"Sneeze proof Smoke" Topic

One of the things from Holbart and his Funnies in WW2 and from our friend the platoon commander is the use of Smoke to screen off from the enemy friendly forces. Interestingly while I will agree I don't avidly follow AAR's the ones I have seen don't use much smoke.

Smoke discharges on AFV's was in wide spread use by UK forces from about the middle/late WW2. Their use was much delayed in the US compared to the UK. However much Artillery laid smoke and Smoke generators on AFV's were more prolific.

There is an interesting incident involving the famous Witman in Normandy, a Sherman Firefly took a shot at his Tiger, missed then fired its smoke Dischargers only to realize in horror they went over his Tiger. They beat a vary rapid retreat.

Do you use smoke in your scenarios?

The sneeze proof smoke. Well in the original rules, Pre-3D printing, smoke was done by appropriate colored card, bent in the middle so it stood up. Great but not wind or sneeze proof. With the advent of 3D printing we now use a stand the card smoke slips into a stand that can be weighted by coins stuck under the stand. Veritably sneeze proof.

We have but fairly rarely – the chaps I game with tend to be all guns blazing full on charge types – smoke may be a touch too subtle

Those remarkable rules, "Crossfire," make chemical smoke, usually delivered via Company or Battalion mortars, a crucial aspect, especially when infantry must cross significant areas otherwise without cover.

The use of homemade or commercial smoke markers make this easy to represent.

TVAG

The Germans had smoke dischargers (they called them candles?) on the Panther D, early Tiger I, and some StuGs and recon vehicles. The problem was they would catch fire and be set off by small arms fire and you needed to exit the tank to reload them. They were replaced by an internal launcher on the roof.

German use of smoke:
link

Using smoke to negate 50% or more of a player's units for the entire game would be considered "unfair".

Wolfhag

We have always just used cotton balls.

We make cotton ball smoke columns. We make them in different sizes relative to what is delivering the smoke.

All the time. Usually, cotton batting pulled to the correct length.

I glue a cotton ball to a metal washer. Then I form it into the shape I want and then spray it with highly watered-down white glue. It also makes them easier to paint too.

Wolfhag

I do use smoke, but vision enhancement gear usually renders it invisible. That doesn't stop me from decorating destroyed vehicles and burning houses with acrylic batting that I've finger-dyed with acrylic paint (black, orange, red, yellow, mostly).

Oberlindes Sol LIC – Certainly early Lazer range finders critical to Balistics computers did no penetrate smoke. The M1 maual around 2010 noted that so still partly effective then. Russians were very late on Balistics computers but smoke helped even the odds agaibst the wesytern kit for a while.
Now there is hot smoke for Smoke dischargers so FLIR can be blocked by the masking by additional heat of the smoke, you can have Chaff as well so even radio guided missiles start to struggle.