Embarking Spotters?

[SFJaykey]

Hi all....newbie here, have had CMBB a week or so and played about a half dozen battles. Honing my skills against the AI and will be looking for PBEM soon! :) Have to say thanks for all the great posts archived here which have cut the learning time considerably.

Delurking now with a question/problem: I haven't been able to get my artillery spotters embarked as passengers. Neither in the setup phase nor during play. Last game I tried to embark a German 105 spotter, transport class 1, in a Kubelwagen, transport class 4 and supposedly able to carry a team, and could not issue the order. In earlier games I have tried to embark spotters in halftracks that have the capacity to carry full squads, with similar results.

I have been able to embark squads and teams onto HTs and tanks, so I think I understand the basic process of embarkation. But when I try to issue a Move command to a spotter it will not let me set a vehicle as the waypoint, and the "Embark" waypoint label never appears onscreen as with squads. Is there some trick I am missing, or is this a glitch with the game or my installation?

Thanks, SFJaykey

[landser]

Only radio-equipped spotters can embark. Others use spools of wire and cannot embark. Radio spotters are more expensive of course.

[SFJaykey]

Thanks, I figured there was an easy answer! That helps explain why radio spotters are so much more expensive.

Spools of wire??? I was wondering why spotters were so slow. It seemed like binos and a map case shouldn't be _that_ heavy. :)

SFJaykey

[RSColonel_131st]

Yep, you guessed right. What makes them so slow is building field telephone connections as they go.

Of course that means that Radio Spotters not only can embark, they are actually faster on foot as well. And I think - but dont quote me on that - that radio spotters will also be a bit faster with a fire order.

[coldmeter]

I'm a big fan of the German 81mm motar spotter with radio and the rounds are falling after only 2 minutes, so that's pretty good for time.

[WWB]

Actually, radio spotters should be slower to FFE. Anyone with a modern cell phone can see how fraught with problems 50 year old radio technology could be, especially when people are getting shot at.

WWB

[laxx]

coldmeter: agree with you about the radio 81mm, if you have bought target refernce point (TRP), it cuts the time down further. It varies depending if you have LOS or not. I remember playing a home-made scenario with the 81mm only having 26 seconds of wait time!

[Shosties]

On-map 81mm mortars and TRPs are a great combination for the defense. Seeing as those are support points going for the on-map mortars, it could allow you to spring for that bigger off-map module. smile.gif