Eliminating smoke grenades (Full Version)

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Igor -> Eliminating smoke grenades (1/20/2001 10:43:00 AM)

Is there any way to tone down or turn off the ability of infantry to use smoke? The blithe assumption that every infantryman has an infinite number of smoke grenades (whether a squad in that army would have any or not) is wearing a bit thin. It can get downright silly when a 4 man recon team keeps dropping smoke grenades by the dozen (every turn, if need be). Let's face it; smoke in the open wasn't that effective. One or two grenades did not create an inpenetrable screen at all altitudes that stretched 50 yards across. Yet any squad with lousy morale can lay a perfect 200-300 yard screen in one turn by simply running every time they're shot at. One such hex per game per full Western squad perhaps; 5 per turn from a two man KMT or Polish recon team is out of line.



bbbf -> (1/20/2001 2:26:00 PM)

hmm, my men never seem to have more than 2 smoke grenades, is this a setting issue?



AmmoSgt -> (1/20/2001 2:31:00 PM)

Igor what ammo settings do you have set in your preferences ? try setting them to limited ammo ... most units i have used have 2 maybe 4 grenades total



Warhorse -> (1/20/2001 9:35:00 PM)

These can not be tampered with, unless designing a scenario, or to go into a save with Freds editor. These are not assigned as ammo physically, the most I ever saw in a squad was 8?! ------------------ Mike Amos Meine Ehre Heisst Treue



Tankhead -> (1/21/2001 12:25:00 AM)

As for me I like to see more smoke grenades, I'm always short when it comes to smoke, even more so when you just landed 2 company of para troopers in the middle of a hot zone and the only way to keep your guys around and rally is to smoke the entire area so when the enemy move the para can do assault on your opponent turn. This is very important on the first and second turn of the drop. This give you an edge with your para troopers and chance of surviving are much better. Doing a smoke bombarmaen before the drop is no enough. Tankhead ------------------ Rick Cloutier [email]rcclout@telusplanet.net[/email] Coordinator: Tankhead's SPWAW Resources http://members.tripod.com/tankhead__1



Nikademus -> (1/21/2001 2:39:00 AM)

smoke grenade stocks have been GREATLY reduced since SP:WAW came around. Additionally one of the first things Matrix fixed (i think SP:WW2 did it too) was that Inf could also no longer throw the grenades ridiculous distances and are now restricted to 50 yards. Another (potentially) nasty trick introduced in WAW....sometimes popped smoke will not completely mask your inf. I've lost track of the number of times i've popped smoke in a nasty situation only to give that 'till now hidden MG nest another OP fire shot at my exposed unit. ug.....hair puller that. So i dont believe personally that they need further curtailing from my experiences.



Igor -> (1/21/2001 3:03:00 AM)

I've got limited ammo on; it suits the period I'm playing (guerrillas with unlimited shells?), and it keeps rocket launchers and strike aircraft from devastating the whole map by their lonesome. An offboard Guards Mortar battalion (Katyushas) with unlimited rockets would be rather messy, wouldn't it. Still, it isn't *my* troops with too many smoke grenades (technically, they shouldn't have any at all). It's the AI, who also shouldn't have any (at least, fighting the KMT), who can pop two or three during my turn then one while they retreat during the AI turn then a couple more during my next turn and then blanket all of Fukien for all of me...(gasp)...sorry, I get carried away. Regrettably, I can't edit away the smoke using Fred's editor. Until the game deigns to have PTO settings for generated campaigns (1939, I hope), the campaign will crash and burn if I edit it in any way at all. It's a pain sometimes; but you get accustomed to constant night battles after a while. I guess I'm just going to have to live with the smoke. grumble grumble. [This message has been edited by Igor (edited January 20, 2001).]



RobertMc -> (1/21/2001 4:22:00 AM)

I think we're not talking here about the smoke grenade "loadout" but rather the way the computer pops smoke so often? Like when the enemy infantry retreats? Or when your own men retreat? We're talking about the automatic smoke grenade pop? I agree. This is way too often and is probably a "gamey" holdover from SP1.



troopie -> (1/21/2001 5:48:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Nikademus: smoke grenade stocks have been GREATLY Another (potentially) nasty trick introduced in WAW....sometimes popped smoke will not completely mask your inf. I've lost track of the number of times i've popped smoke in a nasty situation only to give that 'till now hidden MG nest another OP fire shot at my exposed unit. ug.....hair puller that. So i dont believe personally that they need further curtailing from my experiences.
Machine gunners are trained to shoot at smoke puffs . On a field you describe the gunners would just send fire across it. They wouldn't see soldiers, but they wouldn't have to; the smoke tells them someone is there. troopie ------------------ Pamwe Chete



Igor -> (1/21/2001 11:14:00 AM)

Of course, nasty minded infantry would throw smoke on the east side of the obstacle, and attack around the west...



