So vehicles and tanks cannot into woods???

[UltimateIdiot]

There's a lot of funny Hollywood-inspired myths about tanks. There's this notion that a tank is some sort of invincible off-road breaching machine that annihilates anything under its glorious treads.

The reality, especially for older WWII tanks, is honestly kind of pathetic by comparison. Tanks are notoriously susceptible to mechanical break-down and have massive maintenance requirements just to keep them running -- and that's in ideal conditions, not actual battlefield conditions. Now, it's true that tanks are relatively good off-road vehicles, for obvious design reasons, but not nearly as good as lots of people seem to think. "Off-road," for a tank, means grassy fields, hard-packed sand, gravel, and other relatively flat and unobstructed terrain, where tanks can drive quite well. Actual rough terrain with lots of uneven elevation, ground cover, rubble, trees, large rocks, or basically any obstacle whatsoever is a great place to drive a tank -- if your objective is to get your tank stuck in a ditch, permanently, with an entire track coming loose. Driving a tank into rough terrain is ludicrously stupid, despite what Hollywood-style imagery would have you believe.

I imagine that my army-service is then worthy of a Hollywood-movie, as we only operated our tanks in a plain field once, and even that was hardly grassy, level ground.

Now, while you're bang-on when it comes to maintaining WW2-era tanks (modern ones are much, much better), the off-road capabilities you describe aren't true, atleast not to the extent you describe it. Rubble, rocks, ditches are problematic, yes, but I think we all understand that.

They're more than capable of going through forests, then and especially now. The thumb-rule is to take your tank's weight in tons, and it gives you how thick trees you can drive over in centimeters. So a Panther, weighing 44.8 tons, can fell down almost 50cm trees.

They just try not to do that, because it'll leave all non-tracked support elements behind, it leaves the tank/tanks vulnerable for a time as you can't turn your hull, can't rotate the turret, and it's time-consuming. But that isn't the same thing as it being impossible. Bocage was bit of a different thing, I recall that they could go through the hedgerows (with some level of pain), but the end-result was more often than not some German guy blowing up the tank. It was considered much safer to try not to, or to blow the whole hedge away, and rush through the gap before the enemy had time to recuperate.

 

[GoraSahib]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_tank

So, while Im certain that in many places armor and halftracks could pass through the hedgerows and tree lines in the Bocage country, in many places they could not - and required special modifications to do so. The Allies during the Normandy campaign were delayed longer than expected in large part because the Bocage provided perfect country for defense and greatly restricted mobile warfare. Eugen is modeling this by not allowing movement into dense forest. Its a game play compromise to approximate historical fact. And its a good one.

 

[UltimateIdiot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhino_tank

So, while Im certain that in many places armor and halftracks could pass through the hedgerows and tree lines in the Bocage country, in many places they could not - and required special modifications to do so. The Allies during the Normandy campaign were delayed longer than expected in large part because the Bocage provided perfect country for defense and greatly restricted mobile warfare. Eugen is modeling this by not allowing movement into dense forest. Its a game play compromise to approximate historical fact. And its a good one.

Very much this. Bocage is a bit different from your standard European woodland, as the thick hedgerows had been growing for a long, long time, and were bordered by deep ditches. It was by no means impossible, but it did take effort to go through on a tank - and you often ended up just exposing yourself, and alerting to the enemy where you're going to breach, while being unable to fire back yourself. That's why they ended up blowing up the hedgerow whenever they could.

 

[Tank Girl]

What I mean is:

EUGEN (again) is limiting possible tactics and creativiy in a game completly by some radical decisions which are both unrealistic and bad for gameplay.

A better decision would be to give the player a CHOICE. Chosing your tactic is a big part of a wargame, especially on the wargame/Steel division level.
Taking it away is just sad in my eyes and currently the biggest let down with Steel Division (which appears to have quite a potential in general).

Hedgerows and forests could make ur vehicles stuck or detracked or more vulnerable for a period of time, to make you pay for your "unorthodox" decision.
But just taking that choice away from the player? a big no....

 

[Graphic]

EUGEN (again) is limiting possible tactics and creativiy in a game completly by some radical decisions which are both unrealistic and bad for gameplay

If you don't like it, fine, but don't assert things that aren't true. Vehicles not being able to pass through bocage is realistic and adds more tactical depth to the game, not less. Let tanks pass through bocage and enjoy it as players just attack move their Panthers and Jumbos through them without giving a fuck about their flanks.

