Realistic Artillery Management - FOO Rule

[RERomine]

A bit of background: My first real reason for looking at the FOO rule was for the simple fact of CB. During a game it was incredibly common to see one on board gun targeted at each of the opponent's on board guns or at each little group of infantry and tanks that you may have spotted. Heck I know it happened because I was doing it too! So the standard practice was to deploy your battery spread over 50 hexes and buy some others and wait for your opponent to shoot. Once he fired each smoke puff would be targeted by as few as a single tube. So 20 on board guns, 20 seperate plots by 20 seperate guns.

Realism was not a factor but what we created was based on fact, albiet loosely. So the FOO rule is more a rule to prevent incredibly gamey play more then anything else.

Don't look at it as trying to put real FOOs into the game as that can never be simulated.

Anymore, by the time your CB rounds would be falling, your targets will have moved or at least should have moved. Good to drop rounds to keep someone on their toes, however :) Someone might figure you don't drop CB and decide to stay in place. It's a wonderful cat and mouse game The FOO rule doesn't change that. Just means you can't blow someone entire artillery force apart in one turn.

There are a lot of other "rules" to make things more realistic, beyond just the FOO rule. Making something less gamey basically has the effect of making it more realistic, even if that wasn't the intent. There's nothing wrong with that.

You are correct in that it's not possible to make FOOs or any other aspect, completely realistic. It will be interesting to see what Andy has in mind for his changes. I'm surprised they are letting him go ahead with it, but he said he didn't like the artillery model. Maybe all this spit balling will translate into something good with is changes.