badgerbadger

I was playing the Ukraine campaign and I noticed my Oplots had problems spotting and engaging enemy armour from a distance on the 2nd mission. I’d set up 2 Oplots on the main road facing the Russian positions to lock it down, and an enemy T-90 rolled around the corner and down the road. Despite having 3 Oplots pointing down it, and despite the enemy tank being on the move on an open road, the enemy T-90 consistently spotted and fired first. Even after taking fire, the Oplots still hadn’t made the spot. I did some googling and found this old thread. I’m wondering now: 1) Was this old spotting bug patched out? 2) Is it true that unbuttoned tanks spot better than buttoned ones in CMBS?

Does anyone know if either the poor Oplot spotting or the buttoned vs unbuttoned issues have been patched by now?

This is all really helpful, thanks everyone. Heh, I brought some Skifs and was looking forward to trying them out, had a couple set up in a tree-line. Two BMP-2Ms rolled up into line of sight, but for some reason the gunner wouldn't fire! It was a full 2 minutes later that I realised the TacAI had managed to set-up so both crew-men could see the BMPs....but the ATGM was set-up with the muzzle pointed right at a tree directly in front of it. Ah well, c'est la guerre Combat Mission. This might be a stupid question, but I'm curious what people do after they locate enemy vehicles this way. My feeling with CMBS is that weapon systems are so lethal, and first-spotting is so decisive, that rolling vehicles up to known enemy contacts still means they get spotted first and blasted just because moving vehicles get a big concealment malus. So moving vehicles are still trying to spot their stationary opponents before they get seen first and shot. I guess the answers are artillery, smoke, ATGMs, but does anyone have good tactics for using tanks/IFVs to pop up and engage a known enemy position facing your way? I lost 2 Oplots because I had eyes on a pair of stationary BMP-2Ms with scouts, then made the risky call to push forward with Oplots with a Hunt command. They got tagged and taken out before they could identify the BMP contacts.

Just played (and lost) my first PBEM match as Ukraine VS Russia. I'm curious if anyone has tips for playing Ukraine: a lot of their gear seems older and obsolete compared to the Russian stuff. My BMP2s seemed to lose the spotting war when put up against BMP2Ms (and then being turned into decorative colanders), aside from ambushes. Is the modernised BTR any good at spotting? Does Ukraine have any particular advantages against Russia, or does a Ukraine player need to resign themselves to doing their best with weaker kit? How does the Oplot hold up in terms of spotting?