"Over the Top Artillery Rules" Topic

I have been re-reading these rules after many, many years.

One thing that struck me was that the artillery rules seem somewhat lengthy with lots of dice rolls for targeting and then effect.

Has anyone tried simplifying them? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Alan

I'm not familiar with the OTT rules, but regular ol' Command Decision artillery rules can be played much simpler than they are written.

Arty comes in on a 3, 5, or 7 depending on level of attachment and hits on a d10 roll less than its effect number.

OT was CD 1.25

A LOT has changed.

I've not tried simplifying them. I now play CD:ToB with the Death of Glory supplement for WW1 and I have not tinkered with OTT before. I do like CD:ToB a lot, and recommend it, but you might not want to fork out the cash.

If you want to do tinker with OTT, do you have other versions of CD? It might be worth looking at how the rules evolved and seeing if there are ideas there.

Greg Novak once stated that the OtT artillery rules were fiddly because calling for artillery in WW1 WAS fiddly and time consuming. He also noted that it kept the "never mind history, I wanna win" types from using too much artillery.

As noted above, it isn't that complicated: roll to call it in, roll for effect.

In WW1, depending on theatre, there isn't going to be masses of on call artillery anyway, just self spotting batteries or masses and masses of pre planned offensive and defensive barrages. The latter are probably better resolved at regimental level.