breaching hedgerow with (large) artillery

[LRC]

It looks like that large (155mm) artillery does not breach hedgerow even after direct impact (blast or general ammo) .

This does not seem right. Is this intended or is this just not modeled in the game ?

[chuckdyke]

13 minutes ago, LRC said:

just not modeled in the game ?

I think it has to do with the tiles, 155 mm will destroy units but doesn't damage the tiles. Then again on other areas they leave a crater behind. I played Seven Winds and planned to make a route for my armor. I breached the hedgerow, but the armor still couldn't use the gap. It was because the tile was heavy forest. I think it is something similar. Artillery doesn't clear mines either as far as I can tell which is hard to accept if there is a direct hit. 

[Erwin]

The other issue with terrain is that a tank or gun can be firing at a target and and hitting the same tree repeatedly until it runs out of ammo...  and that tree never seems damaged.  I recall when CM2 came out we were told that foliage/trees could be damaged.  But, I cannot recall seeing that ever happening.

Terrain is something that need to be worked on in CM3.

[mjkerner]

Actually, I've seen that more than once, Erwin. I was surprised because I thought it wasn't working/enabled/whatever by BFC. But the first time it happened, it was on the third hit on the same tree in a WEGO minute, and the tree just disappeared, and the next shot went into the target (a building). But I don't know if it's dependent on the kind of tree, whether it's more difficult if the tree is a single, double or triple "type", or the caliber of the weapon, or some or all of those factors. But it definitely does happen.

[womble]

And foliage is certainly stripped by incident HE effects. Even rifle grenades can strip the leaves off a tree.

[Erwin]

29 minutes ago, mjkerner said:

But the first time it happened, it was on the third hit on the same tree in a WEGO minute, and the tree just disappeared,

That is interesting as I don't recall ever seeing that happen in any of my games.  I regularly see a tree shrug off multiple hits from large HE (until the next turn when one can order the tank to stop firing and wasting ammo).  A good (altho' perhaps gamey tactic) is to position one's AFV directly behind a tree as enemy tanks will fire at it uselessly.

 

[Falaise]

oui @Erwin

the tree goes through 3 stages: less leaves, no leaves and no trees !!!
    for bushes: without leaves and then without bushes
here less leaf for tree and the bush is without leaves, the tank exploded!

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Falaise

[Erwin]

As I said, I have never seen a tree get demolished - not after one minute of firing anyway.  How many rounds, or minutes of firing, did the above effect require?  

[Bozowans]

Trees are not indestructible.  I see them get blown up all the time. They can be tough and soak up a lot of hits though. The big tank guns like 122mms can blow them up in a couple hits I think. Even small arms fire can damage trees, but it can take a long time and hundreds of bullets. Order a bunch of tanks to target light at the same spot in a treeline for several minutes and you will see the trees get chewed up by MG fire.

Or if you really want to see trees get blown up, load up one of those soviet training scenarios in CM Cold War and plaster the woods with the ridiculous amount of artillery they get.

I think the tall bocage in CMBN is indestructible though unfortunately, except to engineers with breaching charges or tanks with the bulldozer things. I've seen them take direct hits from huge airplane bombs with no effect.

[JM Stuff]

14 hours ago, Falaise said:

oui @Erwin

the tree goes through 3 stages: less leaves, no leaves and no trees !!!
    for bushes: without leaves and then without bushes
here less leaf for tree and the bush is without leaves, the tank exploded!

 

Interresting could you show us differents phases in pictures ?

[Erwin]

Al I can say that I once had a situation where a Bradley was behind a tree and I had something like 4 or 5 BTR's located in maybe a 30 degree arc around the Bradley firing for several minutes at that Bradley.  The tree absorbed all hits and didn't seem to have been deteriorated at all.  The Bradley's paint was not touched and after several minutes it was able to eventually shoot at and kill all the BTR's. 

 

[Bulletpoint]

On 6/12/2021 at 5:30 AM, LRC said:

It looks like that large (155mm) artillery does not breach hedgerow even after direct impact (blast or general ammo) .

This does not seem right. Is this intended or is this just not modeled in the game ?

I agree that it doesn't seem right. Hedgerows (bocage) are incredibly resilient in CMBN, to the point of being ridiculous. From memory, you need to fire about 70 * 75mm shells to open one small breach. Even a 250 kilo aircraft bomb won't do the job - the hedgerow will just remain as a solid wall across the huge crater.

I think part of the reason is that BFC wants hedgerows to play an important tactical challenge, and they don't want players to routinely "solve" this challenge by artillery.

However, just like minefields can in theory be cleared with 155mm artillery, but that this is rarely done, I think hedgerows should be, too. An inefficient way of doing it, but I think it should be possible.

Edited June 14, 2021 by Bulletpoint

[chuckdyke]

In Seven Winds sometimes the author of the scenario has the bocage over heavy forest tiles at some places. No matter how often you let the engineers blast a gap your armor won't get through. 

[Falaise]

it is said that the good deal is when neither the seller nor the buyer is really satisfied. Here CM with its hedge has the right deal !!
Unlike @Bulletpoint I find the hedges far too easy to pierce, it takes 1 to 3 minutes to pierce them with explodes loads which is infinitely shorter than in reality, even the dino tank pierces them all! In reality, only the intermediate hedges were pierced by this means. The main hedges which are at least 4 meters in base and at least 2 meters in height mixed with earth, maconerie and tied with an interlacing of roots of trees of several centuries are only destructible with the implementation of considerable means. and requiring a lot of time.
Shells like bombs do not prove to be an effective means of smashing them, they are not even mentioned in the techniques of crossing.

