Why is there no smoke in the game?

Am I missing something here? BG is my go to for in depth WW2 Wargaming rules. Why can't I fire smoke? Why are there no rules for this or have I missed this somewhere?

It's assumed in the observation rules that if it's appropriate to have laid smoke, smoke will have been laid. It's not a separate sighting condition.

I'm used to games in which throwing smoke is an action in itself, but once I got my head around the rationalization for the way BF works, I don't mind not having to worry about it. However, if it was going to be a significant factor in a specific scenario, I might add it back in — it would be easy enough to retrofit; just treat a smoke barrage like any other artillery, and treat everything behind it as obscured..

There is smoke in the game, but it's factored in to the observation rules and presumed to be always present. In FOTR there is a table wide smoke screen lasting for several turns in one of the historical scenarios.

If you're looking for artillery or mortar delivered smoke then there is nothing official; we have a house rule that artillery may fire smoke instead of HE by using all the standard rules, withe the smoke screen lasting one complete turn covering an area 10" x 5" and blocking LOS into and out of it.

Yep... as had been said, 'tactical' smoke is abstracted in the need to spot when doing Aimed Fire. It covers all manner of things going on.

Bigger strategic smoke rules are kept as scenario based rules as it seems more fitting in that respect.

All that said, I have been toying with some experimental rules to reflect those who used prodigious amounts of 2" smoke...

More on that at a later date perhaps.

But in short... Yes smoke is there, your men are doing it as they see fit. You just don't need to worry about it.

Has anyone house ruled this? I have to admit, I'm a fan of putting cotton balls on my table

Is it really a point? In combat use, you'd either have to douse one side in cotton balls for artillery laid smoke, or place 1 or 2 in front of a house when people toss smoke, and that will dissapate really quickly. For Cold War I can see it have a use in the latter as vehicle smoke grenades, but not much else. And you allready have to roll to spot your enemy, so it adds nothing other then a few cotton balls.

Maybe I will post up my test rules for 2" mortars to use smoke.

It's a British only rule I've been playing with at home and not one for each nation. I think it's only worth it for exceptional use.

Also it depends how you visualise smoke. Most rules seem to make it a brick wall... I don't see it that way.

Gunbird wrote:Is it really a point? In combat use, you'd either have to douse one side in cotton balls for artillery laid smoke, or place 1 or 2 in front of a house when people toss smoke, and that will dissapate really quickly. For Cold War I can see it have a use in the latter as vehicle smoke grenades, but not much else. And you allready have to roll to spot your enemy, so it adds nothing other then a few cotton balls.

The "point" is it adds enjoyment to my games.

Piers - it would be great if you would post up your ideas. I do feel that for the British the use of 2" smoke should be available and would support their tactical doctrine at platoon level.

I fully agree it shouldn't be a brick wall but should make spotting more difficult.

Incidentally - many thanks for starting the forum!

Cheers

Nick

I will dig them, and the rules for Vickers 'plunging fire' out.

Could it not be argued that the 2" mortar achieving a Pinned result could be explained as having smoked the target effectively?

We were still using 2" mortars for smoke in NZ in the early 1980s — WP, if I recall correctly, for concealment. What the compound used for signal smoke I don't know; it was a lot less active. I don't know if they still do use them, but I doubt it; I'd imagine that grenade launchers would be more useful these days.

Anyway, as long as the breeze wasn't too strong the WP smoke was a complete LOS blocker, but only for about ten metres downwind, and then it began rising and thinning. It didn't last very long at all, just time enough to get a section across a short gap (say, a city road width) as long as everyone went like the clappers, and if the gap was already under observation there's a good chance that whoever was doing the observing would be shooting into the smoke on the off-chance.

A far better use for the puny amount of smoke you could get from a 2" bomb was to put it in front of the enemy to blind them, rather than to try to use it to conceal your own path. However, that does require that you actually know where they are.

typhoon2 wrote:Could it not be argued that the 2" mortar achieving a Pinned result could be explained as having smoked the target effectively?

Yep... works as a narrative for me.

Fitz wrote:We were still using 2" mortars for smoke in NZ in the early 1980s — WP, if I recall correctly, for concealment. What the compound used for signal smoke I don't know; it was a lot less active. I don't know if they still do use them, but I doubt it; I'd imagine that grenade launchers would be more useful these days.

Anyway, as long as the breeze wasn't too strong  the WP smoke was a complete LOS blocker, but only for about ten metres downwind, and then it began rising and thinning. It didn't last very long at all, just time enough to get a section across a short gap (say, a city road width) as long as everyone went like the clappers, and if the gap was already under observation there's a good chance that whoever was doing the observing would be shooting into the smoke on the off-chance.

A far better use for the puny amount of smoke you could get from a 2" bomb was to put it in front of the enemy to blind them, rather than to try to use it to conceal your own path. However, that does require that you actually know where they are.

Funnily enough my 2" rule works like that... it smokes a target unit.

