Brushfires

[RS14]

I've been playing Frühlingswind in the demo, and I've been wondering about the (frequent) brushfires ignited by shellfire.

It seems there are two degrees of brushfires--minor and full. I've seen infantry run through a minor fire (in brush), and I've seen infantry flee from the edges of a full fire on their own. Do infantry experience any problems if stationary within a minor fire?

I assume that full fires can actually cause casualties. How quickly? If a minor fire becomes a full fire while they are in the tile, what happens? A rifle squad and platoon HQ were nearly surrounded by one of the fires, so this was on my mind.

How are tanks affected by fires? Other vehicles?

[Kingfish]

I've been playing Frühlingswind

I assume that full fires can actually cause casualties. How quickly? If a minor fire becomes a full fire while they are in the tile, what happens?

Nothing really. The transition from minor to 4-alarm blaze, while instantaneous in CM, would actually take long enough in real life to allow a unit to exit with little to no effect.

Of course, leaving the burning tile might actually be more lethal than staying, as Murphy's law will dictate the exiting unit would run headlong into a minefield covered by interlocking MG fire.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Note however that should an imobilised vehicle be located in an area that's on fire which then escalates into a full on blaze, the crew will abandon their vehicle to reach safety. The same applies to emplaced pillboxes and large guns that can't be moved once they're emplaced such as 88mm FlaK & Russian 85mm AA gun.

Regards

KR

[John Kettler]

KR,

Wouldn't you if forced otherwise to stay in an oven packed full of explosives and gasoline? Fire still proved very effective as a departure incentive to Russian hardliner AFV crews trying to overthrow Yeltsin's government many decades later, even though those AFVs ran on diesel.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

RS14,

From the CMBB Manual, page 67, we learn that the primary fire occurrence determinants are ground conditions and the weather. Speaking as someone who spent quite a few years in the Arizona desert, most of the time, brush is tinder dry, hence easily ignited. Regarding your specific questions, the Manual says:

Terrain fires often start off "small," and at this stage have no effect on the game except for some smoke. but small fires have a chance to grow and spread depending on overall conditions. If a fire becomes "big," (the whole terrain "tile" (20m by 20m) is burning), units are forced to exit the area immediately.

It goes on to say that immobilized units will be abandoned by their crews and destroyed by a big fire and that units will refuse to enter an area with a big fire. I've seen movement plots aborted by fires spreading and had troops abandon tiles that suddenly had burning AFVs in them. This is an AI controlled function.

Regards,

John Kettler