| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 05 2006 : 08:02:49 AM
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Google Earth.I have just discovered it .It is absolutly brilliant.You can view the entire battle field from all angles in 3D and at various scales. |
| 25 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| AZ Ranger |
Posted - December 06 2006 : 12:12:48 AM
Wild-Either the 7th were brutal shots or the Indians very good at concealing their dead.Yet you believe they would have inflicted heavy casualties at the charge if the were closer to the village.
AZ Ranger |
| wILD I |
Posted - November 25 2006 : 3:57:21 PM
Having been spoiled as regards the view of the LBH battlefield as per G/E I have to say how disappointed I am that the quality of photography covering other famous battlefields is just awful.Be it Waterloo,Gettysburg,Culloden,Balaklava,Rourkes drift the photography is useless.Hope they improve it soon. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 31 2006 : 1:08:58 PM
Hi Mike
I just tilt the landscape so that the eye alt matches the elevation.
I can set it so that I get a view as if I was standing on the summit of CN.No fancy tricks and no I'v not paid for extras.
Cheers |
| mcaryf |
Posted - October 30 2006 : 8:46:41 PM
Hi Smcf
In my theory once he is passed Lone Tepee, Custer is assuming that Benteen is some distance away heading SW into the LBH valley so he cannot really expect to get a messenger through to him. Thus I have him riding up onto the bluffs near Reno Hill to get a sight of Benteen so he can send a messenger. Once he sees how the river flows then he knows that Benteen is likely to be on the back trail and he sends Kanipe that way to reach him and the pack train. Again my theory is that he subsequently thinks Benteen could be behind the train so Kanipe may not deliver any message to Benteen and that is why Martini is sent as well.
Hi wILD1
I saw in an earlier post of yours that you reckon you can get Google to tilt to match the elevation of the terrain. In my version I can only tilt it to an observation position several thousand feet above where a human might be. Have you got the "pay for" version or am I missing a trick somewhere.
Regards
Mike |
| movingrobewoman |
Posted - October 30 2006 : 4:03:57 PM
wILD--
Picking up the prints tomorrow and will see just how much I can jam into my Photobucket account. I seem to be missing a couple of rolls of slide film, however. It had better not be the shots of Ford D!
As I have said--and I don't remember on what board, so I'm sorry if I sound repetious--getting down to the area really convinced me something happened down there. The geography is really quite perfect when looking back at Cemetery Ridge and LSH. Now whether a crossing there was offensive or more desperate at that point, you've got me ...
Hokahey! |
| Smcf |
Posted - October 30 2006 : 09:30:38 AM
Hi mcaryf - the placemarks seem to work ok. You point out bluffs over 3000 feet high supposedly blocking a view of the valley from CN (thanks for putting me straight on the actual location of CN, by the way) which is misleading as I think the valley floor itself is over 3000 feet above sea level. In effect, these bluffs are no higher than a couple of hundred feet relative to the valley.
I once thought that Custer may have initially mistaken the area around the morass->lone tipi region as his take on where the village was, and that perhaps accounted for the Benteen round trip.
Once Custer had advanced beyond the lone tipi and armed with the supposed intelligence that the Indians were on the move, then why didn't he send a courier to Benteen at that point? He was micromanaging Reno then and seemed not to have been bothered about where Benteen was. |
| mcaryf |
Posted - October 28 2006 : 11:01:35 AM
Hi Wild 1
Are you the same person as the Wild that has posted a strange comment on the LBHA BB about some position in the LB area being at only 270 feet?
With respect to your surveying comment I do not think looking at a straight line and working out broadly where it might go takes any great expertise. In fact Custer was quite an expert on terrain having spent some of his early career in the ACW on observation duty from a balloon. This probably made him one of the most experienced officers in the US army in terms of considering terrain features.
Unfortunately if my theory is right, and I freely admit it is only a theory, on this occasion he was mislead by the sudden swing in the river to flow from the SW. However, if my theory is wrong someone still has to explain why he sent Benteen to the SW and told him the valley was nearby.
