Principe de la bataille au sol
The Scorched Earth Online War allows commanders to control the movement and facing of ground units in the campaign. Commanders also have the ability to create new ground units, based upon the availability of reinforcements. Without ground units a side is unable to capture ground objectives (bridges, airfields, industrial installations etc) and move the front line. According to the campaign design, maps may not contain ground unit supply points: in this case no ground reinforcements are available to the commander.
- Controlling facilities and moving the front line
Ground units are required for a side to gain control of a facility. A facility could be an airfield, a factory, a bridge or any other landscape object. Control is determined as follows:
- ) Are your ground units within the Control Radius of the facility?
- ) Do your ground units meet the Controlling Force requirements?
- ) Are there enemy ground units within Control Radius of the facility?
As long as there are enemy ground units within the Control Radius of the facility its status will be in dispute. The table below shows facility status based on ground units in the vicinity.
| Ground Units Belong to: | Friendly Unit within Radius | Enemy within Radius | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friendly Unit within Radius | Friendly controlled | In dispute | |||
| Enemy within Radius | In dispute | Enemy controlled | |||
The front line is determined by a choice of modes set in the DCS tool. The modes are (1) No front line; (2) Front lines drawn only from strategic control (i.e. drawn from control of airbases, industrial facilities); (3) Front lines drawn only from strategic and military control (i.e. adding the locations of “front line determining units”, i.e. armour, artillery and mechanized platoons). Mode 1 will draw no front lines inside the coop pilot briefing screen of IL2 - this can be bad for helping pilots work out where to bail if they are in trouble. Mode 2 is recommended to generate slow-moving front lines, while Mode 3 generates very dynamic front lines but with the drawback of the front lines being able to indicate where advanced enemy units are positioned.
- Ground Unit Recon
Ground units provide reconnaissance information to the commander in a similar fashion to successful recon flights. When an enemy ground unit moves to within a unit’s spotting range a recon report is made. This report is generated by Scorched Earth and will be marked on the map (with the one hour delay if Fog Of War option is used, i.e. if the enemy unit is spotted during the 06:00 mission you will see the report on your map interface for the 08:00 mission). A single spotting of a unit will never achieve 100% recon on that unit - commanders need repeated spottings to generate maximum information on an enemy unit. Spotting efficiency depends on time of day (low efficiency at night) and distance.
The spotting range examples are: mechanized infantry at least 3.6 km, artillery at least 7 km and tanks at least 4.5 km. Ships have a much larger spotting range (up to 45 km for capital ships) but they can only detect other naval units at this range.
- Ground Unit Combat
Ground units will fight it out in the IL-2 missions flown as part of campaign. The results of these combat engagements is read from the log file by the DCS when analyzing a mission. If the Fog Of War campaign option is selected, combat results are subject to the 1 hour delay for all intelligence information from ground units. Unit destruction icons are placed on the map interface to aid the commander in planning missions.
- Controlling Forces
SEOW supports the idea of a Controlling Force. This is the minimum size of force that is able to capture a Control Point, an Industrial Facility or an airbase. The Controlling Force requirements are set by the campaign administrator using the DCS tool, and are displayed under "View Settings" in the MP. Once a suitable Controlling Force has captured an asset by moving to within the Control Radius of the asset and eliminating ALL enemy resistance, the asset will change its alignment to the Controlling Force. The asset will maintain its alignment until captured by an opposing Controlling Force, regardless of whether ground units are stationed nearby or not.
- Pilot Capture
SEOW support capture and interrogation of bailed pilots. If human pilots bail and are captured, and the SEOW option "Interrogate Captured Pilots" is selected, each captured pilot will face interrogation. The interrogation is performed when the mission is analyzed. Each interrogated pilot has a 25% chance of resisting interrogation. For those pilots who yield to interrogation, recon information will be given to the enemy on ALL units within the Control Radius of the pilot's home airbase or Off Map base. The amount of recon given per unit depends on the weakness of the pilot, and can range from 20% to 100%. The weakness estimate is made randomly, with most pilots in the 20-50% recon boost range and very few in the 50-100% range. Pilots and commanders will not get direct information on how much recon the interrogated pilot has given up.
