Realistic Artillery Management - FOO Rule

[Narwan]

I'm wondering how you'd handle fire-plans with the FO rule (expanded or not). It seems the FO rules is focused on quick response calls and not prepared arty missions.
This has some serious practical consequences too I'm afraid. Let's say you want to attack on a 500m wide front with infantry and need to cross some open terrain to reach the woods. You want to have a smoke screen between you and the woods and an additional one parallel to your advance to block your left flank for possible enfilade fire. And you want some support in the form of arty rounds falling into the woods to suppress the defenders there.
Even though this would a company sized attack you'd need at least 5, possibly 6 FO's to pull this off and is assuming you use the expanded FO rule. While in reality this would all be worked out in advance (perhaps with a few test rounds not represented in the game) by the responsible arty officer and maybe a single dedicated spotter.
(In 'reality' this would take more time to set up than you'll need in the game but once again, for playability, this has been condensed).

Another example would be a creeping barrage; under the FO rule you'd need an observer for every few hundred yards of barrage while this too could be planned in advance (again with maybe a few ranging shots) and then carried out on a time table without a spotter adjusting.

Wouldn't you agree that all in all it's rather a lot of instances (interdiction, counterbattery, preplanned fires, company attachments) where the FO rule actually decreases reality? And if you'd try to put those all into a new rule it would quickly become unplayable (just look at the debate on how to interpret the dumbed down version early on in the thread)?

Narwan

[Weasel]

Cross Wrote:
"Your post also brings up the issue that RERomine raised: The problem of artillery guns, from the same troop, spread all over the map, instead of being in realistically close proximity. "

The optional 8f rules deal with this, guns must be deployed in battery no more then 1 hex apart.

[Cross]

Cross Wrote:
"Your post also brings up the issue that RERomine raised: The problem of artillery guns, from the same troop, spread all over the map, instead of being in realistically close proximity. "

The optional 8f rules deal with this, guns must be deployed in battery no more then 1 hex apart.

Hi Chris,

I think "no more than 1 hex apart" is realistic for a troop, other troops in the battery should probably be 4 to 6 hexes away.

The problem is that SP on board counter battery is far quicker and more accurate than IRL.
Because of this, I like to keep my guns within 3 to 5 hexes of one another. So I feel I'm making an effort to keep guns together, without giving them away to CB fire.

However, I can see that if rule 8f was played in conjunction with your FOO rule, CB would be unlikely.

[Walrus]

Wouldn't you agree that all in all it's rather a lot of instances (interdiction, counterbattery, preplanned fires, company attachments) where the FO rule actually decreases reality?
Narwan

Indeed, but in the end it was suppressing gamey play that was the driver for the rule. It is impossible to make this game realistic and that was never the aim.

Perhaps we should be calling it a 'suggestion' rather than a rule.
If you can agree on 'realistic' arty with your opponent and know that he will get some FOOs, target in batteries, set up his tube close together on map, get a sensible buy of arty for the battle size, plot in Sheafs or sensible fire-plans etc, etc...then there is no need for a 'rule' nor a 'suggestion'

The problem is when you are dealing with players for the first time, or when there are language issues.
A written out 'rule' goes a long way in decreasing confusion and not leaving things up to assumption.

It's good that we are debating these things, especially if it leads to improvements in the actual game (always possible with the CAMO guys...they do listen), or in our PBEM systems that we use here at the Blitz.

We could go on pulling real world examples out for the next year...and we'd still be playing Steel Panthers, not actually targeting arty in real life...and thankfully not being on the receiving end of any either!!!

I think the FOO rule is going to become less of an issue as the CAMO guys start to look at arty routines.
Playes may hate or love the changes, but I feel they'll always be moving toward making the game harder to be 'gamey' with.

In the end, there are a lot of guys that mostly just play against the AI (no idea why, probably scared of real opponents:stir:) and the game routines are often written with them in mind as much as we PBEMers.
We tend to notice quite different things than the AI players.

So...in the end, if I ever get desire to lose another game to you Remco I will know that we need to have a wee discussion about arty before the battle.
That's cool, what's a couple of email between friends eh :)

Cheers lads
Jason

[seabolt]

if I ever get desire to lose another game to you Remco

That's not going to happen. He's going to retire in shame after my Imperial Guards banzai his ass off the wretched patch of jungle over which we're currently struggling. ;)

-- 30 --

[Walrus]

Ha!
Good luck with that bro.
I am still licking my wounds after my last fiasco.
Hurrah!

[Narwan]

Hehe, so we're struggling are we Gene? It thought it was just those guards who were conducting that inverted advance who were struggling with something... :cool:


I fully agree with you Jason that an optional arty rule is an addition to the game. As I said in my first post in this thread, I think with or without it still leaves the game in the same realm of (un)realism. So playing with or without it is purely a question of player preferences. It's been used fo a while now and apparantly to the satisfaction of those who used it. So I'm not saying it's wrong. It's just that for me it detracts more than it adds. That's probably because I don't mind the free use of FO's as much as others do. I think of them in a more abstract sense, not just as two guys with a radio. For the 70+ points you get a proper arty control added to your force for which the FO unit is just the way it's translated into the game. I'd find it hard to justify the points costs if I think of it otherwise. In my opinion arty is already on the expensive side in the game so anything that makes it in effect more expensive gets a big 'hmmmmmm.....' :chin: from me.

Narwan

[Cross]

Don, over at the Shrapnel site did say todayt that the next release will include changes to the artillery process. Here's a quote:

We have already mentioned a few times that the next upgrade has changes to the shift fire code that make shifting arty from one place to the other that is out of LOS a much more time consuming activity than it is now. Having an observer with eyes on the target hex WILL be more of an advantage than firing blind is.

However....

You're not going to get the shift fire buttons removed from out of LOS targets because *I* suggested this to Andy long before you thought it up and after a good look at the code it was decided this wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons directly related to the code but also because without the ability to shift fire like that with out of LOS targets you could not do a proper walking barrage because as soon as you start to kick up smoke you loose LOS and would loose the ability to shift fire without a much bigger delay than that manoeuvre requires.

Sounds like this will make artillery less 'gamey', and make the proper use of FOOs more important. I can see hills becoming more important in future battles :chin:

It seems to me, that until we've experienced these changes, it doesn't make sense to move forward with another set of optional FOO rules.

[RERomine]

Still, it doesn't sound like anything is being done to eliminate the conditions that brought about the "FOO Rule" to begin with:

1. Eliminating one FOO calling artillery in on dozens of targets.
2. Eliminating plotting one gun on each enemy gun as mass one on one counter battery.
3. Improving the "value" of the FOO.

It does sound like this will make having "eyes on" more important, but beyond that it's difficult to say.

None the less, I agree that deciding on any rules/guidelines is pointless until we see exactly what the final product turns out to be.

[Weasel]

Sounds to me like shifting will increase the time delay is all, not prevent it or a single FOO shooting up the map. However, it sounds like the chasing of units with arty will be restricted somewhat by the increased time delay.