Does ASL represent SMOKE accurately?

[Pitman]

IMHO, a better mechanism for variable SMOKE would be to have several counters of different 'strength'. Randomly pick one of those each time you need a SMOKE counter and place that on the board. OR better yet make the decision based upon how well it was placed in the first place. If you miss with ordnance smoke, place a +1 strength smoke or some such.

A variable DRM that has to be calculated for every shot is one of the WORST game mechanics EVER devised and should be flushed immediately. :toilet:

That's a cool idea. Except the miss with ordnance smoke part.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

This is what a 2-inch mortar smoke barrage looks like.

A two-inch mortar crew of The Regina Rifle Regiment taking part in a training exercise, Sussex, England, 18 April 1944. Hand, Kenneth H., Photographer

I wonder if all the suggestions are taking into account the actual effects of a typical smoke grenade, mortar bomb or artillery shell on a 40-metre stretch of terrain?

Or given ASL's fudged city streets, should smoke usage also be fudged? Should smoke be doubled for use in city streets?

Was it historically used that way?

 

[Robin Reeve]

Would the level of smoke be questioned?
Two levels is quite high (12 meters?) and four levels (24 meters?) for WP too...

 

[Pitman]

How can it be questioned? Height levels vary from scenario to scenario.

 

[Robin Reeve]

How can it be questioned? Height levels vary from scenario to scenario.

Quite true.
But what is the real life height of smoke or wp, produced by a shelling or a grenade (if no wind blows)?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

The argument that smoke grenades are not modelled in Combat Mission because it was "too complicated" doesn't ring true, incidentally, as that game does model the use of smoke rounds by artillery as well as light mortars, as well as smoke dischargers on vehicles - including the Tac AI's usage of smoke dischargers as a defensive measure. It also models nahveirteidigungswaffe. I can't see them doing all that, and then throwing their hands in the air and not modelling smoke grenades, and on top of it, making up a lie to cover their tracks. That's not like the design team at all.

 

['Ol Fezziwig]

[Imagine kewl pic X-here-x]​

This is what a 2-inch mortar smoke barrage looks like.

Things like that photo make me think the additional dr is the way to go...even at the risk of injuring a players wrist. :halo:

 

[Sgt. Oddball]

Being in a light infantry outfit in the 'Guard during the '80's, we had plenty of smoke grenades for training, and used them for concealment.
I do not know the smoke potential of grenades during WWII, but ours produced plenty of smoke quickly.
Me and a couple of fraternity brothers snuck one out and after a party, let it go in the back parking lot. That smoke covered about half the block. Officer O'Reilly came to the scene---but that's another story, and off topic IMP:

 

[jwb3]

The argument that smoke grenades are not modelled in Combat Mission because it was "too complicated" doesn't ring true, incidentally, as that game does model the use of smoke rounds by artillery as well as light mortars, as well as smoke dischargers on vehicles - including the Tac AI's usage of smoke dischargers as a defensive measure. It also models nahveirteidigungswaffe. I can't see them doing all that, and then throwing their hands in the air and not modelling smoke grenades, and on top of it, making up a lie to cover their tracks. That's not like the design team at all.

A reasonable statement. It's much more likely that, since there are far more of us than there were people on the design team, we as a group simply have access to source material that they hadn't discovered.

I know nothing about real life smoke, but here are some parallels from CM:

- The way CM randomizes the spread of artillery rounds, it tends to result in OBA smoke landing not in a circle, nor in the linear pattern one of our real artillery people mentioned, but in an oval... like the shape of an ASL NOBA blast radius.

- This closely imitates the shape that was standard for the artillery template in a miniatures wargame I saw that was developed for use by the US Army.

- If you spend one minute firing smoke from OBA 81mm mortars (the game assumes a 4-tube battery with no shortage of smoke rounds, about 60 shells fired) then you end up with a fairly large part of the oval being completely obscured by the smoke. It really is overkill, in fact. +3 Smoke per hex is totally appropriate here.

- With actual artillery OBA, with a much slower rate of fire per minute (12-24 shells?), there are usually a lot of holes in the smokescreen. Waterrabbit's variable draw system would approximate this well.

- Onboard ordnance gets much more linear results than OBA. CM, like the minis wargame I mentioned above, seems to abstract the fact OBA will spread side to side because there is more than one barrel firing, and their aim points will never be perfectly aligned. CM could hypothetically track the shots of each tube seperately (thus getting four sets of linear results), but instead they seem to use a single aim point and have an oval pattern.

