Spotting and unit facing?

[xerxes]

Is spotting effected by unit facing? I mean does a unit spot more effectively in front of it? Does it make sense to try and sneak a piat up behind a tank?

- xerxes

[blindseye]

I have never noticed that it makes a difference. Spotting seems to me to be 360 degrees, but I could be wrong, that is just my observation.

[Brujay]

A buttoned up vehicle should be totally blind from any side but a narrow range out front. That's why WWII tankers rarely travelled without infantry support. A lot of gamers think that tanks support infantry. In fact, infantry supports tanks. In CM, however, tanks are like submarines, with a 360-degree line of sight.

[Joerg]

I've had a flamethrower team in test scenario moving down the street towards a buttoned Panzer IV from BEHIND. I played both sides and I can tell you the tank crew did not even notice the first flame attack on its vehicle, even less the FT team 20 m away!

[Michael Emrys]

In CM1, personnel units at least have 360° spotting ability without prejudice because of facing. Exception appears to be running units which seem able to spot only to their front.

This may change in CM2 (if I understand correctly). It has been announced that units can be assigned a covered arc for fire. Whether that will effect their spotting abilities or lack thereof remains to be seen.

Vehicular units in motion at any speed appear to have spotting only to their forward arc.

Michael

[ 08-05-2001: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[Brujay]

You guys may be right. Maybe it's only my perception that tanks have eyes in the back of their head. They certainly are quick to spot anti-tank teams--bazookas, piats, panzershrecks. But Allied tanks don't seem to have any special 6th sense on which German squads carry panzerfausts. Wonderful things, panzerfausts. They've pulled me out of the fire many the time.

[Chad Harrison]

ive ran some tests on sneaking. i tried sneaking from infront of the enemy, and the from behind the enemy, and this was all in woods terrain. when i snuck in from behind, i was able to get MUCH closer than from when i came from in front. i ran the test with a number of other conditions, and it seemed that when i came in from behind, i was able to get closer without being spotted, esp. against conscript troops.

for AFV's, if they are buttoned, you wont see anything unless its a tank firing at you, or a infantry AT weapon firing at you. they are near worthless buttoned against infantry attacks.

[Ben Galanti]

I'm pretty sure that facing does matter (as well as current condition). An unsupressed squad will spot things in front of it fairly well. A cowering squad will miss things that are close behind it.

Tanks that are buttoned can not spot things very well. That being said, if the buttoned tank has a friendly infantry squad nearby (or even not so nearby) that can see your squad trying to sneak-up, the tank will instantly learn of your squad from it's friendly infantry.

This is the lack of relative spotting issue, which will hopefully be handeled in CM II (the engine rewrite, not the east front version coming this fall, so it will be a while).

Ben

[Ben Galanti]

After a little quality time with the search function, I came accross this quote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Units spot best to their front, worst to their rear, but "hear" equally in all directions.

Charles<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This, obviously, still doesn't overcome the absolute spotting issue, which I suspect is the cause for the type of behaviour Brujay is talking about.

Ben