Marders & Bocage

[WinOrLose]

I have only used marders twice in game so I understand this isnt much data to go on but I find it almost impossible to get a firing solution through bocage.

I currently have a situation where my marder is tight up against some bocage and can see a sherman 150m away. Whilst it can see the tank I cant target it with the taget selector saying no line of sight from the bocage?

Is this because the chassis is longer than the barrel so it doesnt poke through the bocage or is it just my imagination or bad luck?

Any one else experienced this? If I am correct then I would suggest thinking twice before purchasing these units in a QB where bocage is present.

[Chris Ferrous]

Is he buttoned up, mate?

Try unbuttoning and re-facing and shoot!

[womble]

I tend to find this happens with armour relatively often, and it seems to me to usually be due to either the "grain" of the bocage strip (some angles of placement make drawing LOS through the bocage tricky) or due to additional bush or tree foliage sticking out the top of the hedgerow and overhanging my putative sight line. Have you got trees turned off?

[WinOrLose]

Trees are off and TD is unbuttoned. I have tried a dozen locations on several bits of bocage and the best I can get is a target line exactly 90' to the bocage on a couple of occasions.

I havent noticed the problem with tanks, or stugs even, so wondered if it was a problem with marders?

[Erwin]

This LOS problem has been endlessly discussed unfortunately. LOS is from every crew member individually.

So, a crewmember (vehicle or gun/MG etc) may see a target. But, if the GUNNER cannot see the target you can't shoot at the target.

Turning trees off makes no difference and is only an aid for the player.

[sburke]

With admittedly very little real info I am wondering if it has to do with the fighting compartment being on the rear deck of the vehicle. I have only fought one battle with Marders and they never had the chance to test the ability to fire from behind bocage.

[womble]

Turning trees off makes no difference and is only an aid for the player.

It makes a difference when you're trying to diagnose. If the trees are off, it might not be obvious that it's the trees that are the problem.

[winkelried]

Ran a few tests with Marder I and Marder IIIM using the "Barkmanns Corner" scenario as a basis since the scenario has some nice bocage positions. It is definitely easier to find a firing position with the I than with the IIIM. IMHO this has nothing to do with trees, but with the fact, that the gun of the IIIM is laid lower than the gun of the Marder I so it seems that the bocage obstructs the firing under certain conditions. I was able to get the IIIM to fire at different angles but just against a few enemy positions. Will now have a look at the StuG III in comparison - don't know on which height its gun is laid.

[A Canadian Cat]

The Stug III's gun is really low - it sticks out of the front of the hull. They have a great profile. In Carbide Carbide I moved my Stug to various firing positions and the most of the time I had no trouble getting it to be able to fire where I wanted. I had about the same amount of difficulty as I did with the PzIVs - which is to say very little.

[winkelried]

Tried it with the StuG - and the StuG identifies enemy tanks later than the Marder IIIM - probably due to its low profile, but can fire, when the Marder IIIM cannot. The StuG stucks its gun into the bocage - the gun of the Marder IIIM is always behind the bocage, since it extends not really over the hull. I am not sure if this is right ...

[winkelried]

BTW - the Marder IIIM can ID the targets and will get shot at with hits in the opening and the gun, BUT it cannot fire back with its main gun most of the time as it gets only LOS blocked.

[Amizaur]

IMO shooting trough the bocage with tanks should be impossible in the game. Maybe possible if the tank or AT gun was positioned next to bocage in setup phase - that could simulate a prepared and camouflaged firing position (holes) made in the bocage. But not after a movement. Can't imagine how this could be done. Poking the barrel trough the bocage wall ? The optics would not see anything. And how to rotate then ?

[YankeeDog]

IMO shooting trough the bocage with tanks should be impossible in the game. Maybe possible if the tank or AT gun was positioned next to bocage in setup phase - that could simulate a prepared and camouflaged firing position (holes) made in the bocage. But not after a movement. Can't imagine how this could be done. Poking the barrel trough the bocage wall ? The optics would not see anything. And how to rotate then ?

