Should tanks really be able to fire through bocage?

[HarryB]

Something that I am having a hard time wrapping my head around is how a tank can pull up next to bocage and fire through it. Even if the gun can stick through it, how can the gunner see anything? The game clearly isn't simulating the tank knocking a hole in the bocage, because if it can knock a hole in it, it should be able to continue driving through.

If you drive a Stummel halftrack up to bocage, the game doesn't allow you to see and fire through it. That makes sense to me, because the gun is short and can't stick through the bocage. What doesn't make sense to me is how a Churchill VIII can drive up to bocage and shoot through. Its gun is also short and can't stick through. The only way to get the gun through the bocage is to drive the tank halfway through it, and if it can do that, it should be able to continue on through.

The only way I see tanks being able to shoot through the bocage is in prepared positions that have been cleared so that the gunners can see. Am I missing something here, or is the game handling this unrealisticly?

[womble]

If you could never fire through bocage, that would also be unrealistic.

If you had to fiddle around looking for the points where you could fire through, that would be a stone PITA that people would hate.

I like to think of it as a map design issue. "Bocage" is just a skeleton to hang shrubs and bushes off. Stick enough vegetation next to/in the bocage line, and you make places where tanks can't just trundle up and shoot through.

[HarryB]

Well, the way it is now, tanks can shoot through the bocage anywhere, and I really don't think that is realistic. How about adding another type of bocage terrain tile? Kind of a 'shooters hole' that would allow vehicles to shoot through, but still be impassible. It could represent either a place that has been specifically prepared, or where the bocage is naturally thin.

[cireland65]

If you read Donald Burgettes book about is his experience in Normandy with the 101st he tells how he got wounded by an 88 some distance away firing through the bocage.

[HarryB]

If you read Donald Burgettes book about is his experience in Normandy with the 101st he tells how he got wounded by an 88 some distance away firing through the bocage.

I have no doubt that he did, I would also have no doubt that this was from a prepared position. I would doubt that they just wheeled it up to the bocage, stuck the gun barrel through it and started blasting away.

[LongLeftFlank]

First, remember that not all High Bocage is in fact 6-8 foot earthen mounds topped with a solid wall of impenetrable hedge, like some kind of maze. It's vegetation and there are gaps and irregularities aplenty; stuff dies or gets damaged by shells. Note that doesn't contradict any of the accounts of the hedgerow fighting -- even an imperfect wall makes it bloody difficult for units to cross or fight through. The holes that exist are known and covered.

Yes, the game engine might be a little simplistic; you'd expect that even if there was a gap, the field of fire of a tank gun poking through would be pretty poor (e.g. gray target line?). But if BFC needs to choose between "no LOS at all" and a little too much, I prefer the latter. One man's opinion

[HarryB]

First, remember that not all High Bocage is in fact 6-8 foot earthen mounds topped with a solid wall of impenetrable hedge, like some kind of maze. It's vegetation and there are gaps and irregularities aplenty; stuff dies or gets damaged by shells. Note that doesn't contradict any of the accounts of the hedgerow fighting -- even an imperfect wall makes it bloody difficult for units to cross or fight through. The holes that exist are known and covered.

Yes, the game engine might be a little simplistic; you'd expect that even if there was a gap, the field of fire of a tank gun poking through would be pretty poor (e.g. gray target line?). But if BFC needs to choose between "no LOS at all" and a little too much, I prefer the latter. One man's opinion

I think this points to the need for an extra tile for bocage, one that would allow map designers to insert 'firing holes' in the bocage where tanks and other vehicles could fire through, instead of allowing them to fire through it everywhere. There is also the inconsistency of The Churchill being able to fire through it while the Stummel can't. Really, anything that the Churchill can see through I would think the Stummel also could.

Granted, I have never stood in front of actual bocage, so I don't have any first hand knowledge of what it is like to actually look through the stuff; I have only seen it in pictures. Much of it though, I know a tank would not be able to just pull up to it and have a line of fire to the other side; they just wouldn't be able to see anything.

