Re: (TFT) Line of Sight

["Craig W. Barber" <craigwbar@comcast.net>]

The 1903 Springfield Rifle could "hit" a target out to 1700 yards (1 mile)
"for a given definition of hit".  About that time, people began to realize
that the Mark I eyeball was the limitation, not the weapon.

The variety of terrain types available just on Earth, let alone Cidri, could
be let the GM or military scenario designer get away with almost anything, I'm
afraid.  Here in Colorado, we have grasslands which functionally offer an LOS
of about 5 meters to someone lying down, but which would show that same person
at that 5 km range very clearly if they just stood up.  But up in the Rockies,
the evergreen forest tends to have a virtually desert underlayer with no
brush, no grass, no dead vegetation even: you look around and you can see
right through the trunks of the trees for 1/2 km or more, but if you climb a
rocky knob and look at the vista, you see nothing but impermeable green tree
tops.  Out west and south, we've got that scrubby "tumbleweed desert".  A man
sitting still behind a bush would be invisible at 1/2 km but moving around,
you can see him at 5 km again.  And so on...

SQUAD LEADER had *some* good rules on the topic, in fact, I believe their
"wheatfield" rules and "orchard" rules exactly describe the first two
environments I mentioned from here in Colo.  SL even had rules for arroyos.
But did they have any maximum visibility ranges?   I believe in SL, the weapon
limited the range, while LOS was mostly determined by blocking terrain.



  ----- Original Message -----
  From: dwtulloh61@cox.net
  To: tft@brainiac.com
  Cc: ErolB1@aol.com
  Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 7:06 AM
  Subject: Re: (TFT) Line of Sight


  ---- ErolB1@aol.com wrote:
  > Does anyone on the list have any good real-world data/cites for
  > average/median/maximum "line of sight" distances in different
  > terrain types?



  ---- ErolB1@aol.com wrote:
  > Does anyone on the list have any good real-world data/cites for
  > average/median/maximum "line of sight" distances in different
  > terrain types?

  ay-yi-yi ... you'd have to be sure to factor in the prevailing vegetation
  height and the height of your sensor as well.  And just because you
  have line-of-sight doesn't mean that you'd be able to discern things
  at that distance.  And if you're talking about discerning, the size of
  the object you're looking at (as well as its apparent contrast) is an
  issue as well.

  I'm sure there are some studies which will can provide some hard numbers to
your question but I'm not sure I can provide them to
  you in this forum.

  But lets see if we can tackle this in another way:
  Let's say that the unaided eye of a human can discern a human size
  object at a distance of 5K on a flat plain.  Then you can start dividing
  this distance by the roughness of the terrain that you are in: plains
  might have a roughness factor of 1.1 ... rolling hills, 1.3 on up to
  rugged mountains at 10.0.  Throw in vegetation on top of that and
  I think you might have a decent first cut at a general LOS model.

  Dan
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