A new feature of the series is Indirect Fire.
Any weapon letter in the PDT file that has a + after it can fire indirectly.
To use indirect fire you pick a hex that is out of LOS of the indirect fire weapon and then use the Control key + right click on target hex or you can use the artillery dialog and just fire on a unit. If its out of LOS it will use the Indirect fire formula.
Indirect fire weapons must still have a LOS to the target in order to perform Opportunity fire during an opponent's turn. I checked this out to be sure today. I moved French units out of LOS of a Russian licorne section I had unlimbered (yes, it was unlimbered!) many times but they never were fired on.
Thus there is no fear of moving around the map out of LOS of an indirect fire weapon and wondering if they are going to fire on you. If this does happen in your games please report it directly to Rich Hamilton at the HPS Support email!
The only units in the Austerlitz game that can fire indirectly are the Russian licorne sections. I thought of combining the French or Austrian howitzers into sections but for this title I passed on it. The French companies were small in many cases and I didn't want to reduce them further. The Austrians were pretty standard but there are alot of units in the Austrian army already. And I didn't really think that their artillery was very effective anyway during the campaign.
In later games you will see the French with combined howitzers. Again, only those titles I do where the French have something like 6-8 guns per company. While I wanted the option added into the game I didn't want it to dominate the game either.
So the Russians will have a slight edge in this dept. Folks that want to split off the howitzers out of the French or Austrians sections would have to copy the scenario and OB files, rename them, change the OB filename in the scenario file to match the copy name and then open up the Scenario Editor, remove any artillery units they want to modify, save the file, and then open up the OB file and do as they like.
If you find any French indirect fire units it was a rare case and I just claim memory loss at not remembering adding them to the OB (it might have been a howitzer battery for instance).
For any of the past games I worked on: I will go back and update the PDT files so that they allow for indirect fire weapons. It would be up to the players to do any separation of howitzers from the artillery company.
Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)
NWC
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