Kaunitz

Slopes When you're working on a map, slopes can be tricky things. I think it's a good idea to share some thoughts about creating slopes. The crucial thing is not to accidently cut lines of sights by creating dead ground/reverse slope situations. Here are two examples: Here you can see a hill that rises gently at first and becomes a bit steeper to its top. In this case, units positioned on the top of the hill can see down in the valley and vice versa. There is no dead ground. In the game, this hill will have a "concave" feeling to it. (Note that on the very ridge itself, there will be some dead ground of course - but if you scale hills realistically, you won't be able to squeeze many hills/ridges onto a single map) In this case, the hill's slope gets more gentle towards the top. As you can see, this creates a significant dead ground (marked in red). In the game, this hill will have a "convex" feeling to it. If there are flat areas (instead of a gentle slope) somewhere on your hill, the effect is even stronger. My method is still developing, but I usually proeed in this way when I create elevations: 1. I define all the highest and lowest points/ridges of the map - these are my "base lines" 2. I define elevation info along lines connecting the highest/lowest terrain features, at regular intervalls (connection lines). I need to point out that I define every single elevation-change-increment along these lines. This gives me the control I need and usually it's also pretty to behold (no ugly "steps" in the terrain). Minor adjustments can then be made by placing single spots in between the lines. Here is an example of a connection line: In this case, the top of the hill is in the south. From the top downwards, there is a medium slope at first with -1 elevation for every (8x8m) square. I'm not a mathematician, but this would be somewhere around 12%. Then, however, from the 54m mark downwards, the slope becomes much gentler, with -1 elevation for every 2 squares. So, this example here would correspond to the first type of hill. There is no dead ground on it and units at the top will see all the way down to the foot of the hill. You may want to take a look at the contour lines to get an impression of nature's hills' many shapes : https://opentopomap.org/#map=14/49.13194/5.06470 (intervalls between contour lines = 10m in height)

The issue is that the available standard road-tiles only come in 2 versions (straight/diagonal). There is no way to create gentle curves. I personally prefer straight roads over zig-zag-approximations. But it's true that long straight roads should be interrupted from time to time in order to prevent an artificial feeling and overly long LOS. Interestingly, "roads" through woods often appear very straight on contemporary maps. I didn't expect that - as mentioned above, woods are typically located on hills and roads would be built avoiding steep slopes. The reason is probably because these are first and foremost fire-breaks rather than roads. E.g. of a perfectly straight firebreak over a hill: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schneise#/media/File:Schneise.JPG

