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I can see your point about 88's etc.. on Defend/Assault missions cos theyre dugin and in prep'd positions, but on delay/advance type they're not supposed to be, or I got that wrong?
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Dug-in status is for troops in well prepared positions, and accordingly it is more difficult to spot (not covered in my example). I fear I don't have much experience with such positions, as most of our exercises were about hastily prepared posts - you had usually hour or two to prepare, which is something the game does not refer to as dug-in. Therefore these hasty positions are in-game "Ready, not moving" you encounter in all but assault-defend missions. My point was, that it is quite possible to conceal 2m high At gun even if you have only quarter or half an hour. We usually used dozers - don't know what used Germans in WW2, but I suppose, they did not rely on muscles only
Regarding "must have" scouts: they do NOT spot better, regardless their name (if I am wrong, hope DRG or Mobhack say it). They are just small infantry teams (size 0), like MGs, AT teams or snipers. Their main advantage over these is the combination of 4 man, high speed and low costs.
The last point is not so pronounced in SPWW2, but it gets more importance later in the SPMBT. 4 man insure it much higher probability of surviving in face of random attack and their high speed allows them to move quickly over safe areas. So you can in fact use snipers, but you cannot afford ANY encounter, you can use MGs, but you will be ALLWAYS slowed down to movement 4 (e.g one hex in snow), you can use AT teams, but be prepared to half more or double the costs (for no effect, as you don't want to fight anyway
).
To put the scouts into perspective of example. Last battle I fought Germans in December 1941 with crap company of 12 BT tanks, platoon of scouts, FO and battalion of 152 mm cannon howitzers. Germans deployed to the objective a rifle company and wild mix of PzIIIH, Pz-II, Lt-38 and two two armored cars. A total of about twenty vehicles with infantry loaded on them.
My BT tanks had transported the scouts and FO quite quickly through the safe zone (meeting engagement), where they dismounted to positions about 400-500 meters around objective, so as to have nice look at approach lines. Germans arrived due to their low mobility later (I gave them no hint, I am there, by leaving the objective unoccupied). I could see all of the German advance, plot artillery mission to suitable place and prepare my tanks, so that they envelop the expected enemy position and could 'pop up' after first shell land (pop up, i.e. move one hex, shoot one round at a time, at the end go back). All gone well (rare occasion) and after the artillery laid a concentrated fire of 80 shells, suppressing almost all enemy units, I popped up carefully with the BT tanks, killed what I could, and hide again. This continued for three turns. Arty burned two wehicles and wiped out some infantry, the rest being finished by my tanks. Enemy managed to get some lucky shots and killed two BTs (had I T-34, there would be no losses). Scouts proved absolutely vital to a mission. Without them I would 1] had no clue where to fire the arty and where to hide the tanks, 2] could not avoid tank to tank engagement (I used different firing directions, forcing his tanks to turn around a lot and almost always shooting his 'back' - had it been head to head, he would burn me in one turn). As this task group was just about the only task group of Germans, it routed his entire force. Easy victory.
If I had regular infantry there, I may have been spotted (not to mention, that BT and later light tanks like T-60 cannot load them). AT teams were not usable (tanks were accompanied by infantry). At least one sniper would die (friendly arty).MGs would have trouble to move after dismounting (I had to cross about six or seven hexes, turns out as 3 turns more, i.e. loosing the time used to prepare ambush).
Keeping the scouts alive is a challenge, but not that high, unless you play assault mission. I tend to keep the scouts on flanks of formations, rarely using them on main battle tanks or in advance of my main group. Rather I send them forward but on the less obvious paths and adjust the battle plan accordingly to what they spot. BTW the above example was preceded by four battles where I did not guess in advance, what would be the main attack axis, and all four times a flanking scouts saved the day, allowing me to change the direction of my own attack to suit enemy 'needs'
Regards,
badger45
BTW quite a long post... sorry