Driving throw BOCAGE?!

[wolle]

First I want to say thx for that great game.

But I have one important Issue to discuss:

Why is it not possible for tracked Tanks to drive throw a at least medium bocage??? It looks not nice for a panther to stay behind a low bocage (hip-height). This makes no sense. I affirm that a tracked tank with eg. 30 tons has no problem driving slowly through a high bocage.

[gunnergoz]

Ever been to Normandy? Study some pictures of the real thing if you have not been there: http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/showthread.php?2038-Normandy-landscape-gallery

Even "low" or "medium" bocage is pretty daunting. Remember, bocage is more than trees and bushes, it is also a high berm infused with deep root systems, often including a ditch on one or both sides of the berm. Some of those bocage systems were centuries old in 1944. Running a tank at it only exposes the tank to damage and being shot at while hung up in the bocage. Experience taught that the only tanks to successfully drive through bocage were tank dozers and those tanks equipped with the various rhino devices. And even they had to pick their approach carefully. You might make it through a smaller bocage system in a tank, but it was not something I'd want to try under fire.

[dieseltaylor]

Technically I would agree with you that for some bocage it would be possible. However there are two risks , the chief one being your tanks belly armour is exposed and even light guns could probably do for you, and secondly there is a chance you would become immobilised or damage some sensitive part of the tank.

So operationally it would be frowned upon as slightly too risky. Particularly if like the Panther you have a very long gun. Shermans are taller than their width and toppling over would be a consideration if a track hooked and brought the tank around.

[JG11Preusse]

First I want to say thx for that great game.

But I have one important Issue to discuss:

Why is it not possible for tracked Tanks to drive throw a at least medium bocage??? It looks not nice for a panther to stay behind a low bocage (hip-height). This makes no sense. I affirm that a tracked tank with eg. 30 tons has no problem driving slowly through a high bocage.

tanks seems to have problems with many other obstacles also in the game, where they normaly would drive trough easily

[gunnergoz]

tanks seems to have problems with many other obstacles also in the game, where they normaly would drive trough easily

Such as...? Examples please from your own experience would be helpful to support your claim.

[wolle]

Thx for the fast reply and the link. I had never been in the normandy. Ok, the bocages are huge and impressive and a tank would have problems to go through that wall of trees and so on.

So I guess the optical impression in game is not so realistic how it is in the real. But that is a fact a graphical mod could solve.

[wolle]

Thx for the fast reply and the link. I had never been in the normandy. Ok, the bocages are huge and impressive and a tank would have problems to go through that wall of trees and so on.

So I guess the optical impression in game is not so realistic how it is in the real. But that is a fact a graphical mod could solve.

[womble]

So I guess the optical impression in game is not so realistic how it is in the real. But that is a fact a graphical mod could solve.

Some of the pics of bocage would be doable in the map editor as it stands, with some additional elevation changes and bits of scrub and small trees etc. I think of the plain, unadorned Bocage elements as kinda the framework upon which people will build really pretty, really deadly terrain

[JSB]

It's also a map designer point: it's not very realistic to put low bocage in the middle of flat terrain: it looks like a hedge and will be misinterpreted from a gameplay point of view. Usually these bocage hedges are associated with elevation changes, i.e. the ground should not be at the same level on both sides of the bocage.

You can see from the pictures that it's not a straight line of bushes, there are different kind of trees in it, different heights, pathways, and so on.

To make it look realistic, designers have to bring in a little chaos.

[TrailApe]

I think there are a few folk out there that just can’t understand how a ‘hedge’ can stop a tank or prevent infantry worming through.

The hedges in Normandy are not unique but the reasons that brought them into existence are a bit unusual.

First thing to remember is that in this area it was not the first born that inherited the farm, it was split amongst the whole family – so that lead to lots of small fields.

Next thing to absorb is that these were not to enclose stock (dairy farming started between the wars), it was primarily used as a source of firewood – in 1750 the ’peasants’ were denied wood cutting rights to the forests, so they started using the hedges as the ‘peasants forest’.