Some thoughts about CM-mapmaking and some of my rules of thumb: Basically speaking, in the European setting, there should be no areas that are not used agriculturally in some way. For obvious reasons (how often do you need to turn around when ploughing?), fields usually come as a rectangle with one side significantly longer than the other. Don't place place fields "squarely" onto a slope/hill. The field's plough-tracks should follow the form of the hill, so that when ploughing, you don't need to go upwards or downwards. The plough-tracks of the respective terrain tiles (plughed E-W, N-S) should also follow that rule. Woods are usually found on hilltops. Creating slopes can be a real pain. Often, I have the adequate difference in height between two points, but the curvature in between them can take any (unwanted) form: convex, concave (or fake-concave - with a flat plain interrupting the slope), line. Both the convex and the concave versions are tricky because they create dead angles (and ugly "steps" in the terrain). To get the desired results, I started counting the exact number of spaces between my elevation-points. If you have irregular intervalls between elevation-transitions, you end up with dead angles very quickly. Aesthetics is one thing, gameplay another. Especially ditches, sunken roads etc. need to be tested in the game to see whether soldiers align on them the way you want. For example, see my struggles for the Gerbini scenario: Gerbini 1, Gerbini problems 2 Also, there are some issues you can't really solve as a mapmaker. E.g. you will have troubles to make units move along inside/in the cover provided by a ditch - they usually prefer to exit the ditch and get spotted and shot on the way. Another example is the transition between woods and open terrain. Placing dense trees and random bocage-fence-tiles at the edge of a wood looks really nice and seals off the wood from oberservation from outside (note that if you leave the edges totally open, you will end up playing the "spot me through the treetrunks" game - unless you stay prone, concealed by the "wood"-micro-terrain) However, this combination also means that you have almost no chance to see and fire out of the wood, even when your units are positioned on the very edge. There is no way to let units clear a fire-keyhole through the foliage. In this case, it might be a good idea to shift the bocage one tile into the wood, so that you can move around within the wood without being spotted from the outside, while being allowed to see out of the wood if you're on the very edge. You'd need to crawl the final part to the wood-edge (in order to make use of the concealment provided by the wood-micro-terrain). -------------------------------- Size of the scenario & How would formations attack? I'm a fan of smaller scenarios. I'm easily overwhelmed by the micro-management of larger scenarios. This, however, does not go too well with the larger maps that my approach requires (no cutoffs, realistic scale!). The current map size (ca. 1.5 x 2 km) is the best compromise I could come up with. Still the size of the forces that would realistically fight over such a front of 1.5km is huge. For the attacker, it's reasonable to assume that an infantry company on the attack would be assigned a sector with a width of about 250m. So, if we allow for a few gaps in between the companies, we would still end up with 5 companies "up"/in the first line. I often wonder how WWII formations would attack. Would they try to advance across the whole sector (roughly in a line), at least until hard contact was made, to make sure that the whole area is clear of the enemy? Or would they rather use cover to approach the final objective (switching to columns). In this case, however, the sector would not really be secure as pockets of the enemy can easily be overlooked? It might seem strange at the first thought, but to me the "line"-method of advance doesn't seem totally unreasonable. After all, you wanted to shift the frontline and gain ground. It makes no sense to capture an objective in front, while the approach to it is not clear (for support vehicles, etc). Also, with those relatively narrow frontages assigned to attacking formations, an approach that sticks to cover would quickly lead to bunch-ups and intermingling of the companies? So my suspicion (but this is purely guesswork, mind you) is that formations on the attack really advanced as a line until they came under fire. MGs are of special interest here as they would force a formation to seek cover very early on/at great distances, making it much harder and time-consuming to clear a sector. With a realistically sized map, you can recreate this early stage of an attack.

Maybe I'll add another hamlet of this size. But the map is not really concentrated on this "village". It's located at the edge of the map. The attacker will deploy here and start moving towards the objective (a farm at the crossroads). So what should this area (defined by the the line "orchard - hamlet - thicket") offer for the attacker? Some positions for observation of the objective area and positions for long range support. The orchard is not suitable, as it is surrounded by a large wall - you can't see out of it. You might blow holes in the wall to create an interesting keyhole position for a tank. But moving infantry through there seems risky as you're just creating bottlenecks for your opponent to shoot at. (In any case you can use the orchard as cover to approach the wooded hill, so it serves a purpose). The hamlet is certainly an interesting position, but it is also an obvious target for larger calibres and - to a lesser extent - artillery. Adding more buildings would make each of them a less obvious target. So that's certainly something to consider. It's probably the best position for setting up MGs to fire at the farm, but enemy tanks are a big concern. Then again I'm not sure if the defenders will start with a tank and/or with a large calibre pointing at the hamlet. Also, they probably don't want to reveal their position early on, just to get rid of a single enemy machine gun? The thicket is a very suitable feature for observation and long range fires, but vehicles won't be able to enter it. Also, it is vulnerable to artillery because of its comparatively small size. Unlike the proper woods, which in this map cover quite large spaces, with their edges extending for 100+ meters, it's easily possible to "saturate" the whole thicket with artillery fire.

I've placed the houses of my "village" - it's more like a few houses, really - very close together: https://imgur.com/a/MBviP5U https://imgur.com/9U5IzDS (the surroundings are not done yet - also, I'm not sure about that ditch...) And this is the orchard: https://imgur.com/98EDnfQ https://imgur.com/yBubriJ (this is the interior of the orchard - Note that the terrain is quite "bumpy". It should provide some nice cover for infantry if they get their heads down. I think this will also work perfectly for woods, but for fields it might look a bit weird.)

