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Walls, Windows and other assorted MOUT problems


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I remember being taught various means of building entry on (British) OBUA exercises in years gone by. These were difficult to simulate in the training villages because we obviously couldn't blow holes in walls all the time without demolishing the whole village. We were taught to fight "gable end to gable end", using windows or breaches to avoid going round the sides.

The buildings have large, conviniently placed windows that have lockable shutters. This allows specific windows to be left open to represent windows or "mousehole charge" breaches, while locked windows remain shut during the exercise and effectively don't exist. Most villages also contain sewers, bunkers and underground tunnels. Doors were almost never used, it was assumed they were either barricaded, booby trappped or "too obvious".

Most British OBUA villages look strikingly West German in their architecture. (The remainder look a lot like Northern Ireland). We were taught to expect a Stalingrad style battle that would be very costly for the attacker. Training videos on the subject tended to be old and featured British troops (with some cheesy looking 1970s moustaches) defending a West German village from a VERY numerically superior enemy dressed in Russian uniforms...

Defence tactics were concerned with holding (heavily fortified) key buildings, including snatching them back with local counterattacks if we lost them. It was accepted that the attacker would be massacred, but that we needed to know how to attack in case of some future major war.

What we all took away from those exercises was that trying to clear enemies from occupied buildings was very dangerous. The whole business of climbing assault ladders and clambering through windows resulted in lots of exercise casualties and more than a few real injuries caused by people loosing their grip and falling back to earth! An assaulting section would shed any unneeded equipment such as packs and LAWs, leaving them with the rest of the platoon, these would then either be brought forward by the rest of the platoon, or (more likely) reclaimed by the assaulting section after they had "died" and come back as reinforcements.

Obviously, trying to blast an entire urban area into a moonscape is going to be impractical. However, a clearly identified occupied building is going to be worth a couple of demolition charges at least!

All recent exercises I've been on have been oriented towards "peacekeeping" type operations. These involve talking to the locals (hearts and minds, intelligence etc), trying to spot IEDs (simulated with pyrotechnics), carrying out vehicle searches, getting ambushed by uncons and so on...Then again I'm not infantry any more so I don't do as much "green" training as I used to.

I'm happy with the way buildings are simulated in CMSF. Not being able to climb in through windows is a minor inconvinience and I understand why the game was done that way.

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Training videos on the subject tended to be old and featured British troops (with some cheesy looking 1970s moustaches)

Hmm. Are you sure you weren't shown some OTHER 70's 'educational' videos? With a funky soundtrack and female civilians in need of... protection... :D:rolleyes::cool:

What's your branch of service now, if I may so bluntly ask? Guarding the Buckingham? 00?

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I'm a Communications Systems Engineer with the Royal Signals. Lots of LANS and WANS and telephones, not so much infantry stuff! Still, I visit forward areas often enough to make my life interesting...

I used to be a reservist infantryman, but I felt a need to bring my civilian trade into the army with me when I went regular. This only makes sense, I'll need a civvy trade when I join the "real" world again in years to come!

Also, trust me, I'm in the BRITISH army, I know more than about the OTHER videos than I ever wanted to!

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Heh... funny stuff Woodmeister! So, you're just like Regimental Sergeant Major John Benton?

Benton.jpg

Where would we be without Wiki and the geeks who punch in all the useless data it contains? A world that is a lot less interesting ;)

As for your point about the theory of creative entry having some problems, that's what we heard from previous discussions. The more sure a unit is about the location of the bad guys, the more creativity pays off. Especially in a COIN environment where ops can be planned out, perhaps even rehearsed, before hand. This is all pretty common sense stuff when you think about how exposed soldiers are when they are climbing ladders. It's not a no brainer maneuver, that's for sure.

Again, I do not dispute that some specific use of windows makes sense. I just dispute that it's as widespread as some here have argued. I also disagree that it makes much of a practical difference since doors are usually available on two sides since buildings default that way. Scenario designers must deliberately, or accidentally, remove the egress. And if they've done that correctly it can actually add to the tactical fun of a map instead of detract from it.

Steve

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Adam,

Why not create an object like the bunker, which already has FOW (except for the way it flattens the elevation around it), but make it look like an entrenchment?

