Mortar smoke puzzlement

[Baneman]

Messing about in an arbitrary QB against the AI just to test things and I came across a strange thing with my 81mm mortar ( onmap ).

It's fired off all its HE ammo and has 6 smoke rounds left. The smoke rounds are held by the ammo bearers who are lying one AS away. The combined ammo count ( on the right in the UI ) shows [6 Smoke].

But the Target Smoke command button is greyed out. I can draw a Target Line ( I assume they'd fire their rifles ), a Target Light, and even a Cover Arc, but the Target Smoke button ( or keyboard command ) will not work.

I'm puzzled because I did fire off the smoke rounds that were carried by the crew earlier to see how long it would last.

Is this a bug, or am I just doing something incredibly stupid ?

Version 1.10 on PC Windows7.

[Chris Ferrous]

Yes, I've recently noticed this as well. Surprised I hadn't identified it before.

It seems to apply to both on and off-board artillery and mortars.

If the reverse is true, and I've no reason to believe it is, and exhausting smoke rounds leads to the HE being unavailable then it would be a serious bug.

As it is, I can live with it, just leave a couple of HE in stock, then fire off your smoke.

[womble]

Smoke rounds aren't separate. It certainly seems counterintuitive at first glance, but those who've actually fired the things have said that it's how arty (including mortars) counts its rounds. If you've got 100 rounds and 8 smoke, your 8 smoke use up your normal rounds one-for-one. So if you fire 8 smoke, you'll only get 92 HE. Conversely, if you've fired all your 100 shots, there aren't any left to be used for Smoke. It's not a bug, just an accounting method.

If the reverse is true, and I've no reason to believe it is, and exhausting smoke rounds leads to the HE being unavailable then it would be a serious bug.

It certainly isn't the case that running out of smoke prevents you from firing off your remaining HE, so no worries on that count.

[sburke]

IIRC correctly when this was brought up about Off board artillery, what was said was the smoke count is possible rounds. The HE is total rounds. So if you fire off all the HE, you are done. Honestly am not sure if that is accurate or not. If it is, it is still confusing as you then have to try to hold rounds if you want to keep a reserve of smoke.

[sburke]

Smoke rounds aren't separate. It certainly seems counterintuitive at first glance, but those who've actually fired the things have said that it's how arty (including mortars) counts its rounds. If you've got 100 rounds and 8 smoke, your 8 smoke use up your normal rounds one-for-one. So if you fire 8 smoke, you'll only get 92 HE. Conversely, if you've fired all your 100 shots, there aren't any left to be used for Smoke. It's not a bug, just an accounting method.

Hmm somebody at BF take the expression "smoke em if you got em" too literally?

[Chris Ferrous]

@ womble

Thanks very much, that's an entirely logical explanation.

[Bernie]

Do you want smoke? Drive a couple of Shermans out on the field, and soon you will have thick black smoke.

[Baneman]

I realise that the "smoke is possible smoke" applies to offboard artillery, but with onboard artillery, the smoke rounds are separately tracked 1:1 rounds - because you can fire all your HE and then still fire Smoke IF it's held by the crew.

BUT it seems to be applying the offboard rule to smoke rounds held by ammo-bearers AFTER you've fired all HE and Smoke held by the mortar crew.

I'll test some more, but it seems odd.

[womble]

I realise that the "smoke is possible smoke" applies to offboard artillery, but with onboard artillery, the smoke rounds are separately tracked 1:1 rounds - because you can fire all your HE and then still fire Smoke IF it's held by the crew.

Ooo. That is a novel observation. Am I correct in interpreting that as to say that if you move the ammo bearers out of "sharing" range of the mortar, and then fire off all the HE the crew have, you can still fire the crew's smoke rounds? And that when you move the bearers back into sharing range and fire off all the remaining HE, you cannot fire the smoke rounds carried by the bearers? Is this as called missions or firing direct?

[Baneman]

Just finished some more testing.

This is all direct fire.

The smoke rounds are definitely tracked 1:1 ( otherwise you couldn't Acquire them separately anyway ).

If you have the ammo bearers away from your mortar ( not close enough to share ), you can fire all your HE and THEN fire all your smoke ( 6 rounds for German 81mm mortar ).

If you then bring up your mortar ammo bearers, you can fire whatever HE they have, but NOT their smoke - Target Smoke remains greyed out.

Interestingly, I tested one mortar where I kept the ammo bearers with the mortar ( they had 10 HE and 6 Smoke rounds ) Thus the mortar had 38 HE and 12 Smoke.

I fired off all the HE. Since ( I'm assuming ) the crew still had their 6 Smoke, I could still Target Smoke.

And the mortar managed to fire 7 rounds of smoke in that turn ( ie. using 1 of the bearer rounds.) BUT when that turn ended, the Target Smoke line disappeared and I could not reinstate it.

I call Bug.

Edit: all testing done in WeGo, RT may differ.

[slysniper]

good catch, something to be mindful of.

As to getting it fixed, good luck.

[womble]

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice. I use mortars pretty much universally in indirect fire, and I've never been able to fire any smoke once the HE's dry, AFAICR. I suspect the bug is that the direct "Target Smoke" is able to access ammo it shouldn't be able to, and it starts counting at the beginning of the order, so possibly in RT it might be able to fire all the bearers' smoke too, if you didn't interrupt the mission, and there was one smoke left on the actual crew when you began it.

Edit: Further thinking reminds me that ammo sharing happens a round at a time, once the shooter is empty. So that 7th round was the first one passed to the crew; suggests something isn't being checked before passing the first round that might be before passing subsequent rounds.

