Pop smoke

[GraemeA]

Playing "Taking the town" I needed to pop smoke and this is what I saw:

 

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​What surprised me was the distance of the smoke - the 20m indicator line can be seen on the left but on the right the smoke is over 90m away.

 

​I couldn't see anything in the interface or the manual telling me the "pop smoke distance" for this vehicle - am I missing something ?

[agusto]

Russian vehicles usually deploy their some screen further away than their american counterparts, but i dont know if 90 meters is normal. I have never measured it.

[Kieme(ITA)]

The pop smoke feature uses pre-set smoke grenades, which are detonated from fixed tubes which have fixed elevations and power charges. This means that in game, just like in real life, the smoke grenades get deployed in clusters at a more or less precise position and distance from the vehicle. Therefore it's not something you can control.

The russians are known to prefer a longer range deployment. intended for aggressive manouvering like shooting a smoke round from a gun tube.

Infantry squads pop smoke as a smoke grenade in front of them at 20m.

 

Now, the BTR-82 has a quite strange deployment radious, where the very front of the vehicle is not covered, this might be a bug.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Kieme(ITA)

[agusto]

I dont know if vehicle deployed smoke grenades can ricochet from obstacles in their path. If that is the case we might have explanation for the vehicles front not beeing covered.

[Kieme(ITA)]

Nah, in the test I had the BTR-82 with open field in front, seems that the two clusers it has can deploy separately, each cluser has 3 or 4 nades that disperse a bit on the right (for the right launcher) and a bit on the left for the other, the very front is open (gets covered if the wind is blowing in the tangent direction).

[GraemeA]

I was hoping the smoke would be nearer to the vehicle so that I could use it for cover, so I was suprised.

 

Then I got to wondering how I would know for any vehicle, where  the 'pop smoke' command actually pops smoke. (The 20m indicator didn't help.)

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I guess if I need to lay down smoke at a particular point, I should use 'target smoke'.

[womble]

I guess if I need to lay down smoke at a particular point, I should use 'target smoke'.

I've never tried it, but I suspect that you might be able to do both at once if you want on some vehicles, the ones with guns large enough to fire smoke rounds. Pop Smoke uses different systems to Target Smoke. So if, for example, you know that the vehicle has a gap in its smoke discharger coverage, you could fire a smoke round or two from its main gun into the gap. No use for your BTR (or do AC get smoke rounds in the modern era?), but possibly of occasional use with MBTs or BMP3s, maybe. Or the fire support version of the BTR...

[Vanir Ausf B]

I don't think there are any vehicles in Black Sea that carry smoke munitions.

[womble]

I don't think there are any vehicles in Black Sea that carry smoke munitions.

That's interesting. I guess "other" rounds are more widely useful, so smoke shells would be a waste of storage space...

[Kieme(ITA)]

It's more of a ww2 thing.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't think there are any vehicles in Black Sea that carry smoke munitions.

 

Maybe they rely more on some kind of support weapon to provide smoke, like mortars. But it seems to me that some kind of ability to fire smoke is needed. I want smoke in close proximity if I intend to remain stationary for a while, but if I am moving I am more likely to want it on the enemy's position.

 

Michael