Infantry locating distant AT-guns despite heavy fog

[Bulletpoint]

In CMFB, I'm playing a scenario where dense fog blocks LOS at 140m, yet my infantry team picked up the contacts of two firing enemy AT-guns at 536m distance.

The AT-guns are firing blindly at the ground at two locations where I have no troops. Not sure if it's because they have an AI area fire order or if it's some bug.

The scenario is ' Baraque de Fraiture'...

[Vanir Ausf B]

Weapon fire temporarily increases the range at which the firing unit can be spotted or detected in darkness (especially) or poor weather.

[Bulletpoint]

Ok. Not sure how it would be possible. Maybe the muzzle flash would light up through the fog?

Edited March 9, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[SlowMotion]

I played a CMBN QB with some  extreme settings (night etc) where LOS seemed to be less than 10 meters.
A tank was often just next to an enemy tank and still it wouldn't spot it, no matter how long I waited.
Or a vehicle was right next to enemy so it could see it, but usually wouldn't fire it. Even with Fire command.

It was the weirdest QB I've played.  I really wished I could have used vehicle lights briefly to see if there's anything ahead of the vehicle.
Or infanry flares like we now have infantry smoke.

[John Kettler]

There was a case from the Battle of the Bulge in which a scared young soldier, who wasn't FA at all, found himslf directing fire onto a German troop concentration (a regiment, I think) while fogged in. He did it by direction of the sound, then listening for screams and shrieks as round after round was fired in adjustment both to deflection and range. When he heard the screams and shrieks, he reported back and the FA went to FFE. I've read similar accounts from the Eastern Front using the sIG 33 15 cm howitzer. Would note, though, that it's a lot easier to hit a big body of men than a relatively tiny ATG position. Unless the ATGs keep firing, there shouldn't be further refinement on their true locations. Now if the artillery survey boys have their mic lines out, that would be different. I've read of a battle in which the Germans pounded away, we pounded back, then went doggo while we systematically sound located all the German guns, When we came roaring back into the fight, we hit 'em with everything including Corps artillery, smashing the German batteries clean out of the fight.

Regards,

John Kettler

[rocketman]

There are some vids on Youtube of Pak40's fired in modern day. The muzzle flash is quite impressive. If I remember the scenario it is set at dark/fog so I'm not that surprised that the flash is seen and spotted. Remember also that vision in the dark is much more sensitive to any sort of light/flash. You can spot the light from the glow of a cigarette from a long way away, something snipers took to their advantage to get head shots.

[Vanir Ausf B]

1 hour ago, Bulletpoint said:

Maybe the muzzle flash would light up through the fog?

Or a sound contact.

[Heirloom_Tomato]

There is a large Cargill Grain Elevator about 2 km away from the farm where I work. There are several large overhead bins they use for filling trucks or wagons and when it is time for the driver to move ahead, the loading guy bangs a metal rod on the hand rail of the overhead walkway. Twice to move forward and twice to stop. The other day, it was foggy here, two hour bus delay for the kids, kind of foggy. As I was walking into the barn first thing in the morning, I heard them loading trucks and the metal banging sounded very close by. Visibility was less than 200 meters but the sound of the metal banging sounded as if I was in Cargill's yard loading our wagons. It would make sense to me that if the battle is at night and foggy, a sound contact would be very plausible.

[akd]

Sound contacts don't result in spotted units, just "?s".  Do you mean the infantry spotted the AT guns, or just got "?" contact markers?

Edited March 10, 2018 by akd

[Bulletpoint]

5 hours ago, Heirloom_Tomato said:

Visibility was less than 200 meters but the sound of the metal banging sounded as if I was in Cargill's yard loading our wagons. It would make sense to me that if the battle is at night and foggy, a sound contact would be very plausible.

But would you be able to pinpoint where that sound was coming from in the fog?

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, akd said:

Sound contacts don't result in spotted units, just "?s".  Do you mean the infantry spotted the AT guns, or just got "?" contact markers?

I mean ?-markers. I'm getting contact markers for firing guns at 530m distance, when max visibility is 130m.

In foggy conditions in this game, it's difficult to actually spot anything at even half of maximum visibility, so being able to pinpoint the exact firing positions of those guns at five times maximum visibility from sound alone would be quite a feat.

So I guessed maybe the muzzle flash would somehow cut through the fog and explain getting a contact.

[Josey Wales]

32 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

I mean ?-markers. I'm getting contact markers for firing guns at 530m distance, when max visibility is 130m.

In foggy conditions in this game, it's difficult to actually spot anything at even half of maximum visibility, so being able to pinpoint the exact firing positions of those guns at five times maximum visibility from sound alone would be quite a feat.

So I guessed maybe the muzzle flash would somehow cut through the fog and explain getting a contact.

I'd assume it must be the noise rather than the flash hence the use of fog horns on ships and shore locations when lighthouses where in effective in heavy fog.

I'd prefer to see the contact markers '?' to show a scattering effect though so that several turn up in different locations when the gun fires, perhaps with the scatter area reducing with each subsequent shot although never fully reducing to an exact pinpoint location.

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, Josey Wales said:

I'd assume it must be the noise rather than the flash hence the use of fog horns on ships and shore locations when lighthouses where in effective in heavy fog.

Of course it's possible to hear a fog horn or a cannon firing even when it's foggy

But is it possible to _locate_ a position from sound alone? (without special equipment)

I thought fog horns just gave a basic warning that the ship is getting close to the shore.

