LOS increase in Towns

[armyduck95]

Does anyone else think it odd that AFVs and weapons systems that couldn't normally be put up in a building, but the benefit of extended LOS in a town hex? I get it that a spotter certainly could help, but still... just thinking

[vince hughes]

AD95,

I take it you mean rule 8.42 ? (Spotting from Town Hexes)

The rule would only be used for units that could feasibly use the height of buildings.

So for example, a StGIII won't be getting it for AT & DF fire.

Also, with the units bombarding. Although they may get to bombard at distance due to a 'person' using binoculars from a roof top. They do not get the self-spotting +1 unless their counter CAN actually see the target from ground level. Whilst writing this, I was trying to locate the piece on leaders scaling the building to spot, but have strangely been unable to ? Perhaps somebody will furnish the rule number of that here if they find it.

When you play, do you count the AFV or Ordnance unit as being a level up ? If so, I wouldn't be doing that.

Other than that, I think having a spotter "Up in the lofts or in the church tower" sits ok with me .... unless I misunderstood what you said. Hopefully not ?

[Poor Yorek]

Does anyone else think it odd that AFVs and weapons systems that couldn't normally be put up in a building, but the benefit of extended LOS in a town hex? I get it that a spotter certainly could help, but still... just thinking

Concur with Vince. As I understand it, spotting from a town (or woods - this goes back even to Doug McNair's St. Vith: the Fall write up), can only assist BF, not DF or ATF. For BF, the unit still fires and is targeted at its "firing" elevation, but can itself spot from the trees/town/church spire (in BN). With DF and ATF, the unit fires, spots, and is spotted at its firing elevation.

So, for example, a mortar at 20-m in a woods hex could spot (from 40-m effectively) a unit in clear, 0-level terrain over an intervening 0-level woods (20-m effective), but could not itself be spotted by the ground level unit (the mortar itself is at 20-m). Again, with the caveat "as I understand it," this is an exception to the general rule of if-I-have-LOS-to-you-you-have-LOS-to-me. I like this rule (or, to be cautious, interpretation) because it gives an advantage to BF from "the high ground" and makes counter-battery fire against such positions dependent upon one pushing some leaders (at least) forward to spot.

[Poor Yorek]

Although they may get to bombard at distance due to a 'person' using binoculars from a roof top. They do not get the self-spotting +1 unless their counter CAN actually see the target from ground level.

Vince,

I'm not so sure about that. I base this on: http://www.avalanchepress.com/elsenborn_tactics_1.php (turn 2). The context is St. Vith: the Fall and US mortars are sited in the heavy regular woods hills of B23 from ER. Doug writes:

American mortars perched on the highest hill on the southeastern board self-spot against the Volksgrenadiers closest to the southeastern roadblock, but the Germans pass the M1 morale check. Then a German Lieutenant at the south end of the northern battalions activates and moves forward with a GREN unit to a spotting position against two of the northern American roadblocks. The closer roadblock hits him with opportunity fire but he and his GREN unit pass the M1 morale check. The other two American mortar platoons then self-spot against him but he and his GREN pass the morale check, and then he calls all the German offboard artillery onto the nearer roadblock. The M1 result demoralizes an American INF there.

So note that Doug uses the term "self-spot" repeatedly, but doesn't actually cite the +1 col shift, he just relates the result. I presume, though, that he wouldn't use the technical term "self-spot" rather than simply "spot" if that wasn't what he meant. Even though the US 81mm are on a 40-m hill/woods, in "front" of them are heavy regular woods at 20-m: thus, those 20-m woods would block LOS by extending upwards to 40-m unless the 81mm themselves could spot from 60-m effective. Thus, it seems that Doug was presuming that the +1 "self-spot" col shift is given as long as the unit is in a hex that grants the "vertically enhanced observer" status.

Not suggesting this is definitive given the caveats above, but it would seem that the plain sense of Doug's write-up is that the +1 col shift is awarded for self-spotting in the context we are discussing.

PS I edited this as I refer colloquially to woods as either "heavy" or "light". Having recently purchased AFD, however, I realize that there is a category of "heavy woods" so thought to fix this post by replacing "heavy" with "regular."

[vince hughes]

PY,

Thanks, I can see what Doug has done there in your quote.

For me, self-spot is the counter doing it from its natural level. If they need a man in the trees to see for them, then that is not a self-spot from the guys firing the tubes and is little different if at all to having an officer spot for them elsewhere.

[Poor Yorek]

For me, self-spot is the counter doing it from its natural level. If they need a man in the trees to see for them, then that is not a self-spot from the guys firing the tubes and is little different if at all to having an officer spot for them elsewhere.

Vince,

I submit there might be a middle case: it is rather different having an artillery observer yell down, flag, or radio communicate from a building or tree who saw that tube's shot land at such-and-such location (being in the same hex albeit in a different spot) and say "25 meters short and left" as compared to a remote observer 1500m away relaying "I saw some shells landing 25 m short and left."

Wonder if 4th Ed will clarify or make explicit this issue? And I claim copyright on "vertically enhanced observer." :-P

[vince hughes]

As long as it is not "Vertigo enhanced observer" you'll do just fine !

[campsawyer]

Yelling down from the top of a church or a tree seems more like spotting for another unit rather than self-spotting. I would believe that the the self spotting is where the gunners can see the target as well as the of their fire effect allowing for them to get a greater efficiency to suppress the target.

[zaarin7]

Not trying to complicate the issue but IIRC in ASL a leader in a multestory building could spot for a mortar behind that building. So why can not the same thing be done here? There are other leaders below the level of those shown in a scenario. At least I've never read anything that said you get every leader on the board in a formation.

[Poor Yorek]

Alan,

Well, tell it to Doug. I merely quoted (and tried to infer a rationale for) his application of the matter since your definition of self-spotting is at odds with Doug's use of the term in the cited AAR. Of course, his casual use in an AAR is not the same thing as speaking ex cathedra.

Given the likely frequency that this occurs, however, perhaps someone with contacts at APL might suggest a definitive clarification of this matter vis-a-vis the 4th Ed rules (if not already done).

As long as it is not "Vertigo enhanced observer" you'll do just fine

Hrmm, does this get the +3 col shift for a proximity fuse? Splatter damage? ewww

Zaarin7: Regarding leaders, the game leader counters obviously don't count actual officers, but, in game terms, represent game-effective leadership (albeit at times the counters do represent an individual). Put another way, they're the officers (or NCO's) that "matter" in game terms. So an artillery battery unit without a leader counter isn't suggesting that there isn't an LT probably "there," but in game-effective terms, that unit functions differently than one that does have an accompanying leader. I gather than Vince and I agree that a "leaderless" artillery or mortar unit can spot from the enhanced elevation of trees/buildings if in such a hex, but there is a difference of opinion regarding whether that constitutes "self-spotting" from the pov of gaining the +1 col shift. My point was that Doug's AAR seems to suggest that is the case, but it is not clear whether that is canonical.