Military Model Making During WW 2
Military Model Making During WW 2
Military Model Making During WW 2
Introduction
Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2002, pp. 227-241
Development of Anglo-American
Model Making
Establishing the Model-making Section
Though the British Army was not prepared for the
demand for model-making at the onset of World
War II, a model-making section was formed as
early as mid-1940 (Abrams 1991), after representatives of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force (RAF),
and the Army met to discuss intelligence gathering
for the Commandos. Commando operations relied
on military personnel acting with a high degree of
initiative. This new notion meant officers at all
levels had to know exactly what they were doing
and be able to pass this information on to their
men accurately. Clearly, the success of Commando
operations was going to rely heavily on thorough
briefings with first-rate intelligence materials presented, so that all personnel would have a clear
image of the target and its topographic context.
In this new type of assault, military training
and courage alone would not do. Use of military
intelligence had changed dramatically, as it was
no longer solely the generals who were making
tactical decisions in the field. Many assaults were
combined operations of land, sea, and air forces.
Coordination of such complex operations required
detailed and reliable intelligence that could be
effectively passed along to those involved in its
planning and execution.
The significance of aerial photography as a
source for military intelligence was becoming
more fully appreciated. As early as 1940 the
British had established the Central Interpretation
Unit (CIU), and by 1942 the unit had amassed
over three million photographs that covered most
of Europe (Reed 1946). The Royal Air Force files
also contained invaluable information on tides,
geology, and photographs of installations and
cities collected from newspapers and periodicals. Furthermore, the RAF also had facilities for
enlarging contour maps, aerial photographs, and
mosaics to the exact size of the proposed terrain
models. Aerial photography and terrain modeling
were to prove an effective combination later in the
war.
The idea of using relief models initially met
with some skepticism by military commanders. According to Spooner (1953), the problem
of training military personnel to comprehend
strategic and tactical briefings through reading
topographic maps was both monumental and
vital. Officer experience with terrain models was
limited to what were called the sand table, basi228
Expansion of V-Section
Representatives of the Combined Chiefs of Staff
decided as early as February 1942 that terrain
models should be employed in the planning
and briefing of major operations. When the
U.S. Eighth Army Air Force came to Britain, the
Air Ministry looked to the Americans to provide
additional model-making capacity. An Engineer
Model-Making Detachment, which arrived in July
1942 with one officer and twenty men, increased
by the end of the year to three officers and 85 men.
Shortly after they arrived, the Americans were
moved to Henley-on-Thames, just beside the river
a few miles away, to what had been an exclusive
private club called Phyllis Court (Abrams 1991).
Royal Air Force personnel remained at Danesfield
and were transported to Phyllis Court by truck or
made their own way there by bicycle. Phyllis Court,
a regency country house with fine views of the
River Thames through its large French windows,
was a pleasant place to work. Spacious and well lit,
it was conducive to model making (Scott, personal
communication 2002).
After a short training course at Nuneham
Harcourt, south of Oxford, the Americans joined
up with the RAF model-making team to form a
powerful allied group which, during the course
of the war, turned out a remarkably fine series
of models in wide variety (Clough 1952, p. 556).
Oddly, the Americans were hitherto unfamiliar
with the interpretation of air photography, particularly the use of photogrammetry for intelligence gathering (Reed 1946). A great many of the
American generals required much convincing and
training about the uses of air photos for gathering
intelligence. In Britain, by contrast, aerial photograph interpretation had become a basic source of
intelligence, and the use of air photography repVol. 29, No. 3
Figure 3. The availability and close scrutiny of aerial photography was an essential part of the more detailed stages
in the modeling process. MEIU, Cairo. (Reproduced with
kind permission of the Public Record Office.)
Figure 5. The finished model. [Reproduced with kind permission of the Public Record Office.]
231
Strategic Planning
Models prepared for strategic planning tended
to be small scale, with little emphasis on detail.
The character of the relief was accentuated by the
exaggeration of the vertical scale to three or four
times the plan scale. The general character of the
topography was shown, with main roads, railways,
towns, wooded areas, and waterways depicted.
General Staffs at Force or Army Group level used
Purpose
Typical scales
Content
Users
Characteristics
Strategic planning
(most theatres)
1:100,000
to 1:500,000
Tactical planning
(most theatres)
1:10,000, 1:12,500
and 1:25,000
Assault landing
(North West Africa,
Sicily, Italy, and
Normandy)
1:5,000
1:500 or 1:1,000
Commando raids
(Bruneval, St.Nazaire,
Dieppe)
Airborne landings
(Normandy, Europe
1:10,000 or
1:12,500
1:1,000 or 1:2,500
Air-bombing targets
1:2,500 or 1:5,000
Represented three
dimensional picture of the
ground
Egg-crate
1:500 to 1:25,000
Quick construction
Table 1. Classification of Terrain Models produced by the Allies 1939-1945 (after Clough 1952).
232
Figure 7. Relief map of northern Italy prepared by the United States staff [Research and Analysis Branch, Office of Strategic
Services at Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF)].
these models for general planning. Figure 7 shows
an example of this type of model. The United
States Staff (Research and Analysis Branch, Office
of Strategic Services) prepared this relief map at
Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary
Forces. This particular model was used in the
Cabinet War Room in Whitehall and accompanied
Winston Churchill at all the meetings and
conferences with President Roosevelt and Soviet
political leader Stalin.
cial in enabling pilots to recognize a specific navigation mark or target. Missing the target would
mean failure of the mission and unnecessary loss
of civilian lives. Several models that survived the
war were used to support such operations, the
most famous of which was the Dambuster Raid of
May 1943.
