A problem with aircraft spotting

[xerxes]

how can aircraft possibly spot a gun hidden in scattered trees? I had this happen to an opponent who is understandably unhappy. It seems to me that spotting an unmoved, camouflage bonus gun in trees by combat aircraft should be practically impossible.

[ December 08, 2002, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: xerxes ]

[YankeeDog]

Several possibilities that I can think of that could lead to the gun being spotted. I'm sure others can think of more.

Spotting a camoflaged gun with good overhead concealment (as in a gun under a tree) would indeed be difficult, but it's far from impossible.

First of all, your post lacks some details about the incident - for example, what time of year was it? Deciduous trees provide much less concealment from aerial obeservation in the winter.

Secondly, it's important to remember that the gun had to get there somehow. Presumably, it was towed into place, most likely by a large, tracked vehicle. Big tracked vehicles leave a trail of damaged ground when traveling across practically anything but a prepared road surface. While the degree to which this trail is visible depends on ground and weather conditions, in general it is quite visible from the air.

Of course, any half-intelligent gun crew is going to take steps to conceal the vehicle track so as to not give away their positions, but short of completely cutting up the sod and replacing it with new grass, it's going to be difficult to completely eliminate all signs of the guns' transport. If a sharp-eyed pilot spots the tracks, all he has to do if follow them to where they end and he knows where the gun pit is.

In addition, there are other, minor factors that might lead to a relatively well-concealed gun being spotted from the air. Much like vehicle tracks, freshly-turned earth (as in a newly dug gun pit) is also very easy to see from the air. This can be partially concealed by the use of camo netting and/or covering the pit with brush, but once again it's difficult to conceal all signs of earth moving from aerial observation.

Finally, there's small things like the glint of sun off of spotting scope lenses and the like, or just a simple mistake by a gun crew member like leaving a shell casing out in the open where the sun can glint off of it.

All in all, I certainly agree that spotting a well-concealed, unmoved gun position in scattered trees from the air should be *very* unlikely, but I would not go so far as to say it should be "practically impossible". Much like CM models "weak point" hits against AFVs that allow a projectile to penetrate armor that it usually has little or no chance of damaging, it makes sense to me that aircraft might occasionally get "lucky sightings" of fairly well concealed ground units.

If someone builds a test scenario that indicates that hidden guns and the like are spotted from the air rather easily, then I would say there's a problem that might need rectifying. Otherwise, I will give BTS the benefit of the doubt and assume that cases like the one you mention are just part of the random fortunes of war that CM models so well. IOW, your pilot got lucky and just happened to be looking the right direction at the right time.

Cheers,

YD

[Soddball]

I think that you should gloat and snigger, taunting loudly at every opportunity - and this looks like a perfect one. Don't let up for at least a week.

[Peaveyyyyyyyy]

:mad: It is August. Maybe the heat of the Southern summer just plain BURNED the leaves off the trees.

OK massive whinging moan coming up... from a born loser, obviously.

This is the second game I have had ruined by the randon attrition factor (AKA aircraft) Both sides had aircraft. If neither had had them it would have been a good scenario. After his Il-2 had made 2 passes, I had lost 2 88mm AT guns, which I had hidden in scattered trees. Also, my 4 20mm AA guns unhid unbidden, allowing my oppo to guess where they were and kill them. As one of them had another AT gun nearby that died too. End result: after 2 weeks of PBEM and without having fired a shot or unhidden anything, I have no AT assets left to speak of. I am exaggerating here but not too much. Totally spoiled the game, and I had exactly the same thing happen in CMBO in another defensive scenario. I will be avoiding scenarios with Aircraft from now on because their effects are too random. I play this game as a test of skill.

Just to rub it in, when my plane appeared it got shot down. Hah!!

IMO, Hidden AA assets should stay hidden. If I want AA cover I'll unhide them. If I have hidden unmoved units in scattered trees, then the chances of them being spotted should be very small. In woods, zero.

Air power is broken and silly.

<pathetic whingeing ends>

Love the game, by the way. :cool:

[Peaveyyyyyyyy]

OK I did a test. 8 x 88mm AT guns (not FlaK) on the Axis side, one Il-2 version 3 on the soviet side.

I HID 3 guns in woods/pines and 5 in scattered trees.

The aircraft made 4 passes and scratched 4 guns, all in scattered trees.

I rest my case m'lud. Aircraft are not behaving reasonably. Perhaps the trees were REALLY scattered......like one every 50 yards and they were just saplings, really.....

Anyway, IMO if they are supposed to behave like that, then we should be told to put guns in the woods. What we do with our tanks is anybody's guess. I'd rather not have them on the map if they are going to be free points for my oppo.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Peaveyyyyyyyy:

OK I did a test. 8 x 88mm AT guns (not FlaK) on the Axis side, one Il-2 version 3 on the soviet side.

I HID 3 guns in woods/pines and 5 in scattered trees.

The aircraft made 4 passes and scratched 4 guns, all in scattered trees.

I rest my case m'lud. Aircraft are not behaving reasonably. Perhaps the trees were REALLY scattered......like one every 50 yards and they were just saplings, really.....

Anyway, IMO if they are supposed to behave like that, then we should be told to put guns in the woods. What we do with our tanks is anybody's guess. I'd rather not have them on the map if they are going to be free points for my oppo.

