Entrenching in clear terrain

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Kriegsspieler
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Entrenching in clear terrain

Post by Kriegsspieler »

I want to start a discussion about entrenchments in open terrain. I am certainly no expert in modern warfare, but it strikes me that the maximum entrenchment level of "2" in completely open terrain is a little too miserly. That's barely anything more than pausing your units for three hours. Surely given a day or two a group of trained soldiers could come up with more than that! I'm not saying they should get anything like the advantage they would have in mountains, cities or woods, but 2?

(I'll bet you all already had a ferocious argument about this during beta! So let's re-hash it :lol: )

And BTW -- Shouldn't engineers give a boost to entrenchments? I guess that would make them even more powerful than they already are . . . .)
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Post by CptBritish »

I agree I myself had had to 'Entrench' in open terrain and we got quite a good job down with the logs, Etc (Anything we could find) I suppose it would be a bit harder for Tanks to Entrench in Open Terrain but if you dig them in (Cover them with mud and stuff) they will at least have a stealth increase...
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Just because the Japanese happened to build one near multiple fault lines doesn't make them any more dangerous than they were before the Earthquake.
Kriegsspieler
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Post by Kriegsspieler »

So -- is that an argument for increasing the entrenchment value of open terrain a little? :-)
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Post by Guest »

hmm... open terrain calls for encirclement. Entrenching effectively in open terrain means one hell of a work to get just a small result (that means: you have no foreseeable lines of advance, no bottlenecks, no vantage points... you can't aim all your guns in a set direction and be reasonably sure they will come at you from that way. City's perfect for entrenching; you can lay mines on some streets, block others, get snipers on roofs, guys with SAM or AT hiding in buildings... in open plains you can do nothing of this, save perhaps build a few log walls and a temporary firebase). IMHO, current entrenchment value in open terrain is adequate. If you NEED to hold out in plains, build an emplacement.

(btw, a little detail I remember from The Operational Art of War; entrenchment was an HEX attribute: if you got a company entrenching to 33% in a hex, and then moved it out, the hex would STILL be at 33% entrenchment level. Let's say you then move an engineer battalion in place with fortification order: they would start from 33% up. Artillery fire and normal combat reduced entrench level)

Lastly: i think that engineer units should not give bonuses to entrenchment level, but to how quick you actually get the entrench bonus. I mean, if a basic leg infantry unit gets full entrench bonus in 2 days, if an engineer is in the same hex with entrench or construction orders, it would get the same bonus in 24 hours or less. After all, it's way faster to move a ton of earth with a bulldozer than with a shovel, ain't it? ;)
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Post by Caleb367 »

Whoops. Forgot to log in, sorry. :oops:
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

But u got to consider the terrain itself. is it flat with nothing to hide behind or is it rolling with some hallows and tall vegetation? If the 2nd then any unit entrenched could easily be hidden like in a city waiting to ambush and a unit could adjust to a threat if its hidden good enough and even not engage. Course this would work for units smaller than a battlion.

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Post by Caleb367 »

bergsjaeger wrote:But u got to consider the terrain itself. is it flat with nothing to hide behind or is it rolling with some hallows and tall vegetation? If the 2nd then any unit entrenched could easily be hidden like in a city waiting to ambush and a unit could adjust to a threat if its hidden good enough and even not engage. Course this would work for units smaller than a battlion.
I'd say rolling terrain with hallows and tall vegetation doesn't qualify for open terrain. Now I know we're getting into something hard to talk about, but I'll try to explain myself as clearly as I can. The kind of "light" cover I think you talk about actually makes sense in a much smaller scale (example: Steel Panthers World At War... the WHOLE playing area is no more than 2km wide, MUCH smaller than a single hex in SR2010). If you mean large-scale rolling terrain, that'd actually be HILLS, not opern terrain; moreso with large-scale tall vegetation (that'd be qualified for light forest at least).
You're right when you talk about smaller units being able to hide and ambush in open terrain, but we're talking about a much more tactical-scale combat level than SR2010's all about. That'd be more like Steel Panthers: WaW or even Operation Flashpoint, I think. We're talking grand strategy here after all, the smallest unit on the map is division-sized or such ;)

Btw, your idea intrigues me. I'd like to see a select number of infantry units (Elite forces, Green Berets, Spetsnaz, etc.) get a Stealth bonus when entrenching, no matter the terrain.
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

well its funny then that hallows and tall vetagation doesn't qualify for open terrain because in Alabama. Which is where i live there is open terrain in the region. I know those areas have hallows and T.V. (tired of typing that). So explain that. And another thing the mountains around here in the game are considered hills :o. I wonder if any of the dev. have ever been up those things. I tell u their no hills. But i guess it has to be at a certain elavation to be considered a mountain.

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Last edited by bergsjaeger on Jun 23 2005, edited 1 time in total.
Kriegsspieler
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Post by Kriegsspieler »

Maybe what you all suggesting is that the types of terrain in the game are not really differentiated enough. If, for example, you're in Central Illinois, which is the FLATTEST place I have ever lived, then maybe any entrenchment bonus would be hard to come by. But is you have the kind of terrain that bergsjaeger describes, then obviously it ought to grant some more bonus than just "2".

If more types of terrain are what's needed, then we're not going to get them in a patch. :cry:
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

My point exactly. Hell here in alabama i bet i could hide an entire army for weeks without it being seen.

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CptBritish
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Post by CptBritish »

Same in England...

I should really be based on how Open a terrain is like Open desert and open fields both provide different cover you'd be less likely to be seen and thus shot in a field...

And anyway Infantry units are trained to dig trenches if their gonna be there a while and I think this would count as more than '2'

Increase the Open Terrain value for leg infantry and spec ops only I could imagine it would be quite hard to hide tanks in open ground without amazing effort :wink:
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Just because the Japanese happened to build one near multiple fault lines doesn't make them any more dangerous than they were before the Earthquake.
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Post by Decimatus »

The Iraqis entrenched tanks in the open desert, leaving just the turret above the ground. Just takes more effort to dig a spot for a tank to drive down into.
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

But its bad that they could never use those tanks. 2000 went down to around 5. Wonder if those little A-10's had something to do with that.
A modern day commander has to be crazy to entrench a tank in open terrain. It might have worked in world war 2 but today those that entrench tanks in open terrain will lose alot of tanks.

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Post by Decimatus »

It would have worked better also, if our M-1s weren't out distancing them so badly. The Iraqis had few chances to get an actual shot off in many of the tank battles simply because we could hit them out of their range.
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bergsjaeger
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Post by bergsjaeger »

true. U think they would know that. If i was in their shoes i be havin a white flag on the tank somewhere. Better live as a prisoner than burning in a tank.

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