Spotting and unit quality - does it matter?

[Colonel Talvela]

[McIvan]

[Colonel Talvela]

nevermind

[The Coil]

[Copper]

Okee dokee. Got it now.

Disappointing, especially since the hypothesis had a sound theoretical basis to support it.

Also disappointing due to the fact that it would provide a very effective tool for detecting hidden troops and being able to eliminate them while they believe they are invisible.

Nonetheless, I still believe that snipers are a good investment, and probably have superior spotting abilities over leaders with binoculars. Even if they do not, the stealth aspect of the sniper still is highly valuable.

More tests needed... agreed.

Cheers!

Leto

[The Coil]

So anyway, enough about clickies...back to the matter at hand.

Tested a variety of units with binocs, all Germans - 81mm mortar, an LMG, and HMG, an HQ, a sniper, and a 150mm gun - separated them with long, high walls, and walked a rifle squad toward each - whole map covered in rocky terrain (not 'rough').

The 150mm gun got first spot every time (as you might expect with the long range optics), others got spots at approximately the same time, within 2 secs and 10m of each other, except for one or two cases.

Basically, snipers spot about the same as any unit with binocs. Going to try it the other way in a second, with the spotting units walking up on stationary/hidden squads.

Interesting side note - tried it once on open terrain. In open terrain, units were getting spotted at 1800m+, basically as soon as they started moving. In rocky (again, don't confuse it with rough, which is even better cover), spots didn't start til inside of 600m.

[The Coil]

Ok, tested spotting abilities of an HQ, an HMG, an LMG, an 81mm mortar, and a sniper, this time with the spotting units each moving to contact on a separate hidden squad. Test was conducted on a board consisting of all 'rocky' terrain.

Numbers given are average distance the unit spotted the hidden squad (the higher the number, the better the unit spots), the farthest distance it spotted the squad from, and the closest it spotted the squad (over 5 trials)

HQ: 109.4m (avg) 118m (far) 105m (near)
HMG: 116.4m 121m 110m
LMG: 112.8m 122m 107m
81mm: 117.4m 122m 114m
Sniper:110.8m 120m 103m

Again, I'd call that 'no effective difference', especially since no units best spot is worse than any others worst, and the span of spotting ranges is pretty darn close across all the unit types. Maybe you could make a case for mortars and HMGs spotting a bit better, but at best it's a pretty insignificant difference (8% or so, maybe), and I suspect it'd go away if I ran a more statistically significant number of trials, but I got bored at 5...

So, to sum up:

1) The spotting unit's quality has no effect on its ability to spot.
2) There's clearly a random element to spotting, and it is apparently fairly significant.
3) Unit quality clearly affects its ability to be spotted.
4) Snipers do not spot better than other binoc units, either when they are stationary and spotting moving units or when they are moving and spotting stationary units.

Still up in the air:
1) How much better are snipers at remaining unseen than other binoc units?
2) What ranges are snipers spotted at, and how drastically is it affected by unit quality.

[The Coil]

Finally got around to running some "how well are snipers spotted" tests, and was immediately reminded why I didn't run them earlier. Very boring and marginally useful at best...here's what I came up with, for the record...

Walked 6 German snipers down lanes of a single type of terrain, ie all brush, or whatever. At the other end of the lane, an American platoon, un-foxholed, not hiding, not moving. Walked the snipers at the platoons with 'move' orders. All units are regulars. Results are given in meters away when the sniper was spotted...an 'S' means there was a sound contact given ahead of the hard spot, but ranges are when a hard spot was obtained...

Open 87m
Scattered Trees 23m S
Woods 14m S
Brush 46m S
Rocky 70m
Rough 55m

In Open, Brush, and Rocky, the sniper spotted the platoon first (at ranges of 315m, 75m, and 140m respectively), otherwise the platoon got the first spot.

Now some disclaimers...only ran one trial of each, because it's very, very nonexciting (unlike the test I once ran with 5000pts of arty dropped on a bunch of bunkers...now, there was a test). So the ranges could vary quite a bit. Also could vary across non-uniform terrain...if your sniper is walking in brush, being spotted by a unit in woods, through a scattered trees tile, then your guess is as good as mine. Also, all tests were done with units facing each other, if you walked up on the flank of the unit, spotting ranges would drop. Ran all the tests with non-binoc units, so that'd probably change the ranges as well. Also, different experience levels of the snipers would presumably affect ranges. So I'm not sure how helpful this test was... Let's be honest, I really just ran it so CT would quit hounding me... ;)

[McIvan]

A worthy reason for running the test to be sure :)

I'll do some hounding of my own, since it's much easier than actually doing it myself. In my opinion, your test should have had different types of units walking side by side, not just snipers. A good comparison would be a tank hunter team and LMG team, being small two man teams, plus a full infatry squad for reference.

I suspect that a lot of the sniper's concealment value comes from the fact that it is a lone man, rather than an inherent sneakiness.

I'd also rerun the test with the unit commencing to sneak a bit before the point where it would normally be in danger of being spotted.

A third test would be putting them all on hide in scattered trees or woods and seeing how close enemy units get before spotting them in comparison to each other...

[Colonel Talvela]