Wow so much feedback! Thank you, guys! Scenario vs. Quickbattle: It's true that in order to implement the retreat-idea, I need to create a scenario rather than a quickbattle (@Bud Backer, @sburke). I think it's perfectly possible to create two versions of the map. One for quickbattles, one for H2H scenario-play (no AI!). I also wished that more (slightly modified, if neccessary) scenario-maps were available for quickbattles (@JulianJ), especially since most scenario-maps are really well done and often scaled realistically. It's just a pity that scenarios have a rather limited H2H appeal if both the forces and their deployment are pre-determined. With free deployment, it's more interesting. I think the appeal of scenarios could be greatly enhanced by adding more randomness: e.g. giving players the option to choose between sets of pre-selected troops, adding a random factor to the arrival time of reinforcements, etc. A scenario also gives me the option to select troops for the players. The selection of forces by the players is a good thing, but sometimes I think it really favors some set-ups while discriminating others. I'm also intrigued by the idea to add reinforcements for the defender. I can even imagine to make him start the battle with only infantry (against some armored support for the attacker). He would then get reinforcements (Panzergrenadiere in halftracks! ) to relieve the infantry or launch a counter attack. But maybe a proper counter-attack is better represented as a separate mission on the map (as part of a tiny campaign). Retreat-idea: Indeed I think it will be tricky to set up the objectives in a way to make the defender ponder whether it is better to retreat or not. As you've mentioned, domfluff, It's easy to give the defender incentives to run away. You just need to give him exit objectives. Giving him some incentive to stay, however, is more complicated. In any case, I'd like to make a retreat an option once the defender knows he's going to lose the terrain objective. Instead of making a final suicide stand, I'd prefer if he could withdraw his forces to limit the extent of the defeat or perhaps even get away with a draw. So therefore, I think that the defender should not be awarded too many points for destroying the attacker's units - this would just reward the suicide-stand rather than the retreat. I assume it's more reasonable to create a balance between "preserve own troops/exit the map" and "terrain" objectives. In order to make the decision more interesting, there need to be several smaller terrain objectives, not just a single large one. Another important aspect here is that I think players should be allowed to know how the outcome is calculated (by adding the info to the briefing...). They need to know that at some point, a withdrawal can be an interesting option for the defender. Scouting: For me, scouting is just not within the scope of CM. In a H2H battle, it's rather boring to exchange 50 turns of doing "nothing". Rather, I would like to add the information that has been gained by recon before the battle to the briefing, or perhaps even on the map (by using "landmarks"). But this again cannot be done if you allow free deployment of forces. But then you can still set the "intel filter" in the scenario editor to give some information to the players. Villages, sizes of fields: It's certainly true that in the 1940s, field sizes were smaller in general. However, there is still a lot of room between the standard QB-map field sizes and a properly scaled field. And you can get a pretty good picture by looking at the paths that are displayed running along larger fields on contemporary maps and also by taking a look at photos of aerial recon. As for the villages - maybe I'm confused by the maps. On many contemporary maps, houses seem to be spaced out quite a bit. But probably their footprints are displayed in an artificially distorted (also too big) way in order to make the layout of the village clearer. --------------------- Generally speaking, I need to point out again that I don't expect battles on a more realistically scaled map to be more interesting/tactical by themselves. I think they will just play out a bit differently and also a bit more "relaxed", with what I'd like to call a "soft" contact. Units will become aware of each other at longer distances which means that they're not knocked out instantly and can observe the enemy a bit more. And, for that reason, MGs can for example lay down fire when the enemy's rifles are still way out of their range. You will quickly learn how much of a "close range" weapon ordinary infantry really is. Casualties tend to trickle in more slowly and more "accidently". I also hope that the suppression-system will shine in a bit more nuanced way. If my units get suppressed, they're usually dead very soon anyway and their suppression bar is maxed out. I rarely see medium levels of suppression for sustained periods of time. WIth a larger distance between the contrahents, I hope to see more nuanced levels of suppression at work. In the same vein, I think that armor values will become more important (at point blank ranges, anything goes). On the current QB maps, by contrast, contact is very "hard", spotting leads to immediate catastrophical results. This fosters a kind of un-relaxed (many people would say: more exciting! ) gameplay and inculcates the typical "paranoia" in CM-players. Every freaking ridge, every corner of a house is just a death trap that potentially leads not to 1 casualty, but to the wipe-out of the whole team. It's just so unforgiving. This is certainly realistic for the final stages of an modern fire-arms assault (if the defender does not withdraw!), but it misses out all the stages before the assault, where it's not as much down to instincts and reaction time, but to slightly more deliberate decisions.

