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@Sublime You're correct in suggesting that we are missing some factors or variables or are running with an incomplete hyphothesis.  I just did a test.  One conscript FO and 5 conscript Paladin Batteries.  They all showed 8 minutes at setup.  After firing their initial barrage of Excalibur rounds they all changed to 3 minutes.  This behavior is normal but not sure about the how, what or why.

So what I do know is that using elite FOs and elite support units will guarantee your times are on the short end of the spectrum.

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Well thats actually why i avoid some of the testing threads once they start breaking the game down to dice rolls it ruins it for me.

But @ForwardObserver your post almost seemed a contradiction.  You mentioned the long firing times but then said they jumped down to 3 minutes. So once again im wondering if the battery quality (just like for example the quality of a supply truck or cache) is really taken into account off map. Certainly TRPs and FOs or whoevers calln it in and their soft factors are.

But Id like some testing on whether battery quality does anything. At some point in qbs I got a little gamey and started buyn the arty in my bttn tac grps as conscript ( the 152mm ) and with trps and vet or higher FOs would consistently get 3 or 4 min call ins. Less on TRPs.

Also no matter what quality the unit the time listed for incoming shells is NEVER 100 percent accurate. Ive definitely seen them come about a minute later and waay more often seen them come in early.

Of course a lot of this is luck. If you.re not using TRPs it depends on how many spotting rounds are fired until FFE is given.  I CAN verify whether a spotter who targets somethibg then moves out of los of target will have horrible accuracy if FFE ever even is called.

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@Sublime Sorry, sometimes I'm unclear. Yes.  Battery quality has an impact on the speed of the delivery of the fire support.  If you want to see for yourself, grab 1 elite FO, and 4 platoons of arty.  Make 2 of them elite, and 2 of them conscript.  Load the game.  Read the support times.

Furthermore to understand the bit I mentioned about the support times dropping; Set up precision missions with those 4 platoons.  Begin the match.  Immediately look at the Howitzer platoons.  Are the new times reflected the same as they were at the beginning of the game?  They should be shorter.  The elite platoons should be uber short, and the conscript platoons should be a bit longer than uber short.

As for whether battery quality has an impact on accuracy of the guns, I don't know, I've been too wrapped up since the beginning on taking quality units in order to maximize speed of delivery that I have neglected to properly analyze the effects of poor quality units.



 

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  • 2 weeks later...

@kinophile's post about BFISTs on another thread as well as a PBEM game I currently have going have inspired in me a few questions that could affect how I position and move my Observers (as well as others).

1) Sound Contacts;  does each vehicle have a unique sound signature and if so what kind of scale are we working with?  And how much does that sound signature diminish (if it diminishes) when the Hide command is used?  How much does it diminish (if it diminishes) when the crew is dismounted but the vehicle is not destroyed.

2) Visual signature;  Same concept.  With a given level of concealment and cover are humvees and tanks spotted at the same rate?  Or do they have unique characteristics that determine how quickly they're spotted.  And what role, if any, does the Hide command play regarding visual spotting.

Makes a big difference regarding which vehicles I choose to send forward to covert OPs and whether those vehicles will stick around near to the OP.

Edited by TheForwardObserver
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I remember reading somewhere here that Hide re vehicles relates only to sound, and is fairly limited. Any kind of tank hull travel increases likelihood of  spotting. 

I've personally seem 1km spotting icons of tanks that simply reversed a few ten metres. 

Humvee and like are less quick to pop up,  but again any movement ruins sound cover. 

Generally,  I go by if LOS is physically blocked (not foliage),  then both spotting  methods (sight/ sound) are blocked. If sight is not blocked hiding sound is not much use, and even if stationary the vehicle will fairly quickly reveal itself. 

Thence hiding my FO party busses behind buildings/Hill crests. 

I might pop a bus up to get a long range sighting,  but it's gotta be 3km+.

 Otherwise it's like putting a 19 year old frat girl in a sports bar - someone's gonna hit dat. ..

