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Merryn

@rentaquill

Mar 27

https://twitter.com/WeHaveWaysPod/status/1772560394021716163

PSA: The new @WeHaveWaysPod is great, and lots of lovely, lovely people have asked me for maps of Italy over the last couple of days. This is the primer for GSGS's 1:25,000 maps - don't panic - the links to make it readable are coming ...

https://twitter.com/WeHaveWaysPod/status/1772560394021716163

... and you'll find that index and maps like this one. (Terelle, 1:25,000. GSGS 4228) on Mapster. It's not an intuitive site. It's - a bit clunky. But it's an excellent source for this kind of mapping.

Here's the link to the index sheet for 1:25,000 Italian mapping made by GSGS. It's something like 40MB+, so Twitter probably won't show a preview.
maps.mapywig.org/m/ALLIED_maps/…

Read 5 tweets

Merryn

@rentaquill

Nov 8, 2022

@WeHaveWaysPod

Nearly forgot. Wee spotlight on Operation TORCH maps, in preçis form, from the forthcoming Map Men book blah blah blah. Mostly insights on security really, with a few random maps and the odd IWM image.
Details in Alt+ as per usual. @WeHaveWaysPod
[E 18982 - BLM, 3 days early.🫡]

Okay: first estimates were that TORCH required 30,000,000 maps. That’s more than the entire map run for the British Army in the FWW, but then, Africa is a big place. In all, constraints (and common sense) meant c.10,000,000 maps were produced on 700 different map sheets.

In all, only eight GSGS officers were ever briefed on the nitty-gritty of TORCH details. The junior staff officer supervising the map store knew what the plan was, and where it would happen – duh – but even he was kept out of the loop for the precise dates of the Operation.

Read 12 tweets

Merryn

@rentaquill

Aug 31, 2022

@thinkdefence

Because reasons, and because the big fella @thinkdefence is feeling a bit needy - more maps. Made by Das Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme in 1938 (I told you there were reasons) ... these show the bridge crossings over the Oder river basin and the coastal rivers in Pomerania: 🧵/

https://twitter.com/thinkdefence/status/1564976402394480643

The whole set comprises a six-sheet military map, prepared by RfL in September 1938, as Germany was getting ready to invade Poland. Covers the bit roughly between the Baltic and Racibórz. Low res here, which may be enough, but super-uber-mega res link in the Alt-Text.

In short, these are all about the river crossings and infrastructure on the western Polish frontier. Have a look at the key on each sheet – more than a dozen symbols for bridges (rail, small gauge rail, road bridges of different capacities, etc.), ferries, canal overpasses, etc.

Read 8 tweets

Merryn

@rentaquill

Aug 31, 2022

@OrdnanceSurvey

Maps. Maps need triangles. Everything happens somewhere (amirite, @OrdnanceSurvey?!), and to find a point precisely on a map, we need to triangulate that position. Let’s talk about Maj. Gen. William Roy. I'll take questions at the end. 😉🧵/
@natlibscotmaps

It’s 1783. Monsieur Cassini – French bloke, good with triangles – has been working on a new projection. How We See The World. But he’s not convinced about everyone else's view of that world, so he writes a wee blog. You can read the whole thing, here:
archive.org/details/philtr…

TL;DR. Cassini was criticising British geographers' official position of Greenwich. But he also suggested: “’ow about, we defone the relative pissition of the two observatories with a *leetle* meer certainty...?”

Gratuitous Cassini. Do check out Rumsey.😉
bit.ly/3pYN2F4

Read 14 tweets

Merryn

@rentaquill

Apr 30, 2022

Maps and war go hand in hand. I’d like to show you a military map so devoid of *topographic* detail it hurts the eyes … but it's a map that is so full of information, it tells its own story. Ready? Okay: this is the battle of Birch Coulee (this 👇 is not the map 🤪) :🧵

For background, while Civil War is rumbling away in the South, a complex system of land treaties and plats (a whole other thread🤦‍♀️) is creating chaos, nationwide. For now, we're focussing on the cession of Dakota territory.

The US had promised the Dakota annuities in exchange for their land, leaving them a strip 20 miles wide, spanning the Minnesota River. The US reneged on the deal. Miserable shits. And so began the US-Dakota war of 1862 (this is not the map either, but we're getting there):

Read 17 tweets

Merryn

@rentaquill

Feb 21, 2022

Drunk on the value of writing. God, I love my job. 🧵

🗨️ A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
💭 Two quotations marks walked into a “synonym”.
🗯️ A bar, a bar, a bar, dammit – epizeuxis walked into a bar!
💬 A synonym strolled into a tavern, an inn, and a gin joint.

👁‍🗨 Synecdoche walked into The Literary Device.
🔈 The bar growled as the anthropomorph walked in.
🗨️ A mixed metaphor walked into a bar for angels, saw the light and kicked the bucket.
💭 When it got rowdy in there, polyptoton asked ‘who’s going to bar the bar’?

🗯️ Into a bar, anastrophe walked.
💬 Tautology, tautology, why did you walk into the bar, tautology?
👁‍🗨 Tmesis par-motherfucking-ambulated into the bar.
🔈 People assume lovers of aphorisms will be found in a bar.
🗨️ A simile walked into a bar, as parched as a nun’s underpants.

Read 9 tweets

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