Not sure if low-level tactical use of smoke is a good idea beyond a Squad level game since it could be argued that Pinning a unit and missed shots might cover this effect. For large scale attacks smoke can be catered for by limiting visibility - maybe use Night rules. Smoke might have implications for rules re infiltrating units. Monty got really carried away with smoke when he crossed the Rhine at Wesel so then again smoke could be a detriment as well as an asset. But Its not just smoke that get in your eyes - what about all the dust especially when using strategic bombers to influence the battle as in Normandy.

Acctingman wrote:Has anyone house ruled this? I have to admit, I'm a fan of putting cotton balls on my table

Yes, as I said further up the page, we have a house rule that artillery (and medium mortars) may fire smoke instead of HE by using all the standard rules, with the smoke screen lasting one complete turn covering an area 10" x 5" and blocking LOS into and out of it. I'd limit the amount of smoke missions available though, just like counter battery shoots.

And there is a point to doing it - the fact that it was done in WWII on a regular basis. Smoke grenades and the like are not generally powerful enough for screening, being primarily used for target indication and signaling as covered in the existing observation rules. The British doctrine of "two up, one back and bags of smoke" usually called for something with a bit more weight.

Some great discussion here and some differing opinions on the matter. I guess my question was more for curiosity especially as the Brits did like to use it.

Lefthandedpanzerfaust wrote:Some great discussion here and some differing opinions on the matter.  I guess my question was more for curiosity especially as the Brits did like to use it.  

They sure did Oddly enough I was reading a book about the Western Desert campaigns earlier (it was an Osprey so take that for what it's worth ) and it said the British tanks preferred to attack under a smoke barrage to avoid being picked off at long range by the German antitank guns; apparently the plan was to advance 'line abreast' into the screen and pop out a few hundred yards in front of the objective. If the enemy fire was too hot, they would dart back under the cover of the smoke and try their luck elsewhere.........

Smoke is largely badly mis-represented (mis0recreated) in almost all wargames rules I've ever used it in. In the worse examples it just becomes an impenetrable wall... which is just rubbish! Its tactical use is not as precise as rules allow (ie, I;ll just stop you shooting at this tank!) and in general slows the game down and just makes it harder to have a battle. So, rather than remove it, I abstracted it into the observation test... its there, lots of of , drifting about, as well as dust etc... and might be one reason why you fluff an easy spotting test... too much smoke/dust...

Also the game of 'I cover the table with smoke' isn't much fun in my experience... we can assume lots is going on on the tabletop that the rules don;t specifically cover in any literal way... smoke is one of them.

I have to agree with warwick on this. Bolt Action used to see me carry 40 bagillion mortars and SU76 for my soviets which operated by dropping so much smoke the enemy models died from lung cancer. I found it ultimately to be a gigantic waste of time and shots due to the melee rules which i was attempting to get cheap guys up close to assault expensive vets etc.

HOWEVER, i hadn't thought much about it in BG due to the spotting and so many other things going on. If i were to house rule it, i'd keep it in line with mr Warwicks designation of being currently designed into the spotting rules. Keep in mind, we have more than enough keeping our mind busy in this game, is adding complexity really worth the purchase price we pay to get what we believe would be a benefit to the experience of the game?

Noting that i do love to toss smoke around and that historically smoke barrages were used for various additional cover i would house rule it the following. Note, i haven't tried this, nor will i probably ever but trying to give flavor with min complexity.

SMOKE: Artillery
Resolve as an artillery strike
Mark Spotting Round for 10" radius
All spotting through, into or out of ( -1 to spotting roll)
Dissapation upon a 3+ or (4+ to see what feels correctly to you) rotating the start of each players turn or timed as agreed.

I plug in the dissapation roll of 3+ becasue smoke blows away fairly quickly. BG isn't a 30second per turn game, the abstraction of time can be 30 seconds or 30 min.

Smoke: Unit
Highly disagree with this as it's going to alter the game far to much and you are at risk for being the group ultra grognard that society will shun and chain you to your own gaming table throwing stale bread at you.....

But, if you really must i would FOOLHEARTEDLY make it a simple (-1) single use to spot while retreating from your area...... AND, I'd NEVER admit to using this rule and losing my gaming friends.

In Wacht am Rhein is one historical scenario, which uses a tablewide smoke screen.While the smoke screen is in place (d3+1 rounsds) only area fire is allowed. In the last round of the smoke screen, this changes to an additional -1 for spotting tests.

A similar rules exist in Tobruk which covers the dust kicked up by vehicles and wind. Once again this is a tablewide affair.

Greetings
Wolflord

We actually trained to fire smoke on the enemy. It provided better contrast in the sight picture when they emerged from it and/or caused some local discomfort as they couldn't then see where they were being engaged from. Hard in any rule set to cover all situations and eventualities. Beauty of BG is that it is your rules, if you want to have it represented then crack on, we aren't ever going to be competition gamers using this set.