Question: Sighting

[Warnevada]

My friend and I are playing a PBEM campaign set in North Africa. It strikes both of us that it's harder to spot size 0 units on the open desert terrain than it was in wooded terrain in Europe.

Scout/patrol units fire many times (more than 5) before being spotted. Snipers almost never get spotted despite firing for several turns unless a unit happens to blunder into them.

Is there something about desert terrain that makes spotting harder?

The preference settings are the same in Africa as in Europe.

[Mobhack]

Is visibility less than you were using in Europe?. Lower visibility lowers the chance of spotting things. If you were using 80 before, and 30 now, then it'll be harder to see the small units.

Are the troops less experienced than the ones you were using before? - lower experience spot less well. I usually see moving AI scouts at 3-4 hexes with normal exp (70s) troops in desert or plains with regular visibility (50-70). Its a different matter if they are say 60 exp.

Other than that, there is no difference in plain desert terrain vs plain grass.

[jivemi]

Interesting. Just played a SPMBT campaign battle (advance) in desert as Israeli vs Sovs (Autumn 1986). A couple Russian T-12 100mm AT guns firing both shot and Kastet missiles at my tanks with 4 of my units (2 scouts and 2 snipers, experience level 70-plus to 90) within 30-35 hexes and clear LOS of enemy units with visibility at 57 were not spotted. Couldn't see any lingering smoke either. In fact it was so mystifying I thought maybe there was a bug or something until the battle ended and I finally saw them!

[jp10]

While I understand that the hex scale ignores effects that would not fill the hex, I believe that the dust effects from firing weapons are lacking in the game during desert battles.
This would not only be dust raised by a firing weapon giving away a position but also restricting the visibility/ROF of the firing weapon. While the dust cloud may not obscure for the entire time span of the turn and warrant a dust effect on the hex, an increase in being spotted would replicate the RL situation facing gunners in such environments to risk holding their fire till sure of a hit/kill because of the firing effect.
examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7fhBm1ouSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg0DEb93bgc

There is a lot of talking in the videos. For the PAK 75 go to 6:30 the 37mm go to 5:30 for the firing.

[IronDuke99]

Excellent videos. That channel is very good for anyone interested in military weapons.

[RightDeve]

Originally Posted by jp10

While I understand that the hex scale ignores effects that would not fill the hex, I believe that the dust effects from firing weapons are lacking in the game during desert battles.
This would not only be dust raised by a firing weapon giving away a position but also restricting the visibility/ROF of the firing weapon. While the dust cloud may not obscure for the entire time span of the turn and warrant a dust effect on the hex, an increase in being spotted would replicate the RL situation facing gunners in such environments to risk holding their fire till sure of a hit/kill because of the firing effect.
examples: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7fhBm1ouSU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg0DEb93bgc

There is a lot of talking in the videos. For the PAK 75 go to 6:30 the 37mm go to 5:30 for the firing.

I think it's already replicated in the game. When a unit continuously fires its weapons for multiple turns, especially in high visibility map, it will generate a thin smoke on the same hex it stands. This not only obscures the target, but also reveals the firer (not only from the smoke, but obviously when a unit fires continuously, it is bound to be "revealed" on the map).

As SP scale is 5 minutes 50 yards, it's rather inappropriate to replicate the appearance of dust for every time a single weapon is fired.

[Imp]

Originally Posted by jivemi

Interesting. Just played a SPMBT campaign battle (advance) in desert as Israeli vs Sovs (Autumn 1986). A couple Russian T-12 100mm AT guns firing both shot and Kastet missiles at my tanks with 4 of my units (2 scouts and 2 snipers, experience level 70-plus to 90) within 30-35 hexes and clear LOS of enemy units with visibility at 57 were not spotted. Couldn't see any lingering smoke either. In fact it was so mystifying I thought maybe there was a bug or something until the battle ended and I finally saw them!

Size 1 fully stationary firer, any intervening obstacles to LOS like soft sand? Chances of spotting it at that range even for your 90exp guy would in my opinion be low.
Mid range ATGMs firing at 30+ often go undetected though could leave a dust puff if fire twice.

@jp10 firing units do produce dust same for all terrains as far as I am aware.

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by jivemi

Interesting. Just played a SPMBT campaign battle (advance) in desert as Israeli vs Sovs (Autumn 1986). A couple Russian T-12 100mm AT guns firing both shot and Kastet missiles at my tanks with 4 of my units (2 scouts and 2 snipers, experience level 70-plus to 90) within 30-35 hexes and clear LOS of enemy units with visibility at 57 were not spotted. Couldn't see any lingering smoke either. In fact it was so mystifying I thought maybe there was a bug or something until the battle ended and I finally saw them!

Your prospective spotters were at 1.5kms on a small target (AT gun) and were also over half the current visibility.

-Chance to spot goes down with range increase. Chance to spot at 1 hex is vastly more than chance to spot at 30.
-Chance to spot infantry and guns (non-vehicles) is rather low beyond 1km. Vehicles stick out like sore thumbs at all ranges, even if hidden in a wood line or similar. Moving vehicles compound the problem - its not easy to be sneaky-beaky even with a little kubelwagen.
-Chance to spot is further reduced at > 50% of current vis, at > 75% CV etc. (CV is your night fighting vision rating if at night, but if using that you get a penalty over eyeball Mk1)
-Were your spotters moving? - self movement reduces chance to spot, as with hitting chance.
-Did the enemy fire much? - if something is continually banging away there is more chance to zero in on him. If he pauses for a while and just takes a pot-shot now and then, less so.
- Were the guns in soft sand hexes? - that's cover. Cover helps reduce spotting chance, especially for non-vehicles.

The big word is chance - they will have rolled below the sighting possibility on each occasion the enemy double-fired (gun + ATGM, the latter being more "spottable"). Usually I would expect a 75mm+ ATG which fired at 30 hexes or so to pop into sight after 3-4 rounds. Those did not - chance was on their side.

[jivemi]

OK thanks again. Here's a save which shows the situation on Turn 6, one turn before the Merkava (C2) got whacked by a side shot. (After it fired on an enemy unit to the southeast I neglected to face it forwards again; nor did I bother to fire dischargers or smoke rounds just in case. Talk about criminal negligence!)

At this point the Scout V0 is within 25-30 hexes of the T-12's, which are deployed as a battery just south or west of the depression at 66,4, 65,3, etc. (they're around hexes 60,6, 59,3, 59,7--can't be precise 'cuz the game won't let me enter as human on the Russian side). All are in plain earth terrain.

Both scouts and snipers were moving (running?) at 6 mph, so they didn't see the unit which fired earlier that turn at AE0, the Nagmachon moving 10 hexes ahead of C2. (I'd planned to bring the APCs in line oblique to it back to pick up the foot-slogging core infantry, but ditched that idea after AE0's close call. Which makes my failure to protect the Merkavas even more inexplicable.)

Let the game run through turn 7 without firing or moving anything to see what would happen. This time both rounds (one shot, one missile) from one of the T-12's (at hex 63,5) missed, and it was spotted! So it would seem that moving has a decidedly deleterious effect on spotting, as one would expect. The game system stands up under close scrutiny yet again .