 

[UltimateIdiot]

What I mean is:

EUGEN (again) is limiting possible tactics and creativiy in a game completly by some radical decisions which are both unrealistic and bad for gameplay.

A better decision would be to give the player a CHOICE. Chosing your tactic is a big part of a wargame, especially on the wargame/Steel division level.
Taking it away is just sad in my eyes and currently the biggest let down with Steel Division (which appears to have quite a potential in general).

Hedgerows and forests could make ur vehicles stuck or detracked or more vulnerable for a period of time, to make you pay for your "unorthodox" decision.
But just taking that choice away from the player? a big no....

Problem is, you'd have to penalize them heavily for making that choice or otherwise it'd be the obvious choice to make to escape anti-tank guns and enemy tanks that outrange you, to the point where we'd have a thousand posts a day asking it to be buffed. As you said yourself, moving a tank platoon through a forest, while certainly possible, was heavily unorthodox due to the limitations to combat ability and readiness it posed, and risky due to the prevalence of hand-held anti-tank weaponry, on both sides.

While making hedgerows and dense woods no-go-zones for vehicles is unrealistic in portraying their off-road capabilities, it's realistic in portraying their tactical usage at the time - sticking to roads and open areas.

 

[Dongs Galore]

The hedgerows of Normandy were well known for being nearly impassable to tanks. This was a huge factor in the campaign, making them traversable to vehicles would be unrealistic.

 

[Tank Girl]

How can you ever defend a decision that removes tactical depth from a game
Well, go on then.

You take the whining of soldiers from 70 years ago and make a rule out of it. That cannot really be your argument, hehe.
At least there should be some points where you can drive through a hedgerow. Curently they are like walls all over the battlefield, making flanking, especially with tanks, almost impossible since you have to drive insane distances to get to a point where you can pass through.

Add one or two spots where you can pass to each hedgerow and allow players to micro their units through them. Everybody wins...

In the current game, tank ambushes are almost impossible which is kinda boring, from both perspectives.

 

[Dongs Galore]

imo restricting the number of places tanks can hide increases 'tactical depth' by forcing players to maneuver their armor into and out of positions masked by terrain. If you want to keep your tank platoon safe and hidden while not in use you have to actually move it back towards the rear.

Much deeper than Wargame's paradigm of parking the T-80s on the edge of a wood indefinitely where they can fire from concealment without having to maneuver at all unless a cluster plane shows up.

The problem with tank ambushes is mainly that tanks rotate unrealistically fast and the ambusher misses too often, not that the hedgerows make them too hard to set up.

 

[GoraSahib]

I'm not sure there was much "whining" 70 years ago. Anyway, who is whining now?

It's a new game, different from Wargame. Adjust to it. I'm sure we will see more maps with more open terrain.

 

[Thonar]

It might be cool to see a differentation between Forests and Hedgerows with Forest being passable (with a movement reduction) but reducing LoS of tanks to 0 (so being unable to fight within them), except on the edges.
Hedgerows staying as impassable.

 

[mitchverr]

Churchill was the only tank I know of with the torque to go over hedgerows and this would have meant exposing it's belly. But going through large trees in older forests like the hurtgen... I have to read your sources for that! Please?

"Scots Guards Fighting Through the Bocage by Terence Cuneo.

Action of the right flank, 3rd Battalion Scots Guards during the advance from Caumont to Les Loges, Normandy, 30th July 1944. Commanding the Churchill tank, Lochinvar is Lt Robert Runcie later to become Archbishop of Canterbury."

Churchill flavour, infantry tanks should be allowed to stay with the infantry as they pass through the hedgerows, afterall, its their job to stick to infantry as Madmat said, they cant currently do that due to hedgerows

 

[Dongs Galore]

Breacher capability for certain units would be fine if the engine supports it.

e: candidates for this would be modified Shermans, Churchills and maybe engineer teams (as a time-intensive explosive breach)

The problem with this would be that Germany doesn't get any breacher tanks. Historically this was because they were defending and did not want to breach any hedgerows. In SD44's meeting engagements they are expected to attack as often as they defend which would disadvantage them.

 

[UltimateIdiot]

How can you ever defend a decision that removes tactical depth from a game
Well, go on then.

