A new way to set arty limits

[Weasel]

I was messing around the other day and thought up of a new way to buy arty. Instead of the old standard 10% limit the new way is based on the number of FOOs you buy.

What I propose is thus: For each FOO you buy you get 2X his value to buy in artillery. So if you buy four FOOs at 75 pts each you get 600 pts to spend on artillery. Now the 2X is just a starting point, perhaps it has to be higher or lower, who knows as it still needs testing.

The advantage is if you are in a battle and you have crappy troops, you can now spend more on artillery to help accomplish your mission instead of the standard 'we each get 2 batteries and I am assaulting'.

With version 3.5 I think players will soon find out they need far more then the standard 2 or 3 FOOs, so this method would lend itself well.

Opinions (constructive)?

[Jolly Roger]

Hi Chris.

Guess your suggestion is much closer to historical settings.

I´ll test it and keep you informed.

Cheers, Klaus

[Weasel]

I am just waiting for some of my games to end so I can test it too. I think it will be a neat little option.

Let me know how it goes, what is good or bad and what needs adjusting when you are done. I will dip into my custodian bag of brownie points and send some your way. This goes for anyone else who is willing to test and report.

Cheers buds.

[Jolly Roger]

Thanks Chris,

that´s generous.

Cheers, Klaus

[Narwan]

Never thought the 10% rule made sense anyway. I don't think there should be any rule on how many points you can spend on arty. Why would you want to? I mean that, what good reason is there? I really don't get why people make such a fuss about arty. It's by far the weakest of the three combat arms in relation to its cost.
And on the other hand, if you want to buy realistic forces, 10% is often far too little (that always cracks me up, players who insist on both realistic forces and a 10% arty max). Any rule that gets in the way of buying actual historical force ratios is a bad rule as far as I'm concerned.

Same goes for those FO's. Many nations for much of ww2 didn't have large numbers of dedicated FO's while they did have a standard amount of arty. So I guess you can see I'm rather sceptical about the idea.
The ratio would need to be a minimum of 4 times the FO cost to be workable anyway as three times the cost won't buy you most medium and heavy off map batteries.

Narwan

[zeiss]

Never thought the 10% rule made sense anyway. I don't think there should be any rule on how many points you can spend on arty. Why would you want to? I mean that, what good reason is there?

It's more fun to play if the game isn't so artillery heavy and that's a matter of opinion. The reason for it being set to 10% is just the ease of calculation.

"Realistic forces" doesn't mean you have to purchase units according to TOE. It's about avoiding the far out cases like; an all sniper army, an SS Aircav coy, all infantry is size 0 and so on.

What I propose is thus: For each FOO you buy you get 2X his value to buy in artillery. So if you buy four FOOs at 75 pts each you get 600 pts to spend on artillery. Now the 2X is just a starting point, perhaps it has to be higher or lower, who knows as it still needs testing.

2X seem too low. You need to spend 300pts on FOs to get 600pts of artillery.

[Narwan]

Hi Zeiss, I understand the point of fun but as you said it's a question of opinion. I actually like it if my opponent doesn't buy too much arty not because that makes it easier for me but because it'll probably make it harder.
Which was the point I tried to make; people who buy plenty of arty make it harder on themselves, not on their opponent. So why restrict it? If people want to handicap themselves let them (I do sometimes).

Even buying according to TOE isn't realistic btw. Few formations went into battle with their manouvre formations at full strength. Riflemen strength was usually down 10-40% while the support weapons were usually close to 100%. The rule of thumb was that if the riflemen strength was down to 75% the effective combat power was still about 90%.
I did the math once for Italian binairy infantry divisions. The realistic amount of arty is between 15% and 40% of points depending on what factors you include....

Narwan

[Weasel]

2X seem too low. You need to spend 300pts on FOs to get 600pts of artillery.

That is why I said it needs testing, which so far only Klaus has graciously volunteered to do. If you also use the FOO restriction rule then it is not unlikely to have 4 FOOs, I always buy at least 3 and I just started a game where I have 5.

If you like playing with 1 FOO with unlimited artillery targeting then no, the rule wouldn't work for you.

[Narwan]

As I consider the FO unit to represent a small detachment of arty specialists added to the HQ I would indeed consider it an unnecessary rule. Especially as they'll have no eyes on the target themselves and suffer all the consequences which are considerable, particularly in v3.5. Many units represent more than just the number of men they have in the game so why not FO's?
Would help explain the cost too. As I stated previously, artillery already gives you the lowest value for points in the game (IMO at least). Forcing players to buy an FO for every battery (or whatever the ratio would be) would greatly add to the cost and reduce the value for points ratio even more. Some of you may scoff at the cost perspective but my prediction is that both this rule and the earlier FO rule will lead not to significantly more FO's but to far less artillery being bougth. It's an assumption that these arty rules would lead to more FO's; the opposite could just as easily happen.

There's another very simple rule one could consider to regulate arty use and that is to make off-board arty mandatory for certain types of arty. Think along the lines that anything with a range of 200 or more needs to be off-board (which would be a lot more realistic anyway). If you'd really want to you could allow an X number of on-board (light) arty batteries.
Advantage of off-board is that all the tubes fire at the same target and while abstracted counterbattery fire is actually much more realistic.

Narwan

[Jolly Roger]

Hi Chris,

finished first game of MBT under the new art. limit rule vs. [/b]Sapper 1. It was a meeting engagement, USSR vs. UK 1979.
I´ve bought 4 SNAR - 10 GSR AOP´s each carrying an art. observer
as passenger. Overall FO value ( SNAR + passenger ) = 272 pts.
4 of these teams allowed purchasing about 2000 pts of art.
In my opinion the ratio should be FO pts : Art. pts. = 4:1,
means two teams of SNAR 10 + passenger for 2000 pts of art.

In my opinion art. primary target markers should be allowed only to parties purchasing FO, maybe in a ratio of 1:1, very big guns
should be purchased as OFF - board.

Cheers, Klaus