[DS] Some questions from this weekend

This weekend saw a pair of gaming sessions in 
Kingston. They raised some questions in my 
mind about interpretation of rules and reality 
(both obviously separate from the other...). So 
I thought I'd air some of them in this forum for 
some feedback.

The first was a DS2 battle - a river valley with 4 
urban objectives fought over by two minor 
powers with some external sponsorship. It was 
nasty in that these two groups were fighting 
over the urban areas and the winner would 
"cleanse" the towns of collaborators, 
insurgents, etc. Having the same goal made for 
a level moral playing field, and really was 
outside of the course of the game except that 
the presence of friendlies in the objectives 
meant no town artillery. 

The whole scenario was sparked off by the 
ambush of a side A convoy by side B insurgents 
(3 x Phalanx APCs + 5 trucks ambushed by 4 
militia stands with IAVRs and an APSW stand).

On the one side (side A - the "Rescue Force"), 
we had 24 tracklayer MBTs (fast tracked) with 
HKPs, 18 tracklayer AIFVs with RFACs (and 
perhaps GMS), 18 infantry stands, and  6 jeeps 
with recce/spotters. They had 2 3-gun batteries 
of medium artillery (203mm howitzers) with 3 
shots each any type. They also got the five 
insurgent stands (the convoy forces didn't 
matter for long as they were vaporized without 
doing much damage - I think they ended up 
getting one enemy vehicle). 

On the other side, we had 6 MDC armed fast 
GEV grav tanks, 6 DFFG armed fast GEV tanks, 
12 fast GEV APCs, 8 hi-mob wheeled APCs, 4 hi-
mob wheeled HKP armed TDs, and 20 infantry 
stands. 2 3-gun batteries of heavy artillery with 
4 shots each any type (MRLS). They also had 6 
hover jeeps with recce/spotters. 

The game unfolded in favour of side B, though 
side A controlled two of the objectives at the 
end. The casualties inflicted, other than the 
convoy, were mostly from side B's artillery. 

A few questions arose:

1) Does the game permit you to call artillery by 
grid reference (ie no spotter, pre-registered 
fire points). If so, when? If we assume that 
everything on the battlefield is known because 
of drones, sensors, sat recon, etc., then one 
should be able to drop shots on top of the 
enemy anytime without spotters. If we assume 
this is not the case, do spotters then have to 
make some sort of sighting rolls to see the 
enemy? 

2) Artillery comes down mightily fast. If I have 
three or four attack waves driving forward with 
a 1" separation (100m) and the enemy drops a 
salvo in open-sheaf upon me, i'm only going to 
be able to move at maximum one of these 
units, even though ostensibly the entire wave is 
moving concurrently. Hitting moving targets 
thus seems awfully simple. We thought this was 
a bit much. Is that just me or has anyone else 
seen this? I'm not suggesting artillery isn't 
effective, I'm merely suggesting that because of 
the move A, move B, move A nature of the 
game, it is very hard for an attack force to 
move together and thus large chunks of it may 
be exposed when this really doesn't quite make 
sense. Plus, there seems to be no quality roll or 
anything to determine if the artillery is on target 
and effectual. It just seems to arrive. Or did I 
miss something?

3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If 
not, why not? 

4) Can infantry close assault vehicles with no 
supporting infantry? 

5) I have my tank in the edge of an urban area, 
ostensibly using buildings for cover. Is this 
considered "soft cover"? if so, why? If not, what 
is it considered? 

---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte