Syrian Airborne NVGs bug?

[Hapless]

Hello! Syrian Airborne troops seem to be equipped with night vision monoculars and night sights on their weapons, but only have a single piece of night vision equipment in their inventory.



It seems a bit weird because the NATO units have an NVG set for each soldier (ie. 8 sets for an 8 man squad). Plus, the Syrian Airborne appear to have NATO NVGs magically attached to their helmet brims? I can understand how it makes sense to reuse the NATO night vision monocular asset, but in combination with the discrepancy in the inventory it seems off.



I was wondering if all the squad members are supposed to have night vision, whether they're supposed to only have the night optics for their weapons or whether its only the squad leader seen as though they apparently only have one set between them? And more importantly, is it just a graphical bug or can they actually see at night?

[domfluff]

1 hour ago, Hapless said:

I was wondering if all the squad members are supposed to have night vision, whether they're supposed to only have the night optics for their weapons or whether its only the squad leader seen as though they apparently only have one set between them? And more importantly, is it just a graphical bug or can they actually see at night?

This one I can answer:

One airborne squad, split into two.

The leader has NVGs, and is on the right. That team can see the enemy, but the other team can not.

Left hand team, no NVG

 

Right hand team, one NVG

 

Which means that it's a graphical bug, essentially. Only the leader should have Night Vision, and it presumably shouldn't manifest as NATO optics.

 

[Traitor]

Does this mean that with just one NVG, the entire squad gets the benefits of Night Vision (I assume the leader passes on the spots to the team, but this happens pretty quickly as its all within the squad)?

I suppose that it's fine in normal combat, but it would also mean that if the leader is taken out, the squad loses that ability.

[domfluff]

That's harder to know, because we don't know exactly how line of fire calculations work, and can't see the information picture down to that level of fidelity.

Intuitively, and from what has been said, spotting calculations are done individually, so only the equipped solider can actually see. The unequipped soldiers will get the spotting information shared with them, so will be able to resolve that into spots better than they would alone, but the targets still have to be visible.

You can see something like this in a game like cmbs, where us troops with night vision can pass to Ukrainian troops without. In that, the spotting information is passed, but that still may not be enough to resolve into contact.

[Traitor]

Understood, thanks.

I suppose that means that individual soldiers in Syrian Squads are on average are slower to spot and in some cases cannot spot certain targets even with the leader being equipped with NVGs, as they're basically reliant on the leader and unable to do any real spotting themselves. I wonder if the same situation is played out with the binoculars as many squads across the games are only equipped with one pair belonging to the leader as well.

This is interesting though, I wonder if it's ever been a real doctrine for armies on a budget to equip only the squad leaders with night vision goggles and have the rest of the squad just try to work with what the leader can see and inform them of. Sounds like such a squad would be capable of area fire at best and only the leader would be putting out anything that can be considered aimed fire.

[Bagpipe]

Surely there is a rule somewhere about not necro'ing bug threads from years ago right? 
I just say what we are all thinking dont shoot the messenger 

[Traitor]

On 2/9/2024 at 7:22 PM, Bagpipe said:

Surely there is a rule somewhere about not necro'ing bug threads from years ago right? 
I just say what we are all thinking dont shoot the messenger 

Apologies, I'm not aware of that rule, my bad.

But is necroing bug threads a problem if the bug is still present in the game? Would probably be neater than making a new thread describing an identical issue.

[Brille]

With only one pair of NV goggles spotting should take much longer as only one guy is actually seeing anything. Same is with binoculars just not as crucial maybe because in daylight every soldiers can see at least to a certain distance.

 

This one is easy to compare: Just take british/Common wealth infantry in the ww2 era for example. Normal infantry squads dont come with any binoculars at all. The next one to have a pair would be the platoon leader.

Spotting at farther distances or revealing enemy troops in prepared positions or concealment is very decreased in comparison to a german or US squad for example.

Target acquisition for the rest of the squad members however should be at an instant more or less. So as soon as the squad leader has a solid spot, all the soldiers that have a line of fire, should open up closely after. Though I dont know how much impact on the accuracy it has when there are no additional nvg.

If the Commander then dies the goggles/binculars are gone and so the spotting decreases further, thats right.

But if you buddy aid said commander you have the possibility to regain the equipment and so regain some spotting capabilities.

 

[Erwin]

Have found that units close together may not communicate.  Eg:  A scout sees an enemy AFV.  An ATGM team is brought up and can be sitting right on top of the scouts.  But, the ATGM team cannot spot the tank.  (This was from CMSF2.)

