SG2 Smoke Screens

Hi All

Someone was talking about smoke screens, and the suggestion was they take an
action on behalf of the squad or vehicle to deploy, they only be allowed to
deploy 4 or 5 times per squad or vehicle, and they be limited in application
to avoid the "shoot, smoke to hide" course of munchkinish action.

I have a couple of comments:

If you used some form of reaction fire/snap fire or overwatch, this
"shoot then smoke" option is less likely as a reaction will usually reduce the
benefit of smoke by hitting home before the screen goes up.

Secondly, I find it fascinating that every smoke screen is well laid. RL being
what it is, sometimes you misjudge the winds. Sometimes your grenades just
don't quite end up where you tried to deploy them. Sometimes people make
mistakes. Anyhow, sometimes a smokescreen isn't that well formed. My idea for
this might be as follows:

To Deploy A Smokescreen requires a LAY SMOKE action from a unit or vehicle. In
the case of an infantry smoke screen, roll a QUALITY die vs the leadership
level (communicating the instructions, estimating the winds, all that jazz).
If you can't beat the leadership, your smoke screen forms, but it is patchy.
Instead of obscuring LoS, all it does is provide 1 cover shift. For a vehicle,
roll a system QUALITY die and don't roll a 1 (automated discharger sets are
more coordinated and have more "overkill" to compensate for weakness too).

Just some ideas for how to deal with the elusive foe who will shoot then
smoke.

BTW, does anyone have a good suggestion on how to handle specfire through
smoke or through shrubs which might block LoS but not LoF?

Tom B (who has realized Tom is in itself insufficient on this list.... Right
Messrs Anderson, Granvold, Pope, McCarthy, etc?)

PS - I'm looking forward to seeing a good turn out at GZG ECC III. I
won't get to see Noam (buried in satellite data apparently), but I hope to see
a lot of you others, and hopefully wow a few folks with the "Grey Day To Die"
scenario me and Los have cooked up. It's a bit of a trip, but I'm sure it'll
be worth the journey, as it was the first time!:)

> Thomas Barclay of the Clan Barclay wrote:

> To Deploy A Smokescreen requires a LAY SMOKE action from a unit or

I think this is a good idea. A number of other games have had a mechanic which
kept away from auto smoke and I believe that's a good thing.

> BTW, does anyone have a good suggestion on how to handle specfire

Well if we went back to your old FMA (old, it's only been 2 months) "fire
lanes" (or was that my idea, or ours, whatever), you already have a mechanic
that IIRC has the firing unit laying out a fire lane that anyone who crosses
is subject to some fire. I';m sure it can be incorporated into this. I do
agree that it's still dangerous to cross through smoke under fire, though your
odds of getting hit are reduced.

Los

> PS - I'm looking forward to seeing a good turn out at GZG ECC III. I