IICptMillerII Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 43 minutes ago, sawomi said: As someone who lives in Germany I can say it's defenitely not "rare" to have a LOS over 1,5km. Combat LOS, not a typical LOS of a civilian driving down an autobahn. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sawomi Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 Just go on ground level in Bil's position in google earth and have a look around. One could say, often you will have LOS under 1500m. But if you want to have more LOS it's not hard to find it. Combat or not. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalon Jones Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 6 hours ago, sawomi said: As someone who lives in Germany I can say it's defenitely not "rare" to have a LOS over 1,5km. Where (roughly) are you in Germany? Fulda has relatively short LOS due to all the hills and forests. Vth Corps took that into account. The BAOR had a much different terrain with the North German Plains. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sawomi Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Megalon Jones said: Where (roughly) are you in Germany? Thuringia. Right beyond Fulda Gab. Same landscape. It always depends if you are in the valley or on a hill. But there are many hills with just agricultural fields, not all have forests on top. And there you can have wide and far views. The point is there IS open space for 3000m tank duels. Not everywhere, everytime, maybe even more often not - but certainly not just in "rare" cases. Edited March 9, 2021 by sawomi 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BletchleyGeek Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 6 hours ago, sawomi said: Thuringia. Right beyond Fulda Gab. Same landscape. It always depends if you are in the valley or on a hill. But there are many hills with just agricultural fields, not all have forests on top. And there you can have wide and far views. The point is there IS open space for 3000m tank duels. Not everywhere, everytime, maybe even more often not - but certainly not just in "rare" cases. Thanks for the picture @sawomi, if not catering for "ideal" tank duels, those line of sights are pretty good for artillery spotting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Rather than postcard pictures try checking out LOS distances in Google Earth Street View. Its hard to do in Germany (they're VERY restrictive with its use) but other places you can drive down any road and look out across any landscape, measure the distances between terrain features. Here's an example, I randomly plopped down an a spot in the Czech republic some 230km west of Fulda and looked around. It turned out the copse of trees on the far side of the field in front of me is 500m away, the wooded ridgeline on the horizon is 2.5km away. That's actually pretty good, sometimes doing my game research I can't even spot the horizon due to intervening foliage and buildings. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sawomi Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 (edited) It has nothing to do with postcards or street view. It depends on the location. If you drive up these hill at 500m and 2.5km distance in your pic, how far could you see? Hard to tell. Depends on the landscape and the features in it in a particular direction, atmospheric conditions etc. It also has nothing to do if you are on a road or a field. Just drive some kilometers on a rural road in central Germany. The view distances change constantly in all direction. If it leads you up over hills or plateaus you can have far reaching panroamic views for some time and then it goes down in a valley again und you can see maybe 100m or 200m. Edited March 10, 2021 by sawomi 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IICptMillerII Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 The 1500m figure comes from an average designed to measure combat LOS in Germany. It may have been specific to the American sector, which is much more wooded and hilly than Northern Germany. Anyways, the point is, it is a combat average. Nice pictures though! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BletchleyGeek Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 8 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said: Anyways, the point is, it is a combat average. So rely on it at your peril? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sawomi Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Yes, an theoretical avarage that will get easily undercut or exeeded depending on the exact location and conditions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IICptMillerII Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 23 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said: So rely on it at your peril? 21 minutes ago, sawomi said: Yes, an theoretical avarage that will get easily undercut or exeeded depending on the exact location and conditions. Exactly, on both points! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrzafka Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 This figure also shows that designing tank weapons and fire control systems for extremely long-range fighting might not be cost effective, at least for ETO. Better focus on other aspects, like fire on the move capability etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slysniper Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 (edited) And the most important thing of all. if you are a military force on the move. How often are you going to drive out in the open where you can be seen from locations at distances like 2500m if you are not sure the enemy is located out there. Yes long distance engagements can occur, but in general, events of the past have proven. most of the time engagements are closer than that due to many factors. including the simple fact that you want to allow the enemy to get within a certain range where you can engage and bring as much firepower as possible that can destroy them quickly if you think you have the advantage. So 1500 meters is more logical to test than 2500m if you are only going to run one test. Even playing the game against another person, how often does a long range duel happen, compared to shorter ranges. And even if a long range duel happens and I have the advantage, how easy is it for the enemy to disengage from the situation. Anyway, a real good test is more like 500,1000,1500,2000 and you can see if there is a preferred range that you should be engaging at. And when the game is in your hands you can go for it. I normally pick 1200m for a simple fact that I find that a common distance I have seen in many game engagements. Which has to do with map construction and nothing to do with real world aspects. Other than I will say, more and more maps are using real world locations to generate the maps I believe. Edited March 10, 2021 by slysniper 