"Remodelling my bocage" Topic

After some years of being unhappy with my bocage terrain, I have finally remodelledthem last month and have updated my blog with the results:

link

The reports goes into some basic thoughts about bocage (it seems these posts always do), what my inital version looked like and what the remodelled version looks like.

Please be gentely with me… I know this is not the shiniest version out there!

Enjoy,

Burkhard

very nicely done, you can see why it would be bad terrain to attack through.

"Remodelling my bocage". You can get a special trimmer to do that….. :)

Looks nice. Was the earth wall that high? I bought some bocage off of ironclad and its not as big as that.

It varies. Bocage banks can be anything from a couple of feet to twenty feet.

But it's very seldom the same height on both sides. The really big banks are found at the sides of sunken roads as in the pictures below

The fields to either side of these sunken roads are just a couple of feet below the top of the bank.

In other places the banks are quite a bit lower

Very nice terrain, Burkhard.

Thank you guys!

@Kroesus: I do not like my hedges trimmed… If anything close cropped!

@uberbyford: The one you got from Irobclad is fine… I just wanted the very tall version, like on some of Dereks photos… Or the photos on my blog post.

Great work!!! those tall ones were too tall for dozers right?

Your new terrain feature is great. Derek's second photo makes me think about old horror movies. And why villagers thought some places around their villages were haunted. Imagine that tunnel at night. Better yet, a stormy night.

Hi just thought I'ed share my bocage with you

warterrain.co.uk

Thank you guys!

@Gothic Line Miniatures: They could still be tackled by dozers, but chances for getting stuck or receiving a belly hit if someone fired at you that very momentwould be good.

@Rrobbyrobot: Does not need to be a stormy night. All the little animals living inside it would cause enough strange noises on any night.

warterrain wrote:

Hi just thought I'ed share my bocage with you

Sorry, but your stone walls with a hedge on top don't actually look anything like bocage. Bocage banks are packed earth (held together by roots and stones), not piles of stones – see pictures above.

We've been through all this before – several times. TMP link TMP link

You could also use such bocage for the Chouan wars (French Revolution civil war in Brittany and Vendée in the 1790s) it was exactly the same sort of terrain.

Imagine what it could be to fight in such terrain against local rebels in the late 18th century, without any dozers or aircraft or good maps.

I have often though about such terrain for horse and musket era wargaming. It must have been a sheers horror. Your artillery and cavalry becomes virtually useless. And even your infantry can not fight the way it way trained to, since the fileds are too small for them to deploy and getting them into a field is a nightmare in the first place.

Thanks for the pics Derek. I like the size of em so I can just use them as thick hedges without going full on bocage and more special rules etc.

uberbyford: That Ironclad Miniatures bocage system is quite the best commercially available bocage I've ever seen. link

They've actually modelled banks of earth rather than piles of rocks. Bit of static grass on those banks and they'd be even better.

In high Summer you can't see the banks anyway due to the mass of grass, brambles, cow-parsley, campions, bracken, etc, etc, that grows out of them. Derek's examples above have been mechanically bush-whacked, which wasn't something that happened back then. The only places that tend to be thin on vegetation are where they are deeply shaded by trees (such as in sunken lanes with trees forming a 'tunnel') or where cattle have been scratching.

They were bush-whacking some of the bocage at the sides of roads in 1944 as well. They would have had to if they wanted to move vehicles about safely.

In other places it just ran wild.

And here's a couple of pictures of modern bocage that hasn't been whacked much.

'Imagine what it could be to fight in such terrain against local rebels in the late 18th century'

The defenders still lost though?

Interesting… not unlike many lanes in Cornwall.

Guys you will be inspiring a lot o people to try the Normandy bocage now!!! great to have 28mm back in force even I am itching to stop sculpting my new range and start my skirmishing!!!

Weeell, not so much mechanically bushwhacked as trimmed at the edges by a bloke with a scythe or a couple of tethered goats. :o)

Steve, Yup Cornwall is very similar, as is Devon, Dorset and much of Wales. If anything, the 'Bocage' of South Pembrokeshire where I live (also created by Norman settlers), makes Norman Bocage look positively puny by comparison.

Great photos. Excellent discussion thread. Thanks everyone.

You just can't beat a bit of nicely-trimmed bocage…

Wow, amazing how this topic sparked interest. Thanks for that.

I see Derek was far better at finding photos online than I was. But when looking down one of my model lanes it looks a lot like the tall ones on the photos, so I am happy!

14th Brooklyn wrote:

I see Derek was far better at finding photos online than I was.

I have more :-) Mostly with bocage banks and hedges in the background. Some bush-whacked, some not. Some high banks, some low.

But they're all banks of earth, usually with vegetation growing on the sides and bushes and trees on top. Not a pile of stones in sight.

Amazing pics Derek! Thanks.

'Imagine what it could be to fight in such terrain against local rebels in the late 18th century'
The defenders still lost though?

Yes. But they were a major nuisance for years.

There was the same bocage in Central Brittany too; in June 1944 the Resistance did many ambushes on such roads against German troops (3rd para division, etc) who were driving to Normandy as reinforcements.

Sweet, I'll just put on a bit of static grass and some of that undergrowth stuff I bought a year ago and havent found a use for yet. Might try and find a few jerry cans and whatnot for a bit more depth to em.

I guess I'll have to start getting some late war yanks and such now.

Fantastic pictures by the way, a lot of food for thought in those.

never bush-whack your own bocage…

Quite.

I've been making my Bocage for the last five years and I have sold it all over the world including hong kong of all places. Having read all the comments above and on other the pages I take it my bocage is wrong then.

So without futher-ado, Armed with the info above I've given my Bocage a new look,"Hoo-ray – No more cat litter". Trying to make roots in 15mm scale what a nightmare. I've sent samples off to my clients and should hopefully get some feed back shortly.

Now I'm in a bit of a dilemma I've got clients who love my bocage the way it is,(I'm going to have to add a testimonial page to my web site) and might not like the new look. So the question is this do I get rid of the old style or keep both giving you the option to purchase both.

Lots to think about. Anyway people don't have bases attached to their feet, its just wargaming. You can adjust the rules and anything you wont to use for terrain to suit your needs.

Warterrain, I would do both… I have had people who did not like mine and others who loved it. I think one will never be able to meet everyones expectations due to the fact that everyone picks a different type of bocage to be the right one for him!

The Google Maps ground-level view feature can give you a feel for some of the bocage roads, at least. It's also good in the Ardennes and other places.