Any 'real' artilllery men out there?

[MikeyD]

A CM1 question with implications for CMx2.

Can anyone tell me what the 'footprint' of a typical artillery/mortar strike is? Yeh yeh, I know, it all depends on the gun system, the range, the humidity, the competence of the crew, the tides, all that. But I mean generally speaking, is there anyone with artillery experience out there that sees the CM1 105mm artillery dispersion pattern (for instance) as unusually tight or unusually open?

In CM1 I seems to be able to safely position my men MUCH too close to an artillery barrage. Maybe in the new engine we should expect a few more short rounds and long rounds, AND a renewed respect for a 105mm round's 100m kill radius!

[flamingknives]

Well, JonS is our resident artilleryman. As he's a Kiwi, that makes it 10am there or thereabouts.

JasonC may well have something to say on the subject too.

[Bonxa]

One thing to consider is that part of the safety equation is the possibility that they aim wrong so to say. Pattern spread and error on the aiming point are different things but they both add to how close you could place your men to the expected impact point. In CM we usually hit right on target but with a little spread. In RL you would have to allow for lousy artillery men as well.

[JonS]

Now-a-days, a standard engagement for a 105mm bty (6-8 guns) is 'circular 70', meaning the rounds are arranged evenly around the circumference of a circle 70m in diameter (and poss with one at the centre point ... I forget right now). The reason for this is that the lethal zone of the rounds is 35m, so what you end up with is (in theory) even distribution of fragments across a circle 140m across. The other main type of mission distr is 'converge', which is basically the same except the circle is 35m in dia, not 70. Gives higher frag conc for smaller targets.

However, the only thing that makes this practical is computing power in the CP to figure out individual gun bearings and elevations. In WWII these kinds of missions could be done, but the calc'ing overhead was generally too high. Then again, given enough time to prepare, you can set up any pattern you want. 161 Bty, RNZA, fired a manually calculated mission with illum rounds (set to ground-burst) that spelled out '161' on the side of a hill in Vietnam, to commemorate something or other.

Anyway, because of that WWII guns generally 'followed' the adjusting gun of their bty, applying exactly the same bearings and elevations as the adjusting gun (this is also known as 'lines of fire parallel', for obvious reasons). What this means is that - ignoring environmental conditions - the rounds fell at the target in the same pattern that the guns were laid out on the ground. In the RA, at least, the guns were laid out in approximately straight lines, perpendicular to their 'centre of arc' (the line along which most targets were expected to be engaged). The guns were placed about 70yds apart, IIRC, again with the intent that the apce between guns - and therefore their rounds at the target end - would be bridged by the lethal zone of the round. This meant that, generally, the RAs rounds fell in the pattern of a straight line along the frontage of enemy units (or whatever te target was), although out on the flanks (away from the centre of arc) the line would be at oblique angles to the target.

Erm ... does that answer the question?

JonS

(and yes, JasonC is another resident Gunner)

[ August 25, 2005, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[MikeyD]

Artillery (even Shermans being used for indirect fire support) was trained to a fairly high standard, from what I can tell. Parallel sheaf fire, converging sheaf fire, open sheaf fire, walking barrages, Time-On-Target firing, etc. One old Pacific jungle fighter was telling me that after they'd captured a Japanese P.O.W. and got him behind lines the first thing he'd often ask to see was the amazing American "Automatic"artillery. They could not believe U.S. artillery wasn't operated mechanically.

Of course like anything, you've got your pros and your duffers. Green replacements on their first mission most probably weren't operating at 100%.

[JonS]

BTW, I wouldn't call myself a 'real' artilleryman, but I have played around at it for a fair while.

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Of course like anything, you've got your pros and your duffers. Green replacements on their first mission most probably weren't operating at 100%.

Mmm. I'm not sure about that. Everything I've read about artillery leads me to believe that the drills they used left everyone at pretty much the same level.

Mistakes and errors did (and still do) occur, of course, but that was likely to be due to fatigue (cocking up a calc, or mis-applying an elevation because you're too tired to see straight), faulty ammo, poor understanding of tactical situation (FO calling fire down on friendlies he didn't know were there), using old met data because nothing better is available, etc. The kind of things that can happen to n00b or vet alike.

The difference I'd expect to see between a vet bty and a n00b bty is in speed, not accuracy. Faster to set up ready to fire, faster to calc new msns, faster to lay and load the guns, FOs faster going through their drills, faster more efficient radio talk, etc.

BTW, I said in my post above that any pattern of fall-of-shot is possible, even practical, for WWII, but anything fancy takes a lot longer to calc and get to FFE than a std Immediate Neutralisation (IN) msn using lines of fire parallel.

In CM terms, think of it as fancy patterns can be used for pre-planned bombardments (which assumes all the calcs have been done before battle begins), but once play has started only IN msns can be called for.

