Trees sticking out, bushes of differing heights, etc. There was no gardener with a hedge clipper putting a nice flat top in the whole affair.
Second … as others have mentioned, the tops should be unkept. Just cutting the hedge would have left a 3-6 foot berm to cross.
It would jam into the berm (NOT the hedge) and allow the tank to rip up the tangled web of roots and decaying plant matter as it pushed through. This, by the way, was the reason that the "Cullin's device" mounted on US tanks was so effective. So you should have a high berm of dirt underneath the greenery of the hedge. that were covered with accumulated dirt that was all compacted by rain and re-layered for centuries. The berms were in fact 3 to 6 feet high masses of tangled old plants, roots, etc. I'm thinking of replicating my process from above but simply using 1in pieces of scouring pad instead of 2.įrom my readings of first hand and historian accounts, and observations of hedges elsewhere, but no personal experience in old boccage in Normandy …įirst … one of the telling issues that distinguishes the boccage is that the age of the hedges led to layers upon layers upon layers. Tall enough to block LOS beyond, but short enough to be able to shoot to/from and cross. Looking at Street View some more there seems to be lots of hedge like terrain that's roughly man height. Historically, was bocage this tall fired from/through? I've done some checking on Google Street View and it seems like it varies now where some of the tall hedges are "loose" enough that someone could push through and some would need to be gone around or I guess over. I cut each scouring pad in half so they are around 2in tall each, so somewhere around 10-12 feet tall. I -think- these will end up looking nice. I'm planning to add clump foliage to the sides (hoping to get some sort of "grassy berm" effect) and glue some trees on. Ok, so I've started building some 28mm hedges for WW2 Normandy.įor bocage, I'm using green scouring pads (the off-brand from my local supermarket is a very natural green) flocked with Woodland Scenics green turf and glued to a brown painted wooden ruler. I am just in process of adding to my home made bocage: I have used hardboard off cut bases, polystyrene core, covered in cheap filler then sand and pva mix with real twigs inserted into core for trees (using lichen or similar later for foliage) before adding filler to cover core, and adding some hook like bits of plastic (from sprues) or soft wire, (or those wire twists you get on plastic bags) or literally skewers - not bamboo sort mind - to anchor hedging with my strips of cut/pulled/battered green pan cleaner over them.My first attempt to post got eaten by the bug. dry / wet brush hedge with pva and spinkle / heap on flock, again you could use different colours in different places (so just add pva partially as you proceed along hedgerow) over basic hedge to suggest differing plants / leaf colour or just pile on a varied foliage mix for more random look. (My thoughts would be that a longstanding hedge is likely to have many varieties of plants, including as you rightly add some trees, but the foliage would be variable from beech leaf red/brown to many greens.) ORĢ. dry brush on acrylic colours with flat wide brush. On tarting up your basic hedge (after your scissor work gave it a more varied range of height) you could add colour in two ways:ġ.
Tomm, excellent question you posed and a very informative photo review you provided in response to your own question! Excellently helpful to rest of us.