My $0.02.

Edited by kinophile
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@kinophile Do you factor in the noise of the vehicle when deciding a) how far away from your intended OP (and the enemy front) you dismount your FO team?  and b)how far away you park the vehicle?

I ask because I've been having a lot of success lately targeting enemy dismounted troop positions based solely on their vehicles' sound giving away their relative positions.  It's made me re-think my own use of vehicles to ferry troops to locations I'd prefer remain obscure.  I'm at the point where I'm reluctant to get my bradleys involved near the front at all until the enemy armor has been wiped out because I've got such a good idea of the enemy's forward line of troops based just upon sound.

I could implement a ghost drop scheme but that might be a little tedious and little guarantee that it's fooling the enemy.

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Fo all units that dont move at all from beginning positions get a concealment bonus.

Hide for vehicles does nada except shut the tank engine off. Only genuine use i could see is in MOUT if you had troops screening a tank or two and you hide them so enemy troops dont hear the armor.

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16 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

1) Sound Contacts;  does each vehicle have a unique sound signature and if so what kind of scale are we working with?

Yes, ish.  I am not sure if every single vehicle has a sound signature but there are definitely classes of vehicle - louder vehicles are heard sooner than quieter ones.

 

16 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

 And how much does that sound signature diminish (if it diminishes) when the Hide command is used?  How much does it diminish (if it diminishes) when the crew is dismounted but the vehicle is not destroyed.

Hide has some effect but not huge I do not know if dismounting has any effect or not. 

 

16 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

2) Visual signature;  Same concept.  With a given level of concealment and cover are humvees and tanks spotted at the same rate?  Or do they have unique characteristics that determine how quickly they're spotted.  And what role, if any, does the Hide command play regarding visual spotting.

Oh, yes the physical size and shape of vehicles effects how easily they are seen.  I do not believe that hiding a vehicle has any effect on it being visually spotted.  For soldiers hiding means they keep their heads down so they are harder to spot - but also spot poorly themselves.

 

16 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

Makes a big difference regarding which vehicles I choose to send forward to covert OPs and whether those vehicles will stick around near to the OP.

Interesting thoughts on this - I had not considered that before.

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4 hours ago, Sublime said:

Fo all units that dont move at all from beginning positions get a concealment bonus.

Now that is very intriguing.  Didn't know that mechanisms like this existed in-game. 
 

@IanL Thanks.  That info gives me enough of a lead to green-light some tests.  I don't usually bring humvees, but depending on how much quieter they are than BFISTs that could change.  

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15 hours ago, Sublime said:

Fo all units that dont move at all from beginning positions get a concealment bonus.

Per the manual this bonus only applies to AT guns. Unfortunately it doesn't actually work in the game right now, but probably will after the next round of patches.

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16 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Per the manual this bonus only applies to AT guns. Unfortunately it doesn't actually work in the game right now, but probably will after the next round of patches.

In hunting for that bit in the manual I've come across the statement "Slow vehicle movement makes the vehicle less likely to appear as a sound contact to the enemy" which is great to hear.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

@sypox  I'd equip FISTs and FOs differently, just as BFCs done, but both would have Laser Rangefinders rather than Binoculars.  I'd go with the TRIGR LRF which has a FLIR that's good up to 900m at night.  It's 5 pounds and has the same magnification as binos.

The Company FIST manages the Laser Designation equipment in a mech infantry unit, so they'd be provided with the 35 lbs LLDR which has a thermal module for all weather/day/night target identification.  

No idea whether it's workable on BFCs end, so as a substitute I have a modded version of the game, where I've edited the Javelin skin to look roughly like a laser designator (missile/tube alpha channeled out, CLU left intact), changed it's icon to the LLDR icon (changed LLDR icon to a manpack radio icon) and I equip my FISTs with these.  For my platoon FOs I try to grab M4s with TWSs from casualties.  