Er... because the altering of the terrain is exactly what a trench is :) In other words, with a bunker we can hide it because it is definable, never changing 3D object. The ground around it, however, can not be changed because that's a terrain mesh. Trenches are nothing more than rips in the terrain mesh, not objects.

Jak170,

In the scenario editor, it says "walls, trenches, and fences" but I have yet to see a fence. I dont know if it will be hard to integrate fences but it will definitely add to the game a bit.

Correct. The original intention was to include chain linked fencing. However, due to time constraints and limited use of it in the Middle East (in important places, granted) we decided to put it aside. From a mechanics standpoint some new coding would be needed to have a "wall" that blocked movement but not LOS/LOF. Not a ton of new coding I suspect, but there would be some for sure.

Steve

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One of the things not brought up here is exactly why you might want to climb in or out of a window. How does it affect the game in real terms (tactical permutations)?

The first thing I think is unclear to me is are windows real? How about doors? I thought that doors must be real because troops really do seem to actually go through them - not just walk through a wall because it has a door on it. Those are two different things. And I guess windows must be "real" as well because you can see through them and you can shoot the enemy through them. By real, I mean unique points on the building that are accounted for by LOS and pathfinding.

So why not just put a door everywhere you want troops to enter or egress? Well, it just seems phony, plus it leads to a set of possible tactical considerations that it is more time consuming to exit troops through a window. That would be the tactical penalty for having to resort to this tactic. It puts the group in a possibly vulnerable position.

Imagine a situation like this:

You have just moved a Blue squad into a building across from a Red infantry squad. The two squads spot each other and a firefight breaks out. Red uncons morale drops and they become suppressed. With the current feature set, one of a few things will happen. The Red troops will eventually get wiped out, they will move from panic to rout and exit (!) the battlefield (beam me up scotty!) or they will continue to be suppressed in place until an assaulting moves in and wipes them out.

Now let's say tactical AI gives them another option - displace out the back of the building and regroup in a tactically less dangerous position....let's say the building directly behind the one they are in. With displacement and the ability to utilize those windows for escape, the unit is capable of self-preservation in a way in which the game does not currently give them. Now stand or die is not the only option open to Red. The AI has chosen a middle option which leaves the squad intact and still useable in the scenario (at least for the short-term).

This leads to other tactical possibilities.....You as Blue player have anticipated this move and managed to move another squad to a position with a good LOS to the rear of the escape windows. Now the trap is sprung.....You've got vulnerable uncons squeezing piecemeal through an escape window and you let 'em have it. The unit dissolves under automatic fire and rifle grenades. Or....

perhaps that flanking squad itself gets ambushed trying to move into position...Or....

My point here is displacement capabilities and multiple egress points give the AI more flexibility and self-preservation capability.

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Once again about windows...(I give up on "entry via windows" after that last post...)

If the choice is between

#1 the platoon enter the building via the door that is on main street + main street is a sniper/mg alley

#2 the platoon enter (slowly) the building via the side/back windows + building side/back is safe

then forcing building entry via doors seriously modifies (diminishes?) the realism of MOUT tactics.

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Addendum:

As a comment on my own post above, I have witnessed on several occasions instances where troops behind a wall WILL displace to a better defensive position...say the building a few meters behind them. But I have never seen them choose to displace to a building (or position) behind them because the building they are currently in is being lit up by enemy fire. In other words it seem they can't separate the desirability of one building position to another building position that may be out of LOS from the enemy.

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CM2x squads are completely deaf to tank sounds. As a result, in MOUT, they tend to bump on the tank that is just hiding behind the corner (and the tank also tends to blast them away of the game...)

CM1X used to have a "sound detection" that was good enough to enable realistic MOUT tactics. Any chance to have this feature back in the near future (for example a ? icon or armor icon when at proximity (25meters) of a tank).

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it was ruled out that Syrian forces would use any other than most basic Soviet style defence.

so what could a basic Soviet small unit defence in urban area look like?

here's some stuff copy pasted from Red Thrust Star (July 1992) article "Defence in Built-up Areas" written by Charles J. Dick of Soviet Studies Research Center.

to prevent this post from getting too long i try to leave out stuff like counter attacks, C3 etc.

