"Terrain what we don't represent" Topic

Hills have always been a key issue since warfare began.

Similarly mountains have always been an issue.

Now in historic war gaming there is a limit too what we can model on a typical battlefield. Mountains, even small sections are very difficult to model. I have seen show models at very small scale, I guess 1mm represents 10m type scales but they tend to be show pieces of limited "play" value. Additionally they present very difficult issues of observation; at such a scale how do you easily and quickly define lines of sight at that level of complexity. So I am suggesting its not possible to practically model mountains in a typical weekly type game. However if anybody has a unique way of doing so I would love top see it.

Wide rivers are another, they cam almost be wider than a typical battlefield. In WW2 big battles at key points were only about 3000m wide at the breakthrough wider frontages are no advantage.

Roads are another issue. How many folk have roads that go over hills? Many road "systems" are cast in resin or the like with straights, bends etc. but at least in my limited experience they are not manufactured to go up slopes. Some modular terrain boards, often 2ft square fashionable some years ago may have roads going over hills. But their utility in variation and ability to flexibly model maps seems very limited. Is this generally the case that folk don't have roads going over hills? We can get away with this as our roads are thin card so can be bent to fit. Folk using masking tape roads similarly can do the job; any other options?

Similarly woods extending over slopes seems to be another very common feature but is rarely modeled, probably as the trees don't stand up well on a slope. By using angel Hair which drapes well we can get a wood "base" over a hill but it needs specialized bases to get the trees to stand up on the slopes. Again what is your impression/solutions.

Why you ask? OK so the hedge fixation is no better but my education is getting better. Hedges i.e enclosing of fields certainly in the UK is starting soon after 1600. So from there on its a potential key terrain feature. Now I was thinking of making an articulated hedge that would conform to slopes but then it occurred to me that slopes on a war game are often bereft of roads and hedges, as they are too difficult to model in an effective way when playing a different game every week. So the "perfect" simulation may have interesting flaws, simply due to the inability to effectively model terrain features that are relevant.

As always your opinions are of interest.

Another option for roads is drawing them on with pastels. This presumes you're using a cloth table covering.

Depending on scale, I have been happy to use felt templates for wooded areas with mounds of lichen to look like foliage.

My rivers are always to scale for the action I'm playing. If the Waal isn't sufficiently wide, then the crossing in 1944 seems trivial.

Finally, in regards to mountains, how many battles actually took place on steep slopes? I admit that I've never seen anyone attempt Cassino on the table.

Felt roads conform to slopes without difficulty. Vinyl roads are almost as good.

Trees depend on the steepness of the slope, and how it's represented. Shallow slopes and "wedding cake" hills with levels more or less as contour lines with well with the traditional model tree on a flat base. For steep natural slopes, Bruce Weigle uses holes drilled into his slopes, and trunks dropped into the holes without bases. Looks very natural. The same system would work for telephone or telegraph poles. Generally, buying one of his rule books just for the terrain-making section is a worthwhile investment.

But I still want to know why someone who keeps fighting modern or ultramodern mechanized forces is concerned with British hedges. Are you planning a Sea Lion campaign?

None a problem in old school

"But I still want to know why someone who keeps fighting modern or ultramodern mechanized forces is concerned with British hedges"

A pet hate of mine when I see a Cold War game with elements of BAOR facing 3SA, with fields surrounded by hedges and no sign of the ditches around the fields we used to fall into!

Tally Ho!

Picture is the Peach orchard at Gettysburg.
Hedges are also a mainland European obstacles

"Hedges are also a mainland European obstacles"

Exercised all over 1 (BR) and 1 (BE) Corps areas in the 80s, hedges rare to none,

Tally Ho!

Hedges weren't much of a problem in Bavaria in the 80's either.

But 14Bore you'll notice UshCha here and elsewhere is specifically concerned with when fields were enclosed in England and the average size of the enclosed area in Britain.

I would think that such terrain issues are really scenario problems. I also wonder what the benefits are in parsing heights etc. into small increments. Do we know what the issues would be for a unit of 1000 men if the height was 3 feet or 5?

However, it is important to know particulars. For instance, in the battlefield of Marengo, there were 'vineyards.' That brings up images of the vineyards we all have seen in rows @ 4 feet high, or those described on the Austerlitz battlefield where the 2/4 ligne was routed. However, at Marengo, the vineyards were vines climbing up 10s of feet on rows of trees, creating a physical LOS barrier unlike that of Austerlitz.

