How long does smoke last?

How long does smoke last? (Full Version)

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IronManBeta -> How long does smoke last? (9/20/2002 3:16:35 AM)
Both sides used to rely on smoke a lot to mask movement and especially the all-important last 500 yards to contact. The Soviets planned to use "blinding concentrations" at the key points. Modern technology was starting to chip away at that pretty significantly by 1989 but it was still a concern. My question right now is on the dissipation rates of smoke screens. You can smoke up a 500m x 500m location in about 5 minutes with most any artillery battery, but then it thins out and starts to blow away. The original game had 60% dissipating every 5 minutes or so. With 30 minute turns that means that most smoke is long gone before you can use it. What is a reasonable rate? Should I assume that the arty units supplying it will just keep refreshing it all turn long? Sounds good to me but I thought I'd ask first.... cheers, Rob.

IChristie -> (9/20/2002 4:07:38 AM)
I'm not sure what the US doctrine would have been or what the wartime ammo scale would have been but in 12 years in the Canadian Arty reserve I NEVER saw an actual smoke round. The only smoke we ever fired was White Phosphorous (WP) which, especially on a warm day, was only useful for about 5 to 10 minutes. Also any appreciable wind would blow it away very quickly. True smoke should last longer because it does not pillar that way WP does. .... More to follow

IChristie -> (9/20/2002 6:45:54 AM)
As for size of a smoke screen the doctrine was that linear concentrations could be fired at 50m/gun. which means about 300m for a 6 gun battery. Of course the wind would spread that out. I think that standard rate for maitaining a screen was about 1 rd/min but I might be stretching recollection on that one. My general feeling is that to be really effective a smoke screen had to be part of a large scale (div?) deliberate fire plan rather than a CS task. As I said, in the Canadian Forces, heavy reliance on linear smoke was not doctrine. Mainly we practiced point smoke using WP and often in combination with HE fired right at the objective. I think the basic thinking was that arty ammo was more effective if it was aimed directly at the enemy rather than falling between you and him.

byron13 -> (9/20/2002 9:19:25 AM)
Robert, I think yours and Iain's numbers are about right. Wind would have been the biggest factor and could easily make a smokescreen useless. Unless you're trying to breach a minefield or make some kind of a bridge crossing, which would be a deliberate effort with substantial support, I don't see a 30 minute smokescreen as being remotely practical from a logistical or practical perspective. I would only call for smoke to seal an obvious defensive position from my line of travel for the several minutes it might take to traverse or to block the view of my objective/defensive position while I advance onto it. Either way, you're only talking five minutes or so. In game terms, maybe you only have a limited amount of smoke missions and, when you fire one, any friendly unit advancing through it gets a 50% defensive bonus while in the hex (maybe 25% in any surrounding hex) and, if the smoke lands on a firing unit, it suffers a 50% offensive degradation for the turn. I wouldn't worry about the fact that the turn is 30 minutes long; the smoke is timed to provide the maximum benefit for the friendly unit when it passes through the hex/is fired upon from the smoke hex regardless of when in the turn it is actually fired. I assume there is some kind of opportunity fire built into the game so that you can smoke a particularly dangerous hex that you need to run through and get the bonus above.

Sabre21 -> (9/20/2002 9:48:54 PM)
Don't forget arty was not the only method to employ smoke. I recall once in the 101st that a smoke generating platoon was used to cover an area over a kilometer long and about 500m deep. I was pretty impressed with this considering it lasted for over 30 minutes. Also we had several smoke generating M113's in the Cav in germany and Korea. These were used quite a bit, primarilay for deception though. One thing to note, the Soviets were beginning to deploy multi-spectrum smoke back in the late eighties. They used this primarily on their vehicles at the time to confuse laser guided munitions and thermal imagery. I recall smoke being used in abundance in tank battles, every vehicle popping smoke, maneuvering, shootin..it was a mess to fly thru. Sabre21

Drongo -> (9/20/2002 11:51:40 PM)
Posted by Sabre21 [QUOTE]One thing to note, the Soviets were beginning to deploy multi-spectrum smoke back in the late eighties. They used this primarily on their vehicles at the time to confuse laser guided munitions and thermal imagery. [/QUOTE] Mate, I'd heard about mult-spec smoke. Could you give a brief description of how that worked?

