The Commander Series Forum

...in Normandy? I need to start making some fields and hedgerows for my 1944 northern France set up.

Well I read one account of where they had to cross 30 odd hedgerows in 1 mile!!!

But too many and the game can bog down, so it is tricky to get a good balance between the look and yet give a good game.

They varied quite a bit, could be less than 100m or much larger.
To be realistic most should not be square either but an assortment of odd shapes!

Also bear in mind bocage hedgerows were only in some areas of normandy, not everywhere.
If you read accounts of battles you will see that there were many open areas, especially around Caen.

I would suggest google earth and look at current normandy or any countryside (even essex) to get an idea of just how varied fields look from above.
Its quite an eye opener.

Problem with google earth is that there have been huge changes in Normandy since 1944. In particular, most of the villages and towns are many times their wartime size, most of the heavy industry around Caen has gone and, most relevant here, is that field size has increased tremendously as a lot of ancient hedgerows have been uprooted to allow for modern farming methods, while ancient woodlands have been removed. These changes are referred to constantly in the battlefield walks sections of the Battle Zone Normandy series of books on the Normandy campaign.

I have been told by veterans that the Bocage is very like a lot of the small field systems that can still be found in more remote parts of Devon and Cornwall (this is where US forces practiced for D-day) or parts of South Wales.

SteveJ is right though, too many hedgerows are virtually unplayable in a realistic time frame for gaming. For me, as long as the field density is closer in bocage than in other areas, you will recreate the right feel. You need fields big enough to fit your stands in as a minimum.

My infantry stands are 20mm x 10mm and represent a half company. 20mm represents 200 meters.

Would 20mm x 20mm fields serve or would that be too excessive? Should I maybe go with 40mm x 40mm so that I can get combined arms attack and defense?

IMHO it really depends on what you are trying to game. If the American experience in the bocage I think the issue was the fields were too small to allow effective combined arms actions all the time, so small, densely packed fields would simulate that. If you were trying to simulate a Goodwood scenario, 88mm AT engaged Shermans at very long ranges (>1km IIRC) so there should be little or no field boundaries, maybe a few fences that don't block LOS/F, maybe a few isolated walled orchards and a big railway embankment. At 3mm scale you could probably do both on a single table.

Another thought, if your stands are half companies, that's already bigger than a lot of the bocage fields, which were often defended by a platoon or section, so your terrain really needs to be an abstraction that simulates the tactical problems (i.e. fields big enough for one stand will break up all arms attacks and make coordination difficult, whereas large open areas will allow hidden AT to dominate the battlefield). Very different problems, but all realistic at different times and places during the campaign.

I'm trying for generic terrain, not terrain for a specific battle. So I think some bocage pieces would be nice, but I wouldn't want to do an entire bocage table.

I'm thinking maybe a section that's an irregular 20x20cm (or better yet, three sections: 10x20, 10x10 and 10x10) with fields at 2cm x 2cm, 3cm x 3cm and maybe the occasional 4cm x 4cm...

Sounds like a good mix - too big for opponents to ignore and a nice haven for dug in infantry and AT if they did. You could always cluster them together for a bocage scenario.

You could also cross them with some sunken roads/lanes - some interesting scenarios trying to get armour along them - there is a nice photo in the Battle Zone Normandy volume (I think on the Orne Bridgehead) showing a 6pdr sited to fire along a sunken road, not dug in or anything, just relying on the cover of the surrounding walls/hedges and it's being small and inconspicuous - enought to stop an armoured vehicle and block the road if required.

just google pictures hedgerows normandy and you will have lots of pictures to base your scenery on

Modelling bocage realistically, as some have already pointed out, would make the game unplayable. Some fields wouldn't even be big enough to place one base of figures.

I take a bit of a different approach.

I consider the movement rates of my rules and then scale the size of my fields accordingly. A small field might only take one turn to cross, so in BKC terms, I might make it 10-20cm in size. A large field should take a couple of turns to cross, so in BKC, I make it 25-40cm in size. However, if I'm playing IABSM, where the movement rate is higher, I increase the size of the fields accordingly.

