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Accentuating or concealing military activities 
Facilitating or impeding movement of troops and/or mechanized 
equipment. 
3. Determining the ease with which roads, airfields and other military 
installations can be constructed. 
Rz 
Thus in the military problem of vegetation and terrain analysis by air- 
photo interpretation there are at least four major divisions to be considered. 
1. The overall picture or concept of any area. This is the bird’s eye view of the 
situation where one or more terrain features are associated one with another. 
This would be a general recognition of large stands of vegetation, of the 
overall drainage pattern, and the associated landforms. This concept is per- 
haps best conveyed by small scale photography, both vertical and oblique. 
2. Following this is the delineation of smaller, selected areas such as individual 
stands of vegetation, selection of suitable beaches, cross country passage, 
landform patterns, etc. This factor is best covered by large scale photo- 
graphy. 
3. Eventually this second step may be carried down to small localized segments 
of the different types of vegetation, to a selection of beach and beach exists, 
airfield sites, and areas of borrow material, and to the determination of traf- 
ficability of an area. In this instance trafficability relates to the ease with 
which troops and vehicles can traverse an area. This phase requires detail 
studies together with basic information gleaned from maps, charts, published 
and unpublished source material and whenever possible personal knowledge 
of an area. It is here that photo interpretation keys and other guides are 
most valuable. 
4. The final phase is the finished report or terrain analysis of any area. This 
may be in the form of mosaics, overlays, text, maps, charts, etc. It is in 
achieving this end result that so much effort is expended in time, money and 
man-power. 
It would of course be desirable to have such teams of technically trained 
professional photographic interpreters such as the German Forschungsstaffel or 
the American Engineering and Terrain Intelligence Team of World War II, 
prepare all terrain estimation or trafficability reports. Such teams usually con- 
sist of members, each of whom has a scientific background in some pertinent 
specialty such as geology, forestry, pedology, engineering, etc., and who needs 
relatively little training in photo interpretation to prepare a reliable report. 
Interpretation done by such teams is largely for advanced or long range opera- 
tions and may be extremely valuable in that it may dictate the type of mecha- 
nized equipment employed and the most suitable deployment of such equip- 
ment. Much additional interpretation must be performed however on the spur 
of the moment at the tactical level and perhaps even at the height of the battle. 
At this level interpretation frequenty is required to answer such questions as 
"where are the best routes for tanks to traverse an area from A to B"? A photo 
interpreter who is answering such questions must also be able to ide 
of camouflage, cover and concealment, presence of caves, fordable streams etc. 
Usually this is done by one or only a very few photo interpreters and does not 
always lend itself to a highly organized team. Consequently there will still be a 
need for the military photographic interpreter to estimate terrain co 
ntify areas 
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