domfluff

CM does not calculate LOS from five heights. The Target tool calculates LOS from five heights, and populates a look-up table at the time the map is built. This is why the Target tool can, and has always, operated without lag, since it's only checking a pre-filled table. This is also why the Target tool isn't the best measure for when a unit actually has line of sight. It's usually pretty close, but it's not actually correct. Actual LOS is tracked from eyes/sensors. Where those are defined on the model is the question in this thread.

I mean, it's certainly possible, just not at 100m, or where you want to trigger a move after a close-ranged ambush has been completed. That's a very different thing from a fighting withdrawal, and that's outlined as above (setting up a 2km killsack and a 1km withdrawal line, in the example of the US in CMCW). The AI will even help you with this - the withdraw order pops smoke for you and other things, to better represent breaking contact. If you wanted to get particularly exciting, you could trigger on-map mortars to do final protective fires as well.

AI aside, you definitely don't want to be trying to do a fighting withdrawal at 100m, that's not really possible for anyone. You really want to be looking at your engagement ranges - for the sake of giving actual numbers, we can take the US in the Cold War, either emulating Active Defence, or a more generic cavalry screen. In this case, the engagement range really starts at about 2km, and 1km is the threshold for starting to pack up. These ranges are doctrinal, but they're from the range of the AT weapons - 2km will be TOW and 1km is the range of Dragon. This means you need to site them somewhere (possibly using TRPs) where they can engage at 2km with TOW and cannon, then to draw a terrain objective trigger in a 1km radius around the unit. The actual order you'll want to give is anything below Dash - you want them fleeing in sections, rather than all at once - but precisely what order makes the most sense depends on the circumstance. Now, an actual "wait until they're in 100m, wait until they're all killed, then withdraw" isn't really possible with the CM AI triggers. You're best leaving them in-situ in that case (and you're likely to be combat ineffective after a 100m engagement in any case), or using a time trigger if not.

Which is a long way to say "yes, terrain affects line of sight", which I'd have thought would be obvious.

We know the broad outlines of how this works in CM. LOS and line of fire are different calculations, and this includes the concept of "hindrance", as per Advanced Squad Leader or similar. Broadly, you take the terrain features of each tile between firer and target, and the most-blocking terrain (e.g., tall grass) will negatively affect the spotting calculations. The actual firing is calculated explicitly. Mass, air resistance, etc. are all modeled essentially 1:1, but spotting is a slightly more abstract model. This, again, is how spotting is modeled in everything that tries to model spotting, since spotting models have existed. Stochastic simulation is a close match for real world behaviour, especially when you're looking at a game with the level of fidelity of cm (as in, platoon level). The detection/identification step is part of that, naturally - cm's identification model presumably isn't particularly complex, since partial spots are clearly "tank" or whatever, and not more granular than that.

In terms of a Koopman search, absolutely. Depending on the model, how you define and vary K is pretty much the definition of the level of precision of the model (and more precise isn't necessarily better). The main thing is really that there's an e in there somewhere - the larger the area there is to search, the harder it is to find. That kind of self-referential thing usually needs an e or a natural log. Now, I have no idea if CM spotting uses a Koopman search - that's just the oldest and one of the most basic models that could be used. The outputs are likely to look really similar though.