IRL, it would probably depend a lot on how quickly the vegetation on the bocage line thinned out as it got higher, as well as the height of the AFV (or, more specifically, the height of the gun and gunsight).

Bocage is not a uniform thickness, like a man-made wall. It's vegetation, and like most vegetation, the branches and leaves generally get thinner towards the top. So the tank doesn't have to be taller than the topmost twig to see through the bocage, it just has to be tall enough that the vegetation at the tank's gun/gunsight height is think enough that it offers a reasonable level of transparency.

The main gun of a Sherman is 2.2m above the ground, and depending on exact model, the gun sight is may actually be somewhat higher than this (some Shermans had a periscope-type main gunsight, others did not). 2.2m is a pretty darn tall bush... some of the bushes in a bocage hedge might be this high, but certainly not all of them.

Also, bear in mind that if the Sherman runs its nose up onto the berm of the bocage a little bit, this will raise the gun height even higher.

Other gun/gunsights for other AFVs, of course, are at different heights than a Sherman's, and this would change the equation. Panther is a little bit higher than a Sherman, Pz. IV a little lower (but not by a heck of a lot in either case). In other cases, though, there's a more substantial difference -- for example, I've read reports of the Germans having difficulties with Stugs in the bocage because of the low-slung gun -- apparently, the Stug's gun was low enough that it could not be brought to bear through the bocage where a Panther or Pz. IV's usually could.

Now, how the game should account for this is an interesting question. Clearly, in a completely realistic depiction there would be some areas along a tall, mature bocage line where the vegetation is tall enough that even a tall tank like a Sherman would not be able to fire over the hedge. But in other spots, the vegetation would be a bit lower/thinner -- still tall enough to block the LOS of a standing man (and therefore not "low bocage" in CM terms), but not tall enough to block the LOS/LOF through a tank's gunsight >2m off the ground.

What we have now is an abstraction that errs in favor of the AFV, always allowing an adjacent tank to see and fire through the bocage. Completely realistic? No. But abstractions never are. And I'm not sure setting a rule that adjacent tanks can *never* fire through tall bocage except from setup locations would be more realistic, on average.

[Broadsword56]

Yes, they did poke the barrel through the bocage wall. It wasn't a solid surface, just a dense hedge above the solid earth/stone/root packed berm -- and a gun barrel could pretty easily find a spot to go through that foliage. It wouldn't take much to snip out/push aside a bit of foliage for a sighting peephole either -- since that wouldn't require digging through the earthen berm. Making this impossible in the game would be ahistorical and a step backwards.

[Childress]

From Michael Doubler's 'Notes: Busting the Bocage, American Combined Arms Operations in France, 6 June – 31 July 1944':

29th ID SOP Battle Drill: one tank, one squad with MG, engineer team, and one 60mm mortar.

(1) Tank noses through hedgerow, suppresses entire base of far hedgerow. Fires main gun WP into two corner MG positions.

(2) 60mm lobs shells behind hedgerow.

(3) Infantry moves through near hedgerow, fires and moves under tank suppression. Infantry avoids flank hedgerow and usual grazing fire. Infantry closes on far hedgerow throwing grenades.

What I don't get, in CMBN, is the ability of MMG Jeeps with their recessed guns to fire through hedgerows. Shouldn't they have to BACK into the bocage?

[YankeeDog]

Yes, they did poke the barrel through the bocage wall. It wasn't a solid surface, just a dense hedge above the solid earth/stone/root packed berm -- and a gun barrel could pretty easily find a spot to go through that foliage. It wouldn't take much to snip out/push aside a bit of foliage for a sighting peephole either -- since that wouldn't require digging through the earthen berm. Making this impossible in the game would be ahistorical and a step backwards.

Worth noting that a 75mm Sherman's gun did *not* extend past the bow of the tank. So at least with the 75mm Shermans, if the gun is poking through the vegetation, the tank's hull is, too...

But at any rate, it's not really the tip of the gun barrel that's important -- a few leaves and twigs in front of the muzzle aren't going to substantially effect the flight of a 75mm round. A large branch or trunk would, but not twigs and leaves. It's what the gunner can see through the gunsight that's important -- he can't shoot at what he can't see.