Regards
Mike
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| wILD I |
Posted - October 28 2006 : 09:02:43 AM
The paper is eventually intended to be posted on the GE Community forum
A word of advice Mike DON'T post it yet.Wait until you read something basic on surveying then take a look at your suggestions again. |
| mcaryf |
Posted - October 27 2006 : 8:49:29 PM
Hi
I am pleased you liked the article but I hope you noticed that the link DC posted was the companion piece to another article I also wrote in that board's Battle Basic section. This is a link to the article and broadly what I said in the post on the other board.[url=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adam.fox57/MikeFox/LBH/LBH]Google paper[/url]
The article is in html format which I hope will enable everybody to read it. The original is in WORD which gives better formatting (partly because I am less proficient in HTML!). If you would prefer the WORD version, please send a PM and mail address to me.
The paper is eventually intended to be posted on the GE Community forum and so assumes no prior knowledge of LBH. If you are already familiar with the battle then you might care to skim through the paper just reading the bold sentences as these summarise the key theories. A more detailed companion paper (not for beginners) with detailed document references is available above as per DC's post.
The paper includes a further link to enable you to download some GE placemarks that illustrate the discussion (after the list of placemarks in the index). You do not actually have to have access to GE to read the paper as key images are reproduced within it. However, it would help if you do. I have to confess to being a newcomer to GE and I am not 100% sure that my placemark file will work if you are a MAC user. Please let me know if it does not.
For me the placemark file works by giving me an option to download or open it (it is in a compressed zip format). If you choose to open it then that should trigger your system to start GE with the placemarks in the temporary area. When you subsequently close GE it gives you the choice as to whether you keep them or not. I have noticed a slightly strange effect that sometimes these downloaded placemarks appear to have moved slightly from where I put them (Davis Creek being a common example). Please let me know on this thread if you think any of the placemarks are in obviously wrong positions.
I would welcome any comments on the paper and particularly if you think it contains errors of fact as I would like to correct these before posting it in the Google community. The paper is of course mainly about theories as to Custer’s intentions so you are perfectly at liberty to disagree with them as to whether they are actually correct but my intention is to make you wonder whether it is possible that they could have been.
Regards
Mike
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| Smcf |
Posted - October 27 2006 : 07:14:03 AM
Thanks for the link and an interesting article. He could've plotted eye-level or near eye-level lines of sight wihin GE to make his point though. |
| movingrobewoman |
Posted - October 26 2006 : 3:41:51 PM
No, DC--
They've started about fifty discussions regarding GE over there--and each thread mimics the other, it seems.
I do think the Crow's Nest discussions could be interesting--Vern Smalley certainly holds some creative ideas--but it takes a while to find the "right" one.
Hokahey! |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - October 26 2006 : 2:37:43 PM
If you're not aware, they've started a thread on this with good graphics on the LBHA board.
http://lbha.proboards12.com/index.cgi?board=Queries&action=display&thread=1161848606 |
| Smcf |
Posted - October 25 2006 : 04:17:16 AM
Many thanks, Prolar. |
| prolar |
Posted - October 24 2006 : 12:47:21 PM
Smcf: I have never seen the spring, but in Custer's Last Campaign, in the section decribing Curly's escape, it is decribed as being on a small branch to the left of upper Deep Coulee. Hope this helps. |
| Smcf |
Posted - October 24 2006 : 10:36:56 AM
MRW - a little off-thread, but since you've been at the battlefield, would you know if the "marked spring" referred to by Godfrey (I believe somewhere between NC ridge and Calhoun Hill) is mentioned anywhere? - I know its a bit of a long shot. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 24 2006 : 09:06:48 AM
MRW
I'm probably still in awe of this GE thingy and placing too much reliance on it.It is of course not the be all and end all and in no way the definative geographical answer but it is still very good none the less.
You are right about the East and particularly the South where Benteen's troop was stationed they suffered far more casualties then the other units.
When are you going to let us see those photos of the field? |
| movingrobewoman |
Posted - October 23 2006 : 3:49:39 PM
wILD--
Reno had *it* when it came to any attacks from the west, or the northwest--from the valley floor. The advantage quickly wore off when you start examining the geography to the east and south. Of course, it might have been best to see who was sniping at you, but I could be wrong.
Personally, I think Reno's position was lucky over advantageous and the Indians were more interested in high-tailing it out of town than to sit around and wait for the Montana column.