[LongLeftFlank]

Go visit Normandy in Google Maps sometime and drag the little person icon onto one of the back roads. They've ripped down most of the bocage, but there's still enough of it around and it hasn't changed much since '44. In the foreground, you can readily see what I mean. Portions of this section are impenetrable, but move a few yards and you can find a spot to wheel a tank up a bank and poke a gun through. Believe me, that's typical. You will rarely get more than 20 yards without some kind of gap.

Don't get me wrong; I'm be all in favour of more varied terrain, but I'd vote for a dense LOS-blocking thicket of young trees -- a ubiquitous and sorely needed feature -- before I added another flavour of bocage.

[Nitouche]

Should tanks really be able to fire through bocage?

Yes, definitly, and there is the evidence, from a 1944 article (with scheme): Fighting in Normandy

[HarryB]

I guess the bottom line is that not all sections of hedgerow are equal in real life, and the game abstracts everything into one (other than tall and short) 'average' hedgerow. It would be nice to have more variety, but I guess you can't have everything.

I still don't get the logic of allowing the Churchill to fire through a hedgerow and not allowing a Stummel to do the same though.

[womble]

Go visit Normandy in Google Maps sometime and drag the little person icon onto one of the back roads. They've ripped down most of the bocage, but there's still enough of it around and it hasn't changed much since '44. In the foreground, you can readily see what I mean. Portions of this section are impenetrable, but move a few yards and you can find a spot to wheel a tank up a bank and poke a gun through. Believe me, that's typical. You will rarely get more than 20 yards without some kind of gap.

And there, in that picture, you have your answer.

Yes, tanks are tall enough to see over the berm (or can run their front up it far enough to get a peek, even if they don't have the oomph to get right over it in the face of the tough vegetation on top), and the foliage is thin enough that you could see through it enough to shoot. You might have to back up a yard and then forward once you've traversed the barrel end more than a couple of metre.

[Apocal]

So the short bocage shouldn't actually be impassable by troops? Because there is one QB map that is basically a maze thanks to short bocage everywhere.

[Baneman]

...

I still don't get the logic of allowing the Churchill to fire through a hedgerow and not allowing a Stummel to do the same though.

This is the inconsistency that bothers me.

Short barrel = yes, but then short barrel = no ?

Seems like it's not coded to the bocage but to the vehicle. If all the points made about the bocage above are valid, then that needs looking at.

[Franko]

What I take from all this is that someone got his stummel smoked by a Churchill.

[John Kettler]

Baneman,

Is it possibly related to vehicle height and associated cannon height?

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

So the short bocage shouldn't actually be impassable by troops? Because there is one QB map that is basically a maze thanks to short bocage everywhere.

Map could do with a redesign. It's entirely possible to make artificial environments in the editor; that's a failing as much on the part of the user as of the tools they're given. Bocage and its drastic impediment of movement is characteristic of the campaign; thus is it depicted in the game. You want a penetrable hedgerow, use Hedge and bushes instead.

[John Kettler]

womble,

The top pic here neatly depicts the opportunities AFVs of reasonable height have to find firing positions in the bocage. As you can see, there are plenty of firing locations--at least in this particular stretch.

http://www.gf9.com/Default.aspx?tabid=295&art_id=847

Regards,

John Kettler

[womble]

womble,

The top pic here neatly depicts the opportunities AFVs of reasonable height have to find firing positions in the bocage. As you can see, there are plenty of firing locations--at least in this particular stretch.

http://www.gf9.com/Default.aspx?tabid=295&art_id=847

Regards,

John Kettler

Why are you addressing that to me, John? It's what I'm already saying.

Also, what exactly am I supposed to be looking at on that page? I see no photos of long stretches of bocage in enough detail to draw the conclusions you do. Did the link bork?