Charles22 -> (1/23/2001 12:04:00 AM)

I agree with Igor to an extent, and I think his complaint isn't that one unit has too many but that there's just too much of it in general. I really tire of shooting a full infantry squad, particularly during mopping up, only to see it perhaps lay smoke for four or five hexes that it evacuated. You almost hate to shoot at lead infantry units with "too much" effectiveness, because it then could wall off so much. My objection, isn't so much that the smoke is too easily supplied, but that it's always used defensively and makes a large section of the map a huge smoke city. The reverse of this is to have infantry in your own ranks, that may be in front of your tanks, which completely cuts off the tanks field of fire to support it. Greg McCarty: I'm not on the wrong end of it, myself, as I'm generally the one doing the slaughtering. If my troops use more than 5 smokes in one game, it's uncommon. It's the enemy laying it in a hopeless situation that can be annoying. This sort of thing becoming commonplace, almost calls for an entire strategy to deal with it (not harming the lead infantry "too much" is a step in that direction), but I haven't thought one up just yet.



Igor -> (1/23/2001 1:11:00 AM)

Actually, I'm more bothered by the squad which lays a 5 hex long screen than by the overall amount of smoke. I must confess that I would be more than happy to have a button which forbids any but indirect fire smoke. I would be even happier if the code only let infantry and such like lay partial smoke screens which go away in a turn (and can't be laid at all in bad weather); and only two of them per game to boot. But if I can't have any of that, I'll settle for an ironbound limit of one or two smokes per game. You're right; there's too much smoke. Grenades weren't and aren't that good; and nobody carries enough of them to even try for a screen 100 yards by 50 yards by Low Earth Orbit which lasts a quarter hour or so. Most squads considered themselves lucky if the smoke screened them; and the densest smokescreens (hot smoke grenades) evaporated instantly after a couple of minutes when the phosphorus burned out. Tube arty could lay the kind of smoke we see infantry dishing out here, and should be able to continue doing so; but that's it. And now, if you'll excuse me; my soap box is looking a bit worn... Btw; if I ever figure out anti-smoke tactics, I'll let you know. Believe me, I'm trying.



panda124c -> (1/23/2001 1:45:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Charles22: I agree with Igor to an extent, and I think his complaint isn't that one unit has too many but that there's just too much of it in general. I really tire of shooting a full infantry squad, particularly during mopping up, only to see it perhaps lay smoke for four or five hexes that it evacuated. You almost hate to shoot at lead infantry units with "too much" effectiveness, because it then could wall off so much. My objection, isn't so much that the smoke is too easily supplied, but that it's always used defensively and makes a large section of the map a huge smoke city. The reverse of this is to have infantry in your own ranks, that may be in front of your tanks, which completely cuts off the tanks field of fire to support it. Greg McCarty: I'm not on the wrong end of it, myself, as I'm generally the one doing the slaughtering. If my troops use more than 5 smokes in one game, it's uncommon. It's the enemy laying it in a hopeless situation that can be annoying. This sort of thing becoming commonplace, almost calls for an entire strategy to deal with it (not harming the lead infantry "too much" is a step in that direction), but I haven't thought one up just yet.
I like making smoke screen by chasing an infantry unit across the map as he pops smoke. I have noticed that the smoke popped by a retreating unit blocks all vision through it unlike the smoke I pop to cover my troops.



Charles22 -> (1/23/2001 2:28:00 AM)

pbear: Well then, you must love losing that first tank that has to stick it's nose into the smoke. It's not all that often that I "have" to stick a tank's nose into the smoke and as a result get assaulted, but it happens enough. This wouldn't matter so much if you could send more than one unit into the hex at the same time, but what starts out being a routed enemy getting mopped up, with smoke all around, ends up being one tank possibly being assaulted by 3 or more units. Not exactly characteristics found when one force is driving the other from the filed in dominating fashion. I can't imagine 2 platoons of infantry being hounded by 20 or more tanks, having to retreat/rout, and all of the sudden some genius comes up with putting smoke everywhere so they take out tanks. It really gets silly when you have a whole set of infantry completely surrounded. So surrounded in fact that both the east/west sides of the force are smothered in smoke, because the surrounding force has routed units to those sides of the encirclement, so that there's a collective ball of units in the middle, amid much smoke within those hexes as well.



