You eyeballin' me boy?

[Poor Old Spike]

I ran a series of cmbb tests to see at what range an approaching line of enemy infantry will spot your guys in cover and this chart is the result.
Example - if your squad is in woods, pines,rubble or buildings, the enemy won't see him until they get to within about 20 metres.
And if your guy's in rocky ground the enemy will spot him when they get to about 100 metres.
NOTE - The figures were obtained in cmbb summer midday clear weather with fresh veteran troops on both sides, and can vary considerably in winter/spring/autumn (less vegetation for cover), and are also affected by visibility (fog, rain, snow etc) troop and HQ quality and morale etc, so be prepared to see fluctuations game-to-game.
Needless to say,if the guys blow their cover by firing, they'll be spotted a zillion miles away, so slap 20-metre cover arcs on them to encourage them to hold their fire and stay unspotted.(Increase arc range or remove it altogether later if and when the tac situation demands)
Walking or running around in cover will also blow their cover so use "sneak" to usually stay invisible)
Noob tip - if you suspect a clump of trees or whatever contains lurking enemy, blast it with tank or mortar area-fire to make them wriggle around and become spotted.
Another tip - give "Hide" orders to wring every last fraction of cover out of the terrain but the downside is your guy won't see much with his face planted in the dirt and might get crept up on by the bad guys, your call..
PS - As always feel free to add your own comments and observations etc to all my posts
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/CMeyeball.jpg

[Palantir]

Hey Spike, I know you've done a number of great tests how about we start a thread dedicated to tests?
We can move them into one spot so all the "test tactics" are in one place for quick reference?

[Poor Old Spike]

Okay mate go for it you're the boss ;)

[Lurker]

Cool test. Any idea how far to spot a foxhole?

[Poor Old Spike]

Yes mate I've got the foxhole test results and will put them into the usual pretty coloured charts in due course.
I've done one for guns too.
Meanwhile here's a couple of snippets -
Infantry in a foxhole in open ground won't be seen until the enemy gets to about 80 metres.
A medium gun in a foxhole in open ground won't be seen til the enemy closes to 200m
However,wth all units the foxholes themselves are spotted just before the unit in them is spotted, which can be a giveaway..

[TacCovert4]

Just means that you need to place some fake positions during Fallback Foxhole placement. Place them in front of and to the side of your real ones, so that enemy fire from guns and mortars will not (hopefully) hit the real foxholes.

[Poor Old Spike]

Yes I just lurv placing dummy foxholes then watching the enemy waste time and ammo shooting at them, pity it can only be done in Assault games and not Attacks or Meets.
However units in Atts get a free foxhole beneath them when deployed at the start,so another neat trick is to deploy some of your inf in dummy positions (say at the front edge of a wood) then when the game starts, sneak them to the back of the wood. The hole will stay on the map at the front to make the enemy sweat and wonder whats in it when he sees it.
As for trenches, they appear on the map in all terrain at 200m the instant the enemy gets LOS on them, and are therefore tremendous area-fire magnets.
Psst don't tell anybody, but if I've got trenches I only use about 1 in 6 to house a unit, the rest I leave empty and dot about the map where the enemy will see them early so he'll waste time and ammo and sweat on them, its fun to watch his column jam its brakes on when they see an empty trench lying across the road ahead, ha ha... :)