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Hello Vic,

I’d like to share a suggestion from Seymos regarding Artillery and AT-Guns for units using Foot Movement in Shadow Empire.

Currently units with Foot Movement are limited to weapons with calibers up to 25mm (great you introduced this few patchs ago), We’d like to suggest raising the caliber limits further to allow for light support weapons mounted on wheels and towable by infantry or animals, without requiring motorized transport. Specifically:

• Up to 60mm for light Artillery, such as man-portable mortars or small wheeled infantry guns

• Up to 40mm for light AT-Guns, such as WW anti-tank guns designed to be moved by crew

These weapons were not carried on the back like small mortars, but were still light enough to be manually moved and repositioned in the field by small teams of soldiers or animal traction.

Some examples :

• The 60mm M2 mortar (US) : standard infantry mortar, man-portable in sections and used without vehicles.

• The 37mm Pak 36 (Germany) and the 45mm M1937 AT gun (Soviet) : both designed to be towed short distances or pushed by infantry crews

We believe increasing the caliber limits for Foot Movement units would improve gameplay / design flexibility and realism (especially for Artillery)

What do you think?

Heya Pymous,

I'm trying out some of your graphics, so thanks for those.

I haven't ever yet deployed mixed 'ground infantry and un-motorised small artillery' units or OOB. But I would like to see how the 25mm guns-w/o-trucks combo works.

In terms of realism and real-world examples, I expect without googling that while the medium/light guns you mentioned may be within the ability of a squad of strapping lads to change a position in a battle, travelling hundreds of kilometers overland that way is not feasible.

I mean, I've watched videos on some of those same WWII 'infantry-class' guns, and they still look like huge, heavy pieces of metal. Especially the mounts or braces. There was a French "Knee Mortar" I think they called it, which would have been light enough to pack, but even that still uses ammunition weighing several pounds per round.

If 10 rounds weigh 30 pounds, what kind of weight would a prolonged engagement demand? A human might be able to dead-lift 300 lbs on a 1G planet, but for practical soldiering I think a 60-75lb kit, including all ammo for all guns in the squad, is about the upper limit.

Xeno pack animals might be interesting in SE.

But these are all tweaks to the combat system, which is trending less important to me. These days its population management I'm thinking the most about.

glhf