AmmoSgt -> (1/23/2001 2:49:00 AM)

any of you guys play PBEM ??



Daniel Oskar -> (1/23/2001 2:54:00 AM)

The smoke is no doubt annoying. The thing that bothers me though is that while you are laying waste to the enemy infantry with a truly impressive volume of fire, they take off like Jesse Owens. If you are under heavy fire you would tend to act more like a worm than a cheetah.



JTGEN -> (1/25/2001 11:15:00 PM)

You can also use this smoke laying habit to your own adwantage. I have many times done so that when I want to block visibility from AI's tank and it has infartry in front of it. I make the infartry retreat and make the smoke for me, and I do not have to use the limited smoke ammo that my men have at use.



RockinHarry -> (1/26/2001 1:13:00 AM)

Smoke or not. The different nationalities also used different amounts of it. Some have alot, some none. Who knows more about this? --------------- RockinHarry



orc4hire -> (1/26/2001 2:44:00 AM)

The Fog Cloud of Doom is one of SP's more annoying features, but it's as much a characteristic of the endless opfire as the way the map gets so smokey that visibility quickly drops to 1 hex.... That is, when an enemy unit is in a position where you have to get him out, and have to move next to him to do it... 1 good squad can chew up a company in the most absurd way in this situation. (Opfire without limit makes a mockery of the turn based combat; it allows a defending unit to use its full firepower against _each_ attacking unit, and each attacking unit only gets to use any of its firepower after the defender has fired. In other words, the defender's effective firepower goes up the more outnumbered it is....)



Larry Holt -> (1/26/2001 4:01:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by orc4hire: ... endless opfire.... That is, when an enemy unit is in a position where you have to get him out, and have to move next to him to do it... 1 good squad can chew up a company in the most absurd way in this situation. (Opfire without limit makes a mockery of the turn based combat; it allows a defending unit to use its full firepower against _each_ attacking unit, and each attacking unit only gets to use any of its firepower after the defender has fired. In other words, the defender's effective firepower goes up the more outnumbered it is....)
Well its not without limits. The defending unit has to pass a check. As you hammer at the defender and his surpression goes up, his chances of passing the check go down. I support this feature. It represents a unit that is in danger of being overrun going into final protective fire mode. That is, it fires all its weapons at full rate, without regared to ammo expenditure or burning out barrels, in an attempt to put up a wall of steel and lead to fend off the attackers. Real units really do plan for an employ FPF. Its realistic although annoying. ------------------ An old soldier but not yet a faded one. OK, maybe just a bit faded.



orc4hire -> (1/26/2001 4:15:00 AM)

Annoying yes, but I don't see realistic in it.... Look at it this way; you have a squad surrounded in a cloud of smoke. 6 enemy squads rush it simultaneously from all sides. The defenders, in the real world, may put out a maximum effort -- say double their normal firepower -- but each attacking squad is only going to catch 1/6 of that firepower. Or some will catch more, and some none at all. In SP, the squads move up one at a time, and instead of each facing only 1/3 of the squad's normal firepower, each faces double. Being outnumbered 6 to one has increased the squad's effective firepower by 6 times. A squad moves up next to them, is hit by point blank fire from each of the squad's weapons, loses a few men, and takes a lot of suppression. Assuming it can rally up enough to get a shot off at all, it may supress the defender a little, but probably won't cause any casualties. Then the same thing happens to the next squad.... It's as if the police were breaking into a building full of bad guys, and instead of a dozen cops rushing in from every entrance all at once, they come in one at a time, give the bad guys a chance to shoot at them, then if the cop survived he shoots back, then the next cop runs in to be shot....



Captn_Jack -> (1/26/2001 4:29:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by orc4hire: In SP, the squads move up one at a time, and instead of each facing only 1/3 of the squad's normal firepower, each faces double. Being outnumbered 6 to one has increased the squad's effective firepower by 6 times. A squad moves up next to them, is hit by point blank fire from each of the squad's weapons, loses a few men, and takes a lot of suppression. Assuming it can rally up enough to get a shot off at all, it may supress the defender a little, but probably won't cause any casualties. Then the same thing happens to the next squad
Hmmm...you guys must be playing a different game than I am. If I suppress a squad enough its running and popping, it may fire some shots when I move next to it, but it does little damage. For one thing, a squad that is suppressed has its firepower and hit chances reduced to start with. Next, if you move a second squad up after it fires at the first, it suffers a penalty for changing targets. So on and so on. When you bring fire on it from multiple sources, it increases the chances of hit and further suppression. You need to realise that when an enemy unit is in retreat or rout mode, your firepower and hit chances are also reduced until the unit stops running and starts shooting. Show me a squad outnumbered by 6-1 and I'll show you an eliminated squad. CJ



orc4hire -> (1/26/2001 4:33:00 AM)

CJ, I didn't say a word about fleeing or routed units.



