Artillery Park display

[larry marak]

Would anyone like or use an off board artillery display for PG? This would be a visual representation of artillery batteries, printed on a card, with a box behind each icon for mission ready or out of ammo. Maybe even a counter battery display, where one side's oba tries to bombard the enemy's oba.

I'm inspired here by the Old Blitzkrieg artillery park counters Gutenkunst made about 25 years ago, and the carrier aircraft displays done for the SWWAS series.

I know we have some graphics wizards on this board.

[plloyd1010]

I used the background from the 4th ed. bombardment charts for just such a purpose in my Vassal modules.

Richard Gutenkunst, that is a name form antiquity. I don't remember his artillery park. Have you an image or magazine number?

[larry marak]

For years he did specialty counters..most of them were mounted versions of variant counters from Panzerblitz and other Avalon Hill games. The artillery park set was done from the listing of oba artillery (with counter images) in the little instruction folder for Panzerblitz, and the book for PanzerLeader. You'll find hundreds of references to him in the Panzerblitz folder on consimworld. He also is (or was) a friend of Dr. B. back from his days at Quarterdeck Games. Back in the day I had hundreds of virtually unique counters in my PB set. :-)

[plloyd1010]

I know who is, some of what he did. I just don't know about his artillery park. Was it in the General, or S&T, or something else?

[larry marak]

Maybe the General 28-6. Not sure, he did so many variant counters through the Strategic Gaming Society group.

[warstudent]

plloyd1010: I used the background from the 4th ed. bombardment charts for just such a purpose in my Vassal modules.

Could you post a screen shot?

plloyd1010: I know who is, some of what he did.
I don't think Larry posted that short bio for you, but for others on here like myself, which I appreciated.

[plloyd1010]

I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything like that. Just wanted to get to what the artillery park was.

I do think I found something. Back in S&T #19 the Blitzkrieg modular system was introduced. It refers to an artillery mission chart. Is that what you were thinking about Larry?

I began with this image.


After some resizing & fading, it looks like this:
[attachment=644]
The markers are what I have in my Vassal builder kit.

[larry marak]

No, I had something simpler in mind..but that looks great.

Think of a card with which ever artillery units that represent oba's of 8, 10, 18 per unit etc. It would be nice to have specific calibers of howitzers represented by unit counter icons. You'd then have status counters indicating available, depleted, suppressed etc. Something like the sWWAS aircraft carrier cards.

[plloyd1010]

Then I am more muddled than I thought. I use chits in both my Vassal & dead-tree versions. One side (ex: German 16 piece) is ready to use, and placed on the board (moved to map in Vassal) when the artillery strike occurs. The other side says "Fired", which the counter is flipped to after the activation (automatic in Vassal, which also moves it back to the artillery map, like the Soviet 18 is).

Carrier cards have status boxes. For artillery wouldn't that be available & fired? Carrier cards also have mission boxes. For artillery that might be drum fire, pre-plotted fire, & smoke (perhaps someday counter-battery & interdict)? Everything else on the card has to do with the carrier. That might be ammo supply for the artillery. Bottom line is that I am having trouble conceptualizing what you have in mind. Could you make a sketch and scan it?

[plloyd1010]

Larry, I really would like to understand your idea. Have you got a demo or illustration in the works?