[SG] firing weapons on the move

Allan, I'm gonna take a moment and play Devil's Advocate.

You (and laserlight) cite several reasons for penalizing a vehicle firing on
the move:

1) spotting 2) unmodelled terrain obstruction 3) partial turn visibility from
shooter to target
4) game balance / trade off

Let me approach these indivdually:

1) spotting If spotting is subsumed in fire combat, then yes, I'd have to
agree that this was a somewhat reasonable penalty. However, I myself perfer to
maintain discrete spotting mechanics as it works a bit better (people don't
shoot at things they haven't spotted, nor do they randomly lose track of units
they knew about). But if you subsume spotting in the shooting rolls, I'll
concede this.

2) unmodelled terrain You suggest that unmodelled terrain may cut target
visibility. Why do we never have this problem when our units stop otherwise?
Since we don't, I don't particularly think it is fair to impose it. My feeling
is if it isn't significant enough to appear on the board, it isn't
significant enough to have in-game impact. I
think if you used this theory to justify an upshift while moving, you'd be
using a double standard. The "insignificant" terrain would only have
significance to moving units, but not to others.... that seems wrong to me.

3) partial visibility of enemy unit One argument holds that you might move in
such a way as to only have visibility to an enemy unit for part of the move.
Fine, except that if we assume the turn is a continous process where really
things are happening all at once, this could be argued for most situations,
not just this one case. Also, there may be plenty of moves where this is not
at all the case and that the enemy is in plain sight the whole move. Now, if
you wanted to argue for a modifier for brief target exposure and apppy it
across the board, I'd say it might be thorny to do but reasonable. But
certainly I think here again you'd be applying a double standard to just hit
vehicles on the move with a modifier here.

4) Game trade offs This argument also is acceptable. It introduces a bit of a
choice to the game, which is worthwhile.

Given that I use explicit spotting, the only one of these arguments that I
could feel comfortable with is #4.

Also, as an aside: Thanks for pointing out I screwed up the open shift (don't
do it very often). I thought the cover shift was a closed shift and that was
given as an official Q&A
answer by Mike Elliot, but I might be mis-
remembering.

> TomB wrote:

> 1) spotting

There are two types of "spotting". The first is "learn that there is a
hidden unit near point X" - which is what the discrete SGII spotting
mechanic on pps. 25 and 50-52 are concerned about, and which causes the
spotted unit to be deployed on the gaming table.

The *other* type of "spotting" is the "spot the known enemy unit accurately
enough to fire at it". Knowing that there's an enemy tank hiding in that

clump of trees because someone else has told you so doesn't mean that
*you*
can see that tank well enough to aim accurately at it. You need to spot it
with your own targetting sensors first - and if you move, your chances
to do that are reduced for precisely the reasons Allan and Laserlight have
already listed. Since there is no discrete mechanic for this type of spotting,
it must be subsumed into the fire combat mechanic.

> 2) unmodelled terrain

"We" do; *you* just haven't noticed it because it is subsumed into the fire
combat mechanics :-) The most explicit mention of the effects of
unmodelled terrain that I can find in the rules is the SGII "In Position"
mechanic for infantry.

Regards,

> On 21-Jul-02 at 17:20, Thomas Barclay (kaladorn@magma.ca) wrote:

That tree that you have to move 2 feet to the side for while stopped has a
tendancy to leap in front of your round while moving. Ever try to take a
picture of a sunset from a moving car? The only tree in 80 miles will chose
that moment to jump in front of the camera.