"Observation/spotting rules , your favourite system" Topic

I am gaming 41 North Africa in 10mm , lots of armour , Brit cruiser tanks acting like swashbuckling cavalry with little effect, combined armed Germans , reluctant Italians .
I am using a home brew rule set but looking for a quick easy effective spotting mechanism before firing .
Any ideas and what is your own personal favourite.

Fixed spotting distances are the quickest and easiest, randomised is probably more realistic, but slows things down a lot. An interesting compromise is in TAC WW2 where the base fixed spotting distance can be extended by a troop quality roll, so better troops might see stuff first.

There is lots of anecdotal evidence that infantry well comoflarged cannot be seen effectively over short periods. Look for several hours and you may see them going for a walk.

In WW2 its often said that flanking anti -tank guns were difficult to see even when fireing.

Martin Rapier has it simplification is the key but sensibly.

Our rules consist of obvious things that are fixed. 400m for spotting personal wepons fire.

2000m tropps moving in the open.

Camoflarged it depends,, Beginners get to have Dunny markers and a few spare. They can't be spotted untill they fire or move but they are likely to be enemy but not always, effectively giveing some pre-battle reconisance which helps their decision making. Beginners faces with an empty board can get analysis paralasis and are unable to decide what to do.

We don't hide moving troops even if invisible. We have tryed moving dummies but it taks time and does not give much gain. Moving troops are easier to spot anyway. On a serious game troops moving out of sight are removed completly. and their moves mapped. Easy for us as we use Hexon 2 terrain mapped in the scenario, harder for just dumped down games. Proably not good for multi player ganms oas many players will not be really of the calibre to cope with such things.

Proabalistic spotting like Martin says may have some gains but if not implemented sensibly its worse. If its free reign, everey element attempts to spot a particular area or dummy and it is impossible ti hide as there are too many rolls.

Now we cheat, firing within the permitted spotting range is detected. However unlike most skirmish games visibility is very limited for armoured vehicals if buttened up so if like the real world you machine gun a tank and make it button up its awareness of the situation outside a limited arc is not good. We make it none, Wolfhag makes it some, base on a die throw.

That is about speed of play vs accuracy. Remeber speed of play also effects accuracy of the model. Its hard to get the ebb and fow of a battle in 4 bounds in 10 bounds it possibel.

Not want to take figures off the table. Well in that case you were never really that into reality so Ican't suggest anything sensible, proably as there are no decent ooptions avaiable. Toys over game a dilema for many.

This video covers some of the more common visibility and observation rules, at a reasonably high level. It may be of some value;
youtu.be/FvXJ7eYNLdg

pfmodel,
To be honest It was a bit "Gamey" for me, no ground scale and little reference to actual real world cases. However it may be of use to others.

KK, you're best where you're at already – with a home brew set (that you understand).

N. Africa is a difficult theater for a one-size fits all set of spotting rules.

Are the spotting rules for uncovering undetected units, or are they regulating who gets to play (um, shoot that is)?

I joked with a friend the other day about a popular set of WW2 rules with a really cool name title. It regulates 'everything' with dice rolling. It goes something like this – everything is on the table, but when you go to shoot at something, you have to spot it first…..yeah, another dice roll.

Again the joke. I asked my friend, why would I attempt to get a shot off on an enemy target, if I didn't see the unit was there in the first place? I asked my bud, if I failed to spot, does that mean I must now move my attacking units back out of sight, because the dice roll says they hadn't seen something, so couldn't have reacted to it being there anyway? Ridiculous really, but it's now just reduced to a joke instead, cool name or not. ;)

Seriously though, to your observation/spotting question……make it a scenario-specific situation – don't wrap yourself up needing an end-all game mechanic. One scenario is featuring the "Big Blue" (unlimited viz), and vehicles are seen with LOS, and then make a range determination when dug-in troops will be seen. If you want another scenario for sun-glare or sand shimmer, make the visibility adjusted for that.

To be honest It was a bit "Gamey" for me

The eternal battle between playability and realism, however you are correct. The example was designed for a set of rules where each element represents a platoon, so observation rules tend to end up being general at that scale. Spearhead uses an even simpler system. On the other hand if the rules use a one vehicle equals one element scale then the observation rules need to be more complex. If you move to skirmish rules then more so. On these other hand those rules tend to have fewer elements so it's viable.

FLY, the spotting are to identify units before you fire. In good desert conditions, how would you play it , dice ?

PF interesting video , thank you.
How does it work when to identify a enemy unit to fire on them ? It would be great to see your calculations, modifiers etc?

Martin , it would be great to see how Tac does it , thank you.

Ush to identify units before firing how does your system do it exactly? Thank you

In TAC units have standard fixed spotting distances (similar to those in Spearhead or Command Decision IV), which allow direct fire. Double that base distance is detection distance, which allows fir area fire but not direct fire.

If you make a unit quality roll, you can count the detection distance as normal spotting distance. Simples. Roll by subunit (usually by company).

IN WRG you aquire a target first, which requires a die roll, then you determine if you hit it and finally determine the result of the hit. You could down load a copy of the rule and read it to see if that is what you wish to do. I think this site keep copies of the rules, but if not it is available publically.
Another free set of rules you could look at is BGMR, there is a WW2 version on the IO:Group site.

