If any of you have Google Earth on your computers, check this out. Normally you get a great deal of clarity on the sattelite shots, but go to the major Great War battlefields and each one is very blurred.

I have read that governments can request that sensitive sites be blurred, but surely they would not consider old battlefields as being "sensitive", would they? Can you see them going to such lengths to keep that information obscure? I am not a conspiracy theorist incidentally

use Pages Jaunes, works fine for me

It depends on the resolution of the satellite photos in particular areas.

Parts of Britain are resolved down to about 150 feet equivalent, but for the most part it is to about 10,000 feet.

The only place I know of that is carefully blanked out is the pier area at Faslane where the nuclear subs tie up. Even then, the rest of the base is resolved down to about 100 feet. I can pick out my old office quite clearly!

There is a French satellite coverage of Frnce now that seems to be much more detailed. I don't have the URL offhand.

This is the link I use for the French satellite photos.
http://www.geocatalogue.fr/SearchTileForward.do
S

Thank you. Or, should I say, "Merci" ?

Because I don't wish to have black helicopters landing in my carpark, I will just say that Holy Loch is not the only place that suffers from constant low cloud.

Try this site out, resolution is superb. Dont worry too much about the cloud cover over Northern France, just keep zooming in and it clears fine.
Clicky here Click in the grey/black area and off you go.....
Not sure if it's better or worse than other sites, but it does the job for me

Check out the Marne and the American area at Belleau Wood. The cemetery is crystal clear. Chateau Thierry is fine...

TT

fantastic site steve.

Mick D

Our part of Lincolnshire is a complete blur, with no distinguishing marks at all (and the Google Earth picture is pretty poor too)

The latest version of Google Earth is pretty good down to a certain level, and unlike the French site (which I agree is much better quality) the current Google images were taken at ploughing time. As such many signs of trenches show up. This is particularly noticeable in places like the Champagne, but I have also seen it on the Hindenburg Line.

This is my house taken from 407 metres. The satellite took the photo on the 23nd Jan 2005 because the white square in the back yard is a marquee put up for my daughters engagement party and it was only up on that day.

But I certainly prefer Pages Jaunes used through Mappy for my Somme aerials

Peter

I can see my car on the drive and the dog in the back garden!!
Aye
Malcolm

Aerial view in the Champagne - white marks in the fields match up with trench maps of the area.

Ive tried all these for Monchy & cant get any decent ,clear shots.
Cant find at 1st glance Happy valley either,bah.

Holy Loch was American and is now closed.

When the US navy went it showed human nature at its perverse.

The locals complained loud and long for years when they came, about everything right through to ingrowing toenails.

Then when they went the locals complained bitterly............................

The locals around Faslane just complain bitterly that the naval people don't spend enough in the local shops, then complain bitterly that they can't get into the shops for all the naval people.

"It's Tommy this and Tommy that............................................"

Nice view of the training trenches at Kimnel as well

Kimnel trenches.

Microsoft VE aerial -

Lat 53° 15’ 15.0” N
Long 3° 30’ 0.2” W

More extensive than I thought.

Must go looking for more.

Dave

Out of interest I converted the image to B&W and adjusted contrast etc to try to enhance the marks left by the trenches

Nice one - even clearer now!

Is that a 1913 half crown I see lying there?

Sorry to be so late on this thread, just doing a bit of browsing/catching up, and apologies if this link has already been posted but have you tried this site for aerial photos (and by using the slider in top right some very detailed IGN maps). Link below should be Notre Dame de Lorette - hope it works
http://www.geoportail.fr/index.php?event=D...5818a64b0cdeb51

It works.
Wow.

Sadly I cannot get it to work

Regards,
Scottie.

Scottie,

It's a cookie issue — one of your browser settings is preventing you accepting the cookie that makes the link work.

Fantastic quality!
I've just tried adding links to places on the Somme, but they bring you back to the image seen when the screen was opened, rather than the image searched for. Still, it's easy enough to put Serre lez puisieux or Thiepval into the search tool, and then zoom in.

SG,

Cookie apparently sorted, site is fantastic,

Regards,
Scottie.

been plaanning a trip to the area using google earth, Happy Valley is located at lat 50°16'46.00"N and long 2°52'35.84"E

I've been trying to get decent quality images of the Gallipoli battlefields but unfortunately Google Earth images are not good enough to see details. Probably the Turkish Govt. trying to stop their neighbours looking over the fence.

Does anyone know of a site that has good resolution images of the Gallipoli area?

Ron

I am very often using Google Earth for my explorations.
Here are 3 examples of what I found:

Fort Tavannes near Verdun:



Southwest slope of Hill 145 Vimy:



Grange Crater Group Vimy: