Crossing 'Low' Bocage.

[LemuelG]

The only issue with this is the sheer inconsistency. Are they so high you have to rip your way through, or can you dive over them or perhaps simply just step over them? Question I would have is he actually describing hedgerows here or has it come down to every dang bush being called a hedgerow at a certain point?

Well, those are are first-hand accounts from men who fought in the heart of bocage-country (all different men), I feel there is little choice but to take them at their word - if they say hedgerow they probably mean it. These anecdotes are by their nature, unusual - being memorable and remarkable enough to recount in a description of combat makes them such - therefore we hear about the time soldier X got hung-up in a hedge with an MG shooting at his butt, but not the numerous times he left his hole and hurdled hedge Y to go take a crap in the morning.

The facts are simple, those paras had to cross numerous hedges in the first desperate days, they had no copious demolitions or rhino-tanks to assist them - the description of a trooper moving-out on D-Day morn' as being like "running an obstacle course with all those darned hedgerows" is, I think, probably quite typical of the way they went about it, climbing, crawling, bush-whacking - I don't doubt that some of their officers would have had them forming sufficiently tall human pyramids if they came upon a truly impassable obstacle. The idea it can't be done is not worth contemplating, don't under-estimate a determined human-being.

At the risk of repeating myself - I'm A-OK with things as they are if designers use gaps to allow movement (I like the way there can be truly indomitable hedges, but they should be rare) - whether I imagine them climbing or pushing-through, it doesn't matter so long as they get to the other side. I want this to be the accepted Dogma of scenario-design, if I don't get any gaps I'm taking my toys and going home

[sburke]

At the risk of repeating myself - I'm A-OK with things as they are if designers use gaps to allow movement (I like the way there can be truly indomitable hedges, but they should be rare) - whether I imagine them climbing or pushing-through, it doesn't matter so long as they get to the other side. I want this to be the accepted Dogma of scenario-design, if I don't get any gaps I'm taking my toys and going home

I think you will find actually a lot of folks agree with you in this regarding map design. Good map design would probably eliminate your frustration. Broadsword and I are in a PBEm map that suffers from the Green Wall effect. It's more like fighting in some rich Lords estate maze rather than the Normandy Countryside.

Hopefully as more people put their efforts to building maps the issues of terrain representation will become something to look back on and joke about. Map work is time consuming however and for the quantity we have been given, it isn't so bad. I look forward however to the point where the best of them become just average.

[womble]

Well, those are are first-hand accounts from men who fought in the heart of bocage-country (all different men), I feel there is little choice but to take them at their word - if they say hedgerow they probably mean it.

I'm sure and certain that they do. But 'hedgerow' covers a multitude of obstacle types. There are 'hedgerows' in my home county that I could force my way through/crawl under, but they are not comparable to Bocage. This game has three types of green-woody obstacles: hedges (which can be leapt/hurdled) and the two heights of bocage.

The facts are simple, those paras had to cross numerous hedges in the first desperate days, they had no copious demolitions or rhino-tanks to assist them - the description of a trooper moving-out on D-Day morn' as being like "running an obstacle course...

You interpret the facts how you like. I find those facts support the idea that not all green linear obstacles in CMBN have to be unbroken Bocage line. Just because Bocage was the defining characteristic of the terrain doesn't mean it was the sole vegetation.

I don't doubt that some of their officers would have had them forming sufficiently tall human pyramids if they came upon a truly impassable obstacle.

I offer you the 'high stone wall' which is also 'impassable' to infantry. Yet that obstacle type is much closer to something the troops were familiar with and knew ways of scaling in teams, quickly in a tactical situation.

The idea it can't be done is not worth contemplating, don't under-estimate a determined human-being.

pTruppen cannot use windows as a means of entrance and egress. They can't climb/get a boost up to or down from a first storey balcony. One Sherman crew cannot drive a tank that's not theirs. You can't have the crew of a gun leave the vicinity of the gun without it being considered 'spiked'.

None of these things have the workarounds that the 'bocage situation' does.

[Michael Emrys]

Well, those are are first-hand accounts from men who fought in the heart of bocage-country (all different men), I feel there is little choice but to take them at their word - if they say hedgerow they probably mean it.

But these are the same kinds of soldiers who will say that every tank they encountered was a Tiger and every gun that fired at them was an 88. They may earnestly believe what they are saying, but the fact that they aren't liars does not mean all by itself that what they are saying should be taken as fact. It's a starting point for determining history, but not a final one. It's reasonable to assume that for them, any row of shrubbery was a hedgerow and they lumped all the varieties into one single category.

The facts are simple, those paras had to cross numerous hedges in the first desperate days, they had no copious demolitions or rhino-tanks to assist them - the description of a trooper moving-out on D-Day morn' as being like "running an obstacle course with all those darned hedgerows" is, I think, probably quite typical of the way they went about it, climbing, crawling, bush-whacking...

And no doubt walking down the hedge until they found an opening or simply going around it.

At the risk of repeating myself - I'm A-OK with things as they are if designers use gaps to allow movement (I like the way there can be truly indomitable hedges, but they should be rare) - whether I imagine them climbing or pushing-through, it doesn't matter so long as they get to the other side.

I agree. This is by far the best solution to the dilemma. And BTW, every map I have played on so far with hedgerows on it has had gaps of one sort or another that allowed passage of at least men on foot. Not to say that every bocage map is so endowed, just that plenty of them are.

Michael

[LemuelG]

But these are the same kinds of soldiers who will say that every tank they encountered was a Tiger and every gun that fired at them was an 88.

And we can reasonably scoff at their claim when with the awesome power of hindsight we are able to confirm that there were actually no Tigers or 88s at that location on that date - your rationality is not keeping pace with your scepticism - what if, in fact, we confirm that yes, there was a s.Pz.Abt there, or a heavy AA battery nearby, and little else?

Is it logical to assume that because some allied soldiers were prone to exaggeration/mis-IDing, that these particular men are? Or that you are a superior arbiter of what exactly defines the term 'hedgerow' than these men who fought there for a month and practically spent the entire time living/fighting in the side of one hedge or another?

When guys who are in fields completely surrounded by hedgerows on all sides say "it was a hedgerow" you might as well believe it... seems pretty reasonable to me. I wont submit to this type of madness, I am quite happy to take their word for it (on this subject).

[womble]

When guys who are in fields completely surrounded by hedgerows on all sides say "it was a hedgerow" you might as well believe it... seems pretty reasonable to me. I wont submit to this type of madness, I am quite happy to take their word for it (on this subject).

Of course there were hedges if they say there were. What is in question is whether those 'hedges' were all unbroken Bocage as defined in CMBN. Since the definition of a bocage strip in CMBN is that nothing can pass it without tools (in the timescale of the game), and these men did pass through without tools, the only logical conclusion is that there were stretches of hedgerow that did not make it to the CMBN definition of 'Bocage'. You can simulate the parts that are infantry-permeable but not tank-crossable using Dense Forest or Swamp ground types under various heights and densities of other vegetation.