Re: Dirtside II points

> 
> >>  Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 23:47:53 -0700
> >>  From: osiris.1@ix.netcom.com (Christopher Lawrence)
> >>  Subject: Re: Dirtside II points
> ...
> >>  >3) Why are there no provisions for artillery direct fire?
> >>  
> >>  Everyone I know allows arty to direct fire automatically with no 
> >>  spotter. We assume that if the enemy gets that close, the crew is
going 
> >>  to stop listening to the C.O.'s support requests and start
blasting 
> >>  those guys coming over the hill!
> 
> 
> How do you, or can you handle having the arty commander spot his own 
> group's indirect fire? The way we played last weekend (my only time so

> far), the act of spotting and calling in is an activation. That unit's

> activation being spent, the arty cannot hit on the next activation, 
> unless, there is a specific exception to the activation rules.
> 

[rules lawyer mode on]

p. 39, under artillery:  "Any UNIT COMMAND element or a Specialised 
Observer Team...Requesting the fire counts as the COMBAT ACTION for that

ELEMENT, although other elements of the unit may perform other actions."

Even according to the rules as written, therefore, one can make a case 
for artillery units spotting for themselves.  The Command element of an 
artillery battery uses his action to "spot", and then the rest of the 
elements can immediately lay down the artillery fire.

If the command element fails to call in the artillery due to poor 
leadership, well, maybe the artillery unit didn't lower the guns for 
direct fire fast enough or something.

I agree that it may make more sense for artillery to be able to direct 
fire their weapons more easily, but in the same breath everyone's
talking 
about how powerful artillery is, and there should be some satisfaction 
involved in a commander managing to get his tanks close enough to take 
out that pesky artillery directly.

Here's another thing I suggest for dealing with artillery:  Aircraft.  
Particularly, VTOLs.  A VTOL armed with an HEL or GMS/H can sit in
"high" 
mode outside of 36" of defending Area Defense Systems and pick-off 
on-board artillery all day long.  Maybe it's cheesey, but then your 
opponent starts arming himself with anti-VTOL VTOL's, which are a lot 
less expensive (because it takes a smaller gun to take out a poorly 
armored VTOL), and then you start arming yourself with anti-anti-VTOL 
VTOL's and you get this big aircraft battle in the middle of the ground 
action where everyone's trying to establish air superiority and the 
artillery's trying to get rid of all its ordnance before one side or the

other wins air superiority and it's pretty cool.

Off-board artillery is an entirely different matter, however.