The TPN-3 is not a thermal optic. It does have passive night vision out to a decent range, which a lot of the earlier models lacked, but it's not comparable to a thermal optic. Direct comparisons of those are always a bit deceptive - in the below case, this is looking at something a tiny number of metres away, which isn't really indicative of any kind of real situation, but it gives you an idea of how much of an advantage a modern optic gives you: https://packaged-media.redd.it/lqjq2oe3zzu81/pb/m2-res_720p.mp4?m=DASHPlaylist.mpd&v=1&e=1683761911&s=fce3986b5d013acede59eb3727f2b360cced2c80#t=0 (Ukranian T-64 with thermal sight, compared to the regular one). The thermals in CMCW aren't going to be of the same resolution to pick out details, but they'll certainly be similar in terms of contrast, and finding hot tanks against a cold background. Of course, none of this minutia is actually the point of this post. The Soviet tanks do indeed have worst situational awareness than the US ones in CMCW. They also have significantly better fire control systems, a much scarier armament, and superior protection. They are in most respects superior to the US tanks, until the generational change that happens with Abrams and Bradley (and to a lesser extent, the M60A3 TTS). This naturally leaps ahead of the Soviet designs, and this was late enough such that it wasn't something the Soviet Union ever really caught up with. I've mentioned before that I think the best way to approach CMCW is about 1980 or so, and with Strict rarity, if you're playing a QB. The more thermals you add, the more the game looks like Shock Force.

Ah, sorry, that's the Quick Battle AI behaviour. For scenarios the AI ignores deployment zones.

Huh, just ran a test of that. I know I've seen that behaviour before. Lemme check a couple of things, but this may just not be correct.

Not quite. AI Setup zones are useful because you can vary them with AI plans. If you always want them to set up in a specific spot, you're probably best not using the "Setup" part of the unit AI plan, or perhaps setting them up on specific, dotted areas. If you paint a deployment zone, and do not set a setup zone in the AI plan, and you setup the AI unit inside that deployment zone, they'll be placed at random inside that zone. This is rarely a good option, but it might be useful for something.

If you paint a setup zone, they will set up there. If you do not paint a setup zone, but you paint a deployment zone and start them inside it, they will set themselves up randomly in that deployment zone. If you place them outside a deployment zone, they will set up there.

We know that the spotting model in CM is done from pairs of eyeballs (so an infantry section will have perhaps 10 different chances to spot something), and that there's a larger chance of spotting directly ahead of the spotting eyes, than to the periphery. Moving targets and large targets will inevitably be spotted faster. The individual optics for each position are modelled, so (for example) a tank with a decent thermal optic on the gunner's sight will have the gunner spotting better than the driver. Depending on the vehicle, commander's often have access to the gunner's sight, and sometimes have an independent sight of their own (to a large extent that's what the M60 cupola is doing). Plenty of other factors will be at play here, including the individual line of sight of each spotter (it's entirely possible for a tank commander to see something and the gunner's sight to be blocked by complex terrain). and the soft factors involved, not to mention the spotting contacts that have been shared across the C2 network. So sure, all things being equal, a stationary unit should tend spot a moving unit before the moving unit spots a stationary unit. I cannot imagine what hoops you'd need to jump through to engineer a situation where all things were actually equal, and even if this was the case, it can only be a probability and a tendency, there will always be outliers. In the case of armour specifically, the chances of spotting is also going to be atrocious (even in something ultra-modern like an Abrams or a Bradley, by comparison to infantry), so your initial chances of anyone spotting anything are going to be terrible. Your baseline in all situations, but especially in CMCW and the WW2 games, are that tanks are blind. Infantry are your spotters, and that's one of the many reasons why "combined arms" is a thing.

Also, of course there's an RNG aspect to spotting - that's how spotting has been modelled since there have been models for spotting. As the basic example, Koopman in Search and Screening (1946), who theorised that the detection rate is proportional to the solid angle subtended at the point of observation of the target. Since your chances of finding something is going to be harder the larger an area you're looking at, that's a base-e relationship of some kind. The Koopman probability of a detection in time t is P(t) = 1 - e^(-yt), with your y in Koopman theory being y=kh/r^3, h and r describing the height and distance to the target, and k being a value for how complex the search operation is. Call that a "dice roll" if you like, but that's how modelling this kind of thing usually goes.

