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Old maps of the General Staff. General staff maps. Symbols on topographic maps

The maps of the headquarters of the German Wehrmacht and the Red Army (Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army) were compiled and printed both in the USSR in the period from 1925 to 1941, and in Germany, in preparation for war, in the period 1935-41. On maps printed in Germany, the name in German is often printed next to the Russian name of a village, river, etc.

These are excellent wartime tactical maps. It was on such maps that the commanders of formations and units, intelligence, etc., of both the Soviet and German armies worked.

Some of the maps can be found on the Internet, on German and American sites, and some are obtained from other sources. Unfortunately, the maps we have are mostly clean, i.e. on them not applied defense lines, dugouts, trenches, pillboxes. Only roads (down to the smallest ones), settlements (up to individual houses) and other interesting objects (chapels, churches, mills, ferries). Many objects disappeared in the post-war period and therefore are of interest to search engines. We will select maps for the area you are interested in.

Composite sheet.

Composite sheet.

Maps can be downloaded as an archive. Order the missing map sheets and send them.

Useful link to determine the letters and numbers of the cards of interest.

If you are interested in maps with a binding for the navigator, contact us through the section.

Some of the most common and detailed maps Ukraine - these are the maps of the General Staff. Mostly they were compiled and published during the 70-80s of the last century. However, despite the past years, today on the Internet you can find scans of such cards in a very decent resolution. In total, they occupy a little over 900 megabytes. Maps of the General Staff of Ukraine, as a rule, have a traditional scale - 1: 100000. The value of these maps is almost immeasurable. They make it possible to form an idea of ​​the situation for the 70-80s, and also help to compare the old and new card to calculate what changes have occurred.

In order to freely use the maps of the General Staff of Ukraine, special superpowers are not required. You just need to have access to them, own the system of symbols and know the measuring techniques that are usually used in work with maps. Perhaps, due to inexperience, someone will have problems using the card. What do you need to know about the General Staff to prevent this from happening?

A little about the military term

To begin with, it must be said that in fact the General Staff was created after the collapse of the USSR and the formation of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. Today, it is the main body of the country in matters of state defense planning, control of the armed forces, control of military formations, command and control bodies, executive power, etc. In special cases, such as emergency in the country, the General Staff also receives the powers of a working body of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. That is, the responsibility for making all determining decisions rests with the staff of this organization.

In a broad sense, it is generally accepted that the General Staff is the main command and control body. But if you delve into the meaning of the term, you can see that in different countries it is understood and interpreted
differently. In Germany, for example, the general staff was the operational leadership body that commanded the ground forces, aviation and the navy. In France, he supervised the training of troops and the provision of all necessary operations. It is logical to assume that the highest ranks are enrolled in the service of the General Staff, whose experience and knowledge are necessary in solving the most important issues in the fate of the country. The defense of the state can only be entrusted to people who know their business. That is why the best cadres of the highest military headquarters are admitted to the General Staff. As a rule, these are those who have already reached the general position.

Maps of the General Staff of Ukraine (original sheets) require careful preservation. Since only respect for the valuable cartographic material acts as a guarantee that this material will not become disposable in the framework of a particular task, and will also serve for subsequent use. Ensure proper safety of the map of the General Staff of Ukraine, its correct initial folding. Indeed, numerous kinks contribute to rapid wear, in particular, in the same places of kinks.

Today, downloading a map of the General Staff is the easiest and most affordable way for every Internet user. Information of interest is available in the form of photographs, as well as files with reference to gps navigators and the ozi explorer program (in ozf2 and map format).

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Topographic Maps

Topographic map is an integral part of long-distance hiking, mushroom picking, orienteering and quadra cross-country driving. Symbols on topographic maps such as:

Forest, urban-type settlements, power lines (power lines), bush, swamp, difficult-to-pass areas, unpaved road, trail, ford

etc. will allow you to walk through the forest, away from settlements a safe way. Topographic maps areas are offered in two formats:
- maps with extensions .ozfx, .ecw, .Gif, .png georeferenced for use on personal computer (PC), laptop with the operating system Windows xp, 7, 8, and tablets and mobile devices operating system Android 2.2 and higher.
- Maps with expansion .jnx georeferenced for use in travel navigators of a company with service support BirdsEye.
Detailed topographic scale maps 1:25000 are now most in demand among both mushroom pickers and travelers because of the accuracy of their data on the terrain and other information. In our online store there are topo maps in Scale:
throughout the western Of Russia to the Urals including O. New earth and partially some squares of central Russia, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation.
- 1: 50,000 (1cm = 500m or 500m) throughout the western Russia to the Urals, also some squares of central Russia, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation.
- 1: 100000 (1cm = 1km or kilometer) throughout the territory of western Russia to the Urals, as well as some squares of central Russia, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation.
- 1: 200000 (1cm = 2km or 2-kilometer) throughout Russia, partly in neighboring countries, CIS territories, Western Europe and Africa.
- 1: 500000 (1cm = 5km or 5-kilometer) throughout Russia, partly in neighboring countries, CIS territories, Western Europe and Africa.

In this article I will share the simple and handy tools (maps and programs) that I use myself to plan my simple hiking routes and navigate along them in the process.