If there is mention of the terrain with attendant effects for movement or combat, that is one thing. If we are looking to generate a set of generic costs and benefits for say hedges of different types, it is probably better to keep the number of types and their effects to a minimum, less as the scale goes up.

Another is the modeling of swamps, marshy ground in low lying areas, close to rivers and streams. In quite a few battles in 1866, this helped funnel attack avenues. There were large areas of them and armies had to maneuver around them instead of literally having their artillery, cav and infantry getting caught inside without cover nor speedy traversing of the obstacle.

I think that as with most aspects of wargames there will always be a certain amount of abstract representation, unless one has the luxury of time, money and storage!

Tally Ho!

Wargames have never really shown the Verticalness of terrain well.

Terrain scale is one of those things that you have to fudge sometimes to make the game work. I gave up on a Vicksburg project because to accurately represent the cliffs in 15mm they would have been huge. With the games I do now I just do the best I can and at least give the illusion of all things in the same scale. Doesn't always work.

link

From the sounds of it, the issues aren't rules or appropriate mechanics, but simply the visual appeal. One has to go to really small scale like CoC, or really big like 2mm to approach actual scale dimensions. That visual correlation is tough for any scale representation, from maps to static models.

nicksomerset, clearly where you are affects hedges, Here is a random bit of France perfectly acceptable for European war sureley.

link

There are areas where hedges are rare in the UK Norfiolk is one. That does not make hedges a nonentity in games.

As always we cheat a bit. wa make an assumtion in many cases that hedges are either intrinsically difficult to cross Bocarge being an example of the worst sort or lesser hedhes with an associated ditch which makes vehicle crossing difficult for some classes and hard cover for infantry.

In addition many shots of ukraim indicates various vegative terrain boundaries.

McLaddie you are correct; it's about what you can or cannot easily represent on a wargames table. There is need to codify terrain so that it is clear what it is, at least once encountered.

Dye4minis – I guess its artistic standards that are giving you issues. We have noy found swamp an issue. We use light green Angel Hair and a marker not a million miles from a 3D representation of swamp on a UK map. Painted up in "Swamp" colours its does its job.

PDF link

See water featuers Marsh or saltings – It is obvious to many UK resisdents, not sure if its a near universal indication on other maps.

robert piepenbrink drilling holes in Hexon II is not going to happen! Comes under too specific for other than show games.

UshCha. Thanks for the map symbol reference. For myself, I use miniatures because of the visual appeal of it. I have spent a considerable amount of funds on research materials over the years. Ditto for upgrading my game table from a an old GI Blanket, Life-like trees and lichen and felt roads to Geo-Hex and now Hexon II; ditto for period buildings and better looking trees. Guess I will have to make my own to be able to display in 3D, swampy ground. A paper area with map reference graphics just does not fit in with what I have collected over the years for my table. Not that your suggestion isn't appreciated, it really is, but I'll keep looking for something that better fits in a miniatures game for my needs. Like I said, thanks, UshCha, for the suggestion!

Tall grass instead of treating open terrain as a manicured golf course. (I just played in a 1941 Russian front game my poor Soviets should have been able to go prone and hide on the steppes)

Minor folds or depressions in the ground. (Never represented in games infantry should be able to hide and take cover in relatively minor terrain features. One instance in real life I had OPFOR tanks pop out of a depression 100 meters away and open fire on us during an FTX using blanks)

Drainage ditches on either side of a road. (Great to hide in or use for cover. A nightmare when they are full of water, and you need to get your vehicle off the road in a hurry.)

On a side note, a pet peeve of mine is making rivers slow movement to half speed. Maybe infantry could ford a VERY shallow river with little or no current. I have never witnessed vehicles risked by getting mired in the mud or caught on debris in the river bottom.

For roads over hills a nice simple solution is sand poured out in a line and briefly brushed to the proportions you want. If you're using a cloth it should cling to fairly steep slopes.

Dragon Gunner – Ditches are hard, hence we combine (incorrectly in some cases) with hedges.

The same with trenches. I did my own version of trenches and positions raided abpve the ground, to be honest they never got to the painting stage, they were as poor (from my perspective) as the commecial ones, they just did not look any better than a markers, they failed in as many aspects as they succeeded.

Good looking and flexible roads are easy to do- spread acrylic caulk onto a drop cloth used for painting, about 1/8 inch thick, in whatever width/length you desire. While the caulk is still tacky, sprinkle a layer of sand over the surface and let dry overnight. When dry cut the completed section out of the drop cloth and spray paint black. Then paint to whatever color you're trying to model. A light dry brush will highlight the rough sand surface nicely. You could put flock on the edges or down the middle to simulate grass/weeds as well.

