Scouting/Recon

[Lt. Ketch]

Depending on the map, I may or may not have scouts. If there is no place to hide, why try? Just send in a suicidal HUMV or load up the cavary. Sometiems the most effective scouts are the APCs and utility vehicles that are left burning in the field. They found the enemy, and he can take xxx kinds of vehicles, that's all you need to know. Not only that, but they can provide cover too.

[c_of_red]

Imp, Rommel recommends 200 meters between the point and his support, with the main body another 200 meters behind that. That is assuming you have the visibility to keep the point in sight. I will look in Von Luck's book and see what he says. I think it was about the same except in the Desert where the spacing was more. IIRC, that was for tactical recon. Operational recon is handled with different units then we have available. Those are outside the scope of SP, except maybe SP3. I never really got into SP3. I felt Tac Ops was a better operational level game, even if it was more limited as far as equipment and intangibles. Not to mention the OAW, which was even better then TO.

[c_of_red]

"That's a very good point. One thing that I've noticed is scenarios in WinSPMBT tend to be shorter than WinSPWW2. As such, I use scouts to cover flanks more than anything."

I have always wondered if that was because AFAIK, WinMBT is a port of SP3, which had a different time and space scale. In SP3, a hex is 200 Meters and a turn is 5 to 6 minutes as opposed to 50 meters and 2-3 minutes. In SP3 most of the random game lengths worked out to be about the same as they are in Win MBT. I wonder if that block was left alone.
IMHO it would mess up the playability of the game to have the SP norm of 20-30 turns be the MBT norm. Longer ranges, higher speeds and smaller ammo supplies would put logistics back into the forefront.
Logistics is more of an operational level thangie then tactical. IIRC, Ammo resupply was one of the first things added to SP. That and the extra shot. Back in the day, if you shot all your available shots for that turn, then you couldn't op fire.

[Warwick]

I have always wondered if that was because AFAIK, WinMBT is a port of SP3, which had a different time and space scale.

WinSPMBT is most definitely NOT a port of SP3. Refer to Don's post earlier in this thread. Lineage is SP2--> SP2WW2--> SPWW2--> SPMBT--> WinSPMBT + WinSPWW2.

Regards,
Warwick

[PatG]

Drifting off topic some more. My understanding is that the main reason SPMBT scenarios are shorter than SPWW2 is that the WWII squaddies get to march into battle while their grandsons (and daughters) get to ride. SPMBT tanks are faster, APCs are faster and helicopters are insanely quick by WW2 standards so it makes sense to use a reduced turn count. The reduced turn count also maintains the tempo of the scenario. An aggressive balls to the wall advance on a high value v-hex cluster might take 20 or 25 turns in WW2. To give the player the the same sense of an all out rush in MBT you have to drop the turn count to 10 or even less.

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by PatG

Drifting off topic some more. My understanding is that the main reason SPMBT scenarios are shorter than SPWW2 is that the WWII squaddies get to march into battle while their grandsons (and daughters) get to ride. SPMBT tanks are faster, APCs are faster and helicopters are insanely quick by WW2 standards so it makes sense to use a reduced turn count. The reduced turn count also maintains the tempo of the scenario. An aggressive balls to the wall advance on a high value v-hex cluster might take 20 or 25 turns in WW2. To give the player the the same sense of an all out rush in MBT you have to drop the turn count to 10 or even less.

This is my understanding as well.
Assuming motorized/mech/whatever forces and maueuver vs "assault" warfare I have zero issues with the increased tempo (read - shorter game length) of WinSPMBT.
Some, in fact most, "official" scenarios will take this into account and be designed with a longer game length to give time for infantry warfare. Unfortunately "player vs computer" games do not. The "problem" is the game assumes mobile forces and does not, in fact due to coding probably can not, deal well with foot mobile forces.
This "problem" is, I believe, somewhat exagerated by the fact that infantry mobility/spotting/fire is basically the same in all versions of the game. And there's no real reason it should be different. Basic infantry tactics and mobility really havn't changed much since WW II.

To recap...scenario designers can, and often do allow extra time for infantry scouting, the AI does not.

The real questions are :
Is this a big enough problem to try to come up with a solution?
Is any solution easily enough coded into the game to be worth the effort?

[RERomine]

I believe the time differential is a bit over stated. Yes, modern troops get to the broken end of the bottle faster, but slugging matches especially where infantry is concern, isn't going to be. Armor may be faster, but infantry has a longer reach. Fast can be translated into reckless and lead to a lot of tanks and APCs dying quickly.

[Wdll]

winSPMBT is from SP2 not 3 as far as I know.

[DRG]

WinSPMBT is NOT "a port of SP3" READ THE $#!*! GAME GUIDE! that question is answered in the very first line right below "What is WinSPMBT?"

Don

[RERomine]

Now Don, take a deep breath.

You know most people don't read documentation completely through. Mostly, they read what they want to know and skip over other stuff. I wrote a series of programs over five years ago, complete with support documentation. Whenever something went wrong, I was pulled in even though how to handle the situation was clearly explained in the docs. I even sent the docs to them every single time they had issues, but next time they would just pull me in again. You can provide the information, but can't make people read it.