Combat in cities is conducted primarily by subunits. Therefore, all battalions, companies and even platoons must be organized as all-arms subunits capable of operating as tactically independent entities. Thus, tanks are not used in mass, but are parceled out to bolster motorized rifle subunits. Similarly, up to half or somtimes even more of the available artillery will be devoted to subunits to act in the direct fire role. Similarly, antitank units, flamethrower, smoke-generating, and engineer elements will not operate en masse but will be divided amongst motorized riflesubunits. It is worth noting the advantage accruing to the Soiviets in combat in cities from the possession of antitank guns, sights on self-propelled artillery which allow for direct fire, a large smoke-generating capacity and a plethora of flame equipment (both manpack and tank-mounted).

The defense in a BUA (Built-Up Area) should be so organized as to canalize the attack into fire sacks where the enemy can be destroyed by fire and surprise counterattacks.

The intervals between strongpoints and centers of resistance must be covered by obstacles (in turn, covered by fire) and ambushes to prevent enemy infiltration and bypassing.

All strongpoints and centers of resistance must be organized for all-round defense and sufficiently supplied to fight on from encirclement. No withdrawals will be permitted except on the express order of the senior commander.

Considerable engineer preparation is necessary to enhance the natural defensive properties of BUAs and to create obstacles to the widespread use of armor or infiltration by infantry.

A motorized rifle battalion will hold a center of resistance. This, in turn, will compromise a series of company and platoon strongpoints, organized for all-round defense. The frontage and depth of centers of resistance and strongpoints will depend on the strength of the enemy and own forces, the layout of the sector defended, and the mission of the defending subunit (i.e., whether it is on a main or secondary axis, whether it is acting in the first or second echelon). Figure 1 illustrates a typical center of resistance on a main axis.

newnum3.GIF

A platoon strongpoint will comprise one or two sturdy buildings, with basements or semi-basements. These are usually located at crossroads, on street corners, or overlooking a bridge or open ground such as parks and squares. The aim is to maximize fields of fire and to provide multi-tiered layers of fire where fields of fire are necessarily short.

A company strongpoint will comprise one large, four- to five- story building or one to two blocks or groups of buildings. Thus, its frontage will vary from 200-600 meters, with a depth of 200-400 meters. Platoon positions will be mutually supporting.

A battalion center of resistance will consist of two to three strongpoints, in one or two echelons according to the importance of the axis. These will be mutually supporting, with obstacles and ambushes in the gaps between them. The frontage will vary accordingly terrain and echeloning.

The platoon and company strongpoints, the basic building blocks of defense, are worth examining in more detail:

* Converting a house to a defended strongpoint involves the following measures (see Figure 2):

newnum5.GIF

* Time bulding is a adapted for multi-layered fire. Most weapons, icluding antitank and medium machine guns, will be on the ground floor and in the semi-basement. However, snipers and automatic riflemen (with grenades and RPGs) will thicken up fire from other stories. Attics can be used for mortar positions and for air defenders with heavy machine guns or hand-held SAMs.

* Doors and windows are blocked with sand bags, bricks or (earth filled and covered) furniture. Firing is done from embrasures created in the sandbags or cut through walls. False apertures are created to draw fire, real ones being covered by suitably painted plywood when not in use.

* Floors and firing positions are reinforced to reduce the effects of collapse as a result of shell fire. Floors are covered with up to 1.5 meters of earth or two layers of sandbags.

* Stairways are removed to complicate enemy clearing, communication being done by ladders. Outside fire escapes should be denied with wire or booby traps.

* To reduce the effect of flame attack, combutstible marterials are removed or covered in earth. Sheilds can be placed in front of embrasures. Underground shelters have a 15-20 centimeter-high wall of earth in front of their entrances to stop napalm.

o Basements are made into shelters against bombardment, storerooms, medical points, and command posts. Every underground facility must have at least two exits, going in different directions, with at least one in the form of a covered passage whose exit is beyond the possible distance of collapsing rubble (i.e., two-thirds the height of the nearest building).

o Ground floor exits are given blast-proof protection and lead to a communications trench.

newnum6.GIF

* A company strongpoint may look like that in Figure 3.

o The fist and third platoons are each defending a house, and the second platoon (less a squad) is dug in a garden. Each platoon has attached an ATGM, a tank, a howitzer in the direct fire role, a SAM and a company machine gun. Tanks and howitzers, in some cases, are emplaced within the cover of the buildings. In other cases, they, like the squad vehicles, are dug in outside to give enfilade fire on the approaches. There would be two or three alternative positions for each.