7 minutes ago, Josey Wales said:

I'd prefer to see the contact markers '?' to show a scattering effect though so that several turn up in different locations when the gun fires, perhaps with the scatter area reducing with each subsequent shot although never fully reducing to an exact pinpoint location.

I like this idea. The first time I played CM, I thought that's exactly how it worked. It was only some time later that I realised that a contact marker is always exactly on the location of the unit.

Actually I even watched a youtuber explain to his viewers that "so this contact marker just tells us there's a tank somewhere around here, but we don't know if it's actually here or here or here..."

Edited March 10, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[Erwin]

4 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

I thought that's exactly how it worked.

Bloody hell.  I have been playing CM2 for 10+ years and I always thought it was an approximation!  NB: In CM1 a sound contact is definitely only a very vague approximation and not useful to shoot at. 

But in CM2, lighting up vs sound contacts in CM2 is accurate fire?

[Bulletpoint]

7 minutes ago, Erwin said:

But in CM2, lighting up vs sound contacts in CM2 is accurate fire?

Yes. Unless the enemy has moved away from there since you got the contact.

[Erwin]

Makes a big difference.  At the start of a CM2 game I would never bombard a sound contact on the assumption that it would be so approximate that it could waste a lot of ammo (as it would do in CM1).   Now it's worth it.

Edited March 10, 2018 by Erwin

[Heirloom_Tomato]

11 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

But would you be able to pinpoint where that sound was coming from in the fog?

Pin point? No. General direction absolutely. Add in the muzzle flash and the probabilities of a reasonable spot chance go up. I am assuming the guns your troops spotted have fired multiple times and not just once.

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, Heirloom_Tomato said:

Pin point? No. General direction absolutely. Add in the muzzle flash and the probabilities of a reasonable spot chance go up. I am assuming the guns your troops spotted have fired multiple times and not just once.

Yep, they fired several times. But what does "max visibility range" mean in fog, exactly? Is it the range where everything turns white and nothing is visible? Or is it the range where only large features such as buildings are possible to discern?

In any case, I think five times that range would block any muzzle flash. Just like when there's fireworks on a foggy night - after a certain range, you don't see the actual burst any more - the whole fog just briefly lights up.

[Vanir Ausf B]

There can be up to 3 different max visibility ranges at the same time:

1) Maximum area fire distance 

2) Maximum "?" spotting distance 

3) Maximum confirmed spotting distance 

[MOS:96B2P]

3 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

There can be up to 3 different max visibility ranges at the same time:

1) Maximum area fire distance 

2) Maximum "?" spotting distance 

3) Maximum confirmed spotting distance 

Interesting.....................

[Bulletpoint]

11 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Interesting.....................

Yep. I had no idea either.

It also explains another issue I had in the same foggy scenario: My infantry got a ?-contact on an enemy tank, which I then used a runner to share with a StuG. I then moved the StuG forward so that the enemy tank contact was just within the StuG's maximum LOS. I unbuttoned and waited for the StuG to spot and kill the enemy tank. However, nothing happened for many, many turns. I was surprised by this, because I assumed maximum LOS was also maximum spotting range.

I guess what happened was that the enemy tank was outside of confirmed contact range. If it had opened fire, it would likely have been spotted quickly, but as long as it just sat there, I had no chance of spotting it.

[MOS:96B2P]

23 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

<Snip>  My infantry got a ?-contact on an enemy tank, which I then used a runner to share with a StuG. I then moved the StuG forward so that the enemy tank contact was just within the StuG's maximum LOS. I unbuttoned and waited for the StuG to spot and kill the enemy tank. However, nothing happened for many, many turns. I was surprised by this, because I assumed maximum LOS was also maximum spotting range.

I guess what happened was that the enemy tank was outside of confirmed contact range. If it had opened fire, it would likely have been spotted quickly, but as long as it just sat there, I had no chance of spotting it.

I like the way you used the runner to inform the StuG.  I do the same thing.  

Below is another interesting bit of information this thread made me think of.  After finding the link I noticed that you and I were both part of the conversation in the other thread so this is not new to you.  But since I went through the trouble of looking at my notes and locating it I posted the link anyways.  Maybe others reading the thread will find it interesting. 

Good job on getting @Vanir Ausf B to post.  He almost always has interesting insights on the game mechanics.   Below is the other link. 

 

There is a common misconception that the distance at which enemy units can be spotted is also the maximum distance anything can be seen. In fact the former is usually a small fraction of the latter. The blue target line shows how far a unit can area fire (LOF). On a clear night this can be hundreds of meters while spotting distance may be a few dozen meters.

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Below is another interesting bit of information this thread made me think of.  After finding the link I noticed that you and I were both part of the conversation in the other thread so this is not new to you.

Hmm actually it was new to me, because what I thought I understood from that discussion back then was that the LOS showed maximum spotting distance, but that spotting anything at max distance would be very unlikely. Still thought there was a small chance, given time and with a good quality spotter.

Now I understand there's actually a hard cap on spotting the starts way before max LOS, and which can lift momentarily if an enemy unit fires. That's good to know.

[Erwin]

Yes, useful info.  Helps a lot re how to play.  Thanks...

[akd]

There is no single “maximum spotting distance” in any given scenario, because it depends on spotter, what is being spotted and conditions.