In either case (fancy or IN) ROF and number of rnds should be adjustable on a per-msn basis (although perhaps not adjustable once FFE has commenced)

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JonS:

Now-a-days, a standard engagement for a 105mm bty (6-8 guns) is 'circular 70', meaning the rounds are arranged evenly around the circumference of a circle 70m in diameter (and poss with one at the centre point ... I forget right now). The reason for this is that the lethal zone of the rounds is 35m, so what you end up with is (in theory) even distribution of fragments across a circle 105m across.

Er, pardon me, but shouldn't that be 140m? I.e., 70 for the circle and 35 on each side?

Michael

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Er, pardon me, but shouldn't that be 140m? I.e., 70 for the circle and 35 on each side?

Yes, quite. Brain fart on my part. Sorry for the confusion.

One handy feature of a footprint that size (circle 140m across) is that it nicely encompasses a typical pn position. Since an FO always has access to at least a bty, and an FO typically travels with a coy, and a coy typically shouldn't tackle much more than a pn by itself (3:1 and all that), it all fits togehter quite nicely, and standard SOPs can react to standard situations swiftly and efficiently.

Regards

JonS

[0811]

I was USMC Cannoneer 1984 to 1992. 105's and 155's. Cannoneer is the correct term, not artilleryman

We had a couple M114A1's (155) and M101A1's (105)WWII vintage howitzers in out battery. I wasn't Fire Direction Control (FDC) or Forward Observer (FO), I manned the gun my entire tour.

The sights on the M114A1 and M101A1 were original WWII issue with new lenses inserted. These guns are very accurate as long as the aiming points remain steady. The liability lies in the gun crew itself.

I'll help provide as much info as I can. I await your reply. :cool:

0811

[JonS]

Originally posted by 0811:

Cannoneer is the correct term, not artilleryman

Well, actually 'Gunner', but I'll forgive you We had the M101A1 for a while too. Nice gun ... were you around to see it replaced by the M119?

You don't know Jim Weller by any chance, do you?

[0811]

Originally posted by JonS:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 0811:

Cannoneer is the correct term, not artilleryman

Well, actually 'Gunner', but I'll forgive you We had the M101A1 for a while too. Nice gun ... were you around to see it replaced by the M119?

You don't know Jim Weller by any chance, do you? </font>

[Thomm]

REAL men don't use artillery!

[Andreas]

Real men don't use anything but artillery.

[Mace]

Originally posted by 0811:

You aren't a US Army Ft. Sill graduate are you ?

Actually JonS and another forum member Bastables make up the entire New Zealand Army.

[ August 26, 2005, 04:57 AM: Message edited by: Mace ]

[SHP]

I admit to being a former field artillery 13A type who instructed at Weapons Dept, USAFAS in the early eighties and commanded a M101A1 battery later. I'm somewhat dismayed by the width of the sheafs fired by the German 105mm systems, which were comparable to the M101 system. They appear wider than my experience. I was trained in a manual fire direction environment at a time when the FADAC computer was the extent of our automation. I later served in a 155mm battalion that had TACFIRE at the battalion FDC. Appropiate enough for the types of missions we shot.

Still, our KIWI gunner is correct, for the most part. Modern fire direction lends itself to the automated computation of circular sheafs, for the obvious motive of increased/enhanced lethality. Modern fire direction systems are so much quicker, thus the circular sheaf becomes both practical and desirable. Piece displacement corrections make the new battery position unrecognizable to a Vietnam/Korean/W.W.II vet, yet still attack a circular sheaf 140 meters in diameter.

Not so back in the day. Individual gun corrections to achieve that accuracy would have mangled the FDC, and the fire commands to the guns would have been simultaneously confusing and tedious to all but a battery manned by experienced section chiefs from top to bottom. Gun formations, therefore, would reflect the sheaf downrange. For me, every photo of a German, Soviet, or U.S/British battery showed line or lazy W formations-best command and control, communication (FDC wire only to the X.O in many cases!) & deployment considerations. I actually much prefer the 120mm as my direct support indirect fire weapon of choice, and avoid . Much faster response (1-2 minutes instead of 3 minutes), faster rate of fire, tighter sheafs, and greater lethality. I don't agree with the 120mm faster response, however. Initial computations would be as slow, or slower in a 120mm platoon FDC, following the initial call for fire request.

[SHP]

"...Gunner ?? Not in the USMC. Maybe in the (cough, cough)US Army ."

