"What is scrub terrain and how do you model it?" Topic

One terrain type listed in the Panzer rules is "scrub." I'm not 100% sure I know what that is. What do you think scrub terrain is? How would you model it?

IMO it all depends on what part of the world you are thinking of. I lived in Arizona which has alot of scrub terrain. But that would be different then in say in Africa. Robert

Here is a good example of some desert scrub terrain,

Robert is right; it depends. Scrub terrain locally would be a continuous cover of shrubs and low trees mostly 10-15 feet in height, not sparse and open like the desert scrub that he is familiar with from Arizona.

Rick

Having been raised surrounded by "scrub oak", I've always imagined it as the wild brush that covers the ground in most forest areas around here.

I once had a devastating victory in WRG 6th ed Ancients when my Indian opponent to MY Indian army did not realize that every single troop type except LI and elephants were disordered by "scrub".
So, he charged my LI with 2HCW and JLS with MI Maiden Guard, And that started my victorious onslaught! Helped by a few +4s, of course.

It can interfere or even block line of sight, but does not provide very good hard cover. If not on a trail or road, infantry moves through slowly, tracked vehicles, slowly, wheeled vehicles not at all.

The biggest reason Tracks move slowly is because a lot of the bushes hide rocks. Nothing quite so firmly stopping as finding a (big) rock at 20kph with your transmission or final drive housing!

I'm sitting in Kazkhstan at the Caspian sea end. Thw whole blasted western end of the country is scrub desert. The only trees are those planted by people and which are kept continuously waters by them or because they're in a sheltered area where water can pool – whether from spring/autumn rain or day/night condensation.

Otherwise the soil (HAH! It's just sand with attitude.) is covered by a shallow rooted grass and, in any small dips a slightly tougher bush which in autumn/winter breaks off to become a tumble weed.

Line of site here is straight to the horizon and, on that line, the land looks a sort of sandy brown dark green. Looking straight down, the grass stalks are seperated about 50mm/2" from each other in thier fight for water. The grass stays in any dips or runnels. High points in the land, either from vehicle traffic or storm modeling are free from plants.

It's not a land for agriculture, but for nomadic herders. And not many of them at that.

I distingusih between BRUSH [which has small trees up to about 2-3m high] and SCRUB which has small bushes about 1m high.

I'm not sure what the proper definition is though. Different rules have different ideas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubland

I think both slow movement for infantry and tracked AFVs but these will be less bothered by the smaller bushes.

Concelment would be limited to infantry 'keeping low' in the small bushes SCRUB. Neither will provide any real protection if the enemy have located your position and use area fire.

In European terms, I would think.

Gorse.
It grows in big bushes and you might be able to force your way in if you really really tried but only if you were wearing something thorn proof.

Borders of unmanaged forest.
You get loads of small trees, bushes and whatnot.

Ferns and heathers.
Heather can grow pretty high. Whilst it's not spiny like gorse it's pretty tough stuff.
Ferns can grow pretty high and offer concealment.

Some open forests like the Caledonian wossname are pretty much all scrub.

I'd think of it as heathland.

Which raises the question of what "heath" is.

Everyone knows that kasha is buckwheat porridge. But what's buckwheat porridge? It's kasha.

All the best,

John.

Thanks for the responses so far. So I looked at the terrain effects chart to see the effects of Scrub.

It's level 0, same as clear terrain.

It offers "light" cover. In contrast, "rough" offers "medium" cover, and woods offer "medium" or "heavy" cover.

There's a 10% chance of bogging down. In contrast, probability of bogging down in rough is 30%.

It costs leg units the same movement cost as clear terrain.
Track movement cost is twice that of clear terrain (rough is 4 times that of clear terrain). Wheeled movement cost is 4 times that of clear terrain. (Rough is 8 times that of clear terrain for wheeled vehicles).

Does that additional info help?