Because it was originally not for enclosing cattle and for a supply of wood, there are (or rather - were - the Normandy Bocage is now a shadow of its former self) not totally composed of thorny hedge type shrubs (Hawthorn, Blackthorn etc) but have a large % of proper trees (oak, sweet chestnut, beech, ash etc). These trees were not chopped down, but ‘pollarded – which is a method of harvesting the wood by taking off boughs but leaving the main tree in a viable condition. As any gardener knows, if you keep trimming and pruning, the plant responds with renewed and denser growth.

Then you add this impressive barrier to a 2 metre high, 1 metre wide bank. Nobody is really sure why the banks exist, remember this area was traditionally arable, but one theory is that the hedges were built upon banks in the absence of any need for stock control because that reduced root competition with adjacent crops and made ploughing the field easier.

So ok – 2 meter bank with mature trees at the top – big problem for tanks – how does this stop infantry? Here’s a report from a bunch of English tree huggers that recently went across to Normandy

Likewise, laying (plessage or haie plessée) appears to have always been infrequent. We saw very little sign of laid stems, although clearly in some parts it was formerly practiced to some extent. The elderly orchard owner we met near Tirepied said that in his youth he laid hedges, and there is a place near Tirepied called Plessis. The traditional art, such as it was, has been almost entirely lost. However, a few individuals are re-introducing it, after the English Midlands style.

So they don’t practice plessage now, but the used to in living memory. Plessage? English Midlands style? What are they blethering on about?

Well this is hedge laying, and was used in Europe for keeping stock in their allocated field before barbed wire became available. This must have been introduced into Normandy with the advent of dairy farming and is a method of turning a bush into an impenetrable barrier to bulls, cows and sheep (and therefore soldiers).

Best to use a thorny bush (Hawthorn and Blackthorn are particularly evil) you trim it back until you have the main trunk exposed, at about 3 foot off the ground you hack halfway through it then carefully bring it down in a horizontal plane (in line with the hedge). Some styles then would use green hazel sticks to support this (and the hazel has a good chance of growing, adding to the density of the hedge) other styles would interweave these horizontal bits so they intermesh and self support. The hedge just seems to thrive on this apparent rough treatment and would then renew its growth upwards, so you have a horizontal element (up to 6ft in length) adding density to the natural upward growth of the hedge. After a hedge has been given this treatment, a few years later its impassable to anything on two or four legs.

For further info on british hedge laying, just wang ‘hedge laying’ into wiki. But be careful, too much exposure into this sort of stuff and you may start wearing sandals, home woven hessian smocks, growing a beard, singing folk songs and brewing mead.

[dieseltaylor]

Trail Ape - but would not the peasants have a cow or two, some pigs , perhaps a sheep, chickens etc? Perhaps I should also point out that the Normnands actually believed in primogeniture but whether they took over the field systems of the natives when they invaded is probably a fair point.

In the days before maps, marking out land was important. Building stone walls goes back thousands of years so there is every reason to think hedges were the way to do it before wooden fences and barbed wire. Hedges also have a great benefit for people who lived off the land, hedgrows could provide plenty plus wood which was very necessary. Heating is tricky when there is nothing to burn.

And different trees for different uses in woodworking. Beech is good for burning, but the mast [flower] gives 20% oil and could be used by humans and animals. etc.

PS . I was forgetting that wild boars, deer and wolves would have been threats to crops and livestock. Even in the 1750's in parts of France they would kill 700 wolves a year,

[TrailApe]

DT, that’s one cracking hedge in the video. That’s obviously just been freshly worked on – can you imagine in three or four years of upward and outward growth, what an absolute beast that would be to get past? Then do that a few more times over the period of 10-15 years and voila!

And for Normandy, put in a mature tree every few yards then stick it on a 6 foot bank.

No wonder they had trouble.

Not sure about the Northmen and their takeover of Normandy - will read up on it, but yes you are right, mainland Europe in the 1700's still had a few beasts that you wouldn't want to see sneaking up on your only cow.

