Walls as cover

[Cpl Steiner]

Hi,

I've been playing CM for years and yet I'm still not sure how the game handles walls for purposes of cover. Does a squad have to be in contact with the wall to get any cover, or is there some amount of defilade cover extending behind the wall. In other words, on completely flat terrain, would you benefit from a wall around a field you where hiding in if fired at from the other side of the wall? In particular, I think you should be able to hide and be completely invisible. Is this the case?

[MAsta_KFC]

If I remember correctly, wall protection extends from 5 to 10m behind the wall although I forgot the percentage cover. If the unit is hiding or taking cover, then it's 0% exposure for the purposes of direct fire (but not direct fire HE, that still seems to rout).

[Omi]

So far, I've never been able to use wall successfuly in a multiplayer game. While your squads do get cover and protection when they are behind the wall, getting there and moving out is still dangerous considering walls only appear on open terrain. I've never been lucky enough to have a wall that could be used in a defensive position.

[pritzl]

You want your troops behind the wall. DO NOT put them on the wall. If in troop location it says located in "wall", then your men are about 95% exposed. That is nearly as bad as being caught in the open on a street or large paved area. being behind the wall offers excellent protection (reducing exposure to about 30%)and that cover extends to about 15 meters behind the wall. That means that your men do not have to be directly behind (i.e. up against) the wall in order to receive any benefit. They can be back away from it quite a bit and still be covered. Also, the wall is an either/or situation. That means that, if the wall is in open terrain and your men are about 15 meters away from the wall, they can go 1 meter forward and be 30% exposed or 1 meter back and be 75% exposed. Be careful though about putting your troops too close to the wall. If they get pinned, they often go prone and start crawling forward. As soon as they enter the wall, they completely expose themselves and get immediately butchered.

Walls are great for armored vehicles because it gives them hull down status. They are also EXTREMELY useful places to locate AT guns. It seems most people like to hide AT guns in forests and such, but there they are vulnerable to artillery fire. Behind a wall, your AT gun is relatively safe from all but the largest explosions as long as they land on the opposite side of the wall and there is no concern about tree bursts, which are the real killer against AT guns

[Juju]

I'm a bit rusty on this, but isn't it also so that if the firing unit is on a higher (or at least 'higher enough') elevation than the wall, it negates the defensive benefits of it?

[Slappy]

That is entirely true. Higher elevation shooters can and will shoot over the wall.

Here's the rub with walls. You need a foxhole or trench behind the wall to make the cover effective for infantry. Although the wall will provide excellent cover on its own, the AI doesn't recognize this. The Tac AI uses only the cover of the terrain it is in to determine whether it should stay or flee. It does not recognize intervening terrain (i.e. walls). So, if you're in the open behind a wall and fire starts coming in, the squad will usually run away (and get pasted). If in a foxhole, the AI assumes that it's pretty safe and will hang out. It can still get some shots off, even under heavy fire and will duck behind the wall when pinned, granting almost 100% cover. This is probably one of the best defensive positions in the game, especially as it has no risk of treebursts like having a foxhole in woods.

So, use a wall when you can put a prepared position behind it, but generally not otherwise. This tends to help a lot with the elevation thing too as there is still some cover elevated fire.