If you want to make cobblestone or brick roads with this same method, you can buy cylinders imprinted with various designs to use on the caulk. If you do this however, make sure the caulk has dried for about 4-5 hours before you attempt this and skip putting sand on, or just a very light layer. If you try it too soon the caulk will be too tacky and you'll create a mess. If you wait too long it won't imprint properly. Some trial and error will be needed here.

For skirmish games I make these roads 4" wide and up to five feet long, though you could make them longer if you like, you're only limited by the length of the underlying drop cloth. These roads conform to any elevation or undulations on the gaming surface and never curl. I've had mine for several years now, when the game is over I roll them up with the road surface facing out to ensure they will lay flat for the next game.

Current cost for a 4" by 5 foot long section including caulk, drop cloth, sand and paint is approximately $10 USD-12, depending on brands of caulk and paint. The caulk I use that seems to be perfectly suited for this purpose is the brand name Quad, found at Home Depot and Menards. You'll need some sort of trowel to spread the caulk neatly, I've found that a 3/4" wide tuck pointing trowel is ideal

From the sounds of it, the issues aren't rules or appropriate mechanics, but simply the visual appeal.

Terrain interactions need to be represented in the rules, so there is an intrinsic representation.

QILS uses a "bright line" definition for terrain. You can visually represent terrain any way you want, but there must be a a clear delimitation between one type and another. This creates some degree of artificiality, but not really that much, and not with respect to the resolution of the decision space.

For elevation, we usually use contours at a granularity that matches the movement speed and decision space. Contour lines are typically in teh range of 1/2 a slow move and 1/3 a fast move. Movement penalties are calculated based on that.

This gives you a reasonable decision space. You can go straight up a slope and cross contour lines faster, for a movement penalty (fatigue penalty, if you're doing that, or whatever penalty fits your rules), or you can take an oblique route to reduce penalties.

So, the visual bit. Lots of options. For a quickie scenario, yarn makes nice contour lines. It's cheap and easy to use. You can even use a couple of colours to represent different slopes, this different penalties. Visual appeal? Weel, it looks like a military contour map. That has a type of charm to it.

For a little better look, you can cut out cardboard areas. You can layer them, and get a little height. You can also have the ground colour vary for different types, or use lighter and lighter colours for higher altitudes. Again, this is a common feature in maps.

If you have the time, you can make the good old classic "foam cliffs". Even modular sets, if you want. These give you a good visual of height, even if it is too low.

I have some modular gentle sloping hills, as well. Putting additional terrain pieces on serious slopes is usually not the concern. If I really wanted to, I could make trees meeting a base at an angle. Even a flexible base (I've done this for displays). I'm more concerned about having figures not tip over or slide on a serious slope.

With flats and foam, one trick for modular pieces is to stack them, line up one edge and make them match. Then you have a cliff if you align them like that, but you can mix and match, if you don't want that.

While DailyKos is a hard-left web site, it's also become the center for some truly excellent analysis and news aggregation on the Ukraine War. The denizens are overwhelmingly anti-Tankie.

Anyhow, a community member has been doing some amazing 3D terrain renders to show how terrain is going to affect upcoming fighting. Previous coverage of the Svatove direction shows just how hard its going to be for Russia to defend a lot of the positions.

The latest is on the Mylove area. link Yeah, the Dnipro/Dnipr is really big …

Dragon Gunner wrote:
"Tall grass instead of treating open terrain as a manicured golf course. (I just played in a 1941 Russian front game my poor Soviets should have been able to go prone and hide on the steppes)

I remember in WRG 1925 – 50 (the later version), when you had normal terrain, everything that wasn't 'terrain' (woods, marshes etc) was open. But if you were in tropical (Pacific theatre and SE Asia) woods became "jungle" and open country became long grass, with poor visibility and bad going. I'm sure something similar could be done in a scenario involving long steppe grass.

Dragon Gunner also wrote:
"Minor folds or depressions in the ground. (Never represented in games infantry should be able to hide and take cover in relatively minor terrain features."

This is sometimes abstracted into visibility distances that are less than theoretically possible, and "to hit" rolls that are harder to allow for the fact that there are folds in the land too small to specifically model and take account of, but which mean a target is moving into and out of sight or only partially visible.

Cheers,
John

Erzherzog Johann I don't like random rolls for things they can do more harm than good. However this is one area where we do have some. our basic terrain definitions relevant are below.

12.2.13 Fields with crops, Scrub

Low Growing Crops

Low crops such as corn represent no obstacle to troops passing through them. However, they provide soft cover to troops Halted in them.

