system, sorting the bookmarks
is very easy using the following two websites. They sort the bookmarks alphabetically
or geogrpahically:
1) Here's a link to sort in alphabetic order the bookmarks into a given GE folder
(no more than 100 Kb files):
http://www.nearby.org.uk/sort-kml.php
2) Here's a link to sort in geogrpahic proximity order the bookmarks into a
given GE folder (no more than 100 Kb files):
http://www.nearby.org.uk/group-kml.php
It will generate subfolders form Continent to Country and Region level if possible
Unit-Icons:
To enhance the perception of the Bookmarks, we can use different icons to design
the Units, for WWII the easiest way is to display the original Allies and Axis
Icons, and also, the Germans used the Waffenfarbe (Color of the Arm) to design
the different arms (e.g. white for infantry, red for artillery, pink for armoured
units and so on). Allied used the STANAG like icons, now widely known and used
in the nowadays armies. Here I try to explain the kind
of work we have to do to build the basis for this work (sorry but time is Tyrant
and this work is huge!). I will try to make and share the icons in my free time,
that is not so much.
Some of you may not like my icons, so you can work your way for German and Allied-NATO Units following the links below:
Files for the German icons:
1) wwiigts_.ttf: contains the tactical symbols
at squad level with the graphic used until 1939; it just a .ttf file
2) GermanMapSymbols.zip: the most
complete set, contains symbols from Heeresgruppe to single soldier. In the .zip
file are: the .ttf file and three sample .doc files:
a) Ardenes.doc with the Table of Organization of the German Forces in the Ardennes
b) Germsymb.doc with an explanatory chart
c) Simboli mappe.doc made by me, it has the corresponding chart between the
Symbol and the characters you have to digit.
STANAG Files:
1) MapSymbA.exe: self-installing .exe file
with all the most updated STANAG symbols
2) user01a.zip: Some more new STANAG symbols.
As I wrote some lines higher, using the Symbols described above I am beginning to make a chart to enable the download and visualisation of all the tactical Icons (Click here).
All the above mentioned files come form www.mapsymbs.com that I openly thank here.
Bookmarks Directory Structure:
The Bookmanr's structure is related to the amount of datas on the hand of the
researcher.
Unit Histories |
The Bookmarks Directory should be named after the Unit Name, and into
it should be Subdirectories named after the temporal intervals (e.g. years
and months of war), to enable the program showing month after month on the
map not loading too many Datas each time. Note: Here the unit state could be described with the cromatic value listed below |
| Battles | The Bookmarks Directories should be separated for the two (or more) factions
and then chronologically sorted Note: the cromatic value should describe the kind of unit (like for example the German Waffenfarbe). In this way you could picture the kind of unit in action in the battle (infantry, cavalry artillery and others) |
| Campaigns | The Bookmarks Directories should be separated for the two (or more) factions
and then chronologically sorted. Note: the cromatic value should describe the kind of unit (like for example the German Waffenfarbe). In this way you could picture the kind of unit in action in the battle (infantry, cavalry artillery and others) |
| Biographies | The Bookmarks Directories should be named after the person studied, and into them should be Subdirectories named for the temporal intervals (e.g. years and months of war), to enable the program showing month after month on the map not loading too many Datas each time. |
| Lists of Places | Like: air bases, harbors, industry or goverment sites. This list have to have a different structure, mostly geographical. This look like the most important database to make before the others, as you can then see where the places are easyly. For this matter try and enjoy my Bookmarks Page |
Unit Histories (example):
The unit state could be described with a standard cromatic value like the one
listed below. My hint is to give a color to the Unit's title basing on their
status:
1) In constitution (light green)
2) In movement: A: railway (light gray)
B: on the road (dark gray) C: on th
sea (blue) D: airlift (light
blue)
3) In battle: A: advancing (red) B: retreating
(orange) C: defending (yellow)
4) Resting behind the lines (very light green)
5) Refitting (dark green)
6) Disbanding (black)