I have been thinking about bocage quite a bit recently as I want to buy a quantity of hedging to give the right impression.

One option would be to treat bocage as high area terrain. The boundaries would be marked with traditional bocage hedges (with the appropriate movement and LOS restrictions). Inside the boundary, treat it as dense terrain, LOS 5cm for everything. Apart from foot troops, only Churchlls and other fully tracked AFVs from July can move into/through bocage. Count moving troops as being in the open (unless an orchard) if attacked by opportunity fire, otherwise everyone counts as partial cover unless dug in.

The second option is to use lots of hedges and make up individual (smallish) fields. The fields should be at least 5cm across in any direction. This will generally mean the the attacker has to get into the open to spot any defenders (usually 5cm). Ignore the low/high profile aspect of spotting.

Commercial hedges tend to be in 3-6 inch lengths, so a quantity of these will give a selection of square and oblong fields (which can also be offset). Fill three, four or more square feet with bocage and it should give the right impression. Rather than model roads through an area of bocage, just leave gaps between areas of bocage to represent tracks. Do not bother trying to model gates. Bear in mind that bocage will influence the game in two ways. Due to the restricted LOS. more defenders will be required to hold a line. It will also be slow going, so some adjustment to the length of the game may be needed.

Steve

Some interesting alternatives. I like Steve's option 1 best as it would suit small miniature scales best, but I would be interested in hearing how any option plays out. For me it's about trying to get a mechanism that gives the right feel to the tactical situation.

I'm going to go with Steve's Option 1, no doubt, but I still have to model the stuff... :/

If you're modelling for 3mm, I think I might use something like pipe cleaners stained green and flocked in places with different colours to represent the hedgerows. That way you could model them across the whole patch of bocage area terrain but your stands could just sit on top, treating the actual positions of the hedges as irrelevant, except to define the edges of the terrain. Some patches of grit could mark the dry stone walls that formed the cores of the hedgerows.

One point to keep in mind is that only Churchill tanks (because of mass and power) or tanks fitted with Culin hedge cutters could rip through Bocage hedgerows. My reading suggests these were mainly fitted to US armour, much less so to British and Commonwealth armour.

No pipe-cleaners in Brazil. I'm going to have to use coarse flocking.

The pipe cleaner idea is brilliant, though!

I think I'll lay down matchstick walls and grit and flock over those.

Thanks for that article, J.

Pipe cleaners are also an art and craft item over here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4?ur...


http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_4?ur...

Selecting on product at random, 50 X 150mm pieces for less than £2 (two pounds GB). You could make lots of bocage with that ....

Steve

Maybe if I make it up to a conference in Manchester this year, Steve!

Mac, how about I get you some and post them? They'd cost very little...

Just checked on Hobbycraft site: a pack of 25 6mm green pipe-cleaners is £1.69! Email me your address to dw_pike at hotmail dot com, and I'll get some in the post

This website http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/ might be of use. It doesn't cover Normandy but does give you loads of aerial photos of Britain during the war years so might have pictures of where the US troops trained for Normandy?

Richard

Slapton Sands in East Devon was where US forces destined for Utah Beach practiced for D-day. The village was evacuated and used for training as well as target practice by warships offshore in Lyme Bay. This was the site of the infamous Excercise Tiger in April 1944, where E-boats got in amongst a D-day excercise and sank a variety of troop transports and landing craft, killing more US soldiers than the actual landings on Utah beach did in reality 2 months later. News of the attack was classified with a news blackout for years, but accounts of bodies and wreckage being found along the coast from Lands End to Dover circulated at the time.

I don't think the fields behind the beach have altered much since the landings and show up nicely on Google maps (search Slapton Sands, UK). In Cornwall is Chysauster Ancient Village, Penzance, UK (also on Google maps), which is a Romano-British settlement surrounded by field systems that have changed little in 2000 years, so should closely resemble the Bocage.