Eliminating smoke grenades

orc4hire · Post by **orc4hire** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:15 am

Annoying yes, but I don't see realistic in it.... Look at it this way; you have a squad surrounded in a cloud of smoke. 6 enemy squads rush it simultaneously from all sides. The defenders, in the real world, may put out a maximum effort -- say double their normal firepower -- but each attacking squad is only going to catch 1/6 of that firepower. Or some will catch more, and some none at all.

In SP, the squads move up one at a time, and instead of each facing only 1/3 of the squad's normal firepower, each faces double. Being outnumbered 6 to one has increased the squad's effective firepower by 6 times. A squad moves up next to them, is hit by point blank fire from each of the squad's weapons, loses a few men, and takes a lot of suppression. Assuming it can rally up enough to get a shot off at all, it may supress the defender a little, but probably won't cause any casualties. Then the same thing happens to the next squad....

It's as if the police were breaking into a building full of bad guys, and instead of a dozen cops rushing in from every entrance all at once, they come in one at a time, give the bad guys a chance to shoot at them, then if the cop survived he shoots back, then the next cop runs in to be shot....

Captn_Jack · Post by **Captn_Jack** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:29 am

Originally posted by orc4hire:

In SP, the squads move up one at a time, and instead of each facing only 1/3 of the squad's normal firepower, each faces double. Being outnumbered 6 to one has increased the squad's effective firepower by 6 times. A squad moves up next to them, is hit by point blank fire from each of the squad's weapons, loses a few men, and takes a lot of suppression. Assuming it can rally up enough to get a shot off at all, it may supress the defender a little, but probably won't cause any casualties. Then the same thing happens to the next squad

Hmmm...you guys must be playing a different game than I am. If I suppress a squad enough its running and popping, it may fire some shots when I move next to it, but it does little damage. For one thing, a squad that is suppressed has its firepower and hit chances reduced to start with. Next, if you move a second squad up after it fires at the first, it suffers a penalty for changing targets. So on and so on. When you bring fire on it from multiple sources, it increases the chances of hit and further suppression. You need to realise that when an enemy unit is in retreat or rout mode, your firepower and hit chances are also reduced until the unit stops running and starts shooting. Show me a squad outnumbered by 6-1 and I'll show you an eliminated squad.

CJ

orc4hire · Post by **orc4hire** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:33 am

CJ,

I didn't say a word about fleeing or routed units.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:46 am

Originally posted by orc4hire:
Annoying yes, but I don't see realistic in it.... ... The defenders, in the real world, may put out a maximum effort -- say double their normal firepower ...
It's as if the police were breaking into a building full of bad guys, and instead of a dozen cops rushing in from every entrance all at once, they come in one at a time, give the bad guys a chance to shoot at them, then if the cop survived he shoots back, then the next cop runs in to be shot....

FPF is far more than double normal firepower, perhaps 10 times or so. As to your analogy about squads rushing in sequence so the defenders can fire at them one at a time and that they should only receive 1/6 of the firepower; Consider that most of the bullets from the first FPF shots probably went whistling through thin air. If the other squads had simoultanously been there, they would have intercepted some of those bullets. So giving the defenders some more shots when the attackers rush some more models the final results that would have happened if both had happened simoultanously.

The FPF is not aimed fire but hosing down the area as much as you can. Because of this each unit does not really take 1/6 of the total fire. Having more troops rush the defenders does not detract from the defenders shooting at other attackers since they are just firing everywhere as fast as they can.

I hope that this is not too confusing. Its hard to explain modeling simoultanous actions in IGUG manner, however its the outcome, not the manner that it is modeled that I agree with.

------------------
An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Captn_Jack · Post by **Captn_Jack** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:59 am

Originally posted by orc4hire:
CJ,

I didn't say a word about fleeing or routed units.

I thought the whole topic was about units being fired at, and popping smoke. Then what you are talking about is another topic. But the same principles come into play. I haven't seen endless opfire. But if there is a squad in a defensive position, hasn't fired its weapons in the last turn, then it has ALL it's shot to fire when you move up. If you move more than 1 hex, you suffer a higher casulty rate. But by moving up the 2nd and 3rd squads, it still suffers a penalty for changing targets. If it's an engineer unit, it still only gets 2 flame thrower shots, not an endless supply. Move the 1st up, move the 2nd up. When it shoots at the second, fire back with the first making it change its target again and again. If needed, bring the 3rd up. If it is in a position worth attacking, then do it. Otherwise, bypass it. If I know it's there to begin with, I would probably lay some mortar in on it before I sent the 1st squad. Why attack it at it's full strength anyway?

CJ

orc4hire · Post by **orc4hire** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 3:07 am

Penalty or not, I regularly see units opfire 10 or so times. <shrug> Believe in it or not, it happens.

Why attack it at full strength? Well, units that can't be bypassed ("That is, when an enemy unit is in a position where you have to get him out" I did say) are usually on objective hexes, and by the time you're up to the objective hexes it isn't too unusual to be for the artillery to be out of ammo. And sending the defenders a polite letter explaining that your assault would be easier if they'd send half their men on leave doesn't seem to have much effect.

Captn_Jack · Post by **Captn_Jack** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 3:12 am

Originally posted by orc4hire:
Penalty or not, I regularly see units opfire 10 or so times. <shrug> Believe in it or not, it happens.