No, I'm sorry, you're 100% wrong. A spotting contact *is* the unit's memory of a previous spot. A unit with a spotting contact will upgrade this to a full spot faster than one without a spotting contact. The spotting contacts are then the representation of a unit's "memory" (or, equally, intra-unit communication, or more broadly the ISTAR picture in general.) Now, that's the system as presented. Taking exception with that system is one thing, and one can certainly have opinions about that from a design perspective - any wargame design is a conflict between fidelity of representation and how that fidelity will end up being used, whether that's "playability" or something to do with the questions being studied - but to claim that this doesn't exist is just nonsense. The specific claim was "CMCW units cannot remember what they have spotted". This is trivially simple to disprove, and if you're using as a basis for an argument, your argument can carry no weight.

They do not have no memory of previous spots. This is (partly) what spotting contacts are, and why you upgrade from a partial spot to a full one easier.

On ISR as a force multiplier: I generally think the term "force multiplier" itself is a bit suspect, because it presupposes reducing combat strength to a single value, and then affecting that value with modifiers, which is a gross simplification. A useful fiction, perhaps, but shrug. As to the self-evident utility of ISR though, this (or any other enabler) were described by Clausewitz, in "Operating against a flank" Essentially, any enabler doesn't actually achieve anything by itself. I can put myself on your flank, but if I can't actually do anything with that, I'm not achieving anything. If I have perfect ISR, but no means to prosecute that, all I've learnt is exactly how screwed I am.

Oh, quite, but the player role in CM isn't a squad leader - control is usually two layers down, so the CM player is representing a Platoon leader in the lowest bound. This is naturally also the reason why there isn't more explicit control over other small-scale decisions, like ammo choice, and why building interiors are abstracted - it's just not a game which offers that level of fidelity. If it was, then controlling a battalion and perhaps even a company would be extremely tedious.

Doctrine. You'll note that the Panzergrenadier squad usually splits into two, each team with an MG42. The truck mounted ones split into three, because the panzershreck (or rifle grenade) teams are pushed down to the squad level (rather than being a separate team), so the "split teams" allows you to have two MG-centred teams and one AT team.

Soviet tactics were never about running into a killzone, at least not with your main body, or when there is any other choice. Recce elements, maybe, but then the point of those lead elements would be to set the conditions for the force behind them, which would typically flank in a position like this.

In both cases, this is using the M113 in a very aggressive manner, potentially exposing it to a significant amount of return fire. This is in stark contrast to BAOR practice with the ostensibly similar FV432, which would de-bus troops and withdraw to a predetermined muster point. Again, whether the manuals were being optimistic is a good question here, and one you really have to work out for yourself. The .50 cal is a powerful and versatile tool... whether it's enough to make up for everything else is the question.

The above would be the options for "Close mounted, dismount on or near position". When there was "an obstacle to mounted movement" or "strong defensive positions that cannot be suppressed", then you're dismounting, before closing with and destroying:

Panzergrenadier squads were in two teams, but these shouldn't be split with "Scout team" command by default (only sometimes, when useful) - default should be "Split teams", since each team gets an MG42, and the third is on the halftrack. For example:

Yup, stay mounted whenever you can. Dismount distance is "when forced to by circumstance", and depends mostly on the enemy AT assets. Effective range of unguided AT is about 300m, so that's your dismount distance from contested terrain. In the Cold War period, heavy AT would force dismounting up to 1km away from the target. Since maintaining tempo is critical, the further away you dismount, the less likely the attack would be to succeed. This doesn't mean it's not a good idea - it may be a poor choice, but still the best one available. As always, it's worth re-iterating at this stage that the US equipment, in any time period represented in CM isn't "normal" or "default", it's often represented some of the very best kit that can be purchased. Dragon has a number of flaws, but a squad-level ATGM is a highly unusual asset for the time period. Interestingly, "dismounting on the objective" wasn't something the Soviets tended to do. It was, however, something that was emphasised in US doctrine - dismounting directly on or behind the objective from an M113 were both encouraged (in addition to dismounting in cover in front of the objective). Whether or not you think that's a good idea is something that can be played with in CM in general.

I actually really like this idea.