As I've been comparing CM's quickbattle-maps with actual landscape/maps, I couldn't help but notice that the scale of many quickbattle-maps is off (this issue doesn't apply to many scenario-maps which are more often based on real maps). Generally speaking, quickbattle-maps are too crowded and too small. It's a bit like the landscape of a model railroad. It’s extremely compartialized. Often there are tiny patches of trees ("woods") all over the place, the fields are tiny, there are little bumps in the terrain everywhere ("hills"). And even the houses in villages often seem to be placed too close to each other. A map of 2km² often contains several fields, villages and woods in Combat Mission, whereas in reality, you could probably only fit in only a few fields. I'm not saying that this is bad, mind you. In a weird way, our computer-gamer-eyes are accustomed to the look of it. And also in terms of gameplay, it does certainly make sense as it leads to a lot of close quarter action, forces tanks and vehicles into point blank to each other and into the range of infantry and generally speaking offers more (and more diverse) terrain to play with. So, to some extent, you could say that miniature-terrain guarantees "action packed" engagements and revamps infantry against vehicles (balance-issue). But the geeky wargamer voice in me kept pestering me, asking that seemingly innocent question: "Yeah, Kaunitz, but it is realistic?". So here we go. In order to silence that nagging voice in my head, I decided to make my own map. I've been trying that before, mind you (my Gerbini project is on hold until the patch comes out). This time though, the map will not be based on an actual battle and will not even be based on a real location. This simply gives me much more freedom and speeds up things. Here are some of my guiding principles for map design: realistic scale - even though the map is not based on a real location, the map will be based on a plausible scale. After a few short tests, the results are certainly interesting. You can actually set up MGs (without getting them killed the moment they can theoretically be sighted by an enemy unit) and attacking infantry needs to work a bit in order to get within rifle range! as few "cutoffs" as possible - A problem I have with many QB-maps is that they're so small that the more reasonable positions for vehicles, support weapons and FOs are simply cut off. Most of the time, I'm asking myself: Why would I place this tank/MG so close to the frontline? Nobody would do that! The weapon is not supposed to be used like that! Surely, there would be some small hill 1km to the rear where it would make much more sense to set up the weapon/vehicle? Also, do I really have to peek over that ridge at point blank range? Is there no hill in the rear area that would allow me to take a look from a safer distance? Admittedly, there can be situations in which there simply is no better position available, but QB maps constantly seem to force a deadly point blank ranges onto me. To prevent that, maps need to have a certain minimum size, and observation and long-range positions need to be taken into account when designing the map. Of course engagements were not static, and if you do take into account that the battle might move on a bit in this or that direction, the required map-size multiplies very quickly (irregular shaped maps would be interesting here…). To tackle this problem, I want to experiment with the “exit” objective (see below). if possible, I’d like to pay special attention to micro-cover - I do think that infantry is a bit too vulnerable in the open. I will see whether it is possible to add a few more small bumps in the ground and some props to give infantry more cover (if prone). But I'm not sure yet if and how that will work out. I suppose one would need very tiny differences in height which would provide some cover to infantry without blocking their LOS. I don’t think it’s possible in CM, but I see if I can somehow recreate the effect. Small preview of the current status (obviously not much yet, but it is a beginning): https://imgur.com/a/imul3HX (the map is 1456x1920m) https://imgur.com/a/5dX5B5s https://imgur.com/a/SahWEan Further ideas: Allow the defender to retreat to prevent implausible blood baths: As this is a little experiment, I do want to make the battle realistic, even at the cost of game play. Therefore, I want to give the defender the option to retreat to cut down his casualties. I’ve not taken a closer look if and how I can get it to work yet. The problem I see is that all units (tagged to be destroyed) that have not left the battlefield by the end of the battle are counted as destroyed, which is not really what I want. There needs to be a difference between "did not leave the battlefield because the battle was going well and there was no reason to do so" and "did not leave the battlefield because the player decided to make a desperate suicide last stand". I'm not sure if the editor allows me to differentiate between those two. Generally speaking, the option to retreat should also be interesting from a gameplay perspective as the defender will need to move and cover his retreat (with longer ranges, this is much more reasonable as you won't get killed the very moment you stand up and move...). ------------------------------------ Feel free to discuss and contribute! What are your thoughts on map design and particularly map-scale? Also, how many troops would be fighting over the map? I was thinking of at least 2 companies up for the attacker (the width of the front is 1456m). Do you have any comments on the retreat-idea? Right now, I'm stuck a little bit as I can't make the cornifer-woods look pretty and functional (lack of cornifer-trees that come with a short tree-trunk/low tree crown). I think I will have to go for mixed forests. I will also be looking out for volunteers to test the map once it is ready!