[Centurian52]

Despite having played CMSF extensively, I haven't spent much time with CMSF2 yet. Based on my experience in CMCW though, particularly in 1979 scenarios in which some, but not all, of a US infantry squad may be equipped with NVGs (something like 1/3rd to 1/2 of the squad members have NVGs), I'd say that having some members of a squad equipped with NVGs gets you most of the benefit of having the entire squad equipped with NVGs. The squad members with NVGs can spot the enemy and open the firefight on favorable terms, with the rest of the squad soon joining the firefight as they spot the muzzle flashes from the enemy.

[Brille]

16 hours ago, Erwin said:

Have found that units close together may not communicate.  Eg:  A scout sees an enemy AFV.  An ATGM team is brought up and can be sitting right on top of the scouts.  But, the ATGM team cannot spot the tank.  (This was from CMSF2.)

I can test this one again though Im pretty sure units "Talk" to each other even If they are not in the same platoon.

Passing down information doesnt mean that one unit will spot what the other team has already spotted. 

They only get a good hint of the enemy position, so spotting can be quicker but it is not guaranteed.

Most of the time though units will rotate to a known contact or tanks turn their turrets to vague contacts, which will increase their possibility to spot as well.

But they have to find the targets themselves regardless.

Experience and softfactors play a role in that. And while I cannot prove it (yet) I would guess that the "leadership" factor is important here.

The way you call out a target, or as we say in the german military "Zielansprache", can make the difference if you spot a target or not or how long it takes. 

[Erwin]

6 hours ago, Brille said:

I can test this one again though Im pretty sure units "Talk" to each other even If they are not in the same platoon.

I tested this a lot several years ago in a CMSF mission.  A scout with one rifle with IR/NV (can't recall which) spotted one of more enemy tanks -  IIRC around 2Km range.  A Jav team was placed nearby... and then placed right on top of the scouts.  Even with its much more advanced optics the Jav failed to see the same tanks.  I cannot recall if it took 5 minutes or if the Jav team never spotted the AFV's.  (Just one of the many bugs in CMSF that never seem to get addressed.)

FYI:  Cannot recall name of the scenario.  It was some sort of CMSF training or ATGM test scenario (IIRC by GeorgeMC) but I couldn't find it in my folder (it contains an approx thousand CMSF scenarios).  

[Brille]

19 hours ago, Erwin said:

I tested this a lot several years ago in a CMSF mission.  A scout with one rifle with IR/NV (can't recall which) spotted one of more enemy tanks -  IIRC around 2Km range.  A Jav team was placed nearby... and then placed right on top of the scouts.  Even with its much more advanced optics the Jav failed to see the same tanks.  I cannot recall if it took 5 minutes or if the Jav team never spotted the AFV's.  (Just one of the many bugs in CMSF that never seem to get addressed.)

FYI:  Cannot recall name of the scenario.  It was some sort of CMSF training or ATGM test scenario (IIRC by GeorgeMC) but I couldn't find it in my folder (it contains an approx thousand CMSF scenarios).  

While this is an odd spotting behavior it is not right on topic.

Did or did they not get at least somekind of vague contact ? ("?"Symbol)

That would at least tell If they received the Info from the Scouts or witnessed that there is "something" out there.

And Im not that hasty to call it a bug neither as there are to little Infos to work with right now:

What stance had the Scouts and the Javelin team ? What were the properties of the vehicle ? Partially/ hull down or in the open ? Was there any Vegetation around ? Weatherconditions? Day or night ?

And a specific thing to the modelling of the Javelin itself: While I know that the Processing unit of the Launcher is used for scouting, I assume troops wont look through it all the time as it would consume battery capacity for cooling. Was this moddeled in CMSF2 or lives the battery long enough to not be considered for normal battle durations? 

 

Dont get me wrong, CM is known for its odd spotting at times. Sometimes a unit spots a thing where you would least expect it to and in other Times a unit spots nothing where one might think it should.

However this goes for all the installments and is not specific for CMSF2 I guess

Edited February 14 by Brille

[Erwin]

This is all from memory as I did this CMSF test several years ago:  Enemy tanks and ATGMs' were 2Km+ distance.  It may have also been hazy.

I chose several leg inf units.  An HQ, a FO, an inf unit that happened to have one rifle with NV/IR (I forget exactly) and a Jav team.  What I found was that the inf unit with rifle spotted as well (maybe faster?) as the Jav team (despite the Jav's xnt optical equipment).  IIRC the FO my have also had expensive optical gear.  The other units with binocs were much worse - ie: took a long time to spot.  I also tried putting units literally on top of a unit that had spotted an enemy.  But that did not help the new unit to spot faster.  Seemed to me that the units were incapable of communicating with each other.