[Falaise]

I just redo the resistance test !!
there is a point with that  i agree with @Bulletpoint it is
for low boccage which is little can too resistant!
Then but this is related to the design of the map,
no hedge is completely impervious to the passage of the infantry even more true with the low boccage
I sometimes go to the editor to open passages and see how the scenario is modified by realistically modifying the nature of the hedge

[womble]

If a map designer wants to make "proper, impenetrable" mature bocage, they can use a combination of altitude settings and impassable (to vehicles) terrain underneath the actual "Bocage" items, I believe.

Edited June 14, 2021 by womble
spulong

[Bulletpoint]

I do not believe any bocage can take a direct hit from a 155mm artillery shell and not be breached at least enough for a soldier to clamber over and through.

And I do not believe that any bocage in this world can take a direct hit from a 250 kilo bomb and not get a massive hole. Ancient tree roots or not.

[Falaise]

yes I think like you, but it remains exceptional.
The ground leveled by a heavy bombardment becomes impracticable

this is why the Allied General Staff do not take this technique into account
So in the absolute between an ease of breach by the engineers and the tanks and the supernatural resistance of an airplane bomb right on hedge, we reach the right compromise

Edited June 14, 2021 by Falaise

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Falaise said:

So in the absolute between an ease of breach by the engineers and the tanks and the supernatural resistance of an airplane bomb right on hedge, we reach the right compromise

Instead of two unrealistic things, I would prefer if they made the engineers take a bit longer to do their job and artillery having a bigger effect. But that's just me having this opinion of course.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Quote

Determined to find a way to get through the hedgerows,the tankers and engineers finally developed an effective technique for using explosives. In a conference between officers of the 747th Tank Battalion and Lieutenant Colonel Ploger, someone suggested that the tanks be equipped with a mechanical device to gouge holes in the hedgerows for the explosives. After some experimentation, the tankers finally equipped an M-4 Sherman with two pieces of commercial pipe, each four feet long and six and one-half inches in diameter. The tankers welded the pipes onto the front side of the Sherman's final drive assemblies and reinforced the weld with angle irons. Shermans so equipped simply rammed into a hedgerow embankment and then backed away leaving two sizable holes for the explosives. Ploger's engineers also learned to pack the demolitions into expended 105-mm artillery shell casings, thereby greatly increasing the efficiency of the charges. The engineers found that two charges of only fifteen pounds each could blow a gap large enough for a Sherman tank.

https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/combat-studies-institute/csi-books/Doubler-Bocage.PDF

A 155mm M107 artillery shell contains 15.1 pounds of high explosive, so you would need at least 2 hitting in about the same spot. But even then artillery would be detonating on the surface, which is presumably less efficient than buried demolitions, so probably more than 2 hits would be required. If artillery stonks had been a practical means of breaching bocage the Allies would have done it.

Edited June 14, 2021 by Vanir Ausf B

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

The engineers found that two charges of only fifteen pounds each could blow a gap large enough for a Sherman tank.

 

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

A 155mm M107 artillery shell contains 15.1 pounds of high explosive, so you would need at least 2 hitting in about the same spot.

I'm not talking about blowing a hole large enough for a Sherman, but about creating a gap big enough for a man to pass through. One shell would be more than enough for that, since it's the dense vegetation on top of the base that can be impassable. But branches and brambles are not resistant to a 155mm artillery shell.

The second question is how many shells should be needed to blow a hole big enough for a tank. I agree it would take more than one. But way fewer than it currently is in the game. The bocage base would not need to be completely levelled for a tank to drive over it.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

If artillery stonks had been a practical means of breaching bocage the Allies would have done it.

I think the reason they didn't was not that shells could not blow up bocage, but that it would be inefficient and unreliable. Artillery did not have the needed accuracy and you'd need a direct hit.

So, my issue with this in the game is not really about whether it should be practical, because I don't think many players would pay all those points for heavy artillery just to open a breach in bocage anyway. I'd just like to see shells do at least some damage to bocage, even if it's just small gaps to let infantry go through. Also for immersion. Would be cool to see the bocage ravaged if you called in 155s on a defended hedgerow.

 

[Badger73]

11 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I think the reason they didn't was not that shells could not blow up bocage, but that it would be inefficient and unreliable. Artillery did not have the needed accuracy and you'd need a direct hit.

Yes, those would all be "Danger Close" fire missions with extremely limited visibility to adjust rounds.  There was enough grousing about Friendly Fire casualties, warranted or not, as it was.

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

I'm not talking about blowing a hole large enough for a Sherman, but about creating a gap big enough for a man to pass through. One shell would be more than enough for that, since it's the dense vegetation on top of the base that can be impassable.

Maybe, but his sounds more like a theoretical possibility than something that actually happened more than once or twice.

In the CM2 engine bocoge is treated as a type of wall, individual sections of which do not have intermediate damage levels like trees. I don't know how hard that would be to change but I suspect it's a much bigger time investment than we're likely to get for something that would be more for immersion than anything else. Maybe for CM3 if there is a CM3.

[chuckdyke]

The Bocage in 'Pleasantly Shaded Woodland' (the sunken lane) is than the most realistic one. Modeling is not easy in the editor we could have waterlevel that would be lower than the default 20. So, if we paint stream swamp, streams, or brooks they would be a little lower and lowest for rivers. My compliments to the author of Pleasantly Shaded Woodland I thoroughly enjoyed that scenario.