"Helpful App - Artillery" Topic

You know what would be a helpful use of smartphone technology?

A simple app for designating artillery indirect fire. So many miniature games and boardgames have the same basic mechanism for indirect artillery fire. In one turn you plot for your various artillery/mortar resources where you want them to fire (either hexnumbers, or preplanned target reference points, or whatever), and sometimes which kind of munition.

Usually this involves a clipboard and a pencil.

Would be a lot easier to set up a generic app, with "picklists" of artillery resources starting with 80mm mortar, through 75mm, 105mm, 150mm etc, then the turn to fire, then the type of munition, then the designated target (if a boardgame, the hexgrid number, if a mini game the target reference point or a short description (2" to the right of the church")).

After you've plotted your next turn's firing, you click on a button, and an encrypted copy is sent to your opponent's smartphone, just for the record. When the next turn arrives, you click on another button to send a confirmatory decryption, and both he and you can resolve your planned artillery fire.

Sure would save a lot of clipboard and stubby pencil work, and the same format could be used for so many boardgames or miniature scenarios…

That is course dependent on whether all the players have smart phones. Some of us are still old curmudgeons and don't even have a basic cell phone.

A Luddite and proud of it,

Jim

Amen, brother.

And I have yet to play any WWII rules that handle artillery fire in the way Tuscaloosa describes.

What Deephorse said. It WOULD be super cool, but I don't think anyone needs an app to roll 3+ to hit, which is what artillery usually comes down to in games :)

"And I have yet to play any WWII rules that handle artillery fire in the way Tuscaloosa describes."

Wow.

There is I think scope for rules to make use of the increasing availability of smart-phones and iPad type devices to reverse the dumber and dumber trend and return to a more complex modelling of reality.

It may or may not be to your taste – but it would be nice to have the option.

tuscaloosa, I didn't say that there aren't any such rules, I just said that I haven't played any. So I don't know what your "Wow" is about?

In all the rules I've played the fire arrives in the same turn as it is 'requested', but then I'm playing games with turns said to last 5, 10, or 15 minutes etc., not skirmish game turns of 30 seconds or whatever.

I play miniatures to get away from the electronics that are taking over our lives. I've threatened to place a box next to the door of our game area and ask everyone to place their personal e-devices in there so as not to disturb the older lads. It does seem that only the younger members of our club need to be linked to the outside world while waiting for their turn.

dh, my "wow" was meant to express my surprise that the games we play have such little overlap.

KD, I agree with your point about electronic distractions in general, but I think the little boxes have a role to play in tabletop games.

When I'm playing a game, I'd like to concentrate on the social aspect (chatting with friends) and the tactical aspect (maneuvering units on table). I find that time spent with a clipboard and a pencil, trying to document some decision for the record, is a distraction from both those primary goals. Insofar as an app could make that go faster and cleaner, it would be an improvement.