Scouting/Recon

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by vyrago

M113 size 3
LARV Coyote size 5
Leopard C3 size 5

With those sizes, I think you will find it hard to be sneaky. More than anything, I would look for cheap and fast in a recon vehicle. It would probably be good to buy it out of support points also. I don't like to have units that get zapped frequently in my core, but that's my opinion.

[Imp]

Vyrago
The game uses a very simplified model with regards to vision aids, there main advantace apart from range is the ability to see through terrain units without cant. The problem of course is finding this terrain to get the benefit.
On vehicles depends on terrrain cover & whos watching but 1 or 2 hexes is about it to stand a chance of staying hidden. Not to mention you might not get noticed because the other player was moving but at the start of his turn they are not anymore & there you are.
As you say "a scout unit should be adept at movement to contact, spotting and ID of enemy and disengagement."
The ID part everybody in the game is good at, intrestingly in the links RERommie posted no mention of exceptional or any spotting skills are mentioned evasion etc is.
But those parts are down to you the player to carry out.

There use in the game is questionable anyway certainly for MBT in my view they represent part of your regular force who are out having a look not the specialists.
The specialists like any special forces should be several maps ahead observing & directing your main force onto the enemy. I have no military service but would say they locate & fall back or go to ground trying to gather as much info on the enemy force as possible & evading all combat.
The people you use in the game are looking for contact points final confirmation & are not realy scouts at all.
WW2 due to lack of vehicles or there speed, poor radios etc scouts are a lot closer to the main force but still way out front.

Try playing a game as just a scout formation move up locate, perhaps calling in air arty but not attacking directly that seems more to me what scouts do. If the scout formation comes with ATGMs or whatever you might take the odd shot & relocate but getting involved in a plolonged fire fight is an absolute no.

I often do not use scouts at all though I always used to have 2 per company, just find there role can be filled by most units & indeed has to be because your scouts in the wrong place.

On RERommies point stuff dies much faster on modern battlefields, both armour & infantry plus more transport higher speeds all makes for a shorter game overall.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by vyrago

I've been experimenting with scouts a bit and I agree that scout squads can manage to be sneaky but scout vehicles cant.

OF COURSE "scout vehicles" cannot manage to be "sneaky" any more than any other vehicle of comparable size. Do they get some cloak of invisibility because they may have extra surveillance gear ? A Coyote is 6.39 m. long and 2.69 m high. Please explain how something 20 feet long and nearly 9 feet high is going to be any "sneakier" on the battlefield than anything else that size just because it's a "scout" vehicle ??

It has good eyes with a 45 vision, you get it to where it can see what you want it to see then you wait for the enemy to appear and if you need to do foot recon for that ideal location then you sent out foot scouts not fart about "sneaking" around with the vehicle because something that big just isn't built to "sneak". If you need to get though to the edge of the tree line you do it one hex at a time and that will reduce your chances of being seen while moving.

Most "scout vehicles" in the game are just something to carry scouts in. If they have better vision then so much the better doing recon but they are not any harder to detect when moving or standing still.


Don

[gila]

I think "scout vehicles" is deceiving and a misnomer they are too easily spotted and should be used as mop-up or flank guards only IMO.
Foot scouts seem to do the job well as they are intended (2 man teams are best) as long as they are stealthy.
Back to lurk mode on this subject

[Imp]

Okay on scout vehicles I have said before sometimes against a human play with a house rule for first 2 or 3 turns only your scout formations can move.
When do this or play as scouts/special forces the vehicles are mainly to get you there & for extraction if things get a bit hot. If the terrain allows they can help fill gaps in your survelance. Changes the nature of the game & sometimes allow a Mech platoon or similar to accompany them. Look at formations & see what they use.

Just like you would be mad to use helos on a map with no cover using a vehicle to watch for the enemy would be insane on the same map. You treat them just like your FOO vehicles they only take up positions where they have an exit route & that you judge reasonably safe. In woods for instance with a view of say 30+ hexes, the further the better. If you cant arrive there moving very slowly its probably not safe & normally what you do is drop the leg guys off & let them take up the position. But there may be another useful nearby location.
Cmon guys whats a scout going to do drive at speed to the top of a hill & stop or get to the hill fast & then make a cautious aproach on to it. I would assume the second as option one means hes a lucky son of a Gun or dead. Even if hes out of range steel rain is on the way.
Low visibility & a vehicle with vision aids now you can look at the situation & role the dice.

[Imp]

This is my last post on the subject as its going nowhere, the last post was to explain why some units are called scout vehicles, mainly because they are in scout formations.
What exactly do you guys want your scouts to be able to do?
Within the limited confines of the game I think they fill there role just fine, both foot & vehicle. The game tries its best to represent units in a realistic maner meaning your best bet is often to use them in the same maner. Your snipper for example tends to live a lot longer if he stays back & takes the odd important shot instead of leading the assault.

Once the invisible vehicle is perfected you can be sneaky with vehicles but guess what going fast will still get it killed in real life. Why it will throw up dust etc disturb the terrain make noise & will really only be an asset against poorly equiped armies as thermal vision or some other counter will become common.

The simple solution is not to ask to much of them & give them objectives they stand a chance of achieving. Charging headlong at an unseen enemy is not wise & quite why a scout should survive better than a regular unit is beyond me.

For those of you that want an RTS aproach I suggest editing scouts to 160+ exp.
Do remember to dumb down there weapon accuracys & or FC etc or they will be crack shots to. Dont forget to run them through the cost calculator as they will now probably be at least twice as expensive as the vanilla unit.
They do however now I think do all the things better you are after in a scout unit. Namely see hide & evade better

[Lt. Ketch]

Depending on the map, I may or may not have scouts. If there is no place to hide, why try? Just send in a suicidal HUMV or load up the cavary. Sometiems the most effective scouts are the APCs and utility vehicles that are left burning in the field. They found the enemy, and he can take xxx kinds of vehicles, that's all you need to know. Not only that, but they can provide cover too.

[c_of_red]

Imp, Rommel recommends 200 meters between the point and his support, with the main body another 200 meters behind that. That is assuming you have the visibility to keep the point in sight. I will look in Von Luck's book and see what he says. I think it was about the same except in the Desert where the spacing was more. IIRC, that was for tactical recon. Operational recon is handled with different units then we have available. Those are outside the scope of SP, except maybe SP3. I never really got into SP3. I felt Tac Ops was a better operational level game, even if it was more limited as far as equipment and intangibles. Not to mention the OAW, which was even better then TO.

[c_of_red]

"That's a very good point. One thing that I've noticed is scenarios in WinSPMBT tend to be shorter than WinSPWW2. As such, I use scouts to cover flanks more than anything."

I have always wondered if that was because AFAIK, WinMBT is a port of SP3, which had a different time and space scale. In SP3, a hex is 200 Meters and a turn is 5 to 6 minutes as opposed to 50 meters and 2-3 minutes. In SP3 most of the random game lengths worked out to be about the same as they are in Win MBT. I wonder if that block was left alone.
IMHO it would mess up the playability of the game to have the SP norm of 20-30 turns be the MBT norm. Longer ranges, higher speeds and smaller ammo supplies would put logistics back into the forefront.
Logistics is more of an operational level thangie then tactical. IIRC, Ammo resupply was one of the first things added to SP. That and the extra shot. Back in the day, if you shot all your available shots for that turn, then you couldn't op fire.

[Wdll]

winSPMBT is from SP2 not 3 as far as I know.