Spotting and Air Attack

[ev]

There are separate threads on Spotting and on Air Attacks elswhere in this site. However, I feel there is a need to focus on the relationship between spotting and air attacks of units behind the lines.

Air attacks on land units behind the lines caused delays and disruptions, but seldomely caused substantial combat losses of the kind that would be reflected in SC. There were several reasons for that. One reason was that they could take possitions where AA guns could offer them best protection, instead of chosing their possition based on the needs of the frontline. Another reason is that they could find better cover. But the most important reason was that it was very difficult to spot them.

Pilots could infer the presence of an army behind the lines. They could see tracks on the ground, supply trucks moving around, perhaps some units in the process of relocating, etc. But the bulk of the troop normally remained undetected to air units. Hence an air attack on such a unit would cause limmited damage.

I propose there should be four types of spotting:

1. Ground Concact occurs when land units are adjacent to each other and provides the highest level of information.

2. Troop Movement Contact occurs when a enemy land unit moves within sight range of a friendly air or land unit but without establishing direct contact. Troop Movement Contact applies also to units that are not entrenched since a unit that did not move in the last turn would have some entrenchement level. Hence untrenched units are units that just arrived to their location and are subject to this kind of spotting. This is the second highest level of spotting. The spotter can tell whether this is an armored formation, and, may also guess some other info about it, but, missinformation can randomly occur.

3. Detection of Partially Camouflaged and Entrenched unit. This applies to units behind enemy lines, with entrenchment levels 1 or 2. We see entrenchement work and supply movement. We know something is there, but camouflage does not allow us to get precise info on the type of unit located there.

4. Fully Camouflaged unit. This applies to units behind the lines with entrenchment leves 3 or above. There is a good chance that such a unit will not be spotted at all. If detected, it is treated as #3.

The effectiveness of air attacks on enemy units should be linked to the spotting level of the target unit. An air attack on a target with Spotting Level #1 should be much more effective than an air attack on a unit that is not quite well spotted as in #3.

An attack on a camouflaged, partially detected unit (spotting level #3) should only cause a reduction in readiness level. An attack on detected troop movement behind the lines (spotting level #2) would cause some combat loss and a somewhat larger readiness level reduction. An attack on a fully spotted unit (spotting level #1) under contact would cause the most damage and disruption.

...of course, no attacks would be possible in an "unspotted" unit. What happenned to carpet bombing? Well there is no way you can carpet bomb a tile of 250 square miles. So you need some information about where exactly is a unit located within the tile before you carpet bomb that section of the tile.

Also note, that the "Spotting Levels" I propose apply to spotting by all units. In SC1, land units could spot several hexes away. In fact, land units could spot behind enemy lines. Comments in the SC1 site explained this was suppose to account for the presence of small recon airplanes directly attached to the army or corps. To the extend that SC2 also allows land units to spot far away units, I would apply to such spotting the same "Spotting Levels" I described above.

[pzgndr]

Making the spotting range of air units lower and less than their strike range does have an interesting effect. While they can still strike at a distance, they can't strike at what they can't see. Hence the need for ground units to maneuver to see what's out there. Or forward deploy your air units and take a risk.

As for air attacks, two important changes seem to keep getting lost in the noise. One, the combat tables can and will be adjusted to slightly reduce the effectiveness of AFs against ground targets. Not to the point of preventing an air unit(s) from destroying a ground unit though. That's just an abstraction of our single unit combats we need to accept. If we could have combined unit attacks and limits on air, that would be different but we've got what we've got. Second, the new force pool limits will also reduce the overall effectiveness of air power. Not to the point of eliminating local air superiority at times, but if you mass all of your limited air in one place than you become vulnerable elsewhere. Your choice.

These two adjustments to an already workable system should improve things. Perfect? No, but better. And the editor will allow players to further experiment on their own.

[ev]

Originally posted by pzgndr:

...These two adjustments to an already workable system should improve things. Perfect? No, but better. And the editor will allow players to further experiment on their own.

Yes, this is certainly an improvement. Thanks for the info.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Second, the new force pool limits will also reduce the overall effectiveness of air power.

Since I've been playing SC the past year or so with Air limits, I have some experience with this. Not to mention all of the people I talked into playing it this way.

I think the statement is somewhat misleading, because even with limited air units, all you have to do is concentrate them to achieve the overwhealming effect Air units in SC have.

Whats somewhat more promising, is the statement that the combat tables are being modified slightly to reduce the effect Air attacks had.

Whats not promising, is the statement that Air units will still have the ability to kill off a unit.

So it seems it will be up to the playtesters to offer judgements on how the above changes work, and based on those judgements, offer any possible suggestions on a change, if any.

Interesting.

[Red Fleet]

Concerning Carpet Bombing

I find it rather strange that strategic bombing is impossible if a unit is present in the city. The goal of the bombing run is to hit the city, not the unit inside.

Will it be possible to attack cities/industries with lr-bombers in sc2 despite the presence of a unit??

comments/thoughts?

[Red Fleet]

and spotting

a very interesting idea. Spotting limits would transform the role of the airforce. and of course make the game more realistic.

my grandfather was soldier in one of the first detection units, the used primitive radio and radar scanning to evaluate the position of russian airfields (or better their bearing/heading).

For sc2 i would support the different modes of spotting limits. total camouflage should only be possible in cities. in the field it would probably be impossible to hide such masses of men and material.

[SeaMonkey]

"For sc2 i would support the different modes of spotting limits. total camouflage should only be possible in cities."

How about wooded and mountainous terrain? Perhaps swamps also?

[pzgndr]

Will it be possible to attack cities/industries with lr-bombers in sc2 despite the presence of a unit?

Yes.