Do you see this in games vs the AI or human? I never play the AI anymore so maybe I don't see what you are seeing. When playing the PBEM games I do, I see this type of assault all the time, but not the reactions from the defending squads you do. Although I have seen a MG42 crew wipe out a 10 man squad in 2 bursts before. And they only moved 1 hex.
Could be a buggy AI routine...

CJ

orc4hire · Post by **orc4hire** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 3:25 am

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 3:26 am

CJ: Correction. A unit that has been routed or retreated has it's fire opportunities reduced, or so it seems to be, for that indeed is part of what I call the suppression strategy, and that is, even if you can't rout an invulnerable enemy tank with concentrated fire, you can reduce it's shots anyway. Suppression does reduce shots at least for the human player during the player turn.

Arralen · Post by **Arralen** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 2:28 pm

Originally posted by Igor:
I've got limited ammo on.. An offboard Guards Mortar battalion (Katyushas) with unlimited rockets would be rather messy, wouldn't it.

You'd better read the manual carefully.

There's an ammo limit given in the units stats (OOB) - "limited ammo" means that the units recieve randomly less ammo than allowed by the OOB .

And, as others stated, this doesn't have significant influence on available smoke grenades, which do not count as "ammo" .. or have you ever seen a "smoke grenade lauchner" on the weapon rooster ?

Smoke ammo seems to depend mostly on unit class, though.

A.

panda124c · Post by **panda124c** » Fri Jan 26, 2001 8:55 pm

Originally posted by Charles22:
pbear: Well then, you must love losing that first tank that has to stick it's nose into the smoke. It's not all that often that I "have" to stick a tank's nose into the smoke and as a result get assaulted, but it happens enough. This wouldn't matter so much if you could send more than one unit into the hex at the same time, but what starts out being a routed enemy getting mopped up, with smoke all around, ends up being one tank possibly being assaulted by 3 or more units. Not exactly characteristics found when one force is driving the other from the filed in dominating fashion. I can't imagine 2 platoons of infantry being hounded by 20 or more tanks, having to retreat/rout, and all of the sudden some genius comes up with putting smoke everywhere so they take out tanks.

It really gets silly when you have a whole set of infantry completely surrounded. So surrounded in fact that both the east/west sides of the force are smothered in smoke, because the surrounding force has routed units to those sides of the encirclement, so that there's a collective ball of units in the middle, amid much smoke within those hexes as well.

Tanks in smoke, that infantry work. I love to smoke up a bunch of tanks then send in the infantry.

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Thu Feb 01, 2001 5:48 am

Quote

There's an ammo limit given in the units stats (OOB) - "limited ammo" means that the units recieve randomly less ammo than allowed by the OOB .

/quote

Actually, that's not quite right. Limited ammo on is the usual loadout, Reduced ammo on is limited with some missing. Limited ammo off is a railroad siding running up to each and every unit jammed with boxcars full of ammo. Oh, and every bomber is a B-17 squadron...

RockinHarry · Post by **RockinHarry** » Thu Feb 01, 2001 6:08 pm

Something else about smoke...

In DYO Scenarios, you can edit the smoke loads down to the level ,you find appropriate. But what about the "heavy" smoke loads of tank crews, for example???

Even more annoying!?
--------------------

RockinHarry

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Feb 01, 2001 11:08 pm

RockinHarry: Actually the tank crews aren't half that annoying, because frequently just killing one of them will result in their being wiped out, thereby their smoking things up to the score of one or two hexes maximum. OTOH the infantry may retreat for each single loss it takes, thereby smoking six hexes or more, before being wiped out. The major annoyance in my view isn't how much smoke ammo they get, but that when being put through the slaughter will smoke the more men they have in the unit. I don't know if they have smoke grenades or not, but can you imagine how many hexes would get smoked if you routed an 88flak crew?

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Fri Feb 02, 2001 11:10 am

An 88 crew? How about a 15 man Warlord rifle squad? It's like a B-52 dropping smoke...

RockinHarry · Post by **RockinHarry** » Fri Feb 02, 2001 5:18 pm

Agree with most here.

At least (any) crews shouldnt have any "smoke" at all. The problem here seems to be buried with the unit "class". The "crew class" seems to be the one exception, where you cannot edit away the "smoke", cause no matter what you do (edit), if they "rout", they ---"can"--- drop.

-1- Try abandoning any crewed weapon with "9 key", then -2- expend all its available "smoke" (or any ammo), -3- let them "recrew" their tank or guns. Repeat with -1-. Check their smoke load again...
should be "nil", but it is not!!!???

Same with "routing" crews, if they have no smoke, or all expended, they still ---"can"--- drop. No way editing this away, even in OOB editor!!

It seems to be a design decision, to give the crews an extra opportunity to bug out in "unfortunate" situations. hmm... !?

Cause there are different opinions about smoke load and how to use it, maybe it is best to give this an entry in the "preferences" screen of SPWAW ?!

-------------------
RockinHarry

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Feb 02, 2001 8:02 pm

I'm sorry, somehow or another I was thinking the 88flak had a 20 man crew. What is it, an 8 or 12 man crew?

Igor · Post by **Igor** » Sat Feb 03, 2001 7:29 am

The 88mm AA crew consists of 11 men. The really huge crews are in things like coastal gun forts, armored trains, and such like.