Section Leaders:
Fionn Kelly & Madmatt

With artillery playing such a pivotal role in the newest Demo scenario, I thought it might be fun to show just what can happen when a structure and adjacent terrain is subjected to intense artillery fire.

Ok, here we see as the first few rounds start impact on and around this quite little wooden building. There is no hard and fast rules on how many direct hits a building can take before collapsing. Each direct and nearby impact does a certain amount of damage and the building will stay standing until enough damage is inflicted to cross this 'collapse threshold'.  Although I have seen small building fold up after just a few rounds. 

BooYA! A HE round catches the dry wood ablaze and now we really begin to have some fun. In Combat Mission the ground condition and weather are taken into consideration in determining if high explosives, grenades, rockets, flame throwers etc. have a chance of setting buildings and terrain on fire.

And they all fall down! The building succumbs to the constant artillery impact and explodes like Fionn's temper!  Notice the expanding cloud of debris (they are shaped like little M's for MADMATT.  Something interesting is that the explosion of the burning building was enough to ignite the surrounding terrain!!

As the last of the mortar rounds screech in from above we are left with this picture.  Debris and rubble and now a burning inferno are all that remain...  I would say that was a pretty successful display of firepower!

What is interesting to note is that all of things are not necessarily connected. What I mean is that a wayward artillery round COULD have set the woods behind the building on fire, or the building could have collapsed without catching on fire or even caught on fire and not collapsed or just simply absorbed the punishment and not done anything. The variety of results is really amazing and you will see things in Combat Mission that you won't see in any other war game!