What is Heide?

[Taipan61]

I've read and re-read the manual, but no where can I find a discription telling me what type of terrain Heide & Polder is. Polder I have since worked out by doing a Google seach, but I am still drawing a complete blank on Heide.

Anyone throw me a bone?

[Panzermann]

Woooo!

I can help! [:D] (at last)

"Heide" ist the german/dutch word for heath and it usually is a terrain covered by grass and bushes, sometimes with groups of trees.

Cheers,

Panzermann

[Taipan61]

Thanks mate...[:)]

[The_MadMan]

This is heide, Dropzone-Y, Ginkelseheide near Ede:


And this is Polder, Dropzone-O (Polish) near Driel:

[KNac007]

From the photographs they don't seem very different (in kind of ground and cover) [&:]

[Fallschirmjager]

I thought polder was a kind of swampy area?
Areas of sitting water...mud...places you would sink down into.
It seems I am wrong

[KNac007]

I thought the same. Or more like irrigated/inundated fields (like rice plantations or something)

[Arjuna]

Thansk for the pics. [:)]

What the above picture of Polder failed to highlight was the drainage ditches which surround most fields. Also as soon as it rains, polder fields get boggy and make vehicle crossing very difficult.

[The_MadMan]

Indeed, I'll try and take some pictures of the Island and post them here so you can see the country better (small roads, wide landscape, drainage ditches). This pic was the only one I had about this subject on my harddrive.

@KNac007
The terrain could hardly be more different, the ground under heide (heath) is sand and very dry whilst the polder ground is in essence river clay. Before we build the dikes the polders would flood when the waterlevel of the Rhine would rise, which happens on average twice a year.

In cover there is little difference but on heide tanks are not confined to the roads because the heide can handle heavy vehicles (and polder can't). Ofcourse after a dry period the clay becomes very hard and it'll support tanks better but it takes a while for the clay to dry out.

Finally, heide is always surrounded by trees and there is very little Heide in the netherlands, in HTTR it looks as if the majorety of the Netherlands is forrest and heide but this is almost it. The rest of the country is mostly polder.

[Marc von Martial]

Polder, the way most people envision it:

[KNac007]

Thanks for the description. The last image highlaight the differences much better.

As I told it is more like rice fields (here were I live there is similar ground).

[The_MadMan]

But the last picture is _not_ how polder usually looks like. Every now and then after very heavy rain it will look like this but not for long. The comparison with rice fields is totally wrong, in Holland polder is normal farmland where in example potatos grow.

A polder is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes and requiring drainage by pumps to maintain the water table within it from rising too high. The best known examples are those polders that constitute areas of land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the sea, and are consequently below the surrounding water level.

Polders are most commonly found, though not exclusively so, in the Netherlands the country they are frequently associated with.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Polder

[KNac007]

Ok, definitive clear now.