- A single 81mm mortar firing smoke will end up with rounds so far over the target and short of the target that they don't even rate a +1 smoke counter. Because it only has half a dozen rounds of smoke to begin with, and there is a small amount of side-to-side spread too, there will usually only be 2-4 rounds that even begin to affect the target's LOS. The best approximation would be: S# and TH roll reflect whether the smoke is even concentrated enough to place a counter. No ROF is possible. Use Waterrabbit's variable draw system to select the single counter to place in the target hex.

Alternatively, the mortar could keep ROF but only use it in the same target hex, to try to improve the strength of the smoke counter (to no more than +3).

- A tank firing smoke will get better results on target, but still is far from guaranteed to place a smoke counter of any strength.

- A 51mm mortar will have 2-3 smoke rounds, with very small smoke output, and is essentially worthless for placing smoke in CM.

However, the picture provided by Michael tells a somewhat different story. I assume the mortar placed two rounds, the two smoke clouds visible. These clouds are much denser, shorter, and wider than the CM version. Note that they still would not prevent an MG in the target woods "hex" from slaughtering any infantry trying to cross the field, because the parts of its field of fire that they don't cover are much larger than those they do.


John

 

[Blackcloud6]

As to the smoke height question, it depends on the air tempurature and if there is a tempurature inversion. The smoke and WP heights in ASL seem pretty good to me.

 

[RobZagnut]

>IMHO, a better mechanism for variable SMOKE would be to have several counters of different 'strength'. Randomly pick one of those each time you need a SMOKE counter and place that on the board.

That's how it works in Combat Commander: Europe. If I remember correctly, the chits are from +0 to +9.

 

[Blackcloud6]

If I remember correctly, the chits are from +0 to +9.

Gadz, that's a grossly unrealistic representaion of the possible variables of smoke.

 

[Daniels]

I have fired a lot of ordnance smoke in the past, 105mm and 155mm, ASL covers the use of this type of smoke very well from my experience. Here are a couple of points, most batterys fire smoke in a closed sheaf, (or converged sheaf) in the old days the firing batterys would apply the TGPC (terrain-gun position corrections) to the firing solution and fire the guns around a target point. It’s not too dissimilar from ASL 7 Hex smoke sheaf. Firing a smoke mission is not a single volley mission, but usually three to five rounds per gun to get the smoke density correct. The use of smoke is very weather dependent, rain I think most people understand, but hot weather and humidity affect the number of rounds in a smoke mission and the duration of the smoke. In hot dry weather you have to fire more rounds to fill in the gaps and the smoke disperses much faster. In humid weather the smoke has a long duration and stays close to the ground.
The one correction I would like to see is with the WP smoke rounds, they have the same body (fragmentation potential) and roughly the weight as HE round but had a center core buster (reduced explosive) surrounded by the WP payload in the projectile. When they go off the produce a fair amount of shrapnel, I always thought WP rounds should generate a same IFT effect as harassing fire.

 

[Commissar Piotr]

Hi Guys

Maybe this thread should be in the tactical subforum instead?

 

[Treadhead]

I think it's more of a "Rules and Errata" thread.

 

[Sparafucil3]

Just my .02, but I think everyone should stop playing junior forum administrator and let the admins do their job. Lets face it, the pay stinks, its thankless, probably not a whole lot of fun, and crucial to the well being of this forum. The last thing they need is for someone to tell them how to do this too. Cut them some slack for once. -- jim

PS: I apologize in advance to Peter and Bruce as this is not meant to single them out in particular, they just happened to post another "maybe the mods should <insert your opinion here>" post and I can't take them anymore. Call it my "off-topic and I don't like it" button if you want. I just wish everyone would step aside and let the professionals do the moderating.

 

[Treadhead]

No problems here, mate. Mine was not a serious comment, I just appreciated Piotr's crack and paid homage.

 

[Sparafucil3]

No problems here, mate. Mine was not a serious comment, I just appreciated Piotr's crack and paid homage.

Apologies again then. I know I am out of line to some extent, but it really has begun to annoy me. My cross to bear. -- jim

 

[Blackcloud6]

Just my .02, but I think everyone should stop playing junior forum administrator and let the admins do their job. Lets face it, the pay stinks, its thankless, probably not a whole lot of fun, and crucial to the well being of this forum. The last thing they need is for someone to tell them how to do this too. Cut them some slack for once.

Cranky butt!

But I agree...

 

[King Billy]

I have fired a lot of ordnance smoke in the past, 105mm and 155mm, ASL covers the use of this type of smoke very well from my experience.

Thanks Jacks, it is always good to get input from someone who has been there done that.

Bill