Sabre21 -> (9/21/2002 12:12:28 AM)
I would have to do some research on that because I wouldn't want to speculate on how that was actually achieved. Thick smoke in itself can diffuse lasers enough to significantly reduce the probability of hit with laser weapons such as a hellfire. The new generation of hellfires don't have that problem though. The Russians used a variety of countermeasures to defeat our systems. One in particular was a system that emitted IR signals on the same wavelength as the TOW missile receiver. The TOW system would then get confused on which IR source was the missile. Fortunately this was not a widespread system. As for the multi-specrum smoke, this was fired from the smoke launchers mounted on the armored vehicles. From what I know, it contained particles of some type that would either distort the heat source or possibly even prevent detection. I may be wrong on this, it has been a very long time since I looked into this stuff, and even then there was limited data. Sabre21

byron13 -> (9/21/2002 6:01:26 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sabre21 [B]Don't forget arty was not the only method to employ smoke. I recall once in the 101st that a smoke generating platoon was used to cover an area over a kilometer long and about 500m deep. I was pretty impressed with this considering it lasted for over 30 minutes. [/B][/QUOTE] Sounds like the Polish Smoke Brigade at Hohenfels. Arty is the only practical method of getting smoke between you and the enemy. 113s and trailers with smoke generators are not going to smoke that kill zone in front of the objective. For game purposes, I think arty is the only kind of smoke he's going to have to deal with. Onboard smoke generators and smoke grenade launchers should not be factored in at all.

Sabre21 -> (9/21/2002 8:22:43 AM)
I agree with ya Byron about the arty on that about putting smoke either on the objective or between you and the bad guys. There are chemical platoons designed to lay smoke though..we had one assigned to us as an attachment in Korea in the Cav. Mostly used for deception though. They used modified M113's, the unit at Campbell was a reserve unit that used generators. Sabre21

Drongo -> (9/21/2002 2:42:13 PM)
Sabre21, Thanks for the info. I thought I remembered something about the use of tiny particles for the effect but wasn't sure. I'd seen it mentioned in an old Janes from the early 90's. Cheers.

D A Sharp -> (10/19/2002 2:57:06 PM)
In Berlin in 89 the brigade had a Chem Platoon outfitted with M1059s (M113 with smoke generators attached). When training for a 48 hour defense a pair of those suckers could keep a very heavy and wide smoke screen going the whole time if the weather conditions permitted. The smoke they produced was very heavy and dense, much heavier than from HC smoke grenades or smoke pots, and quite unpleasant to work in as well. Those smoke screens could encompass an area longer than two companies in the defense in our Dough Boy City training facility. In laying the screen they would pull into a covered position and start up their gererators, then as the smoke screen grew they would drive into their screen to expand it. After they had established the screen they would drive back and forth along our frontage to maintain it. We also had a technique for obscuring our rear areas by stringing up target cloth (black burlap that came in long rolls) across roads between buildings, sometimes we would layer it up to two stories in height. Target cloth has the characteristic of allowing bullets to travel thru without alot of damege and of being somewhat opaque if you were close to it - seeing two or three blocks done up with target cloth was a very surreal sight. Another technique used not only to deprive the enemy of vision into our rear areas but to also block roads was to stack civilian vehicles up across roads - sometimes to quite a great height.

crandall9000 -> Could/would tanks and troops move through radioactive areas. (11/10/2002 1:21:53 PM)
A naive question from a non-military type but... If nuclear weapons are used, could forces conceivably be ordered to move through post-blast or fall-out areas and if so, is there a radioactive protocol for determining the exposure/survival rate for various kinds of units?

