What does going prone actually do

[PraiseYouAllMyLife]

Ive found a million posts explaining how to remain prone but still no idea what it does. its also not in the manual.

In general all the perks need to be explained better as well

[Paul59]

It makes your infantry harder to hit. It also probably makes them harder to see, but I am not sure about that one!

[vK63]

I really don't think it does anything IMHO as I will have an infantry unit prone behind a wall and they still get blasted to hell and back

[CellNav]

Originally posted by Paul59:

It makes your infantry harder to hit. It also probably makes them harder to see, but I am not sure about that one!

Yes, harder to hit .... -20%
Yes, harder to spot them when moving 2 or less hexes.

How do we know this .... Read the modifier list when shooting at INF.

[PoorOldSpike]

Originally posted by vK63:

...an infantry unit prone behind a wall and they still get blasted to hell and back

Yeah, prone infantry behind walls and hedges should be completely unspotted, i've said that in this forum more than once.
I've also said I don't like the whole Troop LOS system,it certainly takes some getting used to..:)
PS- but at least the AI has to play by the same LOS/spotting rules as us..:)

[CellNav]

Originally posted by PoorOldSpike:

Originally posted by vK63:

...an infantry unit prone behind a wall and they still get blasted to hell and back

Yeah, prone infantry behind walls and hedges should be completely unspotted, i've said that in this forum more than once.

Same here, I've commented on it and threw in some ideas.

Worst part .... it has the SAME cover modifier as a LOW HEDGE.
Rough -20%.

I'm under the impression that the point of view is based on HEAVY cover, that being bocage and maybe something else.
Heavy -40%

So, if you are prone, then the modifier behind Rough is ...
Rough -20% (half cover)
Prone -20%
-------------
Total -40%

The wall is made of sticks and leaves.
Wall = Low Hedge = Rough = nonsense.

Either the low hedge provides too much cover, or ....
... the wall is NOT providing enough cover.

There is no HULL DOWN.
There is no HUNKER DOWN.

@ Poor Old Spike
You are not burnt out on the game (over 1700 hrs) as much as you are a phonograph record skipping with a broken needle and nobody wants to address the needle.

Winston Churchill was IGNORED, look what happened.

[PraiseYouAllMyLife]

Originally posted by CellNav:

Originally posted by Paul59:

It makes your infantry harder to hit. It also probably makes them harder to see, but I am not sure about that one!

Yes, harder to hit .... -20%
Yes, harder to spot them when moving 2 or less hexes.

How do we know this .... Read the modifier list when shooting at INF.

So you know they are harder to spot by looking at the modifier list?

How much harder to spot. Being harder to spot doesnt really seem to make sense with the sighting rules, unless its some kind of modifier to site range like it is for vehicles

[CellNav]

Originally posted by PraiseYouAllMyLife:

So you know they are harder to spot by looking at the modifier list?

How much harder to spot. Being harder to spot doesnt really seem to make sense with the sighting rules, unless its some kind of modifier to site range like it is for vehicles

That "spotting" part comes from the manual and with my experience.

Moving slowly 1 hex per turn is very good to keep hidden, especially in cover terrain like CROPS, It's a kind of sneak move, you are still prone. Moving a bit faster with 2 hexes per turn might reveal you and your are still prone.

Running 3+ hexes will certainly lose your prone status, the hidden status depends on how far away the enemy spotting you.

Also, suppression reduces sight distance, generally down to the what's written in the INFO screen for the unit. So, a 100% suppressed INF unit on a clear day is reduced to 4 hexes. I don't remember if it's linear with the unit's spotting range but it does help to suppress the unit to reduce their spotting range.

AS you know, the LOS TOOL checks hex-to-hex out to the maximum LOS, not individual unit's spotting range.

[jptenn]

Is it unreasonable to assume prone Infantry behind a wall or hedge are not making attempts to spot the enemy (or just watch their field of fires) and they are not 100% just hiding till the battle is over? An entire squad of men will have individuals taking actions and combat units act to find each other in a battle. Cowering behind something and not having observation of your surroundings is called 'not having security'.

[PraiseYouAllMyLife]

Originally posted by CellNav:

Originally posted by PraiseYouAllMyLife:

So you know they are harder to spot by looking at the modifier list?

How much harder to spot. Being harder to spot doesnt really seem to make sense with the sighting rules, unless its some kind of modifier to site range like it is for vehicles

That "spotting" part comes from the manual and with my experience.

Moving slowly 1 hex per turn is very good to keep hidden, especially in cover terrain like CROPS, It's a kind of sneak move, you are still prone. Moving a bit faster with 2 hexes per turn might reveal you and your are still prone.

Running 3+ hexes will certainly lose your prone status, the hidden status depends on how far away the enemy spotting you.

Also, suppression reduces sight distance, generally down to the what's written in the INFO screen for the unit. So, a 100% suppressed INF unit on a clear day is reduced to 4 hexes. I don't remember if it's linear with the unit's spotting range but it does help to suppress the unit to reduce their spotting range.

AS you know, the LOS TOOL checks hex-to-hex out to the maximum LOS, not individual unit's spotting range.

Still no answer to how much it affects spotting though. The game doesnt handle spotting as a percentage. Everything seems to be deterministic. (from my understanding)

Where in the manual is prone spotting mentioned? Sorry, Searching for prone doesnt bring up anything

I dont mean to sound like im challenging so much, but at this point i have no reason to believe that prone status affects spotting in any way (but im new of course)

[CellNav]

Originally posted by PraiseYouAllMyLife:

Still no answer to how much it affects spotting though. The game doesnt handle spotting as a percentage. Everything seems to be deterministic. (from my understanding)

Where in the manual is prone spotting mentioned? Sorry, Searching for prone doesnt bring up anything

I dont mean to sound like im challenging so much, but at this point i have no reason to believe that prone status affects spotting in any way (but im new of course)

The reference for a tank moving more than 1 hex : "Conspicuous" units like tanks and other large vehicles will be spotted at triple sight range if they move more than 1 tile in a turn.

That above appears to apply to INF as well, although they don't have the conspicuous. I'm afraid it could be stated in the forum somewhere by the developer (Tom).

When the INF move more than 2 hexes, they lose their prone status, that can be clearly noted by noting the soldier animation as well as the "prone icon" missing.

Sneaking 1 or 2 hexes retains your prone status and it will prevent being spotted. That comes from my experience of over 1000 hours.

There are stuff discussed and revealed by the players over the year, but getting something into the manual seems to be like pulling teeth. Not all of us are good at Dentistry.

[Tom]

Prone does not make any difference to spotting for infantry units currently. The prone status is a proxy for careful movement minimising exposure to direct fire, rather than a strictly prone stance of the men.

Infantry are already pretty hard to spot unless someone has a sniper or HQ unit in play. We could look at making prone affect spotting but it would involve changing the way spotting of static infantry units works first. This I have played with but have yet to find a format that does not seem to frustrate the use of good spotting units when attacking.

[Tom]

Low walls are a fair target for criticism regarding the cover they and provide vs a low hedge.

In an ideal world I suppose the low wall would maybe provide heavy cover (40% like bocage) for infantry but little cover for a tank. We do have instances where features provide different cover for inf vs tanks (crops) but this is based on the cover provided being due to the unit being IN a tile type, not BEHIND it.
The former is easy to do, the latter a bit harder with the huge number of LOS calculations the game does. That said I have been looking into how to maybe create an override that can bump up the cover effect if the target is an infantry type unit.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by Tom:

Prone does not make any difference to spotting for infantry units currently. The prone status is a proxy for careful movement minimising exposure to direct fire, rather than a strictly prone stance of the men.

Infantry are already pretty hard to spot unless someone has a sniper or HQ unit in play. We could look at making prone affect spotting but it would involve changing the way spotting of static infantry units works first. This I have played with but have yet to find a format that does not seem to frustrate the use of good spotting units when attacking.

Thank you Tom for the official answer on that. I'm afraid all this time I was under the impression it made a difference, as it appeared to do so ... :(

It's a shame that a Tank can move 1-hex and get a spotting consideration. The INF in this game always seem to get the short end of the stick ... :(.

I think your experiments with LOS and Spotting should go towards optional, advanced, or experimental rules, that way it won't break anything.

Thank you, take care and have a good holiday.

[CellNav]

Originally posted by Tom:

In an ideal world I suppose the low wall would maybe provide heavy cover (40% like bocage) for infantry but little cover for a tank.

One player argued that the low wall should protect the TRACKS, which makes sense. Any ordnance hitting the "track" location is directed to the wall, destroying the wall or bouncing off. That would make a wonderful feature.

We can drive through the wall, but cannot knock it down with ordnance?
We can occupy a destroyed wall (tile), but not a standing wall?

It would be nice someday to override the low hedge and wall to allow INF to occupy those terrain features, a 1-hex all move (4 mp). I get the impression it's easier to provide tile modifiers.

Your design is a notch away from being ideal. It's not a matter of a "bridge" being too far, you can touch it.

[PoorOldSpike]

I remember there's an infantry 'HIDE' command in at least one other wargame (can't remember which ones) and it works beautifully, it makes infantry become almost invisible behind hedges and walls and even in long grass.
I say 'almost invisible' because it assumes one man is keeping an eye on the enemy and he might be spotted, blowing the cover of the whole platoon.
The downside of Hide is that it also makes the AI likely to stumble on your position and take you by surprise..
Below- some stock pics of units hiding behind hedges and walls etc-

[img]https://i.ibb.co/tLm1v5P/cover-2.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i.ibb.co/xmg1bG0/troops-in-cover3.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i.ibb.co/vc57hDg/Troops-in-cover.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i.ibb.co/4YXnP8P/cover-1.jpg[/img]