Hokahey. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 23 2006 : 2:35:23 PM
The companies not engaged in the valley ie Benteen's battalion and pack train guard suffered 13 dead and 22 wounded.Reno's troops who had already lost heavely in the valley probably suffered more casualties in the hill top fight to add to this total.Examining this part of the field on GE I find that if there was any terrain advantage then Reno had it.Reno's men were also partially dug in and must have had a system of fire control.Therefore it is surprising that there is no real evidence that the Indians were bloodied here and had at least as many casaulties as Reno.Reno's troops must have had at least 700 warriors out in front of them with no more cover than Reno's men.We know that some of the Indians got so close that Benteen had to lead a charge to dislodge them.Either the 7th were brutal shots or the Indians very good at concealing their dead. |
| Smcf |
Posted - October 20 2006 : 12:16:56 PM
Yes - GE does flatten some features somewhat at the eye-level view - the area north of Deep Coulee looks as if it needs more input (perhaps you need to buy the product to get more terrain layers, I don't know). Overall, this freebee is a real eye-opener for me. Want to see if Custer had kept "feeling to the left" before crossing over to the LBH valley? - and then what would have been his route over, and how long would it have taken him to get there? - no answers, but absorbing stuff. |
| movingrobewoman |
Posted - October 19 2006 : 7:52:45 PM
wILD--
Parts of Deep Ravine have worn down through erosion. There are still sections of the thing that are just as imposing as they were 130 years ago. Of course, current vegetation might give the place a "softer" appearance. I am finally getting my photos from this year's trip developed this weekend; I took several of DR, as well as SSR and the bluffs to the east. Whatever, I'll post them as soon as I can feed them to the scanner. To my untrained eye, distances were oddly difficult to gauge--stuff which looked far away was actually much closer. According to one of the wayside signs at the entrenchment site, bullets fired from the bluffs east of Reno-Benteen battlefield did carry the distance. I believe these bluffs--sorry, I'm going from memory--run parallel to Hwy 212.
Hokahey. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 19 2006 : 7:23:15 PM
Don't make GE the new archaeology.
First of all DC I was using it as a geographical tool.
As regards it's accuracy I have checked it against locations-spot heights and distances here and have found it to be accurate to the nearest ft.If you tell me that Deep Ravine is every bit as imposing today as it was in 1876 then I have to take your word for it.
Other than Sharpshooters ridge which is 600 yards distant there are no other features within rifle/carbine range that threaten Reno's position by having a higher elevation.To engage Reno the Indians had to infiltrate close to his position using the broken ground.This must have been a slow business and must have limited the numbers who could have gotten close.In a fire fight such as that where the attackers must move and thus expose themselves their casualties must have been on a par with Reno's.But then there is no evidence of Reno's troops finding dead/wounded Indians close to their positions.
At Rourkes drift the Brits kept quiet about finishing off the wounded Zulu perhaps Reno's men engaged in a spot of retaliation?
If GE is accurate then we have a fantastic tool with which to explore the field. |
| Dark Cloud |
Posted - October 19 2006 : 2:35:13 PM
I may be too broken down by Wiggs and miss the irony flag, but Wild, GE can be deceiving. Sharpshooter Hill, well above Reno, got its name how? There are also hills higher than Reno to the east and south. Look at the recent photos of WCF and trot out your 2ft theory again.
He suffered more dead and wounded because he took fire from four sides (lofting arrows from the river side if nothing else, although not mentioned), everyone was clumped together, and they only needed to kill horses.
Don't make GE the new archaeology. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 19 2006 : 10:32:06 AM
A cuple of pieces of trivia curtesy of GE.The feature named Deep Ravine is neither a ravine nor is it deep.However imposing a feature it was back in 1876 it has now lost all it's former character being nor more than 2 ft deep.
There is no feature within rifle range that has a higher elevation than Reno's defence site.
No fire could be directed onto Reno's position from across the river because of its elevation.Reno's position could be only engaged by long range single snipers any other form of attack would have resulted in a higher rate of casualties among the Indians.What puzzles me is that Reno's troops would have outranged the Indians [unless they were now using Custer's carbines]and yet he seems to have suffered more dead and wounded than the attackers. |
| wILD I |
Posted - October 16 2006 : 3:46:13 PM
Interesting to view the old course of the LBH where Reno withdrew to the timber.Viewing the location now one cannot but wonder why Reno did not retreat across the river here as the bluffs were closer and not quiet as steep.Of course not having the advantage of Google Earth
might have had something to do with it. |
| prolar |
Posted - October 13 2006 : 7:13:51 PM
Thanks Wild. I'm due for a computer upgrade, hopefully soon. |