Still I think that this issue is probably surmountable in the current engine if you would allow soldiers to clip through the ground mesh? Not pretty but it could solve problems functionally? I don't know anything about the inner workings of the engine so I can't tell. I'm not denying that there are issues/things that could be better (fortifications, crew-served weapons can't be remounted, urban warfare, targeting the ground for area fire) but I think many of them could be solved/improved with some effort within the current engine? The engine seems to be quite flexible (just take the "look around the corner" thing that got patched into the game). @Erwin: Blame it on "Saving Private Ryan" (1998). And Band of Brothers (2001).

You're certainly right that in the case of artillery, "suppression" refers more to forcing the enemy into their dugouts/trenches. Why do you think we can't replicate this in CM? For infantry (unfortunately, crew-served guns can't be re-manned....) I think it's possible once the panic-issue will be fixed with the upcoming patch? Right now, I often defend in that way in villages or cities: I only man the actual fighting positions once the attacker's artillery barrage is over and the enemy is coming close. Wooden shelters could be used in a similar way if there are no houses close by. Perhaps those wooden shelters need a point reduction, but they do offer some protection against artillery (better than foxholes and trenches...). More generally, I think that fortifications should be part of the force-structure of regular infantry formations, so that you can get them at a reduced price. Digging in was just such a common thing. --------------------------- Probably too late and not relevant for a larger audience, but it keeps bugging me out (these are specific to CM:FB/editor): Treetrunks are too thick in general. The crowns of all the deciduous trees (G,D,A,C) are located very close to the ground. I really miss a tree version with a higher trunk (no dirty jokes guys ^^). The lack of such a tree means that any deciduous wood will allow only very limited LOS, especially if the ground is slightly uneven. Also, it doesn't look good if you want to create a proper wood (as opposed to thickets) For the conifers (B,E,H) it is the other way round. Here, I lack a tree with a low crown. That means that you have no means to create a graduated edge/a rising canopy for a cornifer wood. The conifer-bush (bush B ) does not fill the gap and isn't voluminous enough. Combining deciduous (low crowns) with conifer (high crowns) trees looks very strange in the autumn-setting. I'd love to see more terrain like the light and heavy wood that come with some foliage on them. Some kind of "forest-edge"/undergrowth terrain would be nice, with many thin young "trees" (not actually represented as trunks). For comparison: With deciduous trees, you can create nice thickets. By placing the trees in their proper order (from small to high), using bocage fences and heavy wood terrain at the edges, you can get a nice canopy. However, what you can see here is also the maximum height for a deciduous wood. All the tree crowns/foliage is very close to the ground. It's a thicket, not a proper wood. https://imgur.com/a/51x4cFU With cornifers, it is the other way round. Note the large gap in between the ground-foliage and the tree crowns. The bushes and the few deciduous trees I have placed so helplessly look quite out of place. The lack of low-crown-cornifers enables you to look very deep into the wood from the outside. I suppose that this can be used (for great effect, if you add tree stumps) to represent a very well kept commercial timberland, but you cannot build a slightly more naturally looking wood-edge. https://imgur.com/a/bm0eMf8

I for one would rather stick to the current engine. It is very solid! Why change a winning horse? Why throw so much that has been achieved over board (even if some aspects can be carried over, it would definitively mean a big cut?). And there are still patches coming out. Sure aesthetics could be nicer measured by today's standards, but they're okay for me. What matters more is gameplay. With a few tweaks here and there (fortifications? ), I think I will stay a happy subscriber of the current engine for a long time to come.

