my pzc feature wish list

[76mm]

...for example - imagine you have every minefield´s position displayed on the map. Now imagine a minefield from which you already withdrew 100 kms away from, you still see it on the map, then it suddenly disappears, or is going down on strenght - you now know for 100% that there is an enemy present, even more - that there is an engineer unit present clearing the minefield!

You're right about this, but it could be "easily" fixed by simply showing the last known mine icon, so you wouldn't know if it was decreased in strength or removed. I say "easily" because the concept is pretty simple but I don't presume to suggest that coding it would be simple in this game engine.

Now for example, if you play without Limited Air Recon rule, and have a good air support in the particular scenario, you can now send an air recon to see the unit (if such a change in the system that would allow one to see all his minefields on the map already wouldn´t reveal the enemy engineer unit itself), and than after spotting the engineer unit send some bombers to disrupt it´s job.

er, I don't see what is unrealistic about someone placing mines at a strategic position, and using air recon and air bombardment to make life more difficult for units trying to cross through it? You could do the same thing without the minefield; while the minefield might make this tactic more effective, isn't that what they're for?

One more point, if the guys in the division shouldn´t forget during the night about the minefield that they knew about turn before at 3 hex visibility for example two kms away from them, well I say - you shouldn´t too

I mean, they should remember - you should remember, you´re their commander, they can report only what they can see at the moment, that is 1km away at night, I think it´s commander´s job to keep the track on the minefields spotted before and plan accordingly.

I have to say that I think that this argument is, well, ridiculous. IRL a unit has a very limited piece of terrain in front of them (say two hexes) and their lives are at stake. I don't think it would be too taxing for them to remember the minefield to their front, they don't need their commander to remind them in the morning: "hey guys, don't forget the minefield in front of you from last night..."

Meanwhile, as player, I am "commanding" a few thousand units over many thousand hexes in a game in which there will generally be many hours, even days, between turns. You are seriously suggesting that I'm supposed to remember where every minefield is? If so, I'm afraid you're much more intelligent than me. And yes, of course, I could take the time to write down every minefield hex and then every time I move after that, manually cross-reference each hex to see whether it has a minefield; but I'd just quit playing before I did that, these games are supposed to be fun after all.

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Strela, certainly an interesting post, but I don't think it proves very much, other than the fact that sometimes systems for reporting mines broke down, which I don't think anyone is arguing about. One could argue that we are reading about such instances precisely because they are rare (although I don't think that they were all too rare).

I think the question is whether, given units' situational awareness and the existence of imperfect mine-reporting systems/procedures, the game should act as if no unit ever knew about a minefield unless it could actually see it. In my view, this is rather illogical.

To cite an similar situation, procedures for reporting casualties and equipment losses were also not perfect, and sometimes commanders had incorrect ideas about the forces under the command. So does that mean that players should have NO IDEA about the strength of their units? Er, no, actually I can see exactly how many men every unit has, all the time.

While I perfectly understand if making these kinds of changes are not considered to be worth any coding effort required to make them, I'm not convinced so far by any arguments that complete lack of knowledge about all mines is "realistic".