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sawomi Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 ATGMs will be the interesting wild cards. Let's see how it will play out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 3 hours ago, slysniper said: How often are you going to drive out in the open where you can be seen from locations at distances like 2500m if you are not sure the enemy is located out there. It would still be worth testing engagements at this range to ensure the equipment works "as advertised". For example: I recall in CM1 that the "dreaded" German 88mm was not accurate at the long (2Km-3Km+) ranges that it was supposed to excel. It seemed that the CM1 engine was contrived to make weapons systems relatively accurate only up to maybe 500-1000 meters. Similarly, CMSF2 tests have shown that a two man team with no binoculars and only one thermal optic mounted on one rifle seem better at spotting enemies at 2,500 meters+ than the more expensive and sophisticated equipment carried by FO's etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wadepm Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Excellent discussion. My original purpose in asking about the 3000 meter range was to see if the US tank got the upper hand at a longer range. And should that be the case is it worth it to try and stand off at those distances and duke it out with a better chance to prevail. As mentioned, I would love to see results at 500 meter intervals out to the weapons theoretical range limit. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 At 3000m ATGMs come into their own. TOW, AT-5, AT-6 Spiral, AT-11 Sniper. That range is too far for AT-4, AT-7, Dragon and Shilleglah, though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markus544 Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Did the T-64 have ATGM capabilty...Did the T-62 have that ability too? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fireship4 Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 I read that Soviet tanks would bombard with HE at long/max range (I'm thinking 5km or so) as they advanced on a target before switching to other ammunition. I suppose that would be possible using area fire. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IICptMillerII Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 22 minutes ago, markus544 said: Did the T-64 have ATGM capabilty...Did the T-62 have that ability too? In reality, yes. In game, only the T-64B has a GLATGM. The T-62 variants that got GLATGMs are outside of the games timeline as of now. 2 hours ago, wadepm said: My original purpose in asking about the 3000 meter range was to see if the US tank got the upper hand at a longer range. Depends on the tank, but even an Abrams is going to struggle to kill Soviet MBTs at 3,000m. It will be able to hit, but at that distance, with the ammo it is slinging, and given the armor protection of T-64/72/80, it will be hard to score a kill. And then, as others have mentioned, there is the Soviet ATGM threat. Not so much of an issue for an Abrams due to its HEAT defeating composite armor, but pretty much any other US vehicle is at severe risk from ATGMs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 (edited) T72B (missile capable) showed up outside out timeframe (1985). Remember T72 was intended as a cheap knockoff version of T64. We've got T64B and T80B in the game. The Soviets were short on missile guidance systems so its about halfsies the B and B1 (not missile capable) models. T62M with missile launch capability showed up in 1983. Edited March 10, 2021 by MikeyD 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 One thing I wanted to mention about the landscape photos above. Note most of them have a significant dead zone in the middle distance, masked by an intervening hill, village buildings, or trees. you may have LOS out to 4,000m+ but not out to 800m. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BletchleyGeek Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 (edited) 9 hours ago, slysniper said: Yes long distance engagements can occur, but in general, events of the past have proven. most of the time engagements are closer than that due to many factors. including the simple fact that you want to allow the enemy to get within a certain range where you can engage and bring as much firepower as possible that can destroy them quickly if you think you have the advantage. So 1500 meters is more logical to test than 2500m if you are only going to run one test. To me at least, the question isn't about what are typical ranges, that is well settled. Rather, I just have a valid curiosity about whether the games underlying simulation is as robust as it is on "average" engagement ranges. A wise thing is to test the extremes, as well as the "typical" baseline. This matters gameplay-wise because specific tactics are enabled and weapons platforms become useful at very long ranges. I am not personally expecting to be able obliterate tank and mech battalions from 2,000 metres+ with superior tech. What I am expecting is that engaging the enemy just outside their optimal fire envelope will allow to disrupt their maneuver with little losses. Nothing like the lead tank of a column blowing up all of a sudden to stall a move, delaying them long enough to call in murderous artillery on them. FWIW maps like the one for the scenario Bridgehead at Khalaryk (sp) in CMBS allow pretty much to fight it out from 2000 meters plus (with state of the art M1s). That, and the scenario by George MC where you run Tigers versus JS-2, can't remember the name right now, are my only in game experiences with engagements happening at extreme ranges. Bigger maps than the average 1000x1000 usually do not have the kind of elevation differences that enable such long range LOS. For instance, CMBN CW maps like Colossal Crack are very large, but buildings, walled orchards and subtle elevation changes preclude that. There is a majority of scenarios that cater for knife fights, but there is a substantial number of large scale maps that allow to explore the limits of the sim in interesting ways. Edited March 10, 2021 by BletchleyGeek 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markus544 Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 So having said that does the USSR forces have some kind of advantage re ATGM fire against NATO forces.. But I would say that ATGM from USSR forces were fired from the halt. So they could target the oposition. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vacillator Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 32 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said: the scenario by George MC where you run Tigers versus JS-2 Gog and Magog methinks? Tiger IIs, Panthers, Panzer 4s. Great scenario, great map, an early learning experience for me . 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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