Necroed but on topic! (A video worth watching!) Footage mainly of the Hürtgenwald, filmed by the US signal corps. The commentary is in German, but the footage should be interesting on its own for you grognards! The production was an extra-material to a german documentary on the battle ("You enter Germany").

I don't know whether this was already mentioned when we discussed pre-planned bombardments set by the scenario-designer: It would be very nice if players in a quickbattle could order several barrages from one arty-asset with time-delays (ideally custmizable time-delays). Or is there any way in which you can recreate a rolling barrage (other than using multiple assets)? It seems as if rolling barrages were really the standard procedure for any infantry-heavy, larger scaled attack. Yet it's quite hard to simulate it in the game?

The question is whether such a movement would need to be automatic as you suggest. If it is automatic, you'll always run into troubles when it comes to choosing the proper path. A retreating unit should still seek to use cover, so "just backwards" is not a good option. Rrather than an automatism, one could ask if it would be better to provide some kind of incentive to the player to move a unit back into a "normal" (as opposed to perceivably isolated/cut-off) situation? Some kind of "pinned/unable to fire because of isolation" rather than "pinned because of incoming fire" status. Also, being in a fortified place should drastically increase the "will" of a unit to fight on isolatedly?

The thing I keep asking myself though is what exactly makes Combat Mission games so "compressed"? I don't want to bash the game or anything, I'm just genuinly interested in that question. Some thoughts: The vehicles are moving at the right speed, rates of fire seem quote realistic. Communication and ease of coordination (player=god-issue) might be a big factor though. I also think that many quickbattle maps are not scaled realistically. E.g. for CM:BS, if you take a look at the eastern Ukraine on google maps, you can easily find fields that are about 1x2km or so. In the game, a map of this size usually holds several hills, fields, tiny tiny woods (rather: patches of trees, really) and a village. I've also fiddled around with a realistically scaled CM:FB map in the editor, and it feels very different and vast compared to most quickbattle maps. So the terrain might be a bit narrow/compressed. It gives advantages to infantry and reduces engagements to point blank/ambush ranges. Realistically scaled maps look quite bland in the game, but I suppose that this is a quite a big factor? With longer engagement ranges, battles would probably be a bit slower and less lethal (at least for WWII titles)? Lack of protection/fortifications is certainly another point that leads to extremely bloody battles, especially for infantry. And last but not least, it's a game. Players can risk a lot without any consequences. Retreat is not an option in a quickbattle. It would be different if there were also an "exit" objective for the defender in quickbattles (under certain conditions). What you usually get in quickbattles is a fanatical last stand.

See me reacting! The AI-tank-commander announces the targets and override-points the turret in the right direction for me (the gunner). https://youtu.be/ubncD6I1SqM?t=181

See all the suggestions in this topic:

I suppose that the problem with suggestions for the spotting system (whether you like them or not) is that the AI could not deal with it? It is much more dependent on confirmed contacts than the players, and it would not understand how to manage communications between/positioning of its units? I only play H2H, but the majority of CM players is probably more interested in singleplayer? It's always the same: The more complex and realistic a game gets, the less the AI is able to handle it. I've added some thoughts to my post above, by the way, pointing out some other factors that might influence spotting and C2 links. The other thing I keep asking myself when playing CM is morale. I can't really get my head around it, but sometimes it strikes me as implausible how fanatical most defending units are. If you are a three man team out in the open (hardly anyone uses fortifications) and there is combat all over the place and you don't see any friendly units and haven't heard from/seen your squad leader for half an hour, do you keep fighting or would you rather retreat/try to link up with the squad (unless under direct threat by the enemy, of course)? Combat morale does decrease as casualties rise (see Josey Wales' analysis), but the system is based on the abstract OOB-structure, not on the situational awareness of troops on the ground. I wonder if we would position our troops differently and in general play the game differently (especially on the defence) if morale was a bigger factor and "isolation" mattered more? In the defence, I often pay no attention at all to where the squad leaders are and split up my squads as much as possible. I don't think it really makes a bit difference (granted I'm not the best of all players, but experienced enough to make that statement). What do you guys think?