Tall Crops

Tall crops such as maize near harvest can only be passed through by elements in slow mode. Visibility is 10m maximum. They count as cover to troops operating in them. Vehicles leave tracks that provide no cover.
The ability of vehicles to see over crops is dependent on the height of the crops and the height of the viewing vehicle and potentially if it is un-buttoned or buttoned up. There is no useful generalisation so this must be defined in the scenario.

Scrub

This is defined as immature trees and thorn bushes. It classes as a minor difficulty area to vehicles. It is normally treated as for tall crops with the exception that the visibility may be increased in the range 10 to 60m. Our recommendation is 1 contour about 8 ft. which means, Most tanks need to be unbuttoned to see over the scrub.

Now this covers protection by terrain. We also allow troops to move in cover slowly unseen. The point is if they manage it they Break Line of sight and must be spotted again.

The problem is where do you stop?

Your post is interesting as I have just neen watching some Ukraine videos. (Combat Veteran) on Ukrain troops and presented me with a long time issue we have never comfortable solved. Vehicles in less than ideal cover, dare I say it High hedges or narrow strips of hedge/trees proably not more than about 20 ft wide and not that dence. None of our terrain definitions sits well on this.

My definition of this type of terrain is that a vehicle could be relatively easily spotted with a pair of binoculars if you knew where to look. The problem is where to look it takes time to scan large amounts of linear features like tree lined roads, hedges and the like.

Now currently all our spotting is either

Impossible somebody has to run out and get shot at to betray the position, Russians are renoune for getting conscripts to do this thary are "exendible" as far as regular troops are concerned.

Various levels of difficulty but ON AVERAGE taking more than a bound. troops dropping into cover as described abouve being one such case.

So for the tree lined road could it be an automatic spot but using a time typicaly less than one bound.

Now given Draggon Gunners and Erzherzog Johann comments and the straw man above. What are your insights into this difficult but interesting quation raised by Draggon Gunners and Erzherzog Johann.

"Russians are renoune for getting conscripts to do this thary are "exendible""

When I was in the 82nd airborne we would send our two junior privates to "clear" danger areas while the rest of the platoon would remain on overwatch. Frequently they would be shot dead by the OPFOR in force-on-force exercises (I had my share of clearing danger areas…) Western armies do the same thing.

I just had a talk with one of my coworkers an ex-army mechanized scout, he told me drones are changing everything.

Tall Crops

Tall crops such as maize near harvest can only be passed through by elements in slow mode. Visibility is 10m maximum. They count as cover to troops operating in them. Vehicles leave tracks that provide no cover.
The ability of vehicles to see over crops is dependent on the height of the crops and the height of the viewing vehicle and potentially if it is un-buttoned or buttoned up. There is no useful generalisation so this must be defined in the scenario.

So how are sunflowers near harvesting treated?

And if infantry in a watermelon field take fire, are they automatically portrayed as "covered in red gunk," but the effect isn't resolved until the unit tries to do something?

If an infantry unit has been soaked in ripe watermelon, how much easier are they to spot when they exit that terrain type?

emckinney – Maize I have experience of and its scary. You lose sight 6ft in of the field edge.

Sunflowers, the only pictures I have seen show far less dence than maize, possibly wider plant spacing.

Watermelon I would be interested in your prsonal experiences of being in such a field.

To be fair Ukraine is one of the key areas for sunflower fields and I have not been their and it was not our original intention to cover the whole world that well.

Ukraine also has lots of watermelon fields--the AFU just recaptured the famed "Watermelon Monument" in Kherson. That's why I jokingly brought them up.

inlgames.com/weed.htm

The modular bits for crops are set with clear lines and columns. The lines have a heavy penalty to LoS, and a light one to cross. Multiple lines for LoS add penalties. Simple visual correlation with the rules.

By doing a slightly randomized parquet pattern, you get a realistic situation where you can't target from a moderate distance, but you can if you end up close. It also provides "corridors" with LoS, which creates the situation that if you and I are in the right spot, we can see each other, but the guy right next to me can't see you, and so on.

For movement, the corridors in mostly parquet pattern give you the same realistic bit. As some spots in some directions, I can move at a regular clip, but most places in most directions I can't.

I'd say as a general rule the larger the ground scale--and hence the more abstract the terrain--the more the weapons ranges need to be reduced to allow for all the cover and concealment we're not showing on the table. And of course it varies with era and climate. Western European tank engagement ranges tend to be very close by desert of steppe standards.