[Baneman]

... I suspect the bug is that the direct "Target Smoke" is able to access ammo it shouldn't be able to ...

I disagree since the bug is not operating like the offmap scenario - once the crew smoke is gone, the bearer smoke is not accessible no matter how much HE they both have.

Also presumably the Smoke ammo provides weight to the bearers and as noted, is Acquired separately. And the crew's Smoke ammo is regarded as separate ie. you can fire all 6 Smoke without affecting the HE count.

Which makes the bug the fact that the bearer-smoke is simply not available.

I can see the reasoning behind the offmap abstraction of smoke-out-of-the-total count, but on map, it seems better to continue the 1:1 ( to my mind ) - since they're either carrying it or they're not - it's not in a dump with an "allocated fire amount".

But hopefully we'll hear from BF on the matter. Phil ??

I'll do more testing in the meantime, to see how many rounds of indirect smoke you get from an onmap mortar etc.

[Baneman]

More testing

Bearer Smoke Ammo IS accessible for Indirect Fire of on-map mortars - I used up all HE, then plotted an Indirect Fire Smoke mission. It used all 6 of the Crew's Smoke and 1 of the Bearers'.

I could then plot another Smoke Mission which used the remaining 5 Smoke.

For Direct Fire :

If you didn't give the spare Smoke to the Bearers and instead parked an Ammo Truck next to the mortar team, when the Crew Smoke was finished, they used the Smoke from the truck, albeit with an attendant slowdown in firing rate - 1 to 2 rounds per turn ( you also have to replot the Target Smoke every turn ). Of course, when using a mortar in Direct Fire mode, having the ammo truck parked alongside is probably the last thing you want to do

[womble]

More testing

Bearer Smoke Ammo IS accessible for Indirect Fire of on-map mortars - I used up all HE, then plotted an Indirect Fire Smoke mission. It used all 6 of the Crew's Smoke and 1 of the Bearers'.

I could then plot another Smoke Mission which used the remaining 5 Smoke.

Hmm. I wonder if that's a change, perhaps in 1.10. I am pretty sure I've not even attempted to fire a smoke mission from HE-empty off-map assets, since it's been "known" since early days that it won't fire off...

[Baneman]

No no, this is all ON Map asset testing.

[womble]

No no, this is all ON Map asset testing.

I probably should have said "indirect". [shrug]

Same applies. Back in 1.01, I definitely had on-map 81mm mortars that had smoke rounds remaining (not having fired any at all) but wouldn't fire a mission when there was no HE and that was explained as smoke being "potential smoke warheads". What you're describing is definitely a change.

Whether it applies to off-map assets as well probably needs to be looked at.

[Baneman]

I can live with off-map as it is now

I hope that on-map can be looked at though.

As it stands now :

Indirect Fire of On-map mortars can use ALL HE and ALL Smoke separately. ( which seems correct ).

Direct Fire of On-map mortars can use ALL HE and (separately) only Crew-held Smoke rounds, leaving 6 Bearer Smoke rounds inaccessible ( which seems like a bug ).

If the fire mission finishes Crew-held Smoke rounds in a turn, bearer smoke rounds DO get used, but only for the remainder of that same turn, thereafter they are inaccessible.

If the non-Crew-held Smoke is in an ammo truck, it does get used in DF smoke missions, but very slowly and requiring replotting of Target Smoke each turn ( which may be due to the "sharing ammo" nature of trucks - although HE fire from ammo-in-trucks doesn't seem to get this penalty )

This is in WeGo and easily repeated/tested.

[Erwin]

Re Indirect Fire: Is parking a supply truck with ammo (smoke or HE) next to a mortar or gun (that is out of its inherent ammo) a method to get them to slow down their rate of fire (to the 2 or so rounds per minute mentioned earlier)?

I know we now have the very useful "Target Briefly" command. But, that's not the same as ordering one or two rounds per minute.

[Baneman]

I don't think so - it only seemed to apply to direct fire, Erwin. ( and only to Smoke )

Maybe I should test with 2 trucks by 1 mortar, but it seemed that in the Indirect Fire mission, each mortar used all 6 ( or 5 really ) in 1 go, so it seems unlikely.

Edit: Hmmm, you said "gun". I haven't tested that - it may show the problem to be a "ammo-bearer" issue or a "mortar" issue.

And I haven't tested it in FI, so I guess I have to check that too.

I'll have to expand my scope :eek:

[akd]

On-map ammunition is 1:1.

I have tested myself in FI and see the problem, but I see no difference between ammo bearers with smoke and vehicles with smoke. It appears the "target smoke" command is disabled as an option when the mortar team uses up the smoke rounds carried in their own inventory. If an ammo bearer/vehicle with smoke rounds is within sharing range, the current target order will be continued until the shared ammo is also used up (or until something interrupts the current order). However, if the ammo bearer/vehicle is out of range, but then moved into range after the mortar team's own smoke rounds are exhausted and the active order is cancelled, the smoke ammo will show as available but not be usable via direct fire since the "target smoke" command remains disabled.

I have reported this issue.

Also note that active "target smoke" orders will sometimes cancel on their own due to the smoke from previous rounds obscuring the target. This is not related to the issue above.

[Baneman]

Thanks akd

[Erwin]

alles klar... finally.

[akd]

Should be fixed in next version.

[womble]

Should be fixed in next version.

Fixed which way? To make on-map smoke act like offmap or to allow access to the bearers' smoke in a clear and consistent way?