[Peregrine]

The picture is an excellent example of a sunken lane but the thick hedges that accompany an impenetrable hedgerow for infantry are absent.

The multitude of progressive steps between a couple of shrubs to a monster mess of thick entangled small trees doesn't exist by default in CM and scenario designers don't often try to recreate it due to the confusion that I think it would create.

[LongLeftFlank]

With respect, I disagree; I'd say that, sunken road or not, that's a fairly typical hedgerow and that it's a rarity to find a long wall of vegetation that is 100% opening-free along its entire length like a topiary maze. In sections, sure, but remember these things were grown as windbreaks and cattle fences, not some kind of fortification, and didn't need to be that carefully maintained, except where the hole might get large enough for livestock to escape.

[Peregrine]

Maybe I am not seeing the picture to scale. The embankment to me looks fairly high and steep (6 feet+ or so) but the shrubbery on top not at all thick and they definitely had gaps everywhere, no dispute there.

But the sort of terrain shown in the picture doesn't appear in many (any?) CM scenarios. There is little real granularity between a basic CM hedge and impenetrable bocage. I suspect that trying to include these levels would lead to countless playability issues. It is sometimes a little painful even trying to see gaps.

The CM bocage seems to be about a 3 to 4 high embankment (cause infantry can see through it kneeling) but much thicker as they have zero chance of running through it themselves. The CM bocage seems a happy (or unhappy) generalisation.

In answer to the original questions while tanks should be able to shoot through bocage it probably shouldn't be as simple and easy as it is to do in CM. (That said I have had a more than a few weird moments with commanders spotting stuff and for whatever reason the gunner not having a LOS and engaging.)

[JonS]

I suspect that trying to include these levels would lead to countless playability issues.

Yeah, I agree. Having multiple gradiations of bocage would be annoyingly complex to play, AND it would lead to some weird gameplay effect because of the particular characteristics of each sub-type of bocage behaving in known, but different, ways.

it probably shouldn't be as simple and easy as it is to do in CM.

Balance. Almost anything in CM could be said to be simpler and easier than it 'should' be.

[LongLeftFlank]

My CM PC is dead at the moment, but here's a screenie I had on my laptop showing my own special workarounds to turn bocage from "100% impenetrable wall" if it doesn't have a gap to "crossable in some spot(s), but with difficulty".

1. I want Low Bocage to be crossable by infantry fairly readily but by vehicles with difficulty and bogging risk. So I put a Hedge segment in, together with a Mud tile. As one playtester found out, you don't want to do this with jeeps or ACs more than once or twice. Tanks do a little better.

2. I want High Bocage to be totally uncrossable by non-cutter vehicles but crossable by infantry with a (risky) delay.... a surrogate for hacking a gap through a thin patch in the hedge then scrambling over. Creating a chevron-shaped gap (which also can't be viewed through from a distance) as shown between the "Y" and "bent" bocage segments placed in 2 adjacent Marsh tiles (infantry worms its way around a single tile) takes a 3 man Scout section about 15 seconds to get across. I'd rather this delay was longer but hey, better than nothing.

This workaround is more important in Recon scenarios like the one I am about to publish, where you have small detachments working their way through fields trying to get eyes on the enemy. Less so when you're designing an Assault -- you aren't going to push an entire rifle company one by one over a tiny gap in the bushes. You blast or bulldoze a bigger gap.

FWIW. No new terrain segments needed.

[HarryB]

What I take from all this is that someone got his stummel smoked by a Churchill.

No, I have just noticed an inability of Stummels to fire through bocage in previous games; I don't have any in this one. In the game I am playing now, my opponent has a couple of Churchill VIII's that have been firing through bocage at my infantry.

What bothers me is the inconsistency of it, as Baneman said earlier; either both of the vehicles should be able to fire through the bocage or neither should.

[c3k]

LLF,

That is a very elegant workaround. Nicely done. Thank you for sharing.

Ken