One of my favourite paintings by René Magritte – the Belgian surrealist painter – is 'The Treachery of Images' (In French, 'La Trahison des images').
It is often referred to by its alternative – and probably better known – name of 'This Is Not a Pipe/Ceci n'est pas une pipe' ... and it depicts an image of a pipe with the words 'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' underneath the image.
What I like about it is the fact that the painting conveys an apparent paradox! To the casual observer, it looks like a pipe ... but the actuality is that – as the words underneath the image state very clearly – it isn't a real pipe.
Now what on earth has this to do with wargaming?
Bear with me; things will become clear ... I hope!
Back in 1931, Harry Beck designed a schematic diagram of the London Undergound network ... and if you ask the internet to find a map of the London Underground, a modern version of Harry Beck's design will appear.
Harry Beck's original 1931 diagram of the London Underground network.
Perhaps it ought to have 'Ce n'est pas une carte/This isn't a map' underneath it?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a map as being 'a drawing of the earth's surface, or part of that surface, showing the shape and position of different countries, political borders, natural features such as rivers and mountains, and artificial features such as roads and buildings' and the Collins Dictionary states that it is 'a physical or digital image of a particular area such as a city, a country, or a continent, showing its main features as they would appear if you looked at them from above'.
By these definitions, Harry Beck's diagram is not a map. You certainly could not navigate your way around London's roads using it as the actual geographic positions of the underground stations is very different from their relative positions on Harry Beck's diagram. For example, this is the section of Beck's diagram showing the section of the tube from Earls Court in the west to Waterloo in the east and Queens Road in the north to West Brompton in the south.
Here is the same section of the London Underground superimposed on a road map of the same area. (N.B. the colours used to designate the different tube lines is different.)
Bearing in mind that most of the tube lines shown were constructed using the 'cut and cover' method and followed the route of existing roads. the differences are very noticeable.
As an aside, according to Transport for London (TfL), the average time it takes to travel between stations on the London Underground is 2.5 minutes ... so, by counting the number of stations between one's starting point and end point and multiplying by 2.5, you can calculate the approximate journey time from one station to another.
So, what has all this to do with wargaming?
One style of wargaming 'map' is the point-to-point one, like this ...
A point-to-point map of the area around the Battle of Waterloo. The travel time between each of the places on the map is approximately the same ... and the geographical positions of each is correct.
... and it seems to me to bear more than a passing resemblance to Harry Beck's design ... especially if you add a colour code to the different parts of the road network!
So, could Harry Beck's design – and the many similar designs used across the world – form the basis of a point-to-point wargame campaign map? I think so ... and if I get time, I may explore this idea further.
I think 'The American Civil War Campaign' you have made several blogposts of are similar to this consept some how. The ranges are not 'fixed' on Beck's map. for instance a travel from Bayswater to Queensway would suggest you need to change trains on Notting Hill Gate, while they're actually only about 200 metres apart. I like the idea to use this consept for wargame campaigns though.
ReplyDeleteRoger,
DeleteThe ACW map we are using is very similar in concept ... and it's set me thinking about the map/maps I want to create for my Belle Epoque project.
I take your point about the Bayswater to Queensway (originally Queens Road) being close together and travellers not needing to use Notting Hill Gate ... but supposing that there was some blockage between the two; in this instance they would need to go via the interchange.
In wargaming terms, this blockage between two places that are geographically close could be an impassable swamp, mountains, or a steep-sided valley, and the only way round it might be to travel on to somewhere else before working your way around the obstacle.
This is a problem that I have with regard to where I live in London. I might - for example - ask Google to search from a branch of a certain shop ... and it tells me that the nearest is only five miles away ... on the other side of the River Thames! In fact, the easiest and quickest branch for me to get to might be twice as far away ... but on this side of the river!
All the best,
Bob
I've been thinking along similar lines.
ReplyDeleteGary S,
DeleteI am currently looking at the relationship between psychogeography and wargaming and think that it might well be another way of looking at wargame campaign maps.
All the best,
Bob
I was thinking about whether to run an imaginations type campaign using the Tube map as a it is. Maybe add in some rivers - perhaps London's lost rivers. Drawing them in so they go through stations which are interchanges.
ReplyDeleteNundanket,
DeleteWhat an interesting idea! Adding the 'lost' rivers would be an excellent way to delineate boundaries between different provinces or imagi-nations ... and would give the interchanges strategic importance as well.
All the best,
Bob
John Masters served in the Indian Army (4th Gurkhas) from the 1930's and through the Second World War. His series of historical novels are very well regarded for vivid detail, rounded characters and honest balance.
ReplyDeleteHis first volume of memoirs "Bugles and a Tiger" is maybe even better. It includes a story of a Gurkha who evaded captivity and successfully navigated much of Burma using a London Tube map. :)
Cadan Dalmas,
DeleteMy father was a great fan of John Masters and read all his 'Indian' novels. (My father served in Burma and India in the runup to independence.)
