Foxholes and trenches. Are they an asset

[Georgie]

I believe that foxholes and trenches are a disadvantage for the occupants and an advantage to the attacker. They are easy to spot and make a fine target for tanks and mortars. I have never had a problem clearing them. What have other players experienced with them, both offense and defense?

[sburke]

I believe that foxholes and trenches are a disadvantage for the occupants and an advantage to the attacker. They are easy to spot and make a fine target for tanks and mortars. I have never had a problem clearing them. What have other players experienced with them, both offense and defense?

Place them out of LOS and yeah they will help you survive artillery. They will also help you against small arms, but again placement is important. If you put them where your opponent is going to spot them early, then you just hang a target on your shoulders.

They are neither good nor bad, they just need to be used like anything else with a recognition of what are their positive and negative factors.

[winkelried]

i use them in the "CW The Mace" battle (still ongoing ) - here a few observations:

• i have a defensive line in the forest with a number of foxholes spaced that they can mutually support each other. here i feel that the foxholes don't do the job well. my polish troops get pushed back a bit too quickly - but i don't know yet about the losses of my adversary ... so maybe this assessment might change.
  
• some other foxholes i use as cover against artillery fire. they are set back a bit from the firing positions along hedges and bocage. this works pretty well. i put just a scout team or so up front to see the enemy approaching and keep the main force in the foxholes. they survived the enemy artillery fire quite well. when the infantry approaches afterwards i order the main body out of the foxholes to the fire positions along the hedge/bocage.
  
• naturally i try to place the foxholes in a way that i can fire upon them from my fallback positions, so they are not of good use to the enemy when he overruns my first line of defense.
  

[winkelried]

Place them out of LOS and yeah they will help you survive artillery. They will also help you against small arms, but again placement is important. If you put them where your opponent is going to spot them early, then you just hang a target on your shoulders.

That's anyway one of the golden rules of combat - that you shoudn't be visible from farther away than you can shoot at. so reverse slope positions 100-200 m behind the crest are what you would be looking for with rifles, 300-500 m with HMGs etc.

Reverse slope

[Georgie]

That's anyway one of the golden rules of combat - that you shoudn't be visible from farther away than you can shoot at. so reverse slope positions 100-200 m behind the crest are what you would be looking for with rifles, 300-500 m with HMGs etc.

Reverse slope

Good rule, will use it in the future.

[Georgie]

Place them out of LOS and yeah they will help you survive artillery. They will also help you against small arms, but again placement is important. If you put them where your opponent is going to spot them early, then you just hang a target on your shoulders.

They are neither good nor bad, they just need to be used like anything else with a recognition of what are their positive and negative factors.

Good to hear the positive about surviving artillery.

[slysniper]

I love using them as bait.

I set them where they will be spotted, with as few men as I can within them.

with a excape route that will not be seen. Then I fire away at the enemy as soon as they are in site, give it a little time then slither away before the enemy Arty rains down on it.

They are a great way to get the enemy to waste Arty

Other than that, placing them where they are not spotted until the enemy is where you want to attack them at is really the only key to getting good use out of them.

[tarzan]

To date I just put a whole field of them chock-a-block at whereever I think an enemy tank would want to drive - instead of tank mines. Stick a Panzershreck nearby to KO whatever fool tries to drive over them and gets stuck or slowed down or twisted around - heheh - well it's a little gamey, I must admit, but I hate those foxholes so bad it feels fair to me somehow

However - I have been having visual hallucinations that ever since the Patch they must have been 'upgraded' as far as relative protection

Does anyone know if that is true (was there some official word that this issue was addressed) or is it just my mind playing tricks on me - is it known that the Patch increased survivability in the foxholes?

I used to just chortle whenever I would stumble across some enemy fools in these sitting duck ponds - but since the Patch they seem to be harder to kill, and they seem more survivable to my Arty rounds as well

Official confirmation? Anyone noticing the same experience? Just my own mind and my own personal fog of war?

[Lanzfeld]

I just wish they, and trenches, were more camoflaged.

[Echo]

Fox holes should be much harder to spot in the game. Its not easy to see a hole in the ground until your right on top of it. And the earth dug out of the hole just blends in with the ground.

We used to dig holes in a busy San Diego beach big enough to lay down in (like an easy chair), with nothing but the top of our heads sticking over the edge and drink beer. People walking up and down the beach 10 feet away would never see us, and most of them would almost step on us until we yelled at them (scaring the crap out of em). This was in broad daylight.

[Pak40]

Foxholes are excellent cover against all types of fire, especially artillery. You can test it yourself in the editor. Put 1 platoon in the open and 1 platoon with squads split in foxholes (or just cover their entire area in foxholes).

