Offense in the Bocage

[Chops]

Have any of you WWII grogs thought about how you will deal with attacking in Bocage once the illusive CM:N is released?

I was just reading an article about it, and the author mentioned the following:

"The tactics developed involved teaming a single rifle squad with a single tank and coordinating their actions with an engineer team to assist in obstacle clearance, a 60mm mortar team to drop rounds behind the German positions and so isolate them, and an additional BAR for automatic fire. (They originally used a .30 cal. light machine gun but the June 24th demonstration showed it was not sufficiently mobile.) To insure cooperation between the tank and infantry the squad leader used tracer rounds to designate targets, as well as more conventional smoke grenades.

Most importantly, ordnance corps mechanics improvised field telephone mounts on the rear decks of the Shermans, using empty .50 caliber machine gun ammunition boxes as covers and tying the phone jack into the tank’s intercom system. Platoon and company command tanks were given SCR 300 backpack radios, the type used by rifle company commanders, and kept the turret hatch open to accommodate the radio’s whip antenna. The innovation was so successful that most Shermans in Normandy were so modified within a month and it became a standard feature on newly-manufactured tanks from that autumn on."

It will be interesting going from tactics used in CM:SF to a WWII setting in a temperate climate.

[theFightingSeabee]

Mortars are going to be one of the most useful weapons. The rest is going to be a lot of shooting, flanking, and gutsy assaults. Using armor will help, but the Shermans are easily taken out, so we'll have to be careful with them.

[Sivodsi]

Mortars are going to be one of the most useful weapons.

I hope the out of line of sight firing from CMSF will be maintained in CMN, otherwise it will be difficult to use them

The rest is going to be a lot of shooting, flanking, and gutsy assaults.

Its always hard to flank on CM battlefields, given the necessarily limited portion of the battlefield, so that leaves us with shooting and gutsy assaults. In other words, a slugfest in which the weight of arms will make the difference.

It'll be great to do the odd bocage scenario, but the most fun (for me at least) will be rolling fields and sunken roads with only the odd hedge. An occasional copse or foresty area would be cool too.

[bodkin]

My understanding is that the breaching tank would spray an arc of mg fire across the base of the opposite hedgerow to suppress the waiting defenders, at the moment there is no command in CMx2 to simulate this, which I fear is going to end up in suicide missions for US tank crews in CM:N.

[MikeyD]

An unexpectedly large percentage of combat casualties in WWII (I can't recall the exactly number) were from mortar/artillery fire. The number was so high it almost seemed if you found yourself in a postion where you were trading small arms fire with the enemy you must've done something wrong! Frontally assaulting an enemy position is a classic 'newbie' mistake in CMSF. Ideally the infantry would locate the enemy positions and they would be dealt with 'by other means'. The infantry would then move forward over the charred corpses. I suspect in the WWII title we're going to have to be much more casualty-tolerant. Hopping from hedgerow to hedgerow without body armor to protect you sounds like quite a challenge!

[Michael Emrys]

An unexpectedly large percentage of combat casualties in WWII (I can't recall the exactly number) were from mortar/artillery fire.

The number I recall was that 60% of fatal wounds were caused by fragmentation weapons. In addition to mortars and artillery, that would include grenades and bombs, although I expect that the majority were from the first two.

The number was so high it almost seemed if you found yourself in a postion where you were trading small arms fire with the enemy you must've done something wrong! Frontally assaulting an enemy position is a classic 'newbie' mistake in CMSF. Ideally the infantry would locate the enemy positions and they would be dealt with 'by other means'. The infantry would then move forward over the charred corpses. I suspect in the WWII title we're going to have to be much more casualty-tolerant. Hopping from hedgerow to hedgerow without body armor to protect you sounds like quite a challenge!

"Other means" were not always available in hedgerow fighting. The enemy was usually too close to use artillery. Even without the risk of short rounds, any shells doing much harm to the Germans would be falling close enough to Allied lines to put their own troops at risk. Flanking the German positions was seldom possible because the adjacent hedgerows would also be occupied by the Germans, so you'd be engaged with a head-on fight there too. Getting tanks safely through the hedgerows was the key to moving forward.

Michael

[Wodin]

I remember reading the corners of the hedges is where the Germans set up their MG's.

Also the ended up putting a big digger thing to the front of a Sherman to dig out the earth bank the hedges grew out of....funny enough they never considered how big the hedges where in France and thought they would be the same size as the one in the UK....big mistake...not sure you will find it by googling big digger thing though;)

[snake_eye]

I remember reading the corners of the hedges is where the Germans set up their MG's.