Actually, 0811, my instructor group at Firing Battery Branch, Weapons Dept. included a Marine "Gunner", not gunny. This gentleman had been promoted from E-1 through 0-3 (mustang OCS Marine captain in Vietnam, RIF to WO1 and promoted through WO4. As a warrant-4, he was the junior ranking member of our instructor group. Nobody, however, carried more authority than him, excepting the branch chief, a Marine major. Gunner Boise was his name, and had served in the Corps longer than I (a new Army 2nd Lt.) had been alive. He was one of only two "Gunners" in the USMC at the time, and the title, btw, is uniquely Marine. We have no "Gunners" in the Army.

[JasonC]

Existing CM sheafs are too tight, corresponding to the shot pattern of a single gun rather than a battery. The long thin ovals are correct for the dispersion of shot from one, but not from all. For a point sheaf, the pattern would be only slightly larger, mostly in the short axis (from ovals overlapping in slightly different orientations). But point sheafs weren't common.

The normal thing would be a parallel fire direction as others have mentioned. The result would be a pattern as long as the present ones but stretched considerably in the currently narrow dimension, ending up as a box oriented the other way with several times the open area. Which is closer to what a "target wide" sheaf gives now.

Open sheafs, fired by having the outside guns aim at deflections slightly different from the inner ones, would be wider still, up to 400m. That sort of thing was used for harassing missions, firing at an entire terrain feature (like a town or large hill mass), sometimes counterbattery with the intent to suppress.

The other thing that was common in the real deal was fire by battalion concentration rather than single batteries, for fewer shells per gun. Instead of 4 guns firing for 3 minutes, 12 guns would fire for 1 minute, for example. The batteries fired at similar aim points rather than parallel in that case, but the aim of those points would not be exact. You could get a pattern as large as an open sheaf, but with a lot more shells arriving per unit time.

What all these more realistic sheafs have in common is it was vastly harder to play "dodge" and get out of the beaten zone, than it is in CM. In addition, the effect of serious arty - even just 81mm mortars - was vastly higher against moving men than against stationary, prone ones. CM has the lethality about right for the prone ones, but too low for people trying to move around. (Just going prone can reduce chances of getting hit by a factor of 10). As a result, the first flight of shells was much more likely to hurt people than the later ones, favoring short missions.

Wider area, don't move, add up to wide pinning effects from artillery fire that you don't see in CM today. Uncertainty about whether more shells were coming tended to extend this far past the actual firing time. On the aiming side, the missions were fired in much more "bludgeoning" fashion at whole areas known to contain enemy, rather than as "scalpel" shots on individual spotted units, adjusted to chase a platoon at a time, etc.

Note that the greater danger when moving extends to friendlies, out to significant distances. 400 yards was considered close for a fire mission aim point, and 200 yards was considered "danger close" (all friendlies need to be prone and preferably under hard cover).

FWIW.

[MikeyD]

"...vastly higher against moving men" with the possible exception of Rambo, who had the uncanny ability to run between mortar blasts!

So what would you suggest as changes for an accurate CMx2 artillery foootprint? It sounds like the area should be more dispersed with no oval fall pattern - roughly on par with CMBB Katyusha rocket fall? And that it should more thoroughly surpess movement in the general area.

This may be one of those times where increasing the game's accuracy may decrease its playability!

[dalem]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

This may be one of those times where increasing the game's accuracy may decrease its playability!

I'll be the first in this thread to trot out the old John Hill comment about his design for the artillery mechanics in Squad Leader. Basically he said that in his game it's hard to get artillery support, and generally less effective when it arrives, specifically because he felt that realistic artillery could not help but dominate every scenario in which it appeared.

Could be another reason that Steve wants to keep the scale down to under a battalion. In those battles maybe we're best served by assuming we're moving in after the real heavy stuff has already come down.

Not that a steady shower of 81mm over a 200x200m area is going to be any picnic either.

-dale

[0811]

Originally posted by SHP:

"...Gunner ?? Not in the USMC. Maybe in the (cough, cough)US Army ."

Actually, 0811, my instructor group at Firing Battery Branch, Weapons Dept. included a Marine "Gunner", not gunny. We have no "Gunners" in the Army.

JonS was referring to the name given to anyone in the MOS of Artillery. I'm aware the the US Army doesnt have gunner for a rank. I'm assuming in the army they call anyone on a gun crew a "Gunner". In the USMC anyone with the Artillery MOS is a CANNONEER. Yes the USMC has gunners as a rank which they did away with back in the late 80's however, they brought back that rank as of 2 yrs ago (2003).

Regarding the 105MM, I was the A-chief for my gun and we conducted many direct fire missions using Line of Sight. As posted previously by the battery Commander, an experienced crew is invaluable. My experience using the gun sights for direct fire is, after the 3rd or 4th time having done this type of firing, you become very effective at it.

Combat Mission needs to model the command for the number of rounds you can fire for a fire mission. i.e. "Fire mission, 6 rounds, shell HE" or "expend all remaining" when the situation gets desperate.

