Wishlist: Ammo Loadouts, and Z-fire Abuse

[Cross]

There was an interesting thread over at The Blitz wargaming club about ‘Z-fire’ (‘area fire’).

If you like, you can see the thread here:
http://www.theblitz.org/message_boar....php?tid=47692

My take on the discussion was that most people agreed that Z-fire is a realistic tactic, but it could easily be overused and annoying, with whole fronts being plastered with Z-fire and then the replays of this taking too long.

It was also brought up that the major reason for the abuse of Z-fire, was because most units just had far too much ammo. This spawned a second thread about ammo loadouts here:

http://www.theblitz.org/message_boar...8093#pid268093

There was discussion about realistic ammo loads carried by squads, and how is it that squads in SPWW2 can maintain sustained fire throughout a battle without re-supply?

I’ve been playing SP for 7 or 8 years, and I’ve never had an infantry or MG unit run out of ammo! Currently in SP, ammo shortages are usually only an issue for artillery units.

Regardless of historical ammo loadouts, this battalion level game would benefit from infantry units sometimes having to conserve ammo, or arrange for re-supply.

It seems like we could address both the Z-fire abuse issue and the overabundance of ammo by lowering the ammo loadouts. Here are some suggestions, but I’d like to hear peoples thoughts or ideas.

1. Lower the maximum ammo loads of certain units to the point that you actually have to conserve ammo or get re-supplied.

(Personally I’d leave most AFV as they are, but lower the ammo levels for infantry and MG units. Mech units could have higher ammo loadouts, but still lower than current levels.)

2. Make Z-fire cost 5x or 10x the ammo. (This may not be possible to code)

3. Create a realism slider button (like the Infantry/Tank toughness ones) to give players the choice to lower ammo loads for certain types of units.

There already exists an Ammo Limit ON/OFF button in the realism preferences; but with ammo loadouts so high for most units, it really only limits artillery.