LOS Through Trees

[Vanir Ausf B]

I recently had an enemy Stug open fire on 2 of my tanks though a stand of trees that would appear to block LOS. All of it's shots have impacted on the intervening trees. The targeting line goes through the trunks of 2 trees. Is this a bug or are trees less obscuring than their visual appearance would suggest? I have the save file if anyone wants it.

[womble]

I had a Sherman 76 and a Panther duelling through some treetops. The trees seemed to stop all the Panther rounds and the Sherman got a lucky lower hull hit and won. Both tanks were under AI free fire control at the time; I had been trying to reverse the Sherman out of trouble, but it stopped where it could somehow see the Panther through the trees, and vice-versa. Seems like the asymmetry of trajectory worked in my favour this time.

[Crushingleeek]

i had question about this too. the foliage of the trees (not even their trunks) in many cases looks to completely obscure LoS, yet somehow the tank commanders see right through it.

[Battlefront.com]

The targeting is deliberately a little flexible because it is assumed the shots won't go exactly along the LOS/LOF for one or more reasons. For example, one or the other unit moves. It would cause great frustration and a ton of missed opportunities if we made the targeting too strict. Having said that, obviously situations can crop up (like this one) where fire should be withheld or the vehicle moved a bit because the chance of passing a round through all that is really low.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

i had question about this too. the foliage of the trees (not even their trunks) in many cases looks to completely obscure LoS, yet somehow the tank commanders see right through it.

Each crew member in a vehicle spots on his own according to his position and what sorts of visual options are available to him. The LOS from the unit is a sort of an average, with the gunner's LOS being the one weighted most heavily.

Steve

[womble]

Each crew member in a vehicle spots on his own according to his position and what sorts of visual options are available to him. The LOS from the unit is a sort of an average, with the gunner's LOS being the one weighted most heavily.

Steve

There do seem to be numerous occasions when the "parallax" difference between the spotter and the round trajectory mean that what looks like a valid firing resolution actually isn't. edit: It's actually happened in every scenario I've played so far, which, while admittedly only number 4, it starts to look like it's systematic.

[Crushingleeek]

Each crew member in a vehicle spots on his own according to his position and what sorts of visual options are available to him. The LOS from the unit is a sort of an average, with the gunner's LOS being the one weighted most heavily.

Steve

I like that. thanks steve.

[JG11Preusse]

I had a Sherman 76 and a Panther duelling through some treetops. The trees seemed to stop all the Panther rounds and the Sherman got a lucky lower hull hit and won. Both tanks were under AI free fire control at the time; I had been trying to reverse the Sherman out of trouble, but it stopped where it could somehow see the Panther through the trees, and vice-versa. Seems like the asymmetry of trajectory worked in my favour this time.

thats no duell ... not fair

[womble]

thats no duell ... not fair

Hey, the Panther started it! Shooting at my tank when I'd checked LOS from the stopping point to the known location of the kitty, and it wasn't clear... Cheetin' Jerries!!

[YankeeDog]

There do seem to be numerous occasions when the "parallax" difference between the spotter and the round trajectory mean that what looks like a valid firing resolution actually isn't. edit: It's actually happened in every scenario I've played so far, which, while admittedly only number 4, it starts to look like it's systematic.

There's RL precedent for this. Just this week, I was reading an account of an engagement during the 3rd Army's push to relieve Bastogne where a Sherman 76 pulled into hull down behind a railway embankment to engage a German armored column. Gunner sent the first 2 shots into the train rail just in front of the tank before the TC realized he needed to pull forward a few more feet to get the barrel's line of fire above the rail. I've read other accounts of similar things happening.

Apparently, the gunner's sights on a Sherman are about 14" higher than the barrel. They're also offset a bit to one side, IIRC.

[womble]

There's RL precedent for this. Just this week, I was reading an account of an engagement during the 3rd Army's push to relieve Bastogne where a Sherman 76 pulled into hull down behind a railway embankment to engage a German armored column. Gunner sent the first 2 shots into the train rail just in front of the tank before the TC realized he needed to pull forward a few more feet to get the barrel's line of fire above the rail. I've read other accounts of similar things happening.

Apparently, the gunner's sights on a Sherman are about 14" higher than the barrel. They're also offset a bit to one side, IIRC.

This, I can believe happened upon occasion with targets that are nose-to-nose. But it happens (so far) with noticeable frequency and potentially game-turning effects with targets that are significantly separated. AP rounds stopped by foliage that the shooter can spot through. And it just occurred to me: HE breaks trees, we know that; does AP?

[YankeeDog]

The problem with most AP shells you see in CMBN vs. trees is that most of them have an HE burster which would be set for a short delay.

So if the AP shell hits some part of the tree thick enough to initiate the fuse, the shell continues for a few feet past the tree, and then detonates.

Should take down a tree eventually, but my guess is that the combination of the smaller HE charge and the delay fuse would make AP shell considerably less effective at actually severing large tree trunks than a comparable size HE shell with the fuse set to quick.