I'm playing a defensive battle at the moment and my positions are being spotted worryingly easily so I jumped into the editor to have a play around with trenches, foxholes and sandbags. I used open terrain to remove any chance of positioning having an effect on LOS. The spotting element was an infantry squad with a HQ.
It would appear that unoccupied trenches and sandbag fortifications are easily spotted in open terrain, my test infantry squad spotted them at 400m + on flat ground with trenches being marginally harder to spot than sandbags.
Empty foxholes are concealed up to about 80m which makes sense to me as they should be hard to see.
All this changes as soon as the positions become occupied. Hiding infantry in a foxhole position can be spotted and thereby engaged with direct point fire at 300m in open terrain whereas if they are hiding behind sandbags, they cannot be spotted until 200m. A trench seems to offer the best concealment for infantry with hiding infantry remaining concealed at <100m. By comparison, hiding infantry in the open can be spotted at around 300m (about the same as a foxhole!)
Hiding AT guns in the open, behind a sandbag or in a foxhole can all be spotted at 400m. An AT gun in a trench remains concealed until around 250m.
My conclusion is that trenches appear to offer the best concealment overall for the units occupying them.
I have not yet tried to repeat the experiment in brush or woodland and I have not looked at the cover offered by each fortification.
It seems to me that foxholes don't do what you'd expect them to do as simply hiding an infantry team in one increases it's visibility when surely the infantry should get the concealment benefit that the fortification offers, not the fortification's visibility being compromised by being occupied.
Is this an easily fixed issue or is it due to the way the game processes the use of fortifications?
It would appear that unoccupied trenches and sandbag fortifications are easily spotted in open terrain, my test infantry squad spotted them at 400m + on flat ground with trenches being marginally harder to spot than sandbags.
Empty foxholes are concealed up to about 80m which makes sense to me as they should be hard to see.
All this changes as soon as the positions become occupied. Hiding infantry in a foxhole position can be spotted and thereby engaged with direct point fire at 300m in open terrain whereas if they are hiding behind sandbags, they cannot be spotted until 200m. A trench seems to offer the best concealment for infantry with hiding infantry remaining concealed at <100m. By comparison, hiding infantry in the open can be spotted at around 300m (about the same as a foxhole!)
Hiding AT guns in the open, behind a sandbag or in a foxhole can all be spotted at 400m. An AT gun in a trench remains concealed until around 250m.
My conclusion is that trenches appear to offer the best concealment overall for the units occupying them.
I have not yet tried to repeat the experiment in brush or woodland and I have not looked at the cover offered by each fortification.
It seems to me that foxholes don't do what you'd expect them to do as simply hiding an infantry team in one increases it's visibility when surely the infantry should get the concealment benefit that the fortification offers, not the fortification's visibility being compromised by being occupied.
Is this an easily fixed issue or is it due to the way the game processes the use of fortifications?