D A Sharp -> (11/11/2002 12:27:25 AM)
As a grunt each fire team carried a dosimeter that was to record total radiation exposure, this info went up to the BN NBC officer. I think the plan was at a certain dosage units would have to be removed from a rad environment if possible. From my limited knowledge I believe that exposure is cumulative over a soldiers lifetime, so you could fight to a set dosage and then either accept death by radiation poisoning or get out of dodge. EDIT I just dug up an old FM-21-40 NBC DEFENSE dated 77 with no release warnings on it, I may have an nuclear planning guide book around somewhere that is full of charts for blast survival for different types of equipment and units based upon warhead size and detonation altitude - I'll look for it but it is not readily at hand. From 21-40: Expected response in groups of personnel exposed to gamma and neutron radiation. [I](this is total rads, not rads/hr. Dosage is per liftime exposure of soldiers)[/I] Dose 0-70 rads, Effectiveness: full, fatalities: none Dose 150 rads, Effectiveness: Reduced while vomiting, depending on task, fatalities: None, Early Symptoms: approx 5% w/in 6 hrs Dose 650 rads, Effectiveness: Hospitalization required, Fatalities: more than 50% at approx 16 days, Early syptoms: 100% w/in 2 hours [I]The list continues but just gets grimmer[/I] [I]Radiological survey teams report in rads/hour for planning purposes.[/I] Operation exposure guide Based on the data from the radiation status records maintained at Bn, an Operations Exposure Guide (OEG) is established for all levels of command from Div down to Co....Normally the Div and Bde will express the OEG as the acceptable degree-of-risk (negligible, moderate, emergency or exceed emergency) for the particular operation. The Bn then takes the given degree-of-risk and applies it to each company to determine a numerical value in rad. This value is the amount of radiation to which elements of the Co can be exposed without exceeding OEG for the operation... Offensive operations ...The commander may then direct a radiological survey be made to determine the extent of the radioactive area and the exposure to which his troops will be subjected if he crosses it. Based on the information received he may decide to cross the area, bypass it, or stop his advance... After a unit has crossed a radioligical hazard area, men and equipment should be decontaminated as soon as possible. For radioactivity this consists only of physically removing the particles by washing, shaking, brushing, sweeping, etc....

Sabre21 -> (11/11/2002 3:05:53 AM)
Hi Crandall I'll add a bit to what Sharp said. There are a series of 6 types of NBC reports that are used for various NBC events. The NBC 4 report is used when conducting a survey. What usually occurs is that the NBC officer in the rear will receive a series of NBC 1 reports from troops in the field that encounter a contaminant or radiation (or see a nuc go off). These are sent to higher via an NBC 2 report. The NBC officer then puts together an NBC forcast based on all the NBC 1 reports and sends an NBC 3 back out to everyone with the predicted contaminated or fallout area. Hope this isn't too confusing yet. Then some poor slob...usually in the Cav, gets the task to go out and survey the area. We in the Air Cav let the scouts go do it while we in the Cobras would provide security from...oh...say the next county:) The scouts then will recon the area and report back using the NBC 4 report. The other 2 reports..5 and 6 are used back in the rear between HQ units. Sabre21

jrcar -> (11/24/2002 9:35:48 AM)
I came accross the following in "The Soviet Afgan War, how a superpower fought and lost" Its a series of translations from Soviet General Staff sources. RDG-2 Smoke grenade Burns for 15 sec lasts 1-1.5 mins 15-15m ZDP smoke cartridge Burns for 7.5 sec lasts 1-2min 10-15m DM-11 smoke pot Burns for 30 sec lasts 5-7 min 50m BDSh-15 Burns for 30 sec 15-17 mins 100-120m UDSh Burns for 15 sec lasts 10mins 100-150m 81mm Vehicle Morter Burns for 15 sec lasts 2 min 30-45 m TDA-2m smoke Generator lasts 3-8 hours covers 1000m The 81 has a range of 300 m the ZDP 500m Cheers RobC

byron13 -> (11/28/2002 4:17:30 AM)
For those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving, have a happy and safe holiday. And let's hope there are no "incidents" to spoil things.

IronManBeta -> (11/28/2002 4:34:02 AM)
Amen to that! Cheers, Rob.

byron13 -> (12/2/2002 9:50:37 PM)
And wouldn't you know it, the @#*&^!! do something to ruin things. Condolences to the families of those killed in Mombasa. If there is anything to be thankful for, it is that the loss of life was not higher. From the looks of things, the fatalities at the hotel could have been higher, and the fact that the airliner was not shot down is nothing short of a miracle. I have some questions: 1. How in the heck do two shoulder-fired missiles miss an airliner? Was the angle off to high when they fired so that the missiles did not get a good lock? Brain farts on the part of the shooters? Range just a wee bit long? Do turbofans dissipate heat or produce heat at frequencies not sought by the IR seeker? Sabre? I guess the day was bound to come when these type of weapons would be used against innocents - and a sad day it is for humankind. 2. I'm curious about the timing of Mombasa. Clearly, the two attacks were timed to coincide with each other. Was the fact that they chose America's Thanksgiving day a coincidence? I don't think November 28 has any significance on the Jewish calendar or to Israel does it? Striking Israelis in a place no American has heard of would harldy strike much terror in American hearts - if that was an objective (and I doubt the significance of the use of a SAM against an airliner has registered on the American public since it happened "there" and not "here" - we don't seem to realize how small the planet is). Which makes me wonder: was there a coincident attack on American interests planned that may have been aborted/foiled? If you really want to mess with Americans' minds, you would blow things up on Thanksgiving and Christmas in addition to random attacks.

