How does Cover work?

[Uncle_Joe]

Hi all,

I've been playing the SP series off and on since it first debuted. In all that time, I've never really gotten a handle on exactly how Cover works.

Is there a primer on this type of stuff somewhere? The SP manual mentions what terrains give good Cover, but I'd like to know a little more of the nuts and bolts if this is something that has been brought up before.

I ask because playing in recent games, I realized that Cover can seem really erratic. Much of it is probably simply statistical variance and selective memory, but knowing what it is supposed to be doing would help mitigate that.

For example, in my latest game I had a platoon of German infantry in Stone Buildings overlooking a field. About 2 platoons of Ami troops move into the field (September fields) and we open up. The battle rages for turns (ranges of about 200m), but in the end, the troops that are more or less in the open are getting the better of the troops in cover. Obviously they are generating more shots, but individual shots still seem to be causing similar effects regardless of the difference in cover state..

In another case, I had a squad in the woods seemingly take an insane amount of pounding and not really be budged. The same Ami squads fired and fired and didnt cause but one hit while the squads in the buildings would occasionally lose 2-3 guys in a turn from equal fire.

Finally, the attacks seem 'streaky' in some cases. I've observed that if the Rifles hit, its more likely that MG or Sniper Rifle will hit as well. So, I'll see: miss,miss,miss,miss,miss, 1 dead, 1 dead, 1 dead, miss,miss,miss,miss etc. Is this an intended effect (perhaps representing that a particular group of soldiers are being hit)?

If anyone could point me to an article or discussion of how cover functions (reduce chance of hit? 'Cover save'? converts losses to suppression? etc) I'd greatly appreciate it!

Thanks in advance!