Smoking is good for your health

[andrewcooke71]

I am playing a game in a built up area against tanks and it is obviously hard for my infantry to dash across any open ground without receiving fire that stops them and ultimately kills them. It occured to me that there isn't a smoke option available for tanks, mortars, some artillery and for infantry. Clearly this should be a limited option, but one that would make crossing open ground much less dangerous.

[pipfromslitherine]

There is considerable discussion about smoke on a number of threads. I'm not sure it would work in the game, but I know that many people think it would add a lot. I guess it would be about coming up with a design that balanced all the elements.

Cheers

Pip

[andrewcooke71]

Only from my tabletop experience smoke can be crucial to moving across open ground, hiding movement and masking the enemy. It obviously doesn't provide any cover benefit, just a visibility thing. It's good that there is some discussion about it. There are two rule sets that I played that handled it well were Crossfire and Battleground.

On a side note my nickname here in the US is Pip, some sort of south park reference!

[Old_Warrior]

Smoke should come in two varieties: regular smoke and white phosphorus which actually was an agent. The US tankers would fire WP at Panthers. If the Panthers had an inexperienced crew it would bail out. Sort of a morale degradation issue IMHO.

Otherwise they were both similar.

Smoke generators were used to cloak bridging areas too. Not the same as artillery rounds and they proved to be very effective. Wind would disperse smoke. I would just give the smoke an age and every new turn it would lose its ability to reduce visibility. Once it reached its "death" age it would disappear from the map.

[morge4]

MERR had put a Smoke test scenario out here a while ago. Not finding it doing a search? the file name is Merr_Smoke_v1.zip. I have a copy but as it is MERR's not sure about posting to share it?

Pip, can youeither halp find the original post or let me know if I can post the file?

Thanks!

[Richcat]

Here's link to the thread on the forum viewtopic.php?f=105&t=26040and in that there also a link to a discussion threadviewtopic.php?t=24073

The link to the zip file does not work - internet exploxer reporting errors - reloading etc EDIT( It does work as Morge4 reported below .It must just my ie8 and xp, wont do it for some reason)

As you said the search or even advanced search does nor seem to pick it up. when typing in smoke etc -

[gortwillsaveus]

What I would see as a really cool:

Mortars can either fire smoke or their explosive rounds.
The smoke would encompass 4-6 squares,...and last 2 rounds.
The smoke would obliterate siting of anything within the smoke,..or beyond the vision of enemy.

I think if you overextend this to add tanks and troops,..it may become too cumbersome and create overly unfair advantages.

[morge4]

The link to the zip file does not work - internet exploxer reporting errors - reloading etc

I was able to download without any issues?

[Richcat]

Thanks morge4, just tried on different machine and it does work.- Edited post above

[Mockingbird]

Just wanted to add my 2 cents... I believe this will add some more greatness to the game as a way for providing limited visibility for our advisaries during advances and when needing to retreat (with only some infantry and tanks having this ability). I'd suggest only being able to block the view through a single hex for 1 to 3 turns depending on the time of day and weather. Unbalancing perhaps in regular computer opponent games but not in human multiplayer.

[k9mike]

Also, should be limited to how many is available...the units that "Can" use smoke...only get to use it like one time...So, as to not be abused and to use it more carefully