o All approaches are covered by mines and wire, and the street by dragon's teeth as well.

o Communications between platoon strongpoints are mainly by underground passage. These are also used to deliver surprise fire from the rear of the attacking force.

newnum7.GIF

* Engineer support for the defense is a theme in its own right. Usually, each motorized rifle battalion will receive a sapper platoon, though most of the laboring work will, of course, be done by the infantry under qualified supervision. The engineer tasks required are (illuminated in Figure 4):

o Execution of an obstacle plan. This will include demolitions and antitank ditching on the approaches, together with the laying of mixed minefields to protect strongpoints and canalize the attack. Within the BUA, dragon's teeth and hedgehogs are placed in likely tank approaches and these are protected against sapper demolition parties by wire obstacles. Cities will, of course, provide plenty of local resources for ditching, the creation of barricades, dragons teeth, and so on. They also open up the possibility of creating more exotic obstacles, too, such as electrified wire or lakes. As well as blocking streets, particularly main ones, engineers will deny the use of parks, squares, and the like to enemy desant forces or, when the enemy has penetrated thus far, to armor or artillery.

o Clearing fields of fire. Some buildings and walls will have to be demolished to give the defenders long-rance antitank shots and sometimes even shorter range engagements. Some buildings may also be demolished because such a move will actually improve their defensibility, and others for maskirovka purposes. The rubble will provide material for barricades and for shelters. Houses not prepared for the defense should be boobytrapped or mined, whether or not they are demolished.

* Creating fire positions. Digging guns or tank into buildings and camuouflaging them is a skilled task. Artillery emplacements will also have to be created in squares, gardens, courtyards, parks, etc., for the delivery of indirect fire.

* Improving communications. Terraced houses are inter connected by "mouseholing" from attic to attic. Separate buildings are joined by communications trenches. Underground routes (such as, tunnels, sewers, drainage ditches) need to be improved and possibly marked (or blocked, if unwanted by the defense and usable by the enemy).

* Improving survivability. Shelters have to be dug or improved (together with routes to and from them) and structures reinforced to withstand fire.

* Rapid obstacle creation. As in mobile warfare, mobile obstacle detachment will be needed for counter-penetration tasks as the attack gathers momentum.

* Route opening. Maneuver, already restricted by the very nature of BUAs, will become even more problematic with rubbling as a result of bombardment and with remote mining. Movement support detachments will need to keep open ruotes for couterattack and resupply.

* Fire fighting. Major conflagrations are a usual hazard in city fighting, compromising the stability of the defense

* Water supply. Damage to a BUA's normal water supply will often require engineer work to create a replacement.

ok, think that's enough for now.

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Addendum:

As a comment on my own post above, I have witnessed on several occasions instances where troops behind a wall WILL displace to a better defensive position...say the building a few meters behind them. But I have never seen them choose to displace to a building (or position) behind them because the building they are currently in is being lit up by enemy fire. In other words it seem they can't separate the desirability of one building position to another building position that may be out of LOS from the enemy.

Coding to recognise that a building is better cover than a wall, and allowing troops to move a certain small distance to get into better cover if under heavy fire, is one thing. A pretty simple thing. Is incoming too high for this cover? If it is, is there better cover within 10 meters? If so, get there now. If not, stay put. You don't even need to know where the shooting is coming from

Coding the pixeltruppen to figure out which of two bits of equal protection is better for them to be in is a very different can of worms. Which directions are we taking fire from, and how much fire from each direction (and position). Do the known firing positions have LoS to other nearby buildings. What about known enemy units that aren't firing (or their last known positions). And don't forget about LoS along the route to take between buildings?

Sure, it's not impossible to knock up something that works very roughly in a short time. Probably something that works pretty well for the specific scenario you have in your mind. But the problem is that it has to give sensible results in just about every scenario. And I'm pretty certain that you'll be seeing guys rushing out of buildings to go cower elsewhere when it is 'obvious' that they ought to stay put and cover their firing lane regardless, or getting flushed out of buildings and shot down in the streets (in far worse cover) far too easily.