They do give away possible positions. Therefore, it always wise to buy more foxholes than you need so that the enemy never knows exactly where your units are.

[Echo]

The foxhole shouldn't be spotted until the unit in it is spotted.

[Pak40]

Fox holes should be much harder to spot in the game. Its not easy to see a hole in the ground until your right on top of it. And the earth dug out of the hole just blends in with the ground.

We used to dig holes in a busy San Diego beach big enough to lay down in (like an easy chair), with nothing but the top of our heads sticking over the edge and drink beer. People walking up and down the beach 10 feet away would never see us, and most of them would almost step on us until we yelled at them (scaring the crap out of em). This was in broad daylight.

Yea, I have to agree. In addition, any unit that takes the time to dig in will probably spend a little time dressing the holes and trenches with whatever natural camo is available.

[YankeeDog]

Yea, I have to agree. In addition, any unit that takes the time to dig in will probably spend a little time dressing the holes and trenches with whatever natural camo is available.

Yep. Digging and dressing foxholes so that they can't be easily spotted from a distance is part of infantry basic training. Is now, was in WWII.

*However*, one aspect of building a foxhole so that it can't be seen is proper placement. For example, one big no-no is putting a foxhole on a forward slope, as this makes it very easy for an distant observer on a similar elevation to see it. Similarly, foxholes in low ground are very easy for observers on nearby heights to see, unless there is some kind of overhead cover to conceal them.

Not sure exactly how the game should take this into account. But ideally, foxholes should be very hard to spot as long as they're placed intelligently.

[winkelried]

Not sure exactly how the game should take this into account. But ideally, foxholes should be very hard to spot as long as they're placed intelligently.

This is easy - put them on a reverse slope - this is placing them intelligently IMHO and they are hard to spot.

[Georgie]

I'm busy making a "Huge" scenario with an AI defense, its hilly wooded country and I've noticed that foxholes work very good as far as looks go when they are on a steep slope. They look quite natural. On flat ground they don't look all that natural. And, as some posters have noted they are too easy to spot. I have seen pictures of wood bunkers and they blend in very well and unless you know that they are there they are almost invisible until too late. As to putting foxholes on a reverse slope I have noticed that it can be just the reverse slope of a fairly small undulation in the terrain.

[JonS]

We used to dig holes in a busy San Diego beach big enough to lay down in (like an easy chair), with nothing but the top of our heads sticking over the edge and drink beer. People walking up and down the beach 10 feet away would never see us, and most of them would almost step on us until we yelled at them (scaring the crap out of em). This was in broad daylight.

I have no doubt about the accuracy of your recollection. I also have no doubt that it's largely irrelevant. Hiding a sand coloured hole on a sand coloured plain when the light is bright and directly overhead is trivially easy.

Yes, 'dressing' foxholes is a standard part of infantry training now days, and probably was in WWII. However training and reality are a little divergent. The Battle of Normandy wasn't a small scale insurgency determined by section-to-platoon sized patrols and ambushes. It was high tempo, high intensity, full on, top-end war. Battalion-level operations were quite normal, and at the small end of the scale of what was going on. The British and Canadians, alone, were losing on the order of a battalion's-worth of men every single day, even on the so-called "quiet" days. The Americans were losing two. And all in a space less than 100 miles long by 2-3 wide. The Battle of Normandy had more in common with WWI than with anything since.

All the photos I've seen, and descriptions I've read, of foxholes in Normandy have them with practically no effort at camoflage - there simply wasn't time, and tooling about above grade was asking for trouble. The bright spoil stands out clearly - especially in aerial photos. There's also scads of battle litter about - bandanges, boxes, tins, cans, helmets, tools, comms wire, bits of equipment ... and of course shellholes everywhere, blasting attempts at camoflage away, and with the shellholes themselves act as a big pointer. People tend not to shell bits of ground just for the giggles. If there are fresh shellholes in the area it's reasonable to assume that there's a reason they're there (in real life, I mean).

So, I disagree that foxholes, or trenches, should be camoflaged just because. By all means hide them using terrain, but don't expect them to hide themsleves.

To go back to the hole-in-the-sand example; try hiding in that hole when you're turfing wet sand out onto dry, the sun is low and casting shadows, and the hole is surrounded with towels, chilly bins, and spades.

[GhostRider3/3]

I read someone uses them as bait.. because they are an asset, there they can be seen and the AI usually will mortar them or use other Artillery assets. Sorta an easy cheat.. I dont use them if I dont have to.

[Pak40]

I doubt the AI fires at foxholes. As far as I can tell they only fire at units they physically see. Oh, and some AI artillery missions are are planned by the designer which may make it seem as though the AI were targeting areas with foxholes.