Microsoft Close Combat manual First Encounters in the Bocage, Hedgerow Hell

76Close Combat

American GI's examining German positions in the bocage

“The Allied soldier never seemed to be trained as we were, always to try to do more than had been asked of us.”

Obergefreiter Adolf Hohenstein, 276th Infantry Division

opposite hedgerow corners at the back of the field to immo- bilize attacking infantry. Light machine guns and machine pistols in the hedgerows along the sides of the field can fire on soldiers seeking cover. An interconnected series of such strongholds forms a forward defensive line, behind which the Germans prepare a belt of battle positions with tanks and assault guns to add muscle to counterattacks. In these ideal defensive positions, small German units can sometimes repulse attacking forces five times as large.

The German bocage defenses are equally hazardous to tanks. Any tank that takes to the sunken roads between fields is in serious danger. Often, it can’t turn around or traverse its gun in such a tight space. Attempting to climb over the embank- ment between fields will expose the tank’s vulnerable underbelly to antitank weapons. Any tank crew unwary enough to motor into an enclosure unprotected will be blasted by antitank weapons. German 88-mm guns on the main roads pose a constant threat, and since the Germans

have fortified the stoutly built stone houses of the villages along those roads, it is dangerous to move at all. Tanks and troops remain equally vulnerable in the bocage until the Allies develop tactics to enhance mobility and improve tank-infantry cooperation.

First Encounters in the Bocage

To reach Saint-Lô, the Americans have to traverse 20 miles of what Bradley calls “the damnedest country I’ve seen.” Upon encountering the bocage, Allied infantry tend to stick to tactics learned in training, advancing two companies forward into a hedgerow enclosure. The

Hedgerow Hell	Close Combat Operation: German Side
By June 10, the 29th Division has crossed the	Now it is the German commander’s turn to try to
river Aure and is pushing south into the heart of	“change history” by bogging the Americans down in
the Norman hedgerow country—the bocage. Allied	the bocage. He can deploy a full complement of
planners estimate it will take a few days to fight	armor, artillery, and heavy weapons to inflict
through the bocage; instead it takes weeks. The	maximum casualties on the Americans.
distance the division pushes forward is not	Close Combat Operation: U.S. Side
measured in miles, but in yards.
	The American commander faces the same chal-
	lenge faced by the 29th’s commander—push
	through the bocage without decimating his unit.