The Commander Series Forum

In conversation with my old BKC opponent, Tony, he came up with the germ of an idea for the FAO deviation rolls (which we both find very excessive as you keep adding dice for distance to target and only reduce dice for being on higher ground than target, - have I forgotten anything?): so what if we reduced deviation dice by one dice for each successive attempted artillery strike by same FAO, from same obervation post, at same target? Or is this too many conditions?
My recent reading of 'Guns against the Reich'(see book review on this site) certainly makes this seem sensible as that real life FAO, quickly adjusted his batteries deviation from target by observation and renewed instructions to his batteries.

I have always considered the deviation effect to be too excessive based on my own reading so what you suggest would make sense to me.

In our games it comes out as unerringly accurate and never misses!

Brits get reduction in dice and that's my regular opponent so I may be biased.

We tend to slam our observers forward as well so that probably skews things.

Simple: use better tactics! Observers should be pushed forward as far as possible - that's how they were used - they didn't just get plonked on a hill miles from the action. They were forward of the main body of troops. I've plenty of notes to back this up.

Get your FAOs and FACs within 20cm of the enemy (or uphill of them within 40cm!) with a fighting stand 15cm behind you for you to dodge to if over-run!

Yes Pete, that is where the word Forward in "Forward" Observer comes from.

From a line in an old ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) song.

"They made him a Forward Observer,
He lived to be six seconds old!"

"R O T C it all sounds like B. S. to me, to me,
R O T C and B. S. it turned out to be."

I was in ROTC while in College.

True Pete,

Petr Mikhin's account is full of examples of him being up close and directing fire from the front.

But sometimes he also does this succesfuly from a distance too! So long as he had clear sight of the target like a company of tanks advancing. He could see the fall of the shot and judge its adjustment. So you dont always need to be close up front!

Carl

We keep our FAOs up front and find that arty is usually pretty accurate - we always seem to hit something!

I've lost my copy of Jarry's "18 Platoon" but isn't there an FAO almost always with them?

Yep, Pete,s right . Try using 'werfer,s when the FO is at a distance from the target. If you,re defending , move the FO forward ASAP

Problem is that there's no real life response to a pushed forward FAO. In real life, they'd stonk the hell out of an enemy OP, but you can't target command stands in BKC so pushing them forward is extremely cheesy and forces your opponent to do something else non realistic.

If your opponent agrees, you can add a house rule allowing targeting of command stands if they are the closest stand to the firing unit. This is basically the rule from the FWC skirmish section. You might want to give the command stand the recce +1 to tone down the firing on HQs if the above house rule kills them too fast.

We allow targetting of command stands if they are the nearest enemy unit.

Just over run them with your reece!

Deviation should be more down to the training of the FAO than the distance of the FAO from target. As long as there is a clear LOS doesn't really matter how far away (within reason). Artillery had to be ranged in, unless registered, this was down to the skill of the FAO (and the gun team) to quickly range in on a target then fire for effect. The initial skill roll represents this to some extent but how about using the skill roll as the basis for deviation. Say every 2 scored under the skill roll reduces the deviation by 1 die. Rockets would have to be treated differently as they are highly in-accurate and were not ranged to target.

As a radical suggestion always have the artillery barrage hit its intended location, unless a blunder is rolled, and the level of degree the artillery request skill roll is passed/failed affects the chances of hitting the targets in the barrage. This represents the intended targets having time to react/or not to an incoming barrage by hitting the dirt, finding cover etc.

(Saves time as it cuts out several die rolls and working out deviation)

Adrian