Colonial Campaigns Club (CCC)

How come smoke is not a part of the HPS games. In my opinion it was one of the main factors on all the battlefields.

Pvt Karel Van Canegem
3rd New York Inf
1st Brig/1st Div
North Dept/Colonial Army

It's one of those little "abstractions" that we need to deal with, for better or worse. Lots of them really in the system.

I'd actually consider the fact that every unit has a radio hooked directly to the commander, and the commanders orders are never mistaken or misapplied is a much more serious problem, but one thing at a time.

Lt Gary McClellan
12th Virgina Light Dragoons
CO Northern Department

I hope to put this idea through Karel. It has been suggested in the past along with weather. So far we just have the PDT file to tone down the fire power. Perhaps what you could do is agree with your partner that you will use a predescribed PDT File for smoke - visibility would be less and all that. Then once the battle gets going have a random die roll and if it hits change PDT files by mutual approval. Musketry loses its effectiveness and cavalry becomes VERY powerful.

Maj. Bill Peters, Morgan's Rifles, American Army
Commander of French Dept.

Of course it depends on the type of smoke - burning buildings / woods, etc, or the blackpowder smoke of units firing rapidly. The computer program certainly ought to be able to represent both types accurately (taking into account the prevailing weather conditions) Shogun: Total War incorporates such features, so there's no reason why the HPS games shouldn't add a little more realism.

As Donald F.Featherstone wrote back in the mid 70s - "it is completely unrealistic to attempt to simulate Horse-and-Musket warfare without considering the tactical effects of smoke, dust, mist & fog."

Unfortunately, altering the PDT file affects visibility over the entire battlefield - alright for early morning mist perhaps, yet this would hardly represent skirmishers firing off smoke screens to cover their movements.

I'm looking forward to seeing a future HPS patch that'll deal with this issue - although, as Gary points out, there are plenty more little "abstractions".

(Since units themselves obstruct visibility, perhaps the HPS team can utilize this game feature to create little smoke clouds around units that fire repeatedly? These can then drift & disperse according to wind velocity & direction)

Lt.Rich White
28th North Glos.Rgt.
Right Wing, British Army 1776



<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
How come smoke is not a part of the HPS games. In my opinion it was one of the main factors on all the battlefields.

Pvt Karel Van Canegem
3rd New York Inf
1st Brig/1st Div
North Dept/Colonial Army
<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>

And since we are talking about desirable improvements, I add my recurrent mantra (no, it's not <i>cartaginem esse delendam</i> ...):

I want a density modifier for ranged fire
I want artillery fire that affects all units in a hex

So whom do I have to bribe? <img src=icon_smile_shock.gif border=0 align=middle>

<font color=gold>Colonel D.S. Walter O.S.M.
Commanding The King's Own (4th) Regiment of Foot
Aide-de-camp, Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

In SBV John has smoke and target density and all units in a hex are targeted. It would be nice if he added those features to this engine.

The latter two would be fairly easy, the first could be added in such a way that everytime units fired in the offensive fire phase they produced smoke. My reasoning here is offensive fire should be more controlled so it reflects, IMO, platoon volleys or entire rank volleys whereas defensive fire is the more ragged individual fire. Both produce smoke but having 50 - 100 muskets discharge all at once would produce more smoke instantly than having the same numbers fire individually staggared over a few minutes.

The duration the each smoke occurence lasts would be the same as in SBV.

Should be an easy enough fix.

Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R

I concur. Now how do we communicate that we want those fixes?

<font color=gold>Colonel D.S. Walter O.S.M.
Commanding The King's Own (4th) Regiment of Foot
Aide-de-camp, Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

Dierk,

Rich Hamilton is the main designer behind this series, best to my knowledge. He is a good communicator and has John's complete confidence.

I recommend anyone wishing changes for this engine to talk with him. He will know if the ideas have been submitted to John before and what reasons John may have had for not implenting them yet (which may range from not enough hours in the day to just not feasible to do.) He also knows the best manner and times to approach John with suggestions. For example, the day before a game goes to master may not be the best day to send in a wish list, and we the public wouldn't know that, but Rich might.

Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R

Well, I'll still stay on my personal lil bandwagon. How many times historically are there instances of a lower level commander (be it wing, division, battalion all the way down to squad) who just doesn't get orders, if he gets them, misunderstands them, or disobeys them figuring he knows better. The classic example to my mind is Blenheim, where the French commander in the village called down the vast majority of the French infantry reserve into town, where they were too packed to do anything *and* leaving the center vunerable to the (eventally) decisive blow from the English. Still, with about 8 seconds of thought, we could come up with a few thousand other examples.

Still though, I will admit, that smoke is probably a lot easer to "fix" than my musings *hehe*


Lt Gary McClellan
12th Virgina Light Dragoons
CO Northern Department

Gary,

Play with Command Control and watch orders get misunderstood <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>

Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R

Al, heh, I'll do just that.
I'm going to be gone all next week, so wouldn't want to start till I get back, but anyone interested? Doesn't matter to me in this case if it is a charming, heroic, freedom loving colonial, or a dirty, blackguard oppressive lobster.

[Note: Larry Davis has stepped up and we'll do this at Saratoga, so this opportunity is closed]

Lt Gary McClellan
12th Virgina Light Dragoons
CO Northern Department

Edited by - Gary McClellan on 07/19/2002 14:14:50

I totally agree with Dierk - otherwise artillery is far too weak. At the moment, it's often better to just send it off the battlefield to avoid the risk of losing 20pts a gun - although there has been at least one occasion when it played an important part in one of my victories.

Lt.Rich White
28th North Glos.Rgt.
Right Wing, British Army 1776

Weak artillery ... hmmmm .... Dierk needs to tell you about a 12 pdr that was knocking 10 to 12 guys a pop at Bunker Hill <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle>.

Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R

Al is right, but guns are still too easily lost in melees, and that won't change until they get the ability to disrupt entire stacks.

<font color=gold>Colonel D.S. Walter O.S.M.
Commanding The King's Own (4th) Regiment of Foot
Aide-de-camp, Royal North American Corps</font id=gold>

On the other hand, introducing "fire on stack" produces other problems.

For example, imagine that you have 1 60 man company, or 3 20 man companies in a single hex.

Currently, the expected losses are the same, though there is a slight advantage to the smaller companies (in that the attendant fatigue only affects 1 of the compaines, or 1/3 of the troops, as opposed to the full stack).

However, if you apply it across the board to all units in hex, the stack of smaller companies will take 3x the losses of the single company, which would be a fairly severe abberation. Then, you have the further complications where the 3 compaines would be forced to each pass a morale check, as opposed to the 1 single company (thus, having that much greater chance of failure)

I'm sure there has to be some "midpoint" where neither extreme is there. Perhaps to do the standard damage, but then to randomly distribute the casualities among all units in hex. You could then add modifiers for the total strength (i.e. -20% if less than 20 troops in hex, +20% if more than 80 or the like)

Lt Gary McClellan
12th Virgina Light Dragoons
CO Northern Department