I love the story of the 'lost' Gurkha using the Tube map to find his way back to the British/Indian frontline.
All the best,
Bob
It's great to know the books were so well thought of by the father as an actual veteran.
DeleteI will have to re-read them.
Cheers
John
Cadan Dalmas,
DeleteHis favourite John Masters' books were NIGHTRUNNERS OF BENGAL and BHOWANI JUNCTION.
All the best,
Bob
I agree, it sure does seem like the origin of point to point maps. I use them sometimes for Wargames, and very often for my RPG games. They are very useful, and fast to produce and require very little artistic skill as well.
ReplyDeleteMark Cordone,
DeleteI have used them myself a few times in the past ... but I suspect that I might be using them more in the future.
All the best,
Bob
I was a geographer and cartographer in a past life (that is to say, before retiring - my degrees were in geography, specializing in cartography as much as I could, and working in GIS after graduation), so I know a little bit about maps. I've always been fascinated by maps. And I've always been good at getting lost! ha ha
ReplyDeleteI still consider Beck's tube map a map. I think my definition of a map is more inclusive than some dictionaries. :)
Your main point about using a linear map like that as a basis for a wargame campaign is a good one. There is certainly a lot that could be done with it, and still be kept simple.
Fitz-Badger,
Delete‘I know a little about maps’ seems to be a bit of an understatement to me! You are infinitely before informed about the subject than I am!
I also refer to Harry Back’s London Underground design as a map even though it doesn’t conform to the definitions I found in the two dictionaries.
I have used linear maps in the past … but the more I think about it - especially in light of my recent attempts to produce maps for my Belle Epoque project - the more they appeal as a mapping technique I can use for wargaming.
All the best,
Bob
I've used point to point maps for decades, I came across a
ReplyDeletehand drawn one I used for a Napoleonic campaign in the early 1980s recently, and I used the for my Race to Leningrad campaign for Spearhead (which spawned a dozen imitations). They are just so much easier to manage in a campaign setting.
Martin Rapier,
DeleteI have gradually come to realise how useful the point-to-point style of map is for wargaming. Terrain will naturally funnel movement into a number of ‘corridors’ and what is outside those ‘corridors’ need not concern the wargamer too much.
All the best,
Bob
[1] Not wanting to teach grandmother to suck eggs... but presumably the Underground-type map approach also allows what in a hex on square grid-based game would be accomplished by certain terrain types: making particular routes quicker or slower to negotiate. Thus LU lines with lots of stations (such as the southern portions of the Northern and District lines) slow progress down, whereas lines with fewer stops (e.g. Victoria) indicate either easier terrain or better roads.
Delete[2] In pre-satnav days, getting to know London (or indeed any city with a Tube system) only BY using the Tube meant people became very familiar with the roads around a given station, but often NOT so familiar with the links between that group of roads, the the adjacent group of roads around another (even nearby) station. Does that make the Harry Beck-type diagram particularly suitable for environments where the links BETWEEN localities are not so familiar? So that might make a Tube-map approach also suitable for e.g. strategic games set in space?
[3] Incidentally, while we now see much of the London Underground as relatively unchanging, some lines might have extended further than their present-day limits. E.g. there was once some thought given to extending (what are now) the District and Northern lines southwards, to Kingston and ~Cheam respectively.
Toby E,
DeleteYou have gone right to the core of the matter. Terrain on the tabletop should impose some penalty or bonus on movement or combat … but it does not always do so. This is because very few wargame designers actually go out and walk the ground. I’ve read rules where troops have moved through woods at the same speed as they did crossing a field, and have crossed fields of crops as if they were walking across a manicured lawn.
I was struck what you included in your second paragraph. People do know the area around their local station and stations that they visit regularly … but probably have no idea what lies in between. (This is - by the way - straying into the realm of psychogeography!) This would mean that a Harry Beck-style map might be ideal for a game where one had to do reconnaissance between to know points. It’s the sort of thing that I regularly do in the RPG games I take part in every week.
I am a great follower of Jago Hazzard on YouTube, and watching his videos has made me very aware that the London Underground system is a bit like Topsy in that it ‘just growed for most of its life. It’s only in more recent times that any form of unified plan pining has taken place.
As a child, my family lived in Kenton until I was 8, and we travelled regularly on the Metropolitan line, but it was only relatively recently that I had any idea how much that line had grown - and shrunk - over time. From the age of 8 onwards we lived in Upminster, and I got to know the District line very well … but again, it was only recently that I discovered why so many of the stations on the eastern end of the line had the letters LT&SR on their cast iron fittings and that the District used to run trains as far as Southend-on-Sea from 1910 to 1939!
All the best,
Bob