Phantom Artillery

[Glenn Saunders]

timshin42

Appreciate you comments - a couple points worth adding - not sure if they are news to you but they might be for others

I get your point. Guess I just wish there were more artillery fire planning and fire support coordination options available to use in the games. Like TOTs, Groups and Series of Targets, Final protective fires, FSLs, FSCLs,etc.

Yes, but the problem is making them work in a 2 or 3 hour turns

I'm very happy to have the VERY REALISTIC Arty Setup rule. Can't visualize a WWII or KOREA game played without it (though I would love to be able to apply a variablke factor to SP vs Towed Arty).

SP Guns ignore the Setup Value so they can shot and scout. Now sometimes SP Guns are not evident in earlier Titles as the art wasn't there at the time.

IMHO Indirect fire by the map is very real for WWII US or German Arty, but possibly not real for Soviet Arty.

The problem with this idea is when put in the hands of a Human player and a key hex is IDs virtually every shell within range hits that one target and no other tergets get a look. That isn't realistic either.

Furthermore - because the game engine is such one unit at a time, a player can fire one Arty unit - see what result he gets and then decide if wants to fire a second - and so on. This too leads to gamey results which would be further compounded if more possible firing units are available.

Finally - when you give more and more ability of a Operational Commander to to micro manage single arty units and do what is possible will in itself lead to over results that are NOT possible.

That is making a rule that make sense in the Detail view doesn't work in the BIG Picture.

I really waffle back and forth around this arguement. FOr example in real life a Div boundary is a weak point and a good place to target. But in game terms (with Indirect Fire by Map ON) they are stronger because there is more Arty units available.

Another interesting thing is what I learned by reading three books by a Cdn FOO in WWII. His name was Blackburn and his books are The Guns of Normandy, The Guns of Victory and Where the Hell are the Guns.

If you take what he says at face value it give you one perspective which is hard to dispute on how very effective the Guns were and how fast a lowly 2LT could cal ldown fire from all the Guns of the CORPS by designating a VICTOR Target.

But then I attended a academic lectures by one of our Cdn WWII experts (such as Terry Copp - we have an Excellent Military Museum here with a Evening lecture series) and he paints a completely different story on the effectiveness of the Guns. He cites various sources including some which measured the amount of Allied sharpnel removed for our own Cdn Casualities. ANd while he wasn't there like Blackburnwas - he certainly know an awful lot about it all and has spent his life researching it full time.

...I have to tell you, there are days it makes my head spin with how to apply what I've read and learned into things I can ask John Tiller to Program for us - things that meet his goal of adding "Simple Elegance" to the game - that is things that the game considers, the code takes care of and that don't over burden the game or make many rules one needs to know to understand and not become frustrated with.

..anyway - interest discussion all the same.

Glenn