Well it could also be argued that it is unrealistic to assume that whenever a unit gets hit and survives, all units (= the player) automatically know where the fire came from, despite not having C2 with that unit. And also the old question comes up whether (most) units should only be allowed to area fire around suspected contact markers. Admittedly, these are very important questions as they have a huge impact on how the game is played. I wonder though if it would really make the game more interesting. It would surely slow the game down and make players spend more thoughts on the communication between their units. And you would get that odd messenger running around between units, agitatedly pointing in directions. Defenders would also have the chance to fire and retreat (before the counter-strike comes in) more often. Right now, opening fire is often a death sentence. If you're defending, the speed by which your units will get spotted and targeted by heavy calibers once they open fire forbids a "frontal" defence. Always hide behind buildings/hills and fire obliquely on the advancing enemy! I'm pretty sure though that if the source of small arms fire (not sure if it works with HE?) is not identified by anyone, then you don't get to see the tracers and don't hear the soundes either. It's a bit odd. You'll note that your unit's suppression rises but you don't know why. In this case, there is no "kill cam". So perhaps reducing fire signatures a bit (=giving units that fire a smaller malus in terms of getting spotted) would also help, or decreasing awareness in certain circumstances (running, being under fire). I mean would you really be able to instantly spot a few rifle men, lying prone and concealed at the edge of a larger* wood? I have no experience here, but I think that if other weapons are going off all over the place, the chances to identify those riflemen in under a minute are rather slim. The same is true for MGs. Maybe you can identify the general direction by sound (if no battle noise interfers?), but visually, the MG would be relatively unsuspicious (if properly camouflaged, the ground in front of it intentionally dampened to prevent dust clouds) - except for the tracers *lol*? I think that this solution would be easier as I don't think the game checks which unit can see a unit that comes under fire. And again, prepared defences are not really represented well in the game (except for the concealment bonus that AT guns get). The defender would have more time to camouflage his positions. In the game, a unit that just moves into a wood and goes prone has the same level of concealment as a unit that has worked to conceal their position over the last 2 days. Funny enough, fortifications attract fire in CM, they don't help you to stay concealed. In the same vein, sound tracing is a known "problem". Making contacts (and especially confirmed ones) more rare in general would also help a bit to tackle the problem that players can area-target any spot. Generally speaking, the sharing of contact-information seems to be too "strong" to me. In reality, I want to see how an infantry unit describes the exact position of a spotted enemy who is in the midst of a 1km² wheat field via radio to its company commander, and then the company commander describes the position to the battalion commander ("50 meters from the southern edge of the cornfield in grid nr. XXXX, two enemy riflemen were spotted!"). This raises complex questions: The speed by which an enemy contact is shared between units should depend on the type of com-link (visual is the fastest, obviously - you can point it out or fire a tracer at the enemy; while radio links would be the slowest) and the level of "suspiciousness" of the enemy position (An enemy in a house can be called out easily. An enemy in a wood or a large field not so much) and perhaps also the type of enemy unit (would the spotting of infantry really travel as far up as the battalion commander? With tanks, it could be different?). * by larger, I refer to the fact that sometimes, terrain features have a quite small footprint, like in a model railroad world, so that you can't really miss if you target them - it's often easy to guess where the enemy is within a certain terrain feature. There is a big difference between a wood with a frontage of 30m and one with a frontage of 100m. PS: Crazily detailed/complex idea: If units with tracer rounds (MGs) are firing at a confirmed target, the speed of info-sharing with units within visual C2 with that unit should be very fast.

The detail that went into all those vehicles. Nobody would have complained if the interiors of the vehicles were not modeled. And yet they're there and they're very detailed (in some cases stunningly so!). It tells a lot about CM being a work of love. And then you get that vehicle hit text on your armored car "RICOCHET INTO: Opening / PENETRATION" and you realize that the detail is not just there visually and aesthetically, but also functionally.