The Dambuster Raid
In this famous episode of World War II the British
engineer Barnes Wallis devised a scheme to
destroy several large dams on the upper Rhine
that, if breached, would disrupt factory production in the Rhine Valley. It was hoped that the raid
would also provide a significant morale boost to
the Allies. The raid was very dangerous because a
five-ton bomb had to be dropped at low altitude so
that it could skip across the water to an exact spot
next to the dam, where it would sink and explode
deep under the surface. Plans for such a raid were
started quite early in the war. Explosive tests were
carried out by the Road Research Laboratory on
large-scale models built by the Building Research
233
234
Assault Landing
Models prepared for assault landing were used for
operation planning by all echelons and branches
of the armed forces, and included information
valuable to all users. The Navy required detailed
depiction of shorelines, beaches, and offshore
obstacles. The infantry required detailed representation of beach terrain, woods, buildings, and
enemy defenses. Obstacles and salient features for
controlling artillery fire were also needed. Such
detail was also useful to the aircrews in identifying
targets and drop zones.
Figure 10. The larger-scale model for identifying the target.
Close observation of the model reveals a caricature of the
building facade. Aircrews were unlikely to require more
accuracy, given the high speed and low altitude of their
flight.
Vol. 29, No. 3
236
Target Interpretation
From the outset of World War II rumors spread
that the Germans were developing secret weapons,
but by spring 1943 the precise nature and reality of
the threat was still not known. Operations Bodyline
and Crossbow aimed to locate, with the aid of air
photograph reconnaissance, the development
Figure 12. Low oblique of landscape under artificial light conditions that imitated the likely appearance of the shore as the operation
progressed and at different times. Coast near Avola, Sicily, at 06.00, 5,300 yards offshore and at an altitude of 500 feet. [Reproduced
with kind permission of the Public Record Office.]
237
238
Post-war Developments
in Terrain Modeling
The end of the war brought a halt to model making
at Medmenham. However, the experiences of
World War II meant that the terrain model had
come to stay. The value of terrain models had been
clearly demonstrated, and research into methods
for their mass production continued at the Relief
Map Division of the Army Map Service (AMS) and
the Naval Photographic Interpretation Center in
the United States (Army Map Service 1944; 1945;
1950).
The problems of time and cost lay behind the
Army Map Services decision in 1947 to systematically study over a three-year period all known
methods of model construction (Spooner 1953).
As a result of this exercise, new equipment was
developed, old methods were revised, and new
materials were introduced so that by the outbreak
of the Korean War, hundreds of plastic reproductions on a scale of 1:250,000 were being supplied
to the armed forces in Korea. Spooner claims that
monthly production might have reached 20,000
copies. Judging from the machine pantographs
and molding techniques employed, the Americans
had acquired considerable technology in war booty
from Germanys Wenschow Works, which used the
same equipment and techniques (Reed 1946).
According to Mays (1958), even after the introduction of vacuum-forming techniques between
1947 and 1950, it was impossible to produce an
accurate model without contour source material.
Costs remained high and model libraries were
inflexible, because models with different horizontal and vertical scales could not be produced from
239
Conclusion
It is perhaps a sad irony that the creativity demonstrated by the model makers during World War
II should flourish during a period of horrifying
death and destruction. This irony was not lost
on those who worked at Medmenham. Leonard
Abrams writes:
While our total effort in model making was
focused on making deliberate destruction
and loss of human life a more efficient and
effective process, our work was done in the
quiet of the model shop; while we were constantly aware of the gravity of our mission, we
were physically removed from the violence
associated with it (Abrams 1991, p. 46).
However, it is also clear that models saved lives.
Planners were provided with invaluable information that might lead to the canceling of an operation if heavy losses seemed likely, particularly if
casualties might be civilian. Furthermore, aircrews
familiar with their specific target through the study
of models were better able to minimize collateral
damage. Given the sensitivity of the information,
Cartography and Geographic Information Science
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank the Imperial War
Museum for allowing me access to the terrain
models at the RAF base in Duxford; the Ordnance
Survey for providing extensive use of its library
and archives, as well as numerous cups of coffee
and generous use of the photocopier; Tim Scott,
who kindly agreed to talk to me about his memories of the Model-Making Section at Medmenham
and his experiences in North Africa and Italy;
the Public Record Office, Kew, for reproducing
the photography of the terrain models of Sicily;
Michael Mockford, Hon. Sec. of the Medmenham
Club; and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst,
Surrey. My dear wife Karen supported me throughout this work.
REFERENCES
Abrams, L.N. 1991. Our secret little war. International
Geographic Information Foundation, Bethesda,
Maryland.
Air Ministry. 1943. Handbook on models and model-making
(topographical). Air Ministry, London, U.K.
Army Map Service. 1944. The construction of topographical models and relief maps. Bulletin, June 8.
Army Map Service. 1945. Notes on quality production of
topographic models. Bulletin, February 14.
241
Exploratory Essays:
History of Cartography in the Twentieth Century
Advisory Board
Christopher Board
242