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1 hour ago, TheForwardObserver said:

No idea whether it's workable on BFCs end, so as a substitute I have a modded version of the game, where I've edited the Javelin skin to look roughly like a laser designator (missile/tube alpha channeled out, CLU left intact), changed it's icon to the LLDR icon (changed LLDR icon to a manpack radio icon) and I equip my FISTs with these.  For my platoon FOs I try to grab M4s with TWSs from casualties.  

+1

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@Sublime I've tried using HIDE on vehicles but the engine sound keeps running.

 I don't know if that's just an artifact of the games sound/interface design (ie no link up between the hide command and the sound engine) but it doesn't seem to delay being spotted much -  ie I keep getting spotted pretty quickly. 

I need to do some proper tests 

Maybe I'm just unlucky... Or crap at positioning... 

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Kino - first of all stop running your tests after ur irish coffee and guinness for breakfast ;p

No ok so one - vehicles or any unit that dont move from setup ge5 a concealment bonus. In BS with American thermals the bonus is well... bs lol. But its somewhat noticeable in WW2.

Hide for vehicles.. it does elminate the sound signature ijust think the game plays the noise but its considered off. However i think its really useless. For one if your hiding behind buildings you really need even a sacrificial lamb infantry team in the building near the tank closest to the enemy so the tank doesnt get killed by enemy infantry. Also if your Russian playing as Americans and youbdont have a tunguska to shoot down those drones start expecting precision strikes. My rule of thumb is that after ever couple of minutes ill give a tank a one or two m backup then forward then back ad nauseum. They dont rlly go far enuff to break cover but it drastically improves the chances of only 1 exaclibur round hitting thebtarget or none at all. Of course if you got a tunguska you can eliminate that threat. If youre not playing Ww2 you cant play like ww2 e.g. crawling or hiding in wheat fields to ambush tanks and stalking armor in woods. Its suicide for redfor. For blu for the best thing you can do if your drones are shot down ( before advancing you should try to let your abrams and brads pick off any long range shots. Then you should put small javelin teams all over to pick off more armor. Often once one drone gets shot down i call them all off until i can javelin the tunguska or get a tank shot. But the javelins like a 98 percent kill and very easy to get close enough ( they got fantastic range ) to spot redfor armor that provably wont see you. 

However against the US even deep woods are hopeless. Only at extreme range if u have trenches for kornets or somrthing and trust me they wobt last.

The only real cover agaijst th US thermals for redfor are buildings  or solid earth. Or hiding behind buildings. Otherwise a brad or abrams can do what no other tank in cm can do. It can swan slowly thru deep woods completely alone and more than likely completely erdicate whole platoons of russian infantry trying to kill it...

Question - US stingers only shoot at russian planes and helos not drones rite?

 

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15 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Question - US stingers only shoot at russian planes and helos not drones rite?

 

I believe Stingers cannot target the Zala, but can shoot at the other two Russian drones. While I understand that in a real war American air superiority makes ground AA fairly irrelevant, it would be very useful to have some greater AA assets for American forces in CMBS. Maybe with the NATO module(s)?

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Are you sure? I really have this deep seated foggy memory of us all howling in anguish because the stingers could only target aircraft meaning drones could fly with impunity over US forces unless said US forces had a tunguska attached somehow.

This would also make sense - the only drone the US fields that can be shot down in game is also the only drone in game that can fire at anything.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I saw that. He has a point. Russian OTH support is pretty fricking scary. 

Of course, US overhead support (those crazy men and their flying machines) is even more scary, as one f-35 could slaughter a battery mid-fire, due to their insane firing heat signature, slow mobility and very obvious IR characteristics.

Even so, the US does seem to have drifted a little too close to a small quantity/high accuracy style. But theres always that massive manufacturing base back home - ie the US could make a hundred Paladins and transport them to theatre pretty damn quick, if needs be. Currently there is no need, but the production potential is there, latent and waiting.

 

Edited by kinophile
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