Some questions for the experts

[Guest Pham]

Forgive me if any of these have been covered. Searched, but didn't find anything on them.

1) How can I tell if one of my own tanks is hull down, and more importantly what exactly does "hull down" mean and what benifits does it give? I can tell when the enemy is by reading the targeting message, but don't understand how to tell if mine are. Is hull down global, or relational(like LOS)?

2)How does a halftrack button?

3)When calling down a smoke screen with an 81mm Axis arty spotter the smoke appeared, litereally, all over the map and way, way off the edges of the map. It was about the right number of smoke plumes, but they were nowhere near where they were call on. Is this a glitch?

4)Is leveling a building to get LOS a realistic historic tactic? It doesn't seem like it should be, but I find it works pretty well for an ambush.

5)will there be engineer units or anything similar that can blow up houses or bridges in the final game without my resorting to pounding them with tank fire?

6)Will landmines be placeable during the game, set by the scenario designer, or placeable during the setup phase of the game?

Is my ignorance showing? Any answers are much appreciated.

BTW, I stumbled on rave comments for this game when doing a search a couple weeks ago on dejanews for some West Front information, figured I'd give it a shot and never did finish the game of West Front I was playing.

[Guest L Tankersley]

I'm no expert, but I play one on the forum...

1. When you draw a LOS line to a target, it will indicate whether the target is hull down to the firer. When you draw a LOS line from a vehicle, it also indicates whether YOU (the source of the LOS line) are hull down to the point/unit to which you are tracing LOS. Put a tank behind a crest, select it and drag the LOS line around, keeping an eye on the tank. Sometimes "Hull Down" will appear near your vehicle. As should be plain from the foregoing, hull down status is relative and not global. Being hull down means that part of your vehicle is obscured by terrain, which means less is visible to the enemy. Hence you are more difficult to hit due to being a smaller target.

2. Hmmm, I haven't actually tried buttoning up a halftrack in the game; I assume it works the same as for tanks. If you're asking what it signifies in "real life," it means hunkering down behind the protection of the metal sides of the vehicle rather than sitting up straight and taking in the view. Similar with other open-topped AFVs such as the M18.

3. I think so - I vaguely recall a discussion about tweaking the artillery spread pattern from a while back. I remember playing the Reisberg scenario and having a 105 shell land more than 500m away from the target - that gun crew needs some reeducation, methinks.

4. I'm sure it happened at some point.

5. Engineers yes, although I don't think they will be able to do demolition during a scenario. [Aside to BTS: how about building entrenchments/fortifications between scenarios of a campaign? Not on the front lines, maybe, but I can see building up defenses in anticipation of a later battle. Just a thought.]

6. Yes to both, at the scenario designer's choice, I believe.

7. Welcome aboard, Pham!

Leland J. Tankersley

[This message has been edited by L Tankersley (edited 11-30-99).]

[Guest Pham]

Thanks for the replies, they cleared much of that up for me. As for the halftrack, the graphics didn't change at all when it buttoned(while under fire), so I wasn't sure if it actually affected the halftrack. It died a few seconds later.

Also, my main contention with blasting houses away for LOS is that in reality you'd have no control over how the house came down, if it even came down at all. Maybe it would just be a frame with rubble and still block your sight. I suppose it's the House there one minute, gone the next that puzzles me. It seems unrealistic because the houses are just gone after taking X damage, which gives you complete LOS on the area beyond instead of being worn down. On a similar note, I understand why houses can't have multiple states to show(good, damaged, nearly destroyed, etc) due to memory constraints and the desire to keep the game accessable to most systems, but why can't individual sides be removed from a structure to simulate severe damage to, say, the front? It would seem that it would be easier to take out a side of a house(or at least punch a very large hole in it) than it would be to flatten it outright, plus the troops inside would lose most of thier protection and concealment. As it is, the troops seem to have constistant protection up until the house disappears under fire. Just wondering why this is, really.

[Guest Captain Foobar]

This might not answer all your questions, but it has been posted here on the board that there isnt a graphic for a damaged house, incrementally. The house will appear as rubble when it reaches a certain damage threshhold. As for the issue of decreasing amount of cover, as it becomes damaged, I dont know.

[howardb]

I'm not sure about WW2 tactics on this but I know that in modern warfare they blow up just about anything to get good LOS, including pretty big areas of forest. In the Norwegian army we never leave on maneuvers without chainsaws e.g when preparing for defensive stances.

[Los]

Just a quick point, a smashed up city gives you just as much protection and concealment as one that's standing, even more so since it becomes very difficult to manuever in these areas. All you've done was rearrange the bricks. (This isn't like shields in star trek where youa re down to 60%!) The key is not to be in any particular building when it gets smashed up.

This seems to be a very basic point missed often. Stalingrad and Cassino where even more defensible after leveling than before, as the Russians will find out if they try and go back into Grozny when they're done leveling it from the air.

Though of course your intent to pick up LOS might be OK in this game but in real life the most likely outcome of that tactic is even less LOS since you've probably just started a fire, and a smashed house still obscures LOS to some degree because (at least on earth) gravity makes the rubble pile up on the ground level up to several meters which would still block your LOS at ground level.

[Los]

Though to speak to Howard's point you CAN make careful alterations even in a city to certain features to improve LOS for certain weapons. (Remove a kiosk here, fell some telephone poles there, drop a side of a building portruding at an intersection down that way) This is done well in advance of the fighting. Even in Howards case with woods and chainsaws, etc, you normally are preparing your fields of fire before the enemy shows up. Once they are there, (as in the scope of a CM scenario) you are a little late.

To be able to clear fields of fire on the fly as an attacker is a whole 'nuther story and anyway as an attacker you WANT less LOS since this gives you concealment for your maneuver to get as close as posiible to the objective as you can.

Cheers...

Los

[Ben Galanti]

Does rubble in CM have a height? Graphically it's shown as flat, but I always assumed that there was some height taken into account. I just finished up a game of Reisburg where several houses were flattened, and it helped LOS considerably. Perhaps the height of rubble should be raised a bit...

[Dar]

From my experience, rubble does obstruct LOS at the same level, i.e., you can see into it but not through it. However, I'm not sure what the height of the obstruction is.

Dar