As area fire plays a big part for deliberate grazing fire, I thought I could also point out a few things: Lateral aim From my experience, when an infantry unit (that occupies only 1 square) is ordered to area-fire on a square, each individual soldier in the unit will select a point within the target-square (which must be visible to him?) and fire at it. Naturally, this means that if the target-square is very close to the unit, the resulting "cone of fire" will be very broad/large. If the target-square is very far away, by contrast, the cone will be narrow. You can try it out very easily in the editor - if you let a unit area fire at a very very short distance (to the adjacent square), the soldiers will be firing randomly somewhere within 180° to their front. In some very rare situations, you might make use of this to affect/narrow or broaden the size of a beaten zone of a MG. By setting the target square closer, you broaden the angle of your fire and vice versa. Note that soldiers do seem to switch their target points within the target square from time to time during a turn. So the soldiers are not firing at a single point for the whole turn. Vertical aim: Soldiers who are area-firing aim at ca 1m above the ground. (Depending on the angle between the height of the muzzle and the target point, bullets might travel on much farther after they have passed through the aimpoint) Still you can see some shots going too low or too high. I suppose that this is just due to random deviations from the perfect elevation. Soft factors (unit experience) might play a role here. Rate of fire: Among other factors (clip size/reloading intervalls), the output of fire depends on the distance to the target square. It's because the more distant the target is, the longer soldiers aim before they fire. So, as the duration for the "aiming" action increases, the intervalls between individual shots/bursts increase. Experience and other soft factors (and optics/weapon type?) probably play a role here as well.

I can't find the quote right now, but I think the info comes from Vanir Ausf. B - reverse slope occurs whereever you have a potential LOS on a "very large vehicle" (so in my diagram, "a man's height" would need to be replaced by "very tall vehicle"). Reverse slope does not tell you whether you can see anything shorter than that tall vehicle. You might be able to see shorter units or not. There is no certainty except for your eyes' judgement. (I would need to test if the target-arc might be usefull here? It seems to be set at the height of the unit and "cuts" through the ground mesh. In any case it helps to judge the lay of the land) PS: Also, for anyone interested in spotting in general, lots of valuable official info can be found in the answers here: PS: Oh and someone actually tried to come up with some calculation to judge better at what point you'd be able to see shorter units in a reverse slope area: http://community.battlefront.com/topic/114689-just-for-fun-determining-direct-fire-range-to-a-large-target-instead-of-the-ground/?tab=comments#comment-1526818

Wanted to insert this in the post above but failed at it. Anyway, I think it might be usefull as a reference.

Could you come up with an example? I'm still not quite sure if I understand where you're going. Spotting with vehicles: I haven't tested it with vehicles, but if you use infantry in different stances, the difference is certainly there! If you change the height of the unit's eyes - by "hiding" infantry which makes it switch from "kneeling" to "prone" - all the LOS calculations are updated accordingly. I have no reason to believe that it works differently for vehicles of various size, or more precisely, varying heights of the spotters'/crew's eyes. Vehicles getting spotted: Obviously one would assume that a taller vehicle gets spotted more easily as a larger part of it tends to surmount micro-terrain (of course depending on the actual position and the lay of the land).

I think that you'd need a "reverse slope" on a tile to see anything (up to "very tall vehicle") on a square. To put it simple: reverse slope / no aimpoint: Your unit can't see the ground of the square (and thus is not allowed to area-fire), but has a chance to spot enemy units that "protrude" from the ground (depending on the angle between your unit and the enemy unit and their actual height). As they "protrude", enemy units offer your unit an aimpoint, so to speak. E.g. In a field of crops, if you get a reverse slope aimpoint, you might be able to see standing enemy infantry, but still have no chance to spot crawling enemy infantry (until it is very close and can be spotted "through" the micro-terrain). So when you have a reverse slope aimpoint, you have a chance to spot enemies under certain conditions (you don't really now how tall the enemy must be in order for you to get a chance to spot it). no LOS: You can't see anything (even tall vehicles) here My theory (on how micro-terrain affects spotting):