White Phosphorous interaction with thermal sights

[Pelican Pal]

Do White Phosphorous rounds cause and reduction in spotting capability for thermal sights in game?

Some people believe that they do but I've found no evidence in the manual or elsewhere on the forums to support that claim. Further I ran a simple test firing 2,940 WP rounds directly in front (and onto) a BM Oplot and at no point did they show any reduction in spotting capabilities through the barrage. Although I would expect that the sheer amount of shells exploding would have blocked vision.

[Pelican Pal]

Just off of a bit of gut instinct I ran the same tests with 294 152mm HE guns firing and the Oplots could again see through the barrage. This seems to reinforce the above and also point to maybe some missing modeling. The ideal result here would be for the absurd amount of dust, dirt, explosions, etc... to block the thermal sights of the vehicles.


And just to clarify I'm using more guns than you would ever see in-game (294) since if the game did in fact model some small loss of capability that loss should then be obviously apparent when the scale is so absurd.

[The_MonkeyKing]

I agree. Would be great that thermal spotting could be negated somehow. For example does temperature effect spotting? Lot easier to see a warm tank in the winter than during summer.

Maybe this is already modeled. I don't know

[Pelican Pal]

IIRC the game does model weather conditions when it comes to spotting.  So rain, fog, etc... That is fairly clear through gameplay but you could also double check the manual.

In particular I am testing WP and more generally artillery effect on spotting here. I've seen some people claim that WP will degrade optics but again that isn't backed up anywhere. Does anyone have any evidence that it does because these tests appear very conclusive.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Pelican Pal
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[Centurian52]

Mostly just commenting to raise the profile of this thread, because I would also be interested in knowing how much thermals are impacted by weather and dust, both in real life and as modeled in game.

Based purely on intuition, I would think that thermals would always have an easier time seeing through dust than the mark 1 eyeball. But I would think that a dense enough cloud of dust should degrade the ability of a gunner to see a target through even the best thermals (particularly if there are lots of larger grains being actively kicked up by an ongoing artillery barrage). I would also think that colder conditions would increase the contrast between the terrain and a running vehicle, while warmer conditions would decrease the contrast between the terrain and a running vehicle, making it easier to see a vehicle through thermals in winter. So I guess the questions are, how much of a difference do these factors actually make in real life? Does CM model these? And, if not, do these factors have a great enough impact to be worth modeling?

[Pelican Pal]

So actually looking through the manual it doesn't mention anything that I can find about thermals and weather but by spinning up a scenario with "dense fog" you can clearly see that thermals spot less well.

[BornGinger]

2 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

IIRC the game does model weather conditions when it comes to spotting.  ... fog...

... although a thick fog in the WW2 games doesn't seem to do much to make it harder to spot the enemy or to be spotted by them even from a long distance.

[Vanir Ausf B]

16 hours ago, BornGinger said:

... although a thick fog in the WW2 games doesn't seem to do much to make it harder to spot the enemy or to be spotted by them even from a long distance.

I'm pretty sure it makes a big difference. If it's not that would be a bug for sure.

[Vanir Ausf B]

17 hours ago, Pelican Pal said:

So actually looking through the manual it doesn't mention anything that I can find about thermals and weather but by spinning up a scenario with "dense fog" you can clearly see that thermals spot less well.

Rain/snow/fog/mist/haze affect thermals but temperature does not. Smoke and dust have no effect on thermals except for IR blocking smoke (red phosphorous, and only exists in Black Sea). The modeling is somewhat simplistic in this regard.

[Lethaface]

36 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

I'm pretty sure it makes a big difference. If it's not that would be a bug for sure.

Having played quite a number of games in fog last year, I can confirm that it certainly did make a big difference on spotting and therefore the distance at which firefights erupt (CMFB and CMFI games IIRC).
Makes for some interesting dynamics. 

[Pelican Pal]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Rain/snow/fog/mist/haze affect thermals but temperature does not. Smoke and dust have no effect on thermals except for IR blocking smoke (red phosphorous, and only exists in Black Sea). The modeling is somewhat simplistic in this regard.

Thanks for the info. This is sorta what I figured but its nice to have confirmation of the mechanics.