jrcar -> (12/3/2002 5:49:09 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by byron13 [B] 1. How in the heck do two shoulder-fired missiles miss an airliner? Was the angle off to high when they fired so that the missiles did not get a good lock? Brain farts on the part of the shooters? Range just a wee bit long? Do turbofans dissipate heat or produce heat at frequencies not sought by the IR seeker? Sabre? I guess the day was bound to come when these type of weapons would be used against innocents - and a sad day it is for humankind. [/B][/QUOTE] First I've read (Janes?) that all Israeli airliners have countermeasure systems. The threat from the Palistinians makes this nessecary. Secondly operator error :) If they didn't get the lock on signal before firing OR the hadn't (or didn't know about) the the batteries in the seeker head which have a short life span and are non-standard? I'm guessing more of the former knowing the Israeli's :) Cheers RobC

byron13 -> (12/3/2002 8:28:04 AM)
I'm surprised/not surprised by your comment on the countermeasures. I had heard on CNN that Israel was going to look at ways of protecting airliners, which led me to believe they did not have countermeasures installed. Also, this was not El-Al but a charter. On the other hand, if anyone had countermeasures on airliners, the Israelis would, and I see no real reason to doubt you. Anyone else know? I can't imgagine it is a missile detector with flare dispensers (I can hear the "chaff, chaff, chaff" or "flare, flare, flare" recorded voice in the cockpit now! Sad if part of the takeoff checklist includes setting jammers and countermeasures). If so, it must be one of those gizmos that I'm hoping Sabre can tell me about that I see on the Cobras right above the exhaust that sends out confusing IR signals - or something like that. Still, would only one work for a large, twin-engined plane? Does the version of SAM used (I haven't seen the latest poop on that other than probably Soviet) not have a proximity fuse? I haven't bothered to follow CNN after the first day. From the reports I heard, it sounded like the missiles tracked to the plane and then went merrily by. I guess that was based on a one-time report that they went over the wing. Other than that, I don't think I heard anything other than they saw trails - nothing about arcing toward the a/c. Interesting and unbelievably serious. What happens when they shoot at a fully loaded 747? Even if the Israelis are protected, no one else is. How about firing from a junk in Hong Kong? Nothing to prevent you from just sailing in from wherever, waiting at the end of the runway until a U.S. flag carrier takes off and . . . . I mean really. How many completely insecure airports do U.S. flag carriers fly from? How many from Muslim nations with active terrorists? Whatever mistake they made in Mombasa probably won't be made again. If they have ten SAMs (supplied by the governments of Korea, Iran, Iraq etc; stolen from inventory of a Muslim army like Pakistan or Saudi; mujahadeen Stingers; you name it), they could shut down global air travel. I think a moron could get one shipped into the U.S. Heck, we may get to see if the goodies on Air Force One actually work.

IronManBeta -> (12/4/2002 8:43:27 AM)
The launchers in question were two SA-7s (Grail) of Soviet manufacture. In Flashpoint we give them the lowest base accuracy rating (1) versus say the Stinger @ 5. A Grail has a minimum range of 500m and a max range is 4 km. "Effective" range is a guess but we have it at the 4 km (pretty charitable?). It also has a relatively weak punch (we rate it 1) versus the Stinger @ 5. We should be glad that they used Grails instead of Afghanistan-surplus Stingers - apparently hundreds of those were never used when issued way back when and are still unaccounted for! More generally I have to wonder how old these particular rounds were and how many times they have been dropped, subjected to excessive temperature, vibration, etc in the course of their travels. As good as modern weapons are, and as soldier-proof as they are, the "defect rate" is going to be pretty high out in the field after a certain length of time. The crews may or may not have been of top calibre too. When the Somalies were shooting at the US helicopters over Mogadishu my impression was that they launched 100s of SA-7s to obtain maybe 3 hits. This was at short range by as combat experienced a group of men you are likely to find anywhere. Grails may be nasty when used in large numbers but seem pretty ineffective in ones and twos... Just my $0.02 worth! Cheers, Rob.