I dare say that if they wanted to spent a week or so on it, they could make the system work pretty well, and be only marginally worse than what we have now :). Personally I think that seeking better cover is a reasonable thing for the AI to decide on. Chosing when to leave good cover is something that ought to remain in the hands of the player. Most people will remember CMx1 moments of units in trees / houses taking heavy fire and deciding to crawl out into the open ground where they make a nice, slow moving target in open terrain. It is one of the things people begged them to remove and give entirely to player control.

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Right. So change that...

You can only change that if all trenches are essentially mounds of earth on top of the landscape (like bunkers) that are high enough to act as trenches. And I don't see that as being a satisfactory solution at all. The unavoidable fact is that if you want trenches to be something that go in to the ground, then it has to cut through the terrain mesh, and that means a hole in the terrain mesh which under the current engine is always going to be visible.

Now I'd love to see 'terrain spotting' make an appearance (although following Steve's theme, the list of thing I'd love to see in the game is enough to keep them busy for a long time, never mind everyone else's wish lists :() - starting out with a 'low res' idea of the battlefield that improves as you actually get eyeballs on the terrain would be as much of a benefit as proper hiding of trenches etc. Not holding my breath on that one though...

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Hmmm,

How about allowing the defender (or scenario designer) to purchase "camo" slots? At setup the defender could camo certain trenches and slit trenches; these would act as the reverse of a vehicle.

The "camo" would be an area, say 5x5 meters or whatnot, which covers the depression and is the same color as the ground. When an enemy ground unit has a solid LOS (much like what is needed to identify a vehicle) the camo is permanently removed.

Obviously this is just a quick brainstorming idea. I have no idea if it is feasible or desirable.

Thoughts?

Regards,

Ken

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I guess my point is that I don't care whether trenches visually go into the ground or not. I'd rather have an invisible "object" with a little graphic *over* the mesh, which obeys the FOW rules, than have a visually "in mesh" trench that doesn't have any FOW at all. And, since bunkers already work that way, I know they can do it *right now* simply by creating a new object.

To be honest, other than the visual element, I really don't see why deformable terrain matters at all. The old CM system just put decals over the spots that had craters/foxholes/trenches, they obeyed FOW, offered adequate cover vs all kinds of incoming, and looked just fine to me. Steve already said the current trenches are visual abstractions and actually represent something different than their appearance, so may as well make them more functional.

Going back to the CMx1 Trenches-are-units method isn't a good idea IMO. You seem to have the visual vs protective effects backwards; here's what Steve said:

Trench depth and protection are simulated correctly.

It's the visual aspect that's an abstraction, not the cover effects. As far as engine calculations go they're WAD. The trench needs to be part of the terrain so that the units inside get the correct depth, and therefore cover. And since there is no FOW on any terrain, there's no FOW on trenches. It's just up to the scenario designer to put trenches everywhere so that you don't get the CMx1 "there's the trench, area fire!" effect.

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Coding to recognise that a building is better cover than a wall, and allowing troops to move a certain small distance to get into better cover if under heavy fire, is one thing. A pretty simple thing. Is incoming too high for this cover? If it is, is there better cover within 10 meters? If so, get there now. If not, stay put. You don't even need to know where the shooting is coming from

I can think of a number of edge cases complicating such a 'simply move to better cover' decision (having done AI for tactical FPS games):

- the 'better cover' may be occupied by hostiles

- the 'better cover' may be in the line-of-fire of even more dangerous threats

- traveling the path to this cover position may be get the squad killed

- the path to this cover position might cross friendly lines of fire (not an issue in CMSF though) or friendly lanes of movement

- the 'better cover' may be overloaded already with friendlies or designated for use by other troops on the move

All these cases can be checked for, but these checks typically involve a good amount of additional code, a large set of test-cases and the most expensive computation in the game: line-of-fire checks.

Don't misunderstand me: I'm looking forward to play with and against AI capable of everything you describe. Sadly, game AI doesn't automatically become easy because something looks obvious.

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I'd rather have an invisible "object" with a little graphic *over* the mesh, which obeys the FOW rules, than have a visually "in mesh" trench that doesn't have any FOW at all. And, since bunkers already work that way, I know they can do it *right now* simply by creating a new object.

IMHO that's not a solution. You can't move along an object like you can move along a trench; that was a big problem in the CMx1 trench because it was just a modifier to the protection of the terrain, so AI didn't really recognise it as cover and moving in it made you vulnerable. That would be even worse with a bunker like object, because then you'd have to exit the 'trench' and run to the next 'trench', all the while your men were like ducks in shooting gallery.

