Beaucage/Bocage/Hedgerows Who Knows/Who Knew?

Perhaps the WWII experts on the board can explain something that's always
puzzled me. I've never understood why the Allies were so surprised by the difficulties they would encounter with the hedgerows/beaucage country
of Normandy during Operation Overlord.

I've read that aerial photography didn't clearly indicate the dimensions/depth of the hedges and that's understandable. But didn't they have access to information from the Resistance/Free French forces? Among them, there must have been plenty of people familiar with the area who also had the military backgrounds to foresee the German tactics in this area? The planning of the operation was otherwise so flawless that this seems a real anomaly.

I'd appreciate any info/insights on this.
Thanks in advance
 
Perhaps the WWII experts on the board can explain something that's always
puzzled me. I've never understood why the Allies were so surprised by the difficulties they would encounter with the hedgerows/beaucage country
of Normandy during Operation Overlord.

I've read that aerial photography didn't clearly indicate the dimensions/depth of the hedges and that's understandable. But didn't they have access to information from the Resistance/Free French forces? Among them, there must have been plenty of people familiar with the area who also had the military backgrounds to foresee the German tactics in this area? The planning of the operation was otherwise so flawless that this seems a real anomaly.

I'd appreciate any info/insights on this.
Thanks in advance

Bevin Alexander's book has some excellent descriptions of how the fighting and adaptations took place

It was a supreme oversight... like you said, there where free Frenchmen who hailed from those parts, there where Britons who toured there on holiday, and there where areas in Britain which had terrain that was similar where exercises should have been run.

Normandy represented the least evil in allied choices:

Belgium... too many water obstacles, terrain easily flooded etc
Pas De Calais... main German reserve divisions positioned there, strongest Atlantic Wall defenses there

Normandy had terrain difficulties (Bocage) which allowed for the Germans to easily fortify their infantry... and to eliminate fortified infantry in both world wars, you generally needed two things, fresh/well trained infantry and heavy artillery both of which the allies didn't have in excessive numbers.

Ideally of course all Sherman tanks should have been equipped with bulldozer blades, and more 155mm and 210mm guns should have been sent to conduct suppression missions on German mortar teams (Over 60 percent of allied casualties in Normandy where from mortar fire)... but even this only will partially reduce allied problems in the area

the truth of the matter is, that only a select few allied divisions had any serious combat experience and the infantry where going to have a difficult time until they where blooded plain and simple... you can see this evolution between St. Lo and the Aachan in the American divisions in particular

so in answer to your question, competant planning would have allowed the allies to break out faster and with less losses, but avoiding the slow down and blooding of their divisions is impossible given the circumstances their advance was bound to take
 
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