KK,

Never dice.

Like Martin said, fixed spotting distances. This gives you the option of having unseen [unplaced] units on your table, but if you're going to be moderating the game to manage such hidden units.

Otherwise, fixed spotting distances work – remember, if this is a tactical-level game, there's many eye-balls, binos, gunsights trained down range, there's battlefield noise. Clever detection mechanics could be appropriate for small-unit/infiltration games, maybe for dense/jungle-like terrain.

Then, it depends on what your desert scenario is trying to convey – is this a night-time raid by the LRDG, or a daylight armor attack by 3rd RTR?

Fly ,
Massed armed armour attack,
I could spot by company (4 stands ) , so whole enemy company is spotted by firing company.

KK,

I happen to have these rules out that I designed in the '80s, because of a discussion we're having in another forum thread here.

You can take these general observation ranges listed as a framework, for unit-based detection (platoons and greater elements in the field).

Others may have different ranges, so again, it's often what's conceivable in your 'mind's eye'. ;)

Fly,

Thank you very interesting, so no dice attall.
Just have to be near enough to spot.
If a unit/company fires in previous turn, or 2/3 goes back does that always count as always fired if they haven't moved ?

Would you give Recon/Foos longer range to spot?

Detection opportunities happened as they occur[red].

This being on the moderating judge to determine, and to announce any newly spotted targets to the opposition team, at the moment the firing, moving, or encroaching condition happened on the tabletop (so 'in real time').

So if an enemy unit is firing, the opposition team is made aware of this, if there's an observing unit(s) within the spotting range to detect (this detection then happening during the opposition side's turn).

If a friendly unit being moved, comes into proximity of a stationary, or dug-in enemy unit, then the controlling player/team is informed of this presence, during the phasing player/team's movement.

The observation opportunities are occurring throughout the turn, depending on the triggering condition.

Now, this 'real-time' detection is something that a monitoring GM had to manage. Also, there might be enemy units that at the moment, couldn't be detecting an occurring observation, or units might want to react to subsequently, that wouldn't have such an ability to respond to (this 'call' evaluated within the time scale of a turn's phase [context]). This is also the type of judgement a GM had to manage/control.

On your recon question – I wouldn't make their spotting ability better (certainly could be of course, for experienced units), but I might make the recon units harder to spot themselves (so able to get into closer range positioning, and therefore better observation opportunity).

Again, these are things you might pre-determine for your sceanrio's 'flow'.

Ok thanks,

Just to clarify if a stationary unit fired 3 moves back but hadn't moved over this time and was just spotted by a new moving unit , would the stationary unit count as spotted at longer firing range , or count as stationary not fired again ?
I hope that is clear

Your example is clear, and it's a good example of one of these real-time judgements that have to be made [at the moment].

Fact is, players won't dispense with this prior knowledge anyway, right? Also, there is battlefield communication between units occurring, to inform what might be happening 'beyond that ridge'.

There's also radio communication coming over the nets that is being monitored, and at times enemy intercepted radio traffic – "chatter".

When we start considering "units" engaging in combat, there's a level of activity that just can become hard to conceal.

KK, not sure what you mean exactly. Our game is close to 1 to one, so you don't spot units you spot elements. Firing elements are always spotted in LOS but that may not make return fire immediate if out of fire arc, this mainly applys to infantry.
Tanks buttoned up have restrictions on visibility zone.

Elements that have moved but are currently 'hideing" can be spotted on a die roll within auto spotting ranges. If somebody has seen them then depending on who and when, and how it's reported, they get a die bonus if they are aware of where to look. That all depends on if it was spotted by your own unit and if you are in comunication, either by radio or sound/visual communication rang. If its spotted by another unit it takes a bound for the informtion to be available OR a specific communication is made to the unit trying to spot, a lot depends on the tactical situation as to whether they want to spent valiable coms time.

Our rules are very integrated so stuff works within the model quite well but just extracting bits does not realy represent the whole well as other issues contribute to the whole.

There is a massive real world debate on spotting. Anecdotally there is lots of evidence of troops not being spotted as close as a few yards. Not spotting infantry further than 250 yds if moving to be honest seems not to be based on reality. But the definition of moving and what the basic table top terrain looks like is key. Walking on an open field of short grass seems way to short at 250 yds. Walking through maize 5 ft high may be 20 yds is sensible.

Ush

Spotting can be surprisingly complex .
I will try and keep it simple with a slight random factor.
I will spot by company (4 stands) not by individual stands.
Thank you for your input

Recon units can be better at spotting because they normally have a height advantage and observe for long periods of time and use more disciplined scanning techniques with better optics. When moving they are not much different than any other unit.

Moving vehicles are at a disadvantage because personnel cannot use magnified optics as well as when they are halted.

This is from a US Army manual:

I've sat on a hilltop with a pair of US WWII binoculars and it's incredible how much you can see if someone is not trying to stay hidden or out of your LOS.

Your detection distance is severely restricted at ground level peeking over a trench.

Wolfhag