I would love to have perfect FOW, just like you would and just like Steve would, but we must try to avoid underestimating Steve as a miserable doofus who knows nothing about making games, because he knows about making games. He (and Charles) is bound to have given this a bit more consideration, and from a more professional point of view as well, than me and you and your pet turtle together. If you don't have a pet turtle, you should get one, because turtles are cool.

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Still not getting why a trench is so different for modeling it than an APC. Both are containers that have infantry in it and provide protection for the soldiers inside. The only difference is that the trenches don't move. It doesn't sound intuitive that providing FoW for trenches is harder than for APCs. You don't see the infantry in the APC either, and the APC itself is subject to FoW, too.

Now, I get the idea in the current engine the current trenches are of course vastly different, being actual terrain. The question is why would be be so difficult to add trenches that behave like immobile APCs in addition to the terrain trenches.

Of course then there's the problem of foxholes which effectively are like APC-like trenches, too. Since you can't get away with foxholes without FoW the buildings blocks for the trenches should be all there.

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Now, I get the idea in the current engine the current trenches are of course vastly different, being actual terrain. The question is why would be be so difficult to add trenches that behave like immobile APCs in addition to the terrain trenches.

Because the flat terrain is still there. Sure, you could add in a trench unit, and place it somewhere on the ground. And then be unable to do anything with it because the basic terrain mesh is still there. You want to walk in to the trench, but as far as the game engine is concerned, you can't move down through the terrain mesh (which is the lowest height you can be). To get around that you have to tear a hole in the terrain or deform it to go under your trench unit, and then the location is blindingly obvious even if the 'trench' hasn't been spotted.

BTW for all the "you see a trench and immediately HE it" talk about CMx1, fairly people took advantage of that and stuck trenches around as target dummies, and put the actual unit in cover near the trench to hit whatever fell in to the trap. (Or the even more nasty (and rather gamey) trick of putting a stealthy firing unit in the trench near some trees... when your opponent gets a sound contact near the trees, he assumes that's where the unit is (being too far away to spot the trench - was it only visible under 192m or something?) and area-fires the trees, while you plink away from the safety and anonymity of the trench in the open).

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Because the flat terrain is still there. Sure, you could add in a trench unit, and place it somewhere on the ground. And then be unable to do anything with it because the basic terrain mesh is still there. You want to walk in to the trench, but as far as the game engine is concerned, you can't move down through the terrain mesh (which is the lowest height you can be). To get around that you have to tear a hole in the terrain or deform it to go under your trench unit, and then the location is blindingly obvious even if the 'trench' hasn't been spotted.

I still don't see that. You can just assume it's very narrow and don't let people look down into it. No need to break up the ground 3D model. Graphically model the soldiers as partially sticking out. Maybe add a decoration of a little bit of elevated dirt around it for plaing things in an appealing manner.

BTW for all the "you see a trench and immediately HE it" talk about CMx1, fairly people took advantage of that and stuck trenches around as target dummies, and put the actual unit in cover near the trench to hit whatever fell in to the trap. (Or the even more nasty (and rather gamey) trick of putting a stealthy firing unit in the trench near some trees... when your opponent gets a sound contact near the trees, he assumes that's where the unit is (being too far away to spot the trench - was it only visible under 192m or something?) and area-fires the trees, while you plink away from the safety and anonymity of the trench in the open).

So? The enemy had to come close to a trench to see it, it was under FoW. I don't see how this is worse than showing the trenches without FoW.

The reason why players bombared trenches in CMBB was a pricing mistake. They were so scarce and expensive that they became an inappropriately high focus for both offensive action (nuke them) and defense deception. If scenarios had enough trenches available that wouldn't be an issue. It would be worth to just bombard them and hence there's no temptation to place them for deception.

Furthermore, CMBB's and CMAK's trenches had a bug in that they helped against casualties but not against suppression. You knew that soldiers inside the trench would be pinned by MG fire going over their heads the same way as if they wer ein the open. In reality they could move through the trench, falling back, without exposing their heads. In CMBB/CMAK you knew that any kind of fire would pin defenders in trenches, pretending them from falling back even if there is a contiguous line of trenches, so you just have some high-ammo MG blast away at them.

There's no reason to repeat that mistake in CMx2 WW2.

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