Smoke Stonks

In my recent games of UKF:CoC I’ve been trying to make use of the double 3″ Mortar a lot more since it’s the only doctrine out of UKF to get 2x 3″ outside of emplacements. I messed around with various smoke types and faction’s options (mortar halftracks, rifle grenades, grenades, etc.) and I have formed some opinions on what should be tweaked:

• Indirect (mortar, artillery, offmap) time-on-target is too slow to be useful in a reasonable amount of time. When trying to rush a Pantherturm with Priest smoke, it took a grating amount of time to get a decent coverage in a reasonable amount of time, especially adding the time to call in the barrage and the Priests to even start firing.

I would fix the above by decreasing smoke shell travel time and increasing greatly increasing reloadspeed for smoke barrages, as well as how long smoke lasts to not only ensure the first shells last as long as the latter, but also to cover retreats. The counter to smoke-play like this would be landmines and barbed wire, which would be hidden by the smoke.

• Direct (Sherman Smoke, Smoke Shells, T-34-85 smoke, etc.) is inconsistent with it’s Axis counterparts. While it is useful for assisitng infantry (smoking bunkers, AT guns, etc) it takes priority over movement. Similarly: Cromwell, Comet, and Centaur smoke shells force you to become stationary and is often fatal, generally being uncancellable and condemning your tanks to death.

If possible I would fix this by making vehicle smoke more like M8 Scott Smoke Barrage where orders can be input on the move without cancelling prior orders. This would be especially useful on UKF tanks where, as mentioned above, using smoke shells often gets the tank killed.