[MengJiao]

Not sure about the Northmen and their takeover of Normandy - will read up on it, but yes you are right, mainland Europe in the 1700's still had a few beasts that you wouldn't want to see sneaking up on your only cow.

I don't know about the actual demographics, but the Norman take-over (which became official in 910 AD IIRC) seems to have preserved at least some village institutions that disappeared in the rest of France. There was some regional council that functioned in a Pagus (country area, also related to Pagan, ie a rustic person) that the Normans preserved through the period of maximum social breakdown around 1000 AD (when the progenitors of what would become the aristocracy siezed local power in most of France). In Normandy, local power seems to have remained less aristocratic and the pagi (latin plural I assume of Pagus) continued to function. Which may have some relation to why there is bocage there. Those would be field boundaries and ritual enclosures (which is how I assume the round enclosures on high ground might have originated) going back to the Neolithic and not messed with by aristocratic power at least around 1000 AD.

[JSB]

Bocage is useful in a lot of ways: protection from the wind (strong in Normandy), the sun during summer (much less strong...), it prevents the water from streaming too fast, hosts a lot of animals (birds, insects...) useful against harmful proliferations, resources (game, fruits, firewood, mushrooms,...) while allowing to mark the boundaries of the plots and keep the cattle (even if there were cowherds).

Long live the Bocage!

Bocage is not strictly limited to the Normandy area, it can be widely found (though less than in the old days) in Brittany also.

[dieseltaylor]

Bocage actually means grove or copse. Haie I think is hedgerow. I am sure JSB will confirm or correct.

BTW I am using Fernand Braudel to see if he can give me lots of info but really he is only post 1000 AD and Normandy is not a favourite area : (

Now from Tank Men. page225 line 7

" The first Sherman of the 737th US Independent Tank Battalion that tried to ram through a hedgerow " was flipped onto its back and lay like an up-ended turtle " according to an observer."

[womble]

Now from Tank Men. page225 line 7

" The first Sherman of the 737th US Independent Tank Battalion that tried to ram through a hedgerow " was flipped onto its back and lay like an up-ended turtle " according to an observer."

Was that one of the rare "Acme"-built Shermans ordered by QMG William Ephraim Coyote?

LOL.

[JSB]

Bocage actually means grove or copse. Haie I think is hedgerow. I am sure JSB will confirm or correct.

The old and literary meaning of bocage is indeed grove or copse, but the usual - geographical - meaning refers to the type of landscape found in Western France (Normandy, Brittany, Vendée,...).

This embraces both the fields and meadows being surrounded by tree-planted embankments and/or thick hedges (haies vives), and the dispersed settlement.

[gunnergoz]

My recent readings indicate that the US independent tank battalions were initially not as well trained or led as the armored division tank battalions; the armored divisions had more cachet and glamor, attracted the better officers and the infantry-oriented independent tank battalions had to suck hind t!ttie. It does not surprise me then that one of them first tried this out.

Some relevant WW2 Signal Corps videos of interest:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675076253_American-soldiers_holding-hedge-cutter_mounting-on-tank_soldiers-working especially at 1:10 and beyond

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675075108_United-States-howitzer_World-War-II_M-4-Sherman-tank at 0:20 and beyond

The latter video with the M5 light tank seems to show that such a tank could occasionally bust a hedgerow but given the multiple attempts, the enemy on the other side would probably be well aware of what was being tried and where, and would be ready when the tank popped through with its belly exposed.

[dan/california]

My guess is that if you put hedge laying into Google you are going to get results that are

A) positively enlightning, in ALL sorts of ways

have nothing to do with bocage

[womble]

The old and literary meaning of bocage is indeed grove or copse, but the usual - geographical - meaning refers to the type of landscape found in Western France (Normandy, Brittany, Vendée,...).

This embraces both the fields and meadows being surrounded by tree-planted embankments and/or thick hedges (haies vives), and the dispersed settlement.

The etymology of the english word 'copse' is intertwined with that of the 'coppice' method of woodland management. So since the Norman pagan got their coppiced wood from hedgerows rather than discrete clumps of woods, it would seem fair that there be some overlap in translation. Bocage = coppice-hedge.