Re: Artillery strikes

Good points, all, and I like the suggested house
rules. 

I'll have to try those out next time we play. We
usually use a referee in our games, so we'll give it a
shot.

BTW, it was company level mortars.

--- agoodall@canada.com wrote:
> On Tue, 01 August 2000, Kevin Balentine wrote:
> 
> > When calling in off-table artillery, it says the
> FO or
> > whoever is calling in the strike must have LOS to
> the
> > impact point.
> 
> Correct.
>  
> > How do you guys feel about calling in an arty
> strike
> > on a location where the player "knows" where the
> enemy
> > is, such as inside a forest, but where the figure
> > calling in the strike shouldn't have that good a
> guess
> > about it?
> 
> It gets a little hairier, actually. On page 12,
> under the cover rules, it is implied that the player
> can actually target the woods, not just the edge of
> the woods. The artillery rules require a line of
> sight (LOS) to the impact point but the cover rules
> imply that if you can spot a woods, you can target
> the woods themselves. I would allow, if I was a
> referee, a player to target the centre of any woods
> within LOS, any spot within LOS of the unit.
> 
> But your question is more subtle: can a player use
> up an artillery strike on a set of woods knowing
> that a unit is in the woods, even if the unit can't
> be spotted. 
> 
> The way the rules are worded, it's perfectly legal.
> For instance, the American unit engages some
> Germans. The Germans pull back, the Americans pull
> back and then order an attack on the woods. You
> could argue that the Americans have a pretty good
> guesstimate that the Germans are still in the woods.
> Or, perhaps they can hear the Germans tromping
> through the woods.
> 
> If you want to avoid this, here's a house rule. Once
> a unit has disappeared into woods, it goes back into
> hiding. This is against the rule that prevents units
> from being hidden once they are activated, but you
> could easily allow it in your own games. Once out of
> LOS, at the end of that turn, the unit gains, say, 2
> dummy markers. Then, each dummy marker can be
> activated like a unit. As long as it stays out of
> LOS, the unit is hidden and the dummy markers stay
> on the board and can move around. Note, this also
> breaks the rule that states a unit is no longer
> hidden after it moves.
> 
> The Stargrunt spotting rules are pretty basic. They
> don't handle going back into hiding, or what happens
> when LOS is lost. As such, the situation you
> describe is legal, even though the firing player
> knows where a unit is located, even if the unit is
> no longer in LOS. Is it realistic? That's harder to
> argue. American units were pretty artillery happy
> (definitely in the Vietnam War, but even in WW2). I
> could see the American player arguing that it is
> VERY realistic. 
> 
> Of course, now I have to wonder a couple of other
> things: what size artillery was coming down on the
> Germans? If we're talking company level artillery,
> it's probably mortar support if it only took 1 turn
> of "incoming" on the inbound box. It wouldn't be
> hard to believe that an American unit would use a
> mortar barrage on a line of woods that could still
> have Germans in it. If it was in box 2 or 3, due to
> being higher level support from battalion or
> regimental assets, it would have been harder to call
> in. If it was box 2 or 3, what the heck were the
> Germans doing hanging around the woods for a turn or
> two with artillery inbound?
> 
> You see, this is the other thing. A player could
> argue, "There were units in the
> woods/buildings/whatever. The
> woods/buildings/whatever are strategic. It's
> perfectly logical to assume they are still in there!
> I'm not going back in without an artillery strike."
> 
> One last suggestion. If I was refereeing, and wanted
> it a bit more realistic, I'd pull the player aside
> and say, "Okay, here's the scoop. You know the
> Germans are in there. We can see them. Your units,
> though, can not. So, you have to decide RIGHT NOW
> how many barrages you're going to call down on the
> woods until you can get troops in there to see if it
> was cleared out. Tell me right now how many "clean
> hits" you want on the woods." Then, I'd have him
> call in the strikes. If he says, "One," then that's
> all I'd allow from him even if it meant no
> casualties. If he says, "Five," I'd force him to
> call in five artillery strikes, even if the first
> one wipes out the German unit. 
> 
> That's the advantage of playing a scenario with a
> referee. If, however, there is no ref, I'd suggest
> just playing as the rules allow and realize you give
> up a little realism for some playability.
> 
> Allan Goodall - agoodall@canada.com
>
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