Conclusions on Snipers & Scouts from playing "Pooh"

[Euri]

... Spoilers Ahead....

I am (re)playing "Battle for Object Pooh" focussing on recon. I advanced as deep as I can with my scouts and snipers calling artillery and helo "quickies" on any vehicles or bunkers I came across along the way. The fact that the recon stage takes place at dusk helps such kind of infiltration.

I was very sucessful with this approach and now the map is full of smoke columns coming out from destroyed enemy assets. Here are some conclusions and tricks:

1st: snipers / scouts are very good at spotting enemy AFVs and strongpoints.

2nd: to maintain concealment and avoid recon teams opening fire comand a fire arc of 20m range. This way the team will be able to spot without compromising its position. This trick woks well if you also wish to force-march a "hunt" order when an enemy assets in sighted far away. Just leave the spotted asset out of the arc and proceed to "hunting" :-)

3rd: Recon spotting is less effective against hidden troops and AT assets (except at close ranges):

Although I know where the ATGMs are located in Pooh (from past games) I have decided not to cheat. So I placed my recon teams on clear LOS at ranges of 350m (+/-). In order to test the spotting ability I placed narrow target arcs on the well known positions of the ATGM assets. They did not manage to spot anyting hidden in a trench irrespective of dusk or daylight (latter in the game). However one recon team spoted a hidden enemy team in trench at a distance of 100m (+/-)

4th: To spot enemy troops (even at such closer distances) the spotter need to "be left alone". I mean that spotting occurs after one minute or so from the spotter establishing clear LOS to the target.

Given the supperior optics of the sniper/recon teams, I would have expected a better spotting performance regarding troops hidden on trenches and rooftops.

That is all...

[Peregrine]

From memory these units are all organic to your total force so it is best to move them forward until some sort of contact is made and then not much further. They are spotters not fighters and getting them into serious contact will get them killed and therefore they won't be available in later battles.

The covered arcs are critical, especially when climbing buildings (this goes for all units). There is nothing dumber than a unit climbing a building spotting something and after opening fire getting annihilated in return. I guess most players learn this the hard way though.

[stikkypixie]

... Spoilers Ahead....

I am (re)playing "Battle for Object Pooh" focussing on recon. I advanced as deep as I can with my scouts and snipers calling artillery and helo "quickies" on any vehicles or bunkers I came across along the way. The fact that the recon stage takes place at dusk helps such kind of infiltration.

I was very sucessful with this approach and now the map is full of smoke columns coming out from destroyed enemy assets. Here are some conclusions and tricks:

1st: snipers / scouts are very good at spotting enemy AFVs and strongpoints.

2nd: to maintain concealment and avoid recon teams opening fire comand a fire arc of 20m range. This way the team will be able to spot without compromising its position. This trick woks well if you also wish to force-march a "hunt" order when an enemy assets in sighted far away. Just leave the spotted asset out of the arc and proceed to "hunting" :-)

3rd: Recon spotting is less effective against hidden troops and AT assets (except at close ranges):

Although I know where the ATGMs are located in Pooh (from past games) I have decided not to cheat. So I placed my recon teams on clear LOS at ranges of 350m (+/-). In order to test the spotting ability I placed narrow target arcs on the well known positions of the ATGM assets. They did not manage to spot anyting hidden in a trench irrespective of dusk or daylight (latter in the game). However one recon team spoted a hidden enemy team in trench at a distance of 100m (+/-)

4th: To spot enemy troops (even at such closer distances) the spotter need to "be left alone". I mean that spotting occurs after one minute or so from the spotter establishing clear LOS to the target.

Given the supperior optics of the sniper/recon teams, I would have expected a better spotting performance regarding troops hidden on trenches and rooftops.

That is all...

Scopes are just binoculars with for one eye. Snipers teams in CMSF don't carry any more fancy optics than most infantry, so I overall it's ok.

[Euri]

Scopes are just binoculars with for one eye. Snipers teams in CMSF don't carry any more fancy optics than most infantry, so I overall it's ok.

This is true for the scopes. But the sniper has always a team budy who carries high end optics (IR thermal etc).

[stikkypixie]

This is true for the scopes. But the sniper has always a team budy who carries high end optics (IR thermal etc).

Ah, learn something new everyday . But I still don't think this is modelled in CMSF. I don't see any IR optics in the equipment tab anyway.

[vincere]

I'd add that while not being super men the sniper's observation skill are advanced compared to private average.

[Magpie_Oz]

A sniper scope is a really bad thing to use for surveillance. They have high magnification but quite a narrow field of view.

Of course the team does carry other optics like the wider field spotter scopes and the rifle scope will give you a good close up view once you have localised the target. I do not think a thermal or IR gear will help a great deal when looking for a concealed soldier 1000m away.

The big thing a sniper team has over the average team is that it is trained to sit a watch and not be detected so from that perspective they are a better prospect for surveillance over a regular team.

It would be interesting to compare if the snipers are harder to spot than a regular team of the same size. Have you noticed at all that although not quicker to spot a target initially you do get more information about a spotted target?

Those two things would be a good simulation of the sniper teams special skills I reckon.

[Euri]

A sniper scope is a really bad thing to use for surveillance. They have high magnification but quite a narrow field of view.

Of course the team does carry other optics like the wider field spotter scopes and the rifle scope will give you a good close up view once you have localised the target. I do not think a thermal or IR gear will help a great deal when looking for a concealed soldier 1000m away.

The big thing a sniper team has over the average team is that it is trained to sit a watch and not be detected so from that perspective they are a better prospect for surveillance over a regular team.

It would be interesting to compare if the snipers are harder to spot than a regular team of the same size. Have you noticed at all that although not quicker to spot a target initially you do get more information about a spotted target?

Those two things would be a good simulation of the sniper teams special skills I reckon.

The issue is that recon / snipers do not spot better even if they sit and watch for a long time. I had my recon team for 10 minutes on the 2nd floor of a building 250m direct LOS to a trench where I knew there was an ATGM team and did not spot everything.

[Magpie_Oz]

At 250m I would think anything would be fairly easily spotted by any unit I would think. Perhaps the ATGM team was out of sight and unspottable by anyone? Did the ATGM team spot your snipers or anyone else?

[Euri]

At 250m I would think anything would be fairly easily spotted by any unit I would think. Perhaps the ATGM team was out of sight and unspottable by anyone? Did the ATGM team spot your snipers or anyone else?

I would think the same. However the ATGM was not spotted despite the clear "blue" LOS from the spotter to it

[Praetori]

More eyes are better than few ones.

Ok it might sound silly but anyone who's traveled or served on a navy ship probably knows what I'm talking about.

To "spot" stuff you put every man available with as much of a vantage-point as possible and tell them to each look in a specific narrow direction.

Fancy optics helps you identify stuff, not find it (unless we're talking Thermals, but I think that's modeled properly?).

edit: Binocs are actually good for camo as well. Turn them around and look through them "the wrong way" and you can get a feeling of how concealed your position is without having to run the odd mile into enemy lines to find out.