Blitzkrieg Mod Forum

Hi everyone
I've always seen smoke barrages, nades and smoke "stuff" in general as useless, i literally considered it to just be there. Then lately i've bumped into some gameplay, expecially Kwok vs Wurf on the forum replay section, and some YouTube videos showing how to use smoke to destroy base defences with inf squads and i was amazed.
What i would like to know is: does smoke work as a blindfolt for those units who are covered with it to decrease their accuracy (and suppression?) (so i should use it, for example, on opponent's mg nest to let an inf squad pass more easily), or does it work as a defensive tool (so, for example, i should use it on a suppressed squad to reduce received accuracy and suppression)?
I have doubts about this because on those situations i've seen it used it's more often used in the first way i described, but, and I'm not totally sure about this , RA smoke barrage is made to be used on allied units as to cover them, and i've tried it once (it was long time ago, on a 1v1 game made just to test this with a mate) but tanks and inf were still hit by paks and rifles as if there was no smoke between them. After that episode smoke barrage has always been my very last tech tree unlock when playing Royal Arty, and I never used it anymore even if i always thought its 150 ammo ( ?? not checked lately) price should have certainly been a clue about its usefulness.
Thanks in advance

P.S.: if anyone has some examples to tell where smoke has proved its utility in the game that would be really appreciated!

Technically speaking smoke is a special kind of cover. It applies its nerfs/bonuses to the unit IN the smoke but also to the unit shooting INTO the smoke.
So units in a smoke have greately reduced supression (they are harder to supress), they are also harder to hit but from the smoke they also have a hard time hitting anything and if they have supressive weapons they will supress way slower.

So to anser your question: It doesn't matter how you use it. If you send smoke to an emplacement (MG nest, AT gun, 88s...) their accuracy and supression will be reduced. If you fire it on your units they will be harder to hit (but notice that smoke does not make units immediately "unsupressed") but it can still be used for retreatig MG teams/AT guns (before they "pack up" their gun and start retreating).

I also tested another thing: if the smoke blocks view as in real life and thus applies nerfs if the smoke is BETWEEN two units but neither of them is actually IN the smoke and it seems to be working too. My test situation was:
An 88 emplacement vs an Engineer squad
88s have about 90% accuracy even at max range (so in average 1 out of 10 shots should miss), smoke reduces accuracy by 75% so the 88 should miss more or less 3 out of 4 shots and that was the result.... when there was a smoke between 88 and engineers approximately every 4th shot hit something. When the smoke dissappeared the hit-rate went drastically up.
(maybe try your own tests to see if this really is true but from my testing it seemed that way)

Haha was that youtube video uploaded by Wake? If so, that was me using smoke, literally the most underrated ability in BK. I honestly don't know ANYONE who uses it as much as I do (sounds big headed but you'll get people coming in saying "oh please I use it all the time, but they have never have any replays to prove it). Meanwhile I save a bunch of smoke replays to show people what it can do.

For some reason the RA smoke barrage doesnt work the way I imagine. It always drops smoke once a unit steps into the zone, which doesnt help because by the time you step in and it drops your unit is moving forward past the smokedrop. Do you think you can look into that Markr? Maybe set the logic similar to the heavy area barrage instead of SE sector barrage?

I lost a lot of replays because of new patch and don't play that often any more. Luckily, I just so happen to play a game where I used smoke at the end of the game. Not really a good showcase of using it, it didn't do THAT much for me this game but I used it to tackle some jumbos.

With smoke you can attack a base without tanks or arty/mortar barrage like most players do. This lets you end a game quick before tanks can even come out and counter your units.

You can clear 88's as Markr mentioned. This is important because normally people use arty which isn't surefire and costs a lot of MU sometimes.

Same with bunkers which tend to last forever. Drop smoke, throw 2 satchels/demos (which every AB inf has) and bunker is gone for only 100 mu instead of a long wait of endless barrages. This is pretty important because sometimes momentum can be critical in a strategy, especially with inf based docs. You don't want a huge force to be building behind the bunker while you try again and again to bomb it out traditionally.

Here's another I think. I played as AB so I probably used smoke. I think I lost this one, but if I remember right I used smoke to screen for AT inf. Another way to use smoke.

