(08-19-2017, 07:10 AM)Coniglius Wrote: If someone else is spotting the target for you, you are no longer employing direct fire... your fire is now being directed by someone else who has eyes on the target; not you, as the gunner.
I respectfully disagree. I submit that the distinction between DF vs. BF has more to do with the type and/or trajectory of the projectile or shell than whether the shooter has "eyes on." Example: consider small arms fire at, say 3-500 yards or so. One can certainly direct rapid fire (semi or fully automatic) on to a target and yet the shooter be guided by someone else, even remotely by radio i.e. suppressive fire. The spotter directs the shooter vis-a-vis elevation and windage since the shooter, though having LOS/LOE to the target, might not have a magnified view of the target or be able to judge accurately the fall of their fire (either because optics on the weapon are too bulky/heavy/FoV restrictive or unavailable or geared for CQB or the shooter is simply too busy with actually firing the weapon). My point being that small arms fire (or a tank's HE rounds) against a berm or building or what-have-you in a suppressive sense is not a different "effect" (in PG terms a different type of fire and, thus, a different attack column) simply because the shooter (or the gunner of a DF high-explosive round) is, or is not, assisted in correcting point of aim (though this might well be part of the mechanism behind the -1 col shift to DF at ranges > 600 yards).
Of course, I'm not 19 yo any more, but I can certainly say that shooting over iron sights at 500 yards, I need a spotter or magnified optics to tell where my 5.56/7.62 fire is going (I'll assume in combat, one can't hear the "ding" from a steel target!).
In any case, I certainly do not know APL's intention with this rule: I think Peter's use of "fuzzy" was correct insofar as the RAW would, in my opinion (my first post), allow the town spotting rule to apply to DF of the type we've discussed, but I can also quite readily concede that that might well be an unintended consequence of the wording (my second post).