Also the ended up putting a big digger thing to the front of a Sherman to dig out the earth bank the hedges grew out of....funny enough they never considered how big the hedges where in France and thought they would be the same size as the one in the UK....big mistake...not sure you will find it by googling big digger thing though;)

The Normandy hedges or “bocage” is exclusively found in « La Manche » district. They don’t have a the same counterpart intensity in Britain as far I as know of it. The field are not too big ( at least they were in WWII, after war it was decided to get the owner’s fields together in order to have bigger fields in one place rather than a multitude of small parcels) and really look like being dug into a curtain of hedges. When you walk in a sunken lane, that one is covered by the top of the trees. It looks like you are walking through a vegetation’s tunnel, with the sun light being dimmed.

When you find, on the edge, a way to get into the field, you have to climb an embankment as high as 1 meter to 1,70 meter in most cases and slide on the other side. Sometimes you can not do it since the vegetation is too thick. You will get entangled with your gear in it. That is what happens when you go hunting. You have to be pretty careful with your gun. Quite a few accidents are, every year, happening with the gun trigger getting caught in branches.

More you can not see more than a few meters along the embankment. Once you are in the field, it looks like you are in another world, every thing is quiet and you can see the hedges all around. Sincerely, crossing the field, I would be scare to death if I knew that someone with a gun would be firing on me, since you can’t see him, the edges being so thick..

In WWII the Germans were using smokeless MG and rifles ammo, the departure of the shots was difficult to spot. The Germans could see the departure smoke from the US and British rifles. I don’t know if BTF has taken that in account. It is a definite advantage in the “Bocage”

Here after are pictures taken in January this year. Combats have happened in these lanes and fields. Just imagine how the vegetation will have grown in June. You won’t see so easily.

Cheers

[MikeyD]

I read somewhere it took an insane amount of TNT to make useable breeches in those hedgerows. How wide is your average Sherman tank? 8.6 feet? That's a lot of earth to move.

[Lt Belenko]

I remember reading the corners of the hedges is where the Germans set up their MG's.

Also the ended up putting a big digger thing to the front of a Sherman to dig out the earth bank the hedges grew out of....funny enough they never considered how big the hedges where in France and thought they would be the same size as the one in the UK....big mistake...not sure you will find it by googling big digger thing though;)

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/hedgerowbreakout.aspx

By late June, many units throughout the First Army had developed a variety of means to breach the hedgerows. The 83rd Infantry Division in VII Corps used two 25-pound explosive charges. Engineers packed the explosives in a sandbag, buried them by hand two feet into the hedgerow embankment, and then tamped the hole full of dirt to increase the effectiveness of the charge. Other units copied the techniques developed in the 29th Division. The 703rd Tank Battalion, attached to the 4th Infantry Division in VII Corps, adopted the 747th's hedgerow busting techniques and found them highly successful. In VIII Corps, the 79th Infantry Division also developed another type of hedgerow cutter for use on its Sherman tanks.[13] Soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division's 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron invented the hedgerow device that gained the widest publicity. During a discussion between some of the 102nd's officers and enlisted men, someone suggested that they get saw teeth, put them on their tanks, and cut through the hedgerows. Many of the troops laughed at the suggestion, but Sergeant Curtis G. Culin took the idea to heart. Culin designed and supervised the construction of a hedgerow-cutting device made from scrap iron pulled from a German roadblock.

Testing showed that the device allowed a Sherman to cut easily through the hedgerows. Because the hedgerow cutter's blades made a tank resemble a large pachyderm with tusks, troops called the device a rhinoceros, and Sherman’s equipped with Culin's invention became known as rhino tanks. [14]

Culin's device soon got the attention of the chain of command within 2nd Armored Division and V Corps. On July 14th, General Bradley attended a demonstration of Culin's hedgerow cutter. Bradley watched as Sherman’s mounting the hedgerow device plowed through the hedgerows "as though they were pasteboard, throwing the bushes and brush into the air." Very impressed by the demonstration, Bradley ordered the chief of the First Army's Ordnance Section to supervise the construction and installation of as many of the hedgerow cutters as possible. The First Army Ordnance assembled welders and welding equipment within the beachhead and from the rear areas in England to assist with the project. Welding teams used scrap metal from German beach obstacles to construct most of the hedgerow cutters. In a remarkable effort from 14th to the 25th of July, the First Army Ordnance Section produced over 500 hedgerow cutters and distributed them to subordinate commands for installation. By late July sixty percent of the First Army's Sherman’s mounted the hedgerow-cutting devices. Though the most famous of the hedgerow-reducing devices, Culin's rhinoceros was only one of many such contrivances invented and employed throughout the First Army. [15]

[snake_eye]

Nowadays, when the edges have to be removed for uniting two fields into one, you have to cut all the vegetation and remove the trees stumps. The latter are the most difficult to get out. It takes time and a good heavy duty farm tractor. You have to be careful if you don't want to break some of the appliances.

The fork fitted to a sherman and or a Stuart was really a wonderful thing. On movie shots you see the Sherman at full speed being stopped and then the enbankment breaks away. Guess the crew was a bit bang around in the tank compartment.

