Gamey?

[Fullhouse]

RE: Pre ploted artillery.

Some seem to be forgetting that you cant actualy pre plot artilery in ME QBs so the discusion about there gameyness only refers to scenaros and Atack/defend QBs.

In scenarios I think alot depends on the scenario and the blatant obviousness of the set up zones thereby. Also alot could depend on the briefiing and the assumed intel of the defneders. This would have been a good switch to include in scenario desighn, the allowance of first turn pre plots.

Perhaps the scenario designer can influence this by how he sets the scenario as either attack/defend or ME, I am not sure if you can pre plot in scenario MEs, and maybe this would be a subtle way of scen designers having some controll over this aspect.

I think if you are playing an op, then first turn barrages after the first battle are totaly fine as the intelignece aspect is much more modeled and the defender is going to totaly expect attack and have a good idea of the direction.

As for Attack/defend QBs, I think its totaly un gamey for the attacker to do a pre planned barrage. As for the defender I am unsure. Yes the russians did barrage the germans at the start of Kursk, but this was mostly counter battery fire, e,g, they fired to suppress the german artilery it was also done at an entirely operational level. This was also the exception to the rule. It only occured because thanks to a spy infiltrating the very top ranks of german command they had total knowledge of the german battle plan.

Obvioulsy this is beyond the scope of the QB to model. I think allowing the defender to preplot with a biult in delay is perhaps a good compromise.

Say 5 minutes for probes (the defender is less likely to have inteligence about fist contact recon from the enemy)

4 minutes for attacks and 3 minutes for assaults.

Just a suggestion but one I may try in the future.

Its a shame that there is no modeling of pre battle inteligence as it is infact a very important aspect that would have impacted greatly on a battle at the tactical level.