Laser designation vs Oil fires

[Jordi]

Hi, I hope this is the first time this question has been done. If It's not do what is necessary, thanks.
Is there any effect in the laser designation in the case we apply the Oil fires rules? Or, what is the same, are the Oil fires considered an obscurant? Or is not enough dense?

Thanks for all you work. I'll be testing my USA and Irak armies tomorrow morning.

[Big Insect]

This is one of those "it depends" questions/answers.

Laser designators are impacted heavily by not only the size, density and composition of the particulates within an obscurant - the smoke/carbon particles (in this case smoke from a 'dirty' oil fire) but also the heat of these particulates. Laser designators work best in clear atmospheric conditions. Cloud cover, rain or smoke can make reliable designation of targets difficult or impossible

If you are looking to specifically replicate a single or multiple 'well' fires then I'd suggest that these will block LoS for laser designators. 

If you are looking to replicate a more general oil-fire 'smog' - you might want to create some sort of minor deviation from the target.

But if you want a hard & fast rule - my answer is no - oil fires will negate your laser designators.

NB: laser designators are a broad group of equipment. They can operate very differently. Some 'paint' or illuminate the target for a 'smart' munition to lock-onto. Others calculate the position of a target, calculating range and even GPS location and feed that data back to a 'smart' munition or an artillery battery etc. In games terms we tend to consider them all but infallible - but under real battle-field conditions they had their faults (not least apparently being that the man-portable ones suffered a lot from being carted about roughly or simply from running out of battery power!).

Cheers
Mark

[Jordi]

Ok. Thanks you for the fast answer.

[Last Hussar]

the man-portable ones suffered a lot from being carted about roughly

Ah, designers, meet grunts

[Ithoriel]

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

[Last Hussar]

"You can make it foolproof.  You can't make it damn foolproof. "