Do that with a farm tractor and you get a wreck. You will be stop dead.

Cheers

[snake_eye]

The fork like device made the tank litteraly stay into the embankment, without being able to go over it. The speed and the weight of the tank did the rest. The embankment was pushed away. If the fork had not been there the tank will have jumped the embankment and presumably either rolled over on the other side and tipped over, or been stopped while going over and left with its underside in full view of a PAK gun team and or panzerfaust armed "panzer knacker".

Cheers

[Sgt Joch]

The number I recall was that 60% of fatal wounds were caused by fragmentation weapons. In addition to mortars and artillery, that would include grenades and bombs, although I expect that the majority were from the first two.

Michael

In normandy, 70% of infantry casualties were caused by mortar/artillery fire.

[Chops]

In normandy, 70% of infantry casualties were caused by mortar/artillery fire.

Is the casualty rate for both Allied and German forces? Does it include bombs, or just mortar/artillery?

I just read a book called the Germans in Normandy (Stackpole by Hargreaves) in which he describes the overwhelming Allied superiority in artillery and air power which caused massive German casualties. If the statistic includes both Allied and German forces then the results will be skewed toward the Germans.

[Sgt Joch]

Is the casualty rate for both Allied and German forces? Does it include bombs, or just mortar/artillery?

I just read a book called the Germans in Normandy (Stackpole by Hargreaves) in which he describes the overwhelming Allied superiority in artillery and air power which caused massive German casualties. If the statistic includes both Allied and German forces then the results will be skewed toward the Germans.

I found that in Terry Copp's "Field of Fire" about the Canadian Army in Normandy. It was definitely just mortar/artillery. I dont remember if it was just the commonwealth forces or both, I will try to look it up.

[Michael Emrys]

I believe my figures were for the entire war, or at least the European part. But ISTR those statistics were taken by American doctors and so would predominantly pertain to American troops. They were, as stated, covering all fragmentation weapons without discriminating types.

Michael

[snake_eye]

I have just found statistic, in my files, about the losses due to OPFOR fighting against US troops on the NTC training grounds in the late eighties, prior to the first war against Iraq.

It is the contrary of what was recorded in WWII

Tanks usually accounted for 50% of a battalion kills, Tow's 25% and the remaining 25% accounted to Infantry, Air asset, Mines and Artillery.

That was a conventional conflict against troops using Red Warsaw pact tactics in an environment depicting Iraq desert landscape and or its neighbours.

Another statistic about counter insurgency fights in Afghanistan.

US losses, records that at mid April 2010, 188 soldiers (17, 9%) out of a total of 1049, had been killed by bullets. I don’t have details about the IED, mortars, RPG’s and accidents percentage among the dead

That statistics come along the one of the NTC for losses due to Infantry, yet mines and what could be considered like artillery are not part of it

Other wars, other statistics

Cheers

[Sgt Joch]

the 70% statistic for mortar/artillery was also based on british/canadian medical reports from field hospitals.

Artillery was the big infantry killer in normandy and it is not hard to figure out why.

one, there were a lot of guns. In 21 Army group, there were more gunners than infantrymen. I believe 24% and 21% respectively.

two, both sides doctrine made extensive use of artillery. On offence, the CW forces used prelim artillery barrages to kill/suppress defenders and once they had captured the objective, they would quickly move in FOs to register artillery on likely german counterattack routes. German counterattacks were often beaten off with artillery fire alone.

The Germans had less artillery and ammo, but used it efficiently, pre-registering on all possible targets and calling down artillery on their own positions as soon as they were captured by the allies, even if their front line troops were still there.

plus there was the inevitable harassment and interdiction fire, since artillery was available 24/7, day or night, good weather or bad. Both sides liked to lob shells behind ridges at likely enemy positions or based on sound bearings.

Air attacks were much less of a problem for the infantry.

The Luftwaffe was a negligible factor. They had 1,000 aircraft in france a few days after D-Day, but most sorties were made against the invasion fleet.

On the Allied side, the Heavy Bombers were seldom used and usually had such a huge safety zone built in that most of their bombs usually dropped well behind the front lines on rear support areas.

Fighter-bombers were available more frequently, but at that time, there was no practical way for troops on the ground to communicate with flights overhead. Most FB missions were pre-planned against a specific target or location. FBs also had a very difficult time spotting camouflaged troops and vehicles and suffered heavy losses from ground/AA fire. For that reason, most air commanders preferred to use their FBs on interdiction missions well behind the front lines shooting up trains and vehicles on roads.

[Sgt Joch]

second, regarding "Bocage Busting", this may also be of interest:

http://www.cgsc.edu/carl/resources/csi/doubler/doubler.asp

1. typical german "Bocage" defence:

2. typical US "Bocage" attack scenario:

both of these already work quite well in CMN...

[Chops]

Thanks Sarge, very interesting information.