Disadvantages of topographic maps of the General Staff

Topographic maps of the general staff (usually paper or already scanned) are good, as they provide high-quality standardized information about the area. But it is not always possible to have sufficiently detailed maps. And they cannot be used "quickly" by opening the cards on a computer or smartphone. They are not fully represented and each area has to be looked for individually and in advance.

Having performed a certain dance with a tambourine, you can bind the scan of the map to the coordinates in special programs and load it into the navigator. But again, this must be done in advance, you need a navigator, skill and time. And if you decide to just take a walk on vacation in a huge park or suddenly get lost somewhere in nature (especially in highlands) and want to find a path? In such a situation, an application installed once on a smartphone will surely help you out.

In addition, there are other goodies missing in topographic maps, which I will talk about further.

Nevertheless, it is worth mentioning a good service that connected the maps of the General Staff to a united online map - Marshruty.ru. But so far I have not found such cards in applications on smartphones.


- modern topographic maps

For myself, I have long found a replacement that covers most of my goals (uncomplicated tracking). These are maps based on OpenStreetMap (OSM) data.

These are open non-profit online maps all over the world created jointly by the participants in this project.
To create maps, data from personal GPS trackers, aerial photographs, video recordings, satellite imagery and street panoramas provided by some companies and project participants.

In fact, it is data about objects created by a huge community of people. different ways... Anyone can freely build maps based on this data.

So than OSM is better topographic map headquarters?

  1. Comprehensiveness of coverage. They represent the whole world.
  2. Detail and accuracy provided information about the terrain and location of objects.
  3. Hiking trails... A large number of accurate information about hiking trails based on GPS trackers. Moreover, this is what allows you to use the map for direct navigation along the trails. And if you find yourself in the conditions of unexpected snow and a swept trail, poor visibility, this information will help you find the lost trail. It saved me more than once.
  4. Lots of easy to use programs and services for all kinds of devices and operating systems using these cards. All thanks to an open source license. Most of them provide the ability to save maps offline on your device to navigate the area without using the Internet.
  5. Opportunity export maps in all sorts of formats. Whether it's PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF, PostScript or even Garmin and Polish format for other navigation programs.
  6. Some programs and services overlay these maps with data from other maps and sources supplementing information and functionality... For example, data from Wikimapia
  7. If you have internet, you can load the area you want on the spot.

In addition, there is everything that is in the topographic maps:

  1. Terrain type... Rocks, forests, fields, rivers, reservoirs and everything else.
  2. Availability information about heights(OpenCycleMap, Landscape, OpenTopoMap).
  3. Water sources

The list of advantages is far from complete and represents only what most clearly reflects the advantages from my point of view and for my purposes (tracking).


OSM based maps

The main and the first map built on this data has the same name as OpenStreetMap and is located at the address of the project itself. Often represents more useful information about the terrain than the next two, but does not display heights.

These maps are available online both on the osm website itself and on your domain.
The most interesting layers for tracking with heights are OpenCycleMap itself and Landscape (available only at http://www.opencyclemap.org).

The Landscape map (layer), in my opinion, provides more information about the area.


Discovered these cards recently. Despite their name, they are also built on the OpenStreetMap database, but they look more like topographic maps and are much like the Landscape layer mentioned above.

Wikimapia
The slogan of the project: "Let's describe the whole world!" An international project, an online geographic encyclopedia, the purpose of which is to mark and describe all geographic features on Earth. And they do it very successfully. More than 2.4 million users are registered on Wikimapia and more than 26 million objects have been added to the map (as of 2016). On its website, the project uses different cards, including OSM. It displays these objects on them. Wikimapia data is often used by other services to overlay on their maps.

PC software with OSM maps

To plan a route on a computer, you can use the online maps in your browser. But this is not very convenient.

I use the program SAS.Planet for Windows. The program accumulates in itself all of the above cards except Landscape. As well as many other cards including General Staff maps from service Routes.ru, GooglMaps, YandexMaps and many others.

You can overlay data from other maps and databases on one card, thus creating personal informational content. Allows you to plot routes, measure distances, save landmarks, export maps and data to other formats. Allows you to connect a navigator and much more.

On the world wide web Lately appeared great amount cards that, unfortunately, some sites want to sell. There are only unique information products in our store. Only here you can download a map of the Sverdlovsk region for free in just one click. We cannot hide from users what has long been in the public domain. For example, here you can find Garmin topo maps for free. The navigator is a rather expensive purchase, so it may be that there is not enough money for the cards. In any case, when you buy such a device, you win, but you can still use it free cards that are presented in this section.

What are Garmin orientation maps

This is a branded software prepared by us. Professional cards, which are supplied on a paid basis, have many more options. In order to understand whether they are needed, it is necessary to establish the purpose of your campaigns. If it's just going out to nature with your family, then just buy a navigator in our store and download free Garmin topographic maps. If you are engaged in serious multi-day hikes (including ATV trips), then you will have to buy professional cards in the end.

What else can be found here

Download free Garmin GPS maps and more. The information will be gradually updated here, we will display maps prepared by us for free use. There are also topographic maps that were scanned a very long time ago, and have been in the public domain for more than 10 years. In fact, everything a beginner needs is here.