As far as the patterns modeled in CMxx, I suspect the WWII gun crews fired rather sloppy patterns due to the conditions they operated in. However, with a forward observer present, I think the patterns should get tighter the more they fire based upon the corections radioed in by the FO.

My 2cents worth.

0811

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by 0811:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by SHP:

"...Gunner ?? Not in the USMC. Maybe in the (cough, cough)US Army ."

Actually, 0811, my instructor group at Firing Battery Branch, Weapons Dept. included a Marine "Gunner", not gunny. We have no "Gunners" in the Army.

JonS was referring to the name given to anyone in the MOS of Artillery. I'm aware the the US Army doesnt have gunner for a rank. I'm assuming in the army they call anyone on a gun crew a "Gunner". In the USMC anyone with the Artillery MOS is a CANNONEER. Yes the USMC has gunners as a rank which they did away with back in the late 80's however, they brought back that rank as of 2 yrs ago (2003).

Regarding the 105MM, I was the A-chief for my gun and we conducted many direct fire missions using Line of Sight. As posted previously by the battery Commander, an experienced crew is invaluable. My experience using the gun sights for direct fire is, after the 3rd or 4th time having done this type of firing, you become very effective at it.

Combat Mission needs to model the command for the number of rounds you can fire for a fire mission. i.e. "Fire mission, 6 rounds, shell HE" or "expend all remaining when teh situation gets desperate.

as far as the patterns modeled in CMxx, i suspect the WWII gun crews did ratehr sloppy patterns due to teh conmditions they operated in. Hwevere, with a forward observer present, I think te patterns should get tighter the more they fire based upon the corections radioed in by teh FO.

My 2cents worth.

0811 </font>

[JonS]

Originally posted by 0811:

As far as the patterns modeled in CMxx, I suspect the WWII gun crews fired rather sloppy patterns due to the conditions they operated in. However, with a forward observer present, I think the patterns should get tighter the more they fire based upon the corections radioed in by the FO.

Ah, no. The tightness of the pattern has nothing to do with the FO.

The FO decides the shape, and corrects where it will land.

The CP (FDC, whatever) and the gun crews determine how well the pattern will be shaped. If your bty fired sloppy patterns, it was because of you - the det commander. Not your FO

[yuvuphys]

Besides nicer patterns, it'd be nice to be able to put together more complicated bombardment plans the first turn...something like drop 8 rounds on this hill right now, then 8 rounds on this hill in 5 minutes, then 8 more rounds on the original hill in 15 minutes...etc etc etc

[Kurtz]

Originally posted by JonS:

In the RA, at least, the guns were laid out in approximately straight lines, perpendicular to their 'centre of arc' (the line along which most targets were expected to be engaged). The guns were placed about 70yds apart, IIRC, again with the intent that the apce between guns - and therefore their rounds at the target end - would be bridged by the lethal zone of the round. This meant that, generally, the RAs rounds fell in the pattern of a straight line along the frontage of enemy units (or whatever te target was), although out on the flanks (away from the centre of arc) the line would be at oblique angles to the target.

Interesting, this is a kind of fire ission i miss in CM. The current oval pattern can be useful, but sometimes you would like it oriented along a treeline or similar target.

It is also worth noting that the effect of artillery IRL drops very fast because the targets go prone. And the ammo expenditure to achieve the same number of casualties increase at the same rate.

This is why it's useful (as JasonC mentioned) to fire more guns, but during a shorter time.

[SHP]

"...This is why it's useful (as JasonC mentioned) to fire more guns, but during a shorter time."

Massing fires rapidly is preferred in nearly all HE fire missions for the aforementioned drop in lethality upon prone troops. Western artillerymen today work to achieve "first round, fire-for-effect" massed fires through a variety of means utterly unavailable in 1941-45. Observer location, target location, and gun location were far more problematic then, than today. I suspect accurate maps in the east were a major problem. It follows that O.P. and gun position survey would be laborious in a static environment and nearly impossible in a fluid battlefield. CMBB seems to generate accurate fires early in the mission, something that I question given the above issues.

I play the Germans against the Soviet AI a lot. I'm disappointed most with the absence of Soviet indirect fires, even in the attack. Nor do those fires, when occuring, appear to be observed. The fires rarely adjust, and have the appearance of a pre-planned mission.

Gun-bunnies in the U.S. Army are 13B10-40 CANNONEER MOS. As for "gunners", the U.S. Army has a "gunner" on each gun system, typically manning the panoramic telescope to adjust for deflection changes. He still carries a 13B Cannoneer MOS, but his duty position is as "gunner". Also, the A.G. (assistant gunner)controls the elevation of the weapon.

I didn't know that the Marines abolished the "gunner" honorific in the late eighties, probably with the retirement of Gunner Boise. I'm glad to hear that they've brought it back.