(02-28-2014, 06:47 PM)vince hughes Wrote: 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."
