Fresh meat

[PoorOldSpike]

Drat my e-mails glitching.
EDIT a day later- my email now seems to have cured itself, the trouble was at AOL's end haha..:)

[PoorOldSpike]

Aargh I thought my Russki rifle squad in the trees in the foreground wouldn't be spotted because I'd got them on Hide with a target arc on them, but to my surprise the advancing Germans spotted them and began shooting at them at around 60 metres range (that's German tracer coming in) and they started taking losses and getting rattled without firing back!
Maybe I shouldn't have put the arc on them, but I wanted to make them hold their fire til the enemy got closer where my weapons would have been more effective-



EDIT- after running some spotting tests later in this sensational thread, I found that enemy units will spot your infantry in lightish cover (woods with a light vegetation floor) at around 100 metres range, and in heavy cover (woods with a thick bushy forest floor) at about 50 metres. The above pic seems to be woods with a few decent bushes in there, so 60 metres seems about right.

[PoorOldSpike]

I've just noticed that white number (arrowed) at the bottom right of the screen, it changes to indicate the angle in degrees at which I'm looking above the horizon.
I don't remember seeing it before, so I presume it's a possible bug or something that's appeared out of nowhere and I don't know how to get rid of it-

[A Canadian Cat]

Aargh I thought my Russki rifle squad in the trees in the foreground wouldn't be spotted because I'd got them on Hide with a target arc on them,

Bummer - I am not a fan of hide. My game experience has been hide = die. I use hide when guys are stuck under an artillery barrage but that is about the only time. Even cover arcs are questionable most of the time.

[A Canadian Cat]

I've just noticed that white number (arrowed) at the bottom right of the screen, it changes to indicate the angle in degrees at which I'm looking above the horizon.

Always been there - since 1.0.

The only way to get rid of it is to depress the camera angle to below 0 and it will go away.

[Westland]

Camouflage is in CMBN ridiculous.Infantry will be quickly detected.Even in the densest forests.

[PoorOldSpike]

[re white number] Always been there - since 1.0.
The only way to get rid of it is to depress the camera angle to below 0 and it will go away.
Bummer - I am not a fan of hide. My game experience has been hide = die. I use hide when guys are stuck under an artillery barrage but that is about the only time. Even cover arcs are questionable most of the time.

Camouflage is in CMBN ridiculous.Infantry will be quickly detected.Even in the densest forests.

Yeah guys I'm going to run some tests, it seems the only way to stop the enemy seeing you is to put some hard cover between you and him like walls, hills and buildings

[PoorOldSpike]

.. For woods you need to add the light or heavy woods tile under the trees you have..

Thanks for the info mate, there are dozens of ground textures and tree types so I'll put some really thick heavy stuff on a map and run tests to see if the troops get better concealment in my Tactical thread here-

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...?tid=63492

[PoorOldSpike]

BUILDINGS AND SPOTTING
I put a Russian 11-man squad in each of these houses on Hide with short arcs, and we see that they can still see the approaching Germans about 200m away, even though they're lying on the floor below window height. We can assume that one or two of them keep snatching quick looks out the window..



The Germans spot some Russian units in the woods which were on Hide/short arcs and not firing, and begin shooting at them which confirms again that woods are poor for concealment. However, note the Russian squads in the houses are still not spotted..



The Germans haven't seen the Russians in the houses yet and continue advancing into their 30m covered arcs..



And all hell lets loose as both sides begin firing at each other at about 30m.
Conclusion- infantry on Hide in buildings won't be spotted until they fire, or if the enemy closes to about 30m and eyeballs them.

[PoorOldSpike]

I ran the test again with the Russian infantry on Hide in the houses, but this time I gave them very short 10m arcs to see what would happen.
The Germans advanced as before and spotted the squad in the house on the left at about 30m and began firing at it, forcing it to flee out the back door after less than a minutes firing! The squad had only suffered one casualty so I'm surprised they legged it so soon, but I think they were out of command (white arrow) to their platoon HQ which might have made them crack..




I then ordered the Germans to move into the other house, and amazingly they still hadn't spotted the Russians even though they'd closed to about 10m. Here the Russians fire first and blow away the point man as he enters the 10m arc..




And a pointblank firefight erupts, some Germans ran in the front door and were cut down, and others got it among the brussel sprouts..



But the Russians quickly call it a day and flee out the back door despite only suffering 2 casualties. They were out of command to their platoon HQ like the other squad which may explain their shakiness.
Conclusion- Houses give excellent concealment to units on Hide who are not firing, as they won't usually be spotted until the enemy gets to within about 30m or less.


PS- is there any way to make infantry advance in realistic line abreast? In all the tests above the Germans advanced in columns and I couldn't make them spread out.
I also need to brush up on command links, for example the squads in the houses had links to their Company HQ, but not to their Platoon HQ and Battallion HQ, must they have links to all 3 to be in command?
Incidentally all the tests were conducted on a clear sunny day with a random mix of units with various Experience/Motivation/Fitness and Leadership ratings, so in actual combat spotting might be better or worse depending on weather, night, troop quality, tiredness etc.
I also used the 'Warrior' difficulty level because it's the middle one of the 5 levels and gives a good balance of realism and playability.