"I Hate Hedges!" Topic

I've been asked to put on a Bocage type game. It will be modern but probably not that different to WW2. Getting a map of a representative bit proved less than simple but in the end to save time looking, I used a WW2 map. I am doing a 1000m side square, no point doing more as there is no point nobody can see more than 300m and maey times 50m is pushing it. I hate hedges as even though I will use the articulated stuff which is fast to lay, a reasonably representative section will run me out of high hedges and we will have to pretend it's tall even if it is not.
I may even run out of that My guess is the 100om square will require some 60+m of hedgerow. Even at 1/144 that's a lot of hedge. Why do I hate hedges? Well you need so much of it. Personally as much as I hate them, having a "wargames table" amount (far too little) makes the game a farce, its got to be the right density like the real thing else its just fantasy not simulation and I do not DO fantasy.

How much hedge should I have, 40m tall and 40m lower? How much hedge do you have and in what scale? How do you feel about Bocage, it apparently exists in the UK in places.

Are you thinking of Devon? e.g.

Oh boy actually a bit to think of.

Spread and distances between.
Heights and thicknesses.
Are they on sunken ditches, flat earth or raised banks of earth?
Can they be forcibly walked through, drivebn through or even dozered through.
Age of the hedges, older the embankment the more like concrete.
Can they be dug into? or made as a 'bunker' with hedge on top counting as overhead.
Are the hedges overgrown into stone or rock walls.

A lot will be up to your imagination and if you have an example you want to model off of.

If your best distances are 300m, then it is a straight up infantry fight since everything in that range is toast against either 5.56 or 5.54mm caliber rifles.

Portable AT weapons and grenade launchers will rule and radio directed mortars are an absolute killer.

Have lots of infantry and be prepareed for the attacker to lose most.

Flashbacks from reading "The Clay Pigeons of St Lo" by Johns.(?)

I confess to being pretty terrain poor, so I don't have enough of just about everything except trees and 1/72 buildings.

Cheap hedges can be made by cutting scouring pads into appropriate sized strips and flocking them.

And here's how I did hedges with scouring pads: link

I never went on with the half-round architectural molding since the air filter stuffing didn't work. Then I acquired a large number of already made hedges/bocage and have been using it as well as the scouring pad ones I made.

Jim

Which is probably what I will end up doing.

Whirlwind's picture is typical of a hedge on top of a Devon-bank. Overall eight feet tall (2.4m), the bottom is solid earth, stones, roots, and fallen boughs.

Somewhere online there is a good description of how the Germans defended this bocage – they cut through the bottom to make dug-outs and used silent MGs to cut-up flankers.

Are you going to sport those Sherman tanks with the hedge-trimmer attachment?

Not just Devon – there are many places in 21st century Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire/Hertfordshire (ie after clearances etc) where you wonder exactly how did they get through bocage.

Well it went well, some Armour used as transport but not really to fight. I will put up the map and link to the map I used. It did look and fight differently we used less than I thought, Probably only about 27m. However we think it may be fun for a show but we don't have enough tall hedge so I recon at least another 6 or 7 m of tall hedge needs to be printed. We will still have to pretend but it will look better with more tall hedge. Pictures tomorrow hopefully on the 1/144 board.

My Springer spaniel can get through any hedge – to her, they're a recreation opportunity rather than a barrier.

Irrelevant, I know.

DBDD

So here is last evenings game layout. Much imagination is needed as all the hedges are supposed to be 9ft tall. I just don't have that many high hedges. The printer is currently working to remedy this.

link

Some interesting thoughts we had no Mortars but they may not have been much use. The field boundaries in many cases were inside danger close so the observer would not be in a safe position if he called the fire in: does this seem credible? This was done at 1/144 and a better guess was it used about 10m of hedge. You could just about do this game at 1/72 on an 8 by 6 board. However you would need a good 20m of hedge. I ran out of hedge hence some gaps, we assumed the gaps were there to make visualization easy. .

If they have 60mm mortars, those things can get ridiculously closer than you think.

Nice lay out.

I do 28mm and like the scouring pad ideas.
Another idea is simply cut up and craft paint sponge and a touch of flocking to suit.

Believe it or not hedgrerow country can hide a lot of armoured vehicles very well. Better than most people think.

Thank God I served at a time when the old guys still passed on the corporate experience.

Wellk I hate hedges but not as much as bad terrain. So Have bit the bullet 5m of tall hedge printted and texture added with hot glue. "Just" got to spray them, add lots ofhinge pins then paint them.

My old unit [Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry] fought in the bocage in Shermans in 1944 and speaking to some of the 'old and bold' it was hard work. The banked ditches that passed as roads were difficult to get a tank out of to be able to fire into a neighbouring field; however they did and advance was by way of mass prophylactic fire, i.e. shell the next hedge to death before advancing to it. There are several books by members of the regiment that go into more or less detail. David Render's is probably the best as he was a new boy so he described what he learned as he learned it.