[Kiwikkiwik]

Hello I would like to offer an enthusiastic congratulation for Cross and Imps ideas about vehicle unfriendly Forest/Tree hexs. I think it should go a step further and there should be an impassable treed hex type. The problem in the game that this solves is that tanks, trucks and motorcycles can hunt down infantry anywhere on the map whereas in fact forests provide a safe place for infantry to hide from such.

There is actually plenty of Forest that even tracked vehicles cannot move through.

In Asia there are jungles. The trees are enormous and throw out a set of buttress roots every bit as big as their canopies forming radiating interlocking 1 to 5 foot walls all over the place there is often a sub-story of smaller trees, so still more trunks about and then the actual profuse undergrowth at the ground level.

In Europe most forests existed because they were on unfarmable land, damp, rocky, steep or rough. In valleys just the slope itself can be too steep for vehicles let alone the added roughness of the going, trees and boulders. An entire valley can easily be too steep everywhere for vehicles. Though the game doesn't have slopes too steep for vehicles, impassable treed hexs would effectively be the same thing.

The problem is not just the tree trunks and roots running about. The ground they grow on is usually extremely irregular, supplying innumerable opportunities for vehicles to hang. Trees only grow where there is enough rain, wherever there is enough rain it always forms the ground into a series of small watercourses all these small steep slopes in combination with trees and boulders makes it impossible to get any sort of vehicle through.

Where the ground is permanently damp there is rarely trees but often dense 8 to 15 ft thickets of shrubs or brush that can be impenetrable even to Infantry.

Russia still contained vast tracts of virgin forest, tractless and unknown. These may have had flattish ground but would be full of fallen lumber.

The British who did some sterling statistical work on NW europe during the war, found that in general about 10 percent of that theatre was good tank country. They probably set a very high bar but in the game a good 90 percent of the scenery is tank friendly. Impassable treed hexes would bring the game closer to this British finding. The change would promote the use of all arms teams rather than charging around in tanks.
Cross makes a good point that for large patches the outermost edge should be about 1 or two hexes deep of vehicle friendly forest hex, but I think not religiously, Impenetrable tree hex can easily border clear/road hexes.