Artillery smoke availability

[Nox]

The "Tarrif" site only lists smoke ammo stats if the author of that site has them available. So it doesn't meant that they did not have smoke ammo.

I really dont think that limiting smoke ammo to sertain smaller calibres of guns is a good idea. You would need to research every nation and what kind of ammo did they use because there really is nothing to say a 150mm gun could not have smoke ammo. Also what about scenarios or campaigns and how they might be affected by a change like this? IIRC all versions of Steel Panthers have had some smoke ammo for the larger guns too.

[DRG]

The really large calibre arty didn't use have smoke shells but in the game the "kludge" for smoke is that every gun gets a little bit and in the end this all evens out and nobody has ever complained ( until Chucky came along with his crusade )and we have never considered it an issue worth really worrying about. The code was supposed to filter smoke out of the large calibre guns but this is such and important issue ( not ! ) that we ,and everyone else who has tested the game , didn't notice that the 8 inch guns etc were throwing smoke.

Also, as I have explained before there is NO way give or take smoke away from individual guns. In the game there has to be a line drawn at a specific War head size and that is generally "around" 150mm but as you pointed out there is little to say if a specific 150 mm gun did or did not have smoke because in most cases ( and websites ) dealing with arty, smoke is a non issue but it's more than a bit presumptuous for anyone to assume that if one website doesn't list smoke for a gun then they didn't use it.

I have not committed myself to this change and if I do it will, by the very nature of the structure of the game, going to have to be a compromise. I have seen some info on US 155 guns having smoke ( WP. it does the same job ) AND I have Ian Hoggs book on German artillery and he lists a " bursting smoke shell filled with oleum/pumice" for the 15cm FH18 and FH40 so **IF** this does get changed it will likely be for warheads 9 and above and below WH 3 which means ALL 150mm arty in the game would still get smoke as they are WH 8 BUT as I said, no decision has been made. Removing smoke from the big guns really doesn't make much of an impact on the game and neither does leaving it but we are at the stage of development where "nit picking" issues like this has become almost the norm.

Don