IronManBeta -> (12/4/2002 8:47:26 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by jrcar [B]I came accross the following in "The Soviet Afgan War, how a superpower fought and lost" Its a series of translations from Soviet General Staff sources. RDG-2 Smoke grenade Burns for 15 sec lasts 1-1.5 mins 15-15m ZDP smoke cartridge Burns for 7.5 sec lasts 1-2min 10-15m DM-11 smoke pot Burns for 30 sec lasts 5-7 min 50m BDSh-15 Burns for 30 sec 15-17 mins 100-120m UDSh Burns for 15 sec lasts 10mins 100-150m 81mm Vehicle Morter Burns for 15 sec lasts 2 min 30-45 m TDA-2m smoke Generator lasts 3-8 hours covers 1000m The 81 has a range of 300 m the ZDP 500m Cheers RobC [/B][/QUOTE] Thank you very much for this detail by the way! It appears that most smoke is highly tactical in nature and is used for only a few critical minutes. I'm visualizing a tank popping smoke as it tries to back out of an ambush, for example. In terms of artillery delivered smoke (either 120mm mortar or 122 or 152mm howitzer) do any of these rates apply? Put another way: what fires a "ZDP smoke cartridge"? Cheers, Rob.

jrcar -> (12/5/2002 8:43:20 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by RobertCrandall [B] Thank you very much for this detail by the way! It appears that most smoke is highly tactical in nature and is used for only a few critical minutes. I'm visualizing a tank popping smoke as it tries to back out of an ambush, for example. In terms of artillery delivered smoke (either 120mm mortar or 122 or 152mm howitzer) do any of these rates apply? Put another way: what fires a "ZDP smoke cartridge"? Cheers, Rob. [/B][/QUOTE] G'Day Rob, I can't help directly on Arty Smoke (is it in Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army?) but I thought it would give you an indication of times and distances covered. Here is info on the ZDP and some others.. http://www.pmulcahy.com/russian_hand_grenades.html Cheers RobC

jrcar -> (12/5/2002 8:59:18 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by RobertCrandall [B]The launchers in question were two SA-7s (Grail) of Soviet manufacture. In Flashpoint we give them the lowest base accuracy rating (1) versus say the Stinger @ 5. A Grail has a minimum range of 500m and a max range is 4 km. "Effective" range is a guess but we have it at the 4 km (pretty charitable?). It also has a relatively weak punch (we rate it 1) versus the Stinger @ 5. We should be glad that they used Grails instead of Afghanistan-surplus Stingers - apparently hundreds of those were never used when issued way back when and are still unaccounted for! More generally I have to wonder how old these particular rounds were and how many times they have been dropped, subjected to excessive temperature, vibration, etc in the course of their travels. As good as modern weapons are, and as soldier-proof as they are, the "defect rate" is going to be pretty high out in the field after a certain length of time. The crews may or may not have been of top calibre too. When the Somalies were shooting at the US helicopters over Mogadishu my impression was that they launched 100s of SA-7s to obtain maybe 3 hits. This was at short range by as combat experienced a group of men you are likely to find anywhere. Grails may be nasty when used in large numbers but seem pretty ineffective in ones and twos... Just my $0.02 worth! Cheers, Rob. [/B][/QUOTE] The SA7 has several versions with Chinese copies (HN5) and Pakistani versions as well. I think the slant range is about 6km with a ceiling of 4km (12000 ft, although US pilots in Vietnam reported them at 16000 ft, but they probably weren't manouvering). The batteries are one problem that I know about, also the seeker head needs to be maintained as well. I thought the Somali's only had RPG-7's? Cheers RobC

byron13 -> (12/8/2002 5:09:09 AM)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by jrcar [B]I thought the Somali's only had RPG-7's?[/B][/QUOTE] I wasn't going to say anything, but that was my understanding too. The Night Stalkers may be good, but they're not THAT good!

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