"FoW - Smoke Tactics" Topic

"Smoke comes in two forms, direct and bombardment – and it has two principle effects – units shooting through smoke can only see 16 inches, and if the target you're shooting at is obscured by smoke it counts as concealed and gone to ground – except for defensive fire where it's just concealed.

However there are some difficulties with smoke, you have to fire it at an enemy unit – so still need to roll to hit. Bombardments spread according to the wind direction – a random roll on the first smoke bombardment. Smoke bombardments must be the first shooting in the shooting step, and direct fire smoke is resolved before normal shooting from a platoon. Despite all of that smoke is key to FoW…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

"you have to fire it at an enemy unit"

always funny FOW…exactly what they do in real life..sure.
LOL

No comment.

Yeah. Sources I've been reading indicate Germans and US would try to use the smoke on the enemy's positions within 250 ft or so. Intent was to mask the enemy from seeing the friendlies movements. Germans didn't favor smoke in defense because they wanted their defenders to be able to accurately see/shoot incoming attackers.

In contrast, FOW's rules make you target enemy units to use smoke.

Yes, I recall that older sets of rules had the ability to decide where you wanted smoke dropped and then complex rules to replicate the artillery dropping the smoke to the N,S, E,W of the original site or onto the spit. I think there were then rules for where it blew and how long it lasted.FoW does away with all that time consuming calculation in favour of something that is clear and simple.nYou are trying to reduce the fire effect of an opponent, you puck the target, throw to see if the smoke arrives and then its there! As. set of rules it has some flaws, gut smoke is nit one of them.

Can you drop smoke on your own units to conceal them? I want to say no but I'm not sure and I haven't a copy of the rules handy.

page 136 smoke fires as a regular bombardment.

Page 124 The aiming point must be the centre of an enemy team. (their typo :))

Page 137 Either player can find out wind direction at any time. If not done beforehand, a player must determine the wind direction when they fire the first smoke bombardment of the game.

Learn to set wind direction at beginning of the game for that is valuable information to know before you need it.
Learn this at my third FOW tournament which I just attended.

Now on list for Starting steps.

As it says in the rulebook, 'a unit will not call in a smoke bombardment on itself or another friendly unit.' It just doesn't happen. I think players are confusing smoke bombardments for the use of smoke grenades, which are released and dropped/tossed nearby to form a smoke screen for the friendly unit. It should be noted in the rules that it is harder to hit a veteran team because of them using more disciplined, tactical movement & the use of smoke grenades. It's built into the mechanics of the shooting phase without all the extra detail to slow down play.

That said, we have a house rule for placing a smoke screen "over here" rather than requiring it go on an enemy unit: Mark the target point with a chit, range in normally, THEN roll to hit (the rules don't require rolling to hit when firing a smoke screen). A successful hit puts the screen where the firer wanted it. Ranging in but failing to hit puts the smoke screen in a random direction (1d6" for each die it took to range in, so it can be up to 3d6" away).