Larry Holt -> (1/26/2001 4:46:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by orc4hire: Annoying yes, but I don't see realistic in it.... ... The defenders, in the real world, may put out a maximum effort -- say double their normal firepower ... It's as if the police were breaking into a building full of bad guys, and instead of a dozen cops rushing in from every entrance all at once, they come in one at a time, give the bad guys a chance to shoot at them, then if the cop survived he shoots back, then the next cop runs in to be shot....
FPF is far more than double normal firepower, perhaps 10 times or so. As to your analogy about squads rushing in sequence so the defenders can fire at them one at a time and that they should only receive 1/6 of the firepower; Consider that most of the bullets from the first FPF shots probably went whistling through thin air. If the other squads had simoultanously been there, they would have intercepted some of those bullets. So giving the defenders some more shots when the attackers rush some more models the final results that would have happened if both had happened simoultanously. The FPF is not aimed fire but hosing down the area as much as you can. Because of this each unit does not really take 1/6 of the total fire. Having more troops rush the defenders does not detract from the defenders shooting at other attackers since they are just firing everywhere as fast as they can. I hope that this is not too confusing. Its hard to explain modeling simoultanous actions in IGUG manner, however its the outcome, not the manner that it is modeled that I agree with. ------------------ An old soldier but not yet a faded one. OK, maybe just a bit faded.



Captn_Jack -> (1/26/2001 4:59:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by orc4hire: CJ, I didn't say a word about fleeing or routed units.
I thought the whole topic was about units being fired at, and popping smoke. Then what you are talking about is another topic. But the same principles come into play. I haven't seen endless opfire. But if there is a squad in a defensive position, hasn't fired its weapons in the last turn, then it has ALL it's shot to fire when you move up. If you move more than 1 hex, you suffer a higher casulty rate. But by moving up the 2nd and 3rd squads, it still suffers a penalty for changing targets. If it's an engineer unit, it still only gets 2 flame thrower shots, not an endless supply. Move the 1st up, move the 2nd up. When it shoots at the second, fire back with the first making it change its target again and again. If needed, bring the 3rd up. If it is in a position worth attacking, then do it. Otherwise, bypass it. If I know it's there to begin with, I would probably lay some mortar in on it before I sent the 1st squad. Why attack it at it's full strength anyway? CJ



orc4hire -> (1/26/2001 5:07:00 AM)

Penalty or not, I regularly see units opfire 10 or so times. Believe in it or not, it happens. Why attack it at full strength? Well, units that can't be bypassed ("That is, when an enemy unit is in a position where you have to get him out" I did say) are usually on objective hexes, and by the time you're up to the objective hexes it isn't too unusual to be for the artillery to be out of ammo. And sending the defenders a polite letter explaining that your assault would be easier if they'd send half their men on leave doesn't seem to have much effect.



Captn_Jack -> (1/26/2001 5:12:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by orc4hire: Penalty or not, I regularly see units opfire 10 or so times. Believe in it or not, it happens.
Do you see this in games vs the AI or human? I never play the AI anymore so maybe I don't see what you are seeing. When playing the PBEM games I do, I see this type of assault all the time, but not the reactions from the defending squads you do. Although I have seen a MG42 crew wipe out a 10 man squad in 2 bursts before. And they only moved 1 hex. Could be a buggy AI routine... CJ



orc4hire -> (1/26/2001 5:25:00 AM)

AI.



Charles22 -> (1/26/2001 5:26:00 AM)

CJ: Correction. A unit that has been routed or retreated has it's fire opportunities reduced, or so it seems to be, for that indeed is part of what I call the suppression strategy, and that is, even if you can't rout an invulnerable enemy tank with concentrated fire, you can reduce it's shots anyway. Suppression does reduce shots at least for the human player during the player turn.



Arralen -> (1/26/2001 4:28:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Igor: I've got limited ammo on.. An offboard Guards Mortar battalion (Katyushas) with unlimited rockets would be rather messy, wouldn't it.
You'd better read the manual carefully. There's an ammo limit given in the units stats (OOB) - "limited ammo" means that the units recieve randomly less ammo than allowed by the OOB . And, as others stated, this doesn't have significant influence on available smoke grenades, which do not count as "ammo" .. or have you ever seen a "smoke grenade lauchner" on the weapon rooster ? Smoke ammo seems to depend mostly on unit class, though. A.



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