Hmmm. . . assuming that you set the scenario up with the Germans on the defense, so that the 88s would start out dug in and camoflaged, your results do sound a bit suspicious. At the very least, the matter is worthy of further investigation. The 88mm PaK is a big @ss gun, so it should be spotted somewhat more often than smaller guns, but it should still be difficult to spot a camoflaged 88 from the air in scattered trees.

Sounds like a larger test with a greater sample size is in order. If no one else gets to it, I'll try to do one later this week - too busy with the dreaded real life right now. . .

Cheers,

YD

[Silvio Manuel]

I'll bet you that the German 75mm (much smaller) have a much better survivability in the same test scenario...want to try it?

[Guest Mike]

AA assets are not there to remain hidden - they're there to try to protect your troops by driving off enemy a/c.

In the scenario you played that's EXACTLY why they're there.

And keeping your AT assets hidden isn't such a great idea either - they get hit from the air anyway!! lol

this is actually a game where shooting at the other guy is the right thing to do - it's a small-ish map, his vehicles are well within your AT gun range and you should bleein' well use them ASAP before they get knocked out!!

Bad luck - and also bad decision making.

[ December 08, 2002, 08:23 PM: Message edited by: Mike ]

[xerxes]

I'm thinking of avoiding aircraft in all the scenarios I design, I don't remember this happening in CMBO (but I could be wrong about that).

[MrPeng]

This might seem like a silly thing to ask, but what level of FOW are you using? Does FOW have any effect on aircraft spotting ability?

I always play with extreme FOW.

I mucked around a bit on something like this:

Small map (default size in random generator) with moderate tree coverage so there was a nice mix of tree types. Mid summer mid day. Clear and a mild breeze.

Germans: 1 Coy of somethingorothers and 8 "randomly" selected planes of the available aircraft (August 43 I think it was) for the time peroid.

Russians:

3 x 85mm AA

3 x 37mm AA

3 x 25mm AA

3 x 57mm AT

3 x 76.2mm Regimental Guns

I put them all in the various types of trees a moderate distance from each other, but grouping sort of so that the AAs would provide "covering fire" for the ATs - so there would be like a group of various AAs in some scattered trees with an AT gun or two, and another bunch of AAs in some woods with another AT gun or two and another bunch of AAs in some tall pines with some AT guns. YES YES YES it was ALL VERY SCIENTIFICALLY ARRANGED!!! HAR!

So anyway. I play the thing as the Germans. Putter around with a platoon out of eyeshot of the Russkies and let the divebombers and playground strafers do their thing. During the entire time I get no more than "gun sounds?" and fleeting glimpses of stuff that sort of is near where I remember placing the things. Well after about 25 turns I am getting a bit bored with it all so I call for a cease fire.

The results?

2 dead 85mm AA - one in scattered trees and one in woods

1 dead 57mm AT gun in scattered trees - It should be noted that the crater from the bomb that apparently killed it was about 20 meters away, and the crater was actually a bit closer to a 25mm AA that did NOT die that was in scattered trees also, but NOT near the patch of scattered trees in which the 88mm AA was killed.

OH YEAH! Three dead planes out of the whole mess too...

Wot's it all mean? Dunno. Don't care. Just killin time waiting fer PBEM files.

Check that FOW thingy there, could have something to do with it. Anything other than Extreme FOW is for sissies anyway.

Peng

[JadamoW]

The key here is 'scattered' trees. These are suppose to be 'grove' like areas of small trees with little or no underbrush. Not very effective hiding places.

What really happens when you give a hide command to troops/crews in 'scattered' trees, is that they spread out and begin collecting Cherries, oranges, olives and other 'grove' like treasures.

This in turn pisses off the pixies and nymphs who will obligingly point out your troops to any aircraft that happen by.

Just thought you should know.

JOHN

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by MrPeng:

I put them all in the various types of trees a moderate distance from each other, but grouping sort of so that the AAs would provide "covering fire" for the ATs - so there would be like a group of various AAs in some scattered trees with an AT gun or two, and another bunch of AAs in some woods with another AT gun or two and another bunch of AAs in some tall pines with some AT guns. YES YES YES it was ALL VERY SCIENTIFICALLY ARRANGED!!! HAR!

Peng

Sounds impressive. Might you be the infamous Chinese General and drunken boxing master Peng?

[-E]

Originally posted by JadamoW:

This in turn pisses off the pixies and nymphs who will obligingly point out your troops to any aircraft that happen by.

Damn pixies and nymphs are always getting underfoot in this game! BTS, pleasefix or do somefink, pixies' and nymphs' rarities are skewed well beyond real world values!

[MrPeng]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by MrPeng:

Blather

Peng

Sounds impressive. Might you be the infamous Chinese General and drunken boxing master Peng?</font>

[xerxes]

EFOW naturally.

Scattered trees should provide good overhead cover. If you're going to place a gun you'd put it UNDER a tree. Duh.

A plane seeing camofluaged gun should be REALLY rare.

[Stalin's Organ]

Scattered trees: single trees with little or no scrub, provide only light cover, etc (pg 56 of the manual).

Nowhere in there does it say anything aobut providing lots (or even any) overhead cover.

In fact overhead cover isn't mentioned for any terrain.

However it is mentioned on page 137 - it improves survivability to put units under trees. It doesn't say how much, and it doesn't say it makes them invisible.

As a matter of interest - do you fly much?

Edited 'cos of something I just thought of - 20mm's are hard to spot from the ground - chances are the aircraft finds it easier to see a stationary 88 than a firing 20mm!!

[ December 09, 2002, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organ ]