Smoke questions

[Amra]

Hi All ,
A couple of questions, am I right in thinking there's no difference between a scheduled smoke barrage and a scheduled concentration of smoke ? Ie there's no penalty for the larger area ?

Also , smoke blocks LOS . Can (say) a platoon advance to within 5cm of an enemy if the enemy is covered by smoke ?
You can't get that close to an enemy you can see but smoke means you can't see it
Also can I move and contact an enemy covered in smoke ?
Cheers

[Big Insect]

Answers in-line below:

Hi All ,
A couple of questions, am I right in thinking there's no difference between a scheduled smoke barrage and a scheduled concentration of smoke ? Ie there's no penalty for the larger area ?

> no - it's designed to try and keep things as simple as possible

Also , smoke blocks LOS . Can (say) a platoon advance to within 5cm of an enemy if the enemy is covered by smoke ?
You can't get that close to an enemy you can see but smoke means you can't see it.

> you cannot voluntarily move within 5cm of an enemy, whether you can see it or not.

Also can I move and contact an enemy covered in smoke ?

> You can initiate an assault on a unit that you can see. In CWCII we introduced the concept of Advance to Combat P46 - that allowed units to advance into smoke & BUAs and if they ran into an enemy unit, that counted like an assault - except that the attacker did not get a +1 for assaulting and the only units allowed to shoot were the attacker, its target and the two units in contact with either flank edge of these two units. You could give that a try in BKCIV it should work equally well.
Cheers

PS: I'd not get too 'hung-up' on Smoke - it can make for an exceedingly dull game having too much of the stuff 
Cheers
Mark

[hammurabi70]

PS: I'd not get too 'hung-up' on Smoke - it can make for an exceedingly dull game having too much of the stuff 

Maybe but if 10% of munitions were smoke and smoke was regularly used, and as a significant amount of fighting was at night, limited visibility combat is something we ought to make serious consideration of in rules.  This is a current topic for us in rule writing; how to approach it?

[Amra]

Thanks,
However the rules expressly say "visible" , p33 second para
So if the enemy isn't visible how close can we move ?

[sultanbev]

This is a current topic for us in rule writing; how to approach it?

I once did an analysis (in the days before mass internet) of 8 WW2 rules regarding smoke, and it was clear that no one really knew how big smokescreens were and how smoke was used. There was little actual military data around at the time, but I did synthesise what I found into my own rules.
Since then it has become clear that smoke was used a lot more than we think, but more as a pre-planned mission when it comes to artillery battalions. Low level tactical use of smoke (eg smoke grenades for infantry, smoke dischargers on tanks) was so common in WW2 that it deosn't seem to warrant mention in the literature other than in passing. Where it does appear in the sources is when a battery OP calls down smoke to screen a fall back, or an infantry company pools their 2"/5cm/47mm/60mm mortars to create an effective smoke screen, to cover a redeployment or withdrawal. Giving the impression that such uses of smoke was a major initiative decision (and thus possibly rare?) by the battlegroup commander on the spot. That's my impression anyway.

At the higher level, represented by BKC, smoke screens could be huge, over a kilometre wide/long, and were often part of a mixed HE/smoke pre-planned barrage. There were also specialist smoke units such as 4.2" mortars and 10.5cm NB35/NB40 mortars which could lay down continuous barrages of smoke. Of course the original German Nebelwerfer units were initially set up as smoke units, then after being on the receiving end of BM-13-16 Katyusha fire in 1941, they realised how much better they would be with HE rockets. Then you have vehicle mounted smoke generators which seem to exist in most armies but rarely get mentioned, and still existed into the Cold War.These could generate even bigger smoke screens. Aircraft delivered smoke screens were another thing again.

Analysis of what data was available led me to these smoke screen sizes for off-table artillery batteries of 4-6 tubes, which I use in my rules.
Smoke patterns for Mortars:   
50-65mm: 90x 30m
70-90mm: 180x 60m
94-105mm:270x 90m
106-130mm: 450x 150m
135-160mm: 600x 200m

Smoke patterns for Guns:
51-84mm: 75x 50m
85-95mm: 120x 40m
96-115mm: 180x 60m
116-135mm: 300x 100m
136mm+: 450x 150m

Smoke Pattern 6x 122mm BM-21-40: 1000m wide, 800m deep            

As can be seen, mortars are far more effective at laying smoke screens.

I differentiate between fully blocking smoke, and hasty smoke. Barrages like the above create fully blocking smoke. If you have a battery of 2-3 guns, then it is same area but only hasty smoke. Smoke dischargers and infantry smoke grenades also create hasty smoke but you only get to do it once for infantry, and AFV smoke dischargers take an activation unsuppressed to reload.
Hasty smoke provides an extra layer of cover if shot at.

I do limit batteries to 3 rounds of smoke a game, and the little company/platoon mortars have 3 shots all game, which players must decide beforehand how much are smoke and how much are HE.

If calling in smoke from a battery with an OP, then it must be designated before any dice are rolled.
Once a smoke screen lands, at the end of a turn you dice for the wind with a D6 and an arrow dice.
D6: 1 = no wind, smoke lasts 6 turns
2-3: light wind, smoke laste 4 turns, the screen moves 50m in the wind direction
4-5: medium wind, smoke lasts 2 turns
6: strong wind, smoke lasts 1 turn only.

An existing smoke screen can be kept in place by stoking, which uses 1/3rd of a salvo  - this must be specified by the OP/HQ calling the fire.
 
Thermal Imaging degrades the smoke one level, ie hasty smoke provides no fire cover, and a full smoke screen becomes heavy cover.

I haven't used smoke generators on lorries/AFVs, but once set up pump out a smoke screen 100m an activation in the wind direction, and can be up to 4km long.

Aircraft smoke bombs - just use your standard HE template for whatever the bomb load is, and make it full smoke instead of HE damage.
Thus in my rules a single Hurricane IIC dropping 2x 500lb smoke bombs would create a 160m x 60m screen in the direction of the flight path.
I'm not sure that aircraft delivered smoke bombs were particularly successful in practice in creating a proper smoke screen getting all the planes to safely line up in the right kind of way would have taken some training and no AA interference, you'd probably end up with a squadron of 12 planes creating 12 random blobs of smoke roughly in a line somewhere across the battlefield.

[Big Insect]

Thanks,
However the rules expressly say "visible" , p33 second para
So if the enemy isn't visible how close can we move ?

No closer than 5cm.

[Big Insect]

Maybe but if 10% of munitions were smoke and smoke was regularly used, and as a significant amount of fighting was at night, limited visibility combat is something we ought to make serious consideration of in rules.  This is a current topic for us in rule writing; how to approach it?

There is a whole night fighting mechanism in BKCIV and CWCII. Which works reasonably well, from my own experience  

[Amra]

Thanks all , that makes sense
I don't think the rules actually say that ,but it'll work for the games. We would probably allow shooting at 5cm too ,hitting those in the smoke on 5,6s