Smoke you can hide in

September 30, 2026 · naval combat

A smoke screen is a destroyer captain's best friend, and it finally looks the part. Where it used to pile up as a heap of round grey puffs — every one of them showing its edge — it now lies on the sea as one low, rolling bank: thick in the middle, fraying at the rim, lit by the sun on its crown and grey in its own shade underneath.

One wall on the water

Lay your smoke and watch it from the enemy's bridge. It sits on the Brick Sea like a fog bank rolled in off the horizon — a long grey wall, soft along its top, tight down to the waterline. Steam a destroyer into it and her bow goes first, then her funnels, then her stern, and there's nothing left to lay a gun on.

From a cruiser's deck, a long low bank of grey smoke lying on the blue sea, a destroyer steaming into its wall while the cruiser's shells splash short of her — Into the wall — a Crimson destroyer slips into her own smoke while the Cobalt cruiser's shells fall short.

The bank hides what's behind it, too. A salvo that goes long into the smoke doesn't throw up a bright white column on the far side for everyone to read — the splash sinks into the grey with everything else. Shoot blind and you'll have to guess.

Inside the smoke

Now sit in it. From your own bridge your bow still stands clear, but a couple of hull lengths out the sea turns grey, the horizon goes, and the sky's clouds go with it. A ship laying smoke alongside you is a shadow; one across the bank is gone. Steam out of the far side and the world comes back a little at a time as you clear the wall.

Seen from high above the sea, a single rolling bank of grey smoke lying on the water, the destroyer hiding in it lost from sight — From the air it's one drift of smoke with a rolling top — and no sign of the destroyer inside.

On the steppe

Tank crews get the same smoke, sized for a hull, and it now stands on the ground where you pop it. On the Brick Steppe's high ground your launchers used to fire a cloud that sank out of sight beneath the hill; now it blooms on the ridge around you, right where the enemy gunner was looking.