But as I mentioned, I don't have a problem with the way things work now in the game. We can abstractly assume that the tank crew is micromanaging its own placement along the hedgeline. I think it's reasonable to assume that even along a line of very tall, thick bocage, a tank could find locations between the tallest trees/bushes where the vegetation is thin enough at the tank's gunsight height for the gunner to see target areas on the other side of the bocage.

[winkelried]

But as I mentioned, I don't have a problem with the way things work now in the game.

Me neither - this thread was started because the Marder IIIM seems to "misbehave" at a bocage.

[YankeeDog]

yea; sorry for the sidetrack.... I've fired with Marders through bocage, but only a few times, and I'm not even completely sure which model they were. It's not an AFV I've played with a heck of a lot in CMBN.

Off hand, I can't think of any reason why a Marder IIIM should be substantially worse than any other AFV at firing through/over bocage. The main gun height on a Marder is a bit lower than on the gun height on larger tanks like Shermans and Panthers (though it's actually the gunsight height that really matters, and this I'm not exactly sure of). But in any event I don't think this height difference enough to explain a *large* difference in spotting/shooting through bocage.

And while the gun/gunsight is set back further in the hull on a Marder than it is on most tanks, I don't think this would justify such a difference, either.

[dpabrams]

I have only used marders twice in game so I understand this isnt much data to go on but I find it almost impossible to get a firing solution through bocage.

I currently have a situation where my marder is tight up against some bocage and can see a sherman 150m away. Whilst it can see the tank I cant target it with the taget selector saying no line of sight from the bocage?

Is this because the chassis is longer than the barrel so it doesnt poke through the bocage or is it just my imagination or bad luck?

Any one else experienced this? If I am correct then I would suggest thinking twice before purchasing these units in a QB where bocage is present.

Hey Simon, I can't even see your Marder but when I do!

[WinOrLose]

Well you just spotted it and now its KO'd.

So a quick recap.

My marder in tight up to bocage and at a near as 90' as you can get looking at a sherman a couple of hundred metres away for a minute or two. It can see the sherman but cant fire.

The sherman eventually spots the marder and fires through the bocage taking it out....

My second marder might as well go home as it cant engage, only be destroyed, in bocage conditions. Maybe a slight over exaggeration but even if it gets an ambush spot it might not be able to fire.

[Vanir Ausf B]

You say it could see the Sherman but not target it. Did the target line just say "no LOS"?

[dpabrams]

Well you just spotted it and now its KO'd.

So a quick recap.

My marder in tight up to bocage and at a near as 90' as you can get looking at a sherman a couple of hundred metres away for a minute or two. It can see the sherman but cant fire.

A sort of reverse "Tiger Terror"? Dieter is a conscript and aint no way he wants to engage a Sherman with its whopping 2" of plate armor at 100 meters. The safe play is wait for a safer flanking shot against the armored bohemothe we know as the Sherman.

[winkelried]

You say it could see the Sherman but not target it. Did the target line just say "no LOS"?

That is exactly what happened in my tests. And only with the Marder III. The Marder I can take the shot.

[Vanir Ausf B]

So is it one of those situations where you click on your unit and the enemy unit is visible so you think you can see it but when you target it says no LOS? I see this happen fairly often, and not just with vehicles. I don't know if we're not understanding the game mechanic or if its a bug, but I'm going to try to remember to post up the save game next time I see an example.

[winkelried]

So is it one of those situations where you click on your unit and the enemy unit is visible so you think you can see it but when you target it says no LOS? I see this happen fairly often, and not just with vehicles. I don't know if we're not understanding the game mechanic or if its a bug, but I'm going to try to remember to post up the save game next time I see an example.

I am not sure what this effect is either. The only thing i found out in my little test (see above) is, that the StuG and the Marder I find firing positions (with blue LOS) much more easily than the Marder IIIM. They all can ID the enemy and the Marders get shot at pretty quickly (probably due to their height).