You and iusedto had a really nice start in the first replay anyway it was amazing how you pushed many times with ab inf using smoke to take out mgs!
Thank you both guys for this lesson gonna try to put your tips in use for sure

Time for another replay about how helpful smoke is. Here I am playing tank hunter vs inf doc, and I didnt even use any special JPs or hetzers.

MarKr wrote:Technically speaking smoke is a special kind of cover. It applies its nerfs/bonuses to the unit IN the smoke but also to the unit shooting INTO the smoke.
So units in a smoke have greately reduced supression (they are harder to supress), they are also harder to hit but from the smoke they also have a hard time hitting anything and if they have supressive weapons they will supress way slower.

So to anser your question: It doesn't matter how you use it. If you send smoke to an emplacement (MG nest, AT gun, 88s...) their accuracy and supression will be reduced. If you fire it on your units they will be harder to hit (but notice that smoke does not make units immediately "unsupressed") but it can still be used for retreatig MG teams/AT guns (before they "pack up" their gun and start retreating).

I also tested another thing: if the smoke blocks view as in real life and thus applies nerfs if the smoke is BETWEEN two units but neither of them is actually IN the smoke and it seems to be working too. My test situation was:
An 88 emplacement vs an Engineer squad
88s have about 90% accuracy even at max range (so in average 1 out of 10 shots should miss), smoke reduces accuracy by 75% so the 88 should miss more or less 3 out of 4 shots and that was the result.... when there was a smoke between 88 and engineers approximately every 4th shot hit something. When the smoke dissappeared the hit-rate went drastically up.
(maybe try your own tests to see if this really is true but from my testing it seemed that way)

Excelent answer...I always use it as cover for the tanks, but never tried to use it as form to reduce accuracy of an emplacement
Thanks

Yes, this usage of smoke is useful for offensive push and it is not hard to get your hands on smoke - most mortars have it and can shoot it further than normal rounds, Tommies can shoot smoke grenades with Riflegrenade upgrade which lets them deal quite easily with MG teams and MG nests (though this can be tricky because the grenades are usually not very accurate - at least at lower Vet levels), AB HQ (the building, not HQ squad) can for small ammount of munitions drop smoke quite accurately anywhere on the map (yes, there is no range restriction from the building, though you cannot use it in FoW) - if your planes are getting shot down by AA emplacements, you can drop smoke on it and then use 101st or other unit with satchel charge and take out the emplacement - or you can actually drop the smoke on the emplacement and while the smoke is up, the AAs have very little chance of shooting down your planes so this way you can create a window of opportunity... there are many ways of using smoke to get advantage in the field .

MarKr wrote:Yes, this usage of smoke is useful for offensive push and it is not hard to get your hands on smoke - most mortars have it and can shoot it further than normal rounds, Tommies can shoot smoke grenades with Riflegrenade upgrade which lets them deal quite easily with MG teams and MG nests (though this can be tricky because the grenades are usually not very accurate - at least at lower Vet levels), AB HQ (the building, not HQ squad) can for small ammount of munitions drop smoke quite accurately anywhere on the map (yes, there is no range restriction from the building, though you cannot use it in FoW) - if your planes are getting shot down by AA emplacements, you can drop smoke on it and then use 101st or other unit with satchel charge and take out the emplacement - or you can actually drop the smoke on the emplacement and while the smoke is up, the AAs have very little chance of shooting down your planes so this way you can create a window of opportunity... there are many ways of using smoke to get advantage in the field .

But there is something that is not include on tank habilities my friend MarKr, for example, maybe you dont want tu create a defensive wall of smoke for your tank, maybe you want to slow down the accuracy of your oponent by shooting him a smoke proyectil, just like FURY film, but this option isn't include in the game...smoke proyectil on tanks are only for your oun unit...so we can´t fire a proyectil smoke to our enemies...that should change on next CoH BKmod v4.9.6

It actually is present on some tanks - I think the Tetrarchs have it, Some StuG version iirc has it too, Command Cromwell can shoot several smoke shells next to each other and create kind of a smoke line. But yes, most tanks have it for defensive/reteat purposes.

MarKr wrote:It actually is present on some tanks - I think the Tetrarchs have it, Some StuG version iirc has it too, Command Cromwell can shoot several smoke shells next to each other and create kind of a smoke line. But yes, most tanks have it for defensive/reteat purposes.

Oh...haven´t check those tanks, my bad...thanks one more time my friend