You take the whining of soldiers from 70 years ago and make a rule out of it. That cannot really be your argument, hehe.
At least there should be some points where you can drive through a hedgerow. Curently they are like walls all over the battlefield, making flanking, especially with tanks, almost impossible since you have to drive insane distances to get to a point where you can pass through.

Add one or two spots where you can pass to each hedgerow and allow players to micro their units through them. Everybody wins...

In the current game, tank ambushes are almost impossible which is kinda boring, from both perspectives.

Because it doesn't, it adds to it by restricting movement and areas where you can use tanks effectively, as it should. If tanks could go through forests in-game, it would turn to a "bring up a cheap tank/multiple tanks and attack move it through the forest". Especially with things like Churchill Crocodile and other flamethrower vehicles.

Honestly, it's a bit disrespectful to call genuine complaints "whining" - yeah, soldiers complain about a lot of things (all things, really...) because they only see the small picture, but for once their word can be taken as it is because this is an issue that existed and affected them at both small and large-scale. It is the argument against your suggestion because it was a prevalent fact that the bocage country hindered tactical movement and made it risky to cross the hedgerows. The solution US Army (for instance) found was to either use specialized tanks, or better yet, blow the whole hedgerow to the sky. I'd much rather see that as an option than tanks crossing hedgerows with no real disadvantage to it.

You can't just take away one of the defining characteristics of the Normandy campaign when the game is trying to portray the tactical situation as it was. It's irrelevant whether tanks can go through woods and hedgerows - they certainly can - when talking about a game, because the game is unlikely to portray the disadvantages of such to their full extent, or if it does, then the majority of players are unlikely to understand why they exist.

 

[Destraex]

What are woods in Europe like in the period? Are the trees so well spaced or so small that tanks could be on time for an assault, brushing them aside with no damage or strain to the tanks engine and transmission?

 

[Son of a Duck]

How can you ever defend a decision that removes tactical depth from a game
Well, go on then.

You take the whining of soldiers from 70 years ago and make a rule out of it. That cannot really be your argument, hehe.
At least there should be some points where you can drive through a hedgerow. Curently they are like walls all over the battlefield, making flanking, especially with tanks, almost impossible since you have to drive insane distances to get to a point where you can pass through.

Add one or two spots where you can pass to each hedgerow and allow players to micro their units through them. Everybody wins...

In the current game, tank ambushes are almost impossible which is kinda boring, from both perspectives.

"Tank ambushes" in Wargame Red Dragon is the most anti fun element in that game to be honest.

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

What are woods in Europe like in the period? Are the trees so well spaced or so small that tanks could be on time for an assault, brushing them aside with no damage or strain to the tanks engine and transmission?

It's still the same today, if you leave the beaten path, you will find everything in (Middle) Europe. Very often the forests are also mixed and contain wider areas, but also very small areas. Big trees and small trees or just bushes in certain places.

There are woods, where a tank could drive through. Not at fullspeed, but slow and steady. And then, there are also nearly impassable forests. Would be an interesting option, to have it modelled this way in the game.

 

[lordpepper]

For the video showing the leopard 1 breaking through the woods:

1. It's a post ww2 tank sporting a 850 HP engine. The Pz4 for example came with 300HP. So I dont think it can be compared to ww2 thech

2. The commentary states that the wood is in northern Germany (where woods are generally very light). This wood stands on sandy ground which results in low wood quality, plus trees can be easily uprooted.
I don't think they Bundeswehr could have done that in the woods of Bavaria or the Eiffel...

Also there is no undergrowth which is probably a big part of the challenge of crossing woodland.

3Rd you see the turret is reversed to avoid damage to the gun. The commentary also states that the driver is essentially blind. Both factors are bad in a combat situation.

 

[Tank Girl]

It would be at least nice to have a n option to:

A: destroy woods (like it happened in Red Dragon too, just with no effect!) to allow seeing through or at least drive through

B: have different kinds of woods, dense, medium, open which allow different units to enter...

 

[TheUrkkiMan]

It would be at least nice to have a n option to:

A: destroy woods (like it happened in Red Dragon too, just with no effect!) to allow seeing through or at least drive through

B: have different kinds of woods, dense, medium, open which allow different units to enter...

I am fairly certain the iriszoom game-engine does not allow the modification of cover values on the maps during gameplay.