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Artillery Effectiveness against Units in Buildings


c3k

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Gents,

Has anyone else given thought to the seeming lack of effectiveness of artillery against units inside buildings? I just got through POINT targeting a building with 105mm, GENERAL target type, MEDIUM intensity, SHORT duration. That 2 story building got hammered. Yet, only 1 enemy soldier was wounded. Yes, he was in the upper floor, as was his buddy - who remained unharmed.

This is not the first time this has happened. I like the fact that building interiors are not explicitly modelled, but if your building is taking MANY 105mm hits, fuzed to penetrate, um, wouldn't that wreak a bit more mayhem?

Like the owl and the tootsie pop; how may artillery rounds does it take to get to the center of a building? (And what happens when they do?)

I'd think a single 105mm HE round would render everyone hors de combat, if it landed in the same room/building, let alone about a dozen. The same for 120mm and 155mm rounds.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken

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I don't know a great deal about the technicalities of artillery (or buildings, for that matter). What I do know is that unit quality makes a BIG difference in-game in this respect. A few shells of any caliber into a building or trench will likely kill or at least bug out a squad of recruits, whereas crack or elite Syrian RGs kann be bombarded for minutes on end and mostly shrug it off. Even flattening buildings entirely sometimes barely damages the troops inside if they are high quality (which I must say I consider rather unrealistic).

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I don't expect to get kills inside a building until the roof is visibly gone. A fire mission of short duration usually isn't long enough to collapse the roof, even with 155s. If I want to make sure no one survives I flatten the building. But sometimes that isn't even enough. I recently played a game where a Tornado dropped its heaviest bomb on a two story building a few seconds before the mission ended (it probably caused the enemy to surrender). The building was completely destroyed, but there were still a few greens and yellows left alive.

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I am no longer starting to have my doubts. :) I think artillery vs. buildings is nerfed.

All the rest of this post assumes the artillery is NOT fuzed for an airburst.

Given the design of artillery shells, a pointy chunk of metal weighing from 35 lbs (120mm mortar) to 97 lbs (155mm howitzer shell) it is almost guaranteed to penetrate any non-fortified roof. In fact, one could argue that it's almost as if they were DESIGNED to penetrate things like overhead cover. :)

I've built many a roof... In the U.S. using plywood/2 by's. I'm sure the Syrians use something more concrete...like CONCRETE. I've travelled throughout the mid-East; I am NOT a building expert, yet, I doubt any roof there is designed to stop artillery projectiles.

Am I wrong? (I am quite willing to be proven wrong. If, for example, the various regimes enforce strict building codes, a la West Germany's, in an attempt to fortify ALL civilian structures, then their roof's MAY be pretty tough. Is this so?)

Now, you may scoff at my concern over this, but wait until Normandy. Won't you be wailing when your US artillery park cannot penetrate a thatched roof over a German MG42 team. So there.

Thanks,

Ken

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...fuzed to penetrate...

You know what they say about assumptions. :) Would a typical shell have delayed detonation? I thought the pointy bit was more for going thorough air then going through overhead protection.

With HE falling on houses assuming to have been made with concrete (though I believe in CMSF it's a bit of a fudge) I'd not expect all that much from 105mm. A few casualties on the top floor, but not wholesale slaughter. Which is what I'm seeing in CMSF. Thought I'll admit that expectation is quite subjective.

I find a 155mm or two quite sufficient to depopulate a top floor though. And if you are lucky and get a hit at the base or on the facade of the building, plenty of casualties elsewhere in the building too.

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You know what they say about assumptions. :) Would a typical shell have delayed detonation? I thought the pointy bit was more for going thorough air then going through overhead protection.

Pretty much every American mortar shell fuze I've encountered has an optional delayed setting. The fuzes are pretty standard, too. I don't know the SOP for artillery batteries and what fuzes they carry ready to go.

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There are a couple of fuze options, but by far the two most common are VT (prox/airburst) or Point Detonating (PD) which as for the mortars can be switched to delay quite simply.

With the fuze set to PD the round won't penetrate dirt, so expecting it to penetrate masonry is probably a bit much. With it set to delay it should probably go through one roof/floor of masonry, but no more than that (the 'delay' is about 0.05 seconds, and starts as soon as the round experiences a sharp deceleration. You can imagine how fast the detonation chain for PD must be ...).

Even with the round set to delay, it still isn't going to be as effective inside a building as a VT round against troops in the open because CMSF buildings have abstracted internal walls, which I take to be approximately the same robustness as the exterior walls.

Actually, FWIW, I think CMSF artillery is much too effective against buildings. Buildings are tough - look at Grozny, or any of the citys in WWII that experienced intense fighting. Syure, there is a lot of destruction from a civilian point of view, but from a military point of view there is always still an awful lot left to work with in the vertical plane. In CMSF, on the other hand, it is quite easy to completely flatten entire villages or city blocks.

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Actually, FWIW, I think CMSF artillery is much too effective against buildings. Buildings are tough - look at Grozny, or any of the citys in WWII that experienced intense fighting. Syure, there is a lot of destruction from a civilian point of view, but from a military point of view there is always still an awful lot left to work with in the vertical plane. In CMSF, on the other hand, it is quite easy to completely flatten entire villages or city blocks.

I almost want to say it's because players utilize converged sheaf AKA point target far more than I've ever heard of being done in real life.

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C'mon guys. You're saying a Syrian roof can protect against properly fuzed artillery? Really? (No airbursts, no contact fuze; if I call a strike against a building, I expect the red-legs to do their job and fuze for a delay.) Why can't the round get down to the ground floor??? Seriously.

How thick are the roofs? How strong is the material they're made of? How does that compare to stacked log and dirt overheads? What can a 105 or 155 do to those?

Why is it that lower floor occupants are NOT affected by rounds coming through upper floors?

No snideness meant; I'm quite sincere in trying to understand why it takes so many direct hits on a building to incapacitate a unit, let alone the many times the survivors are still fighting back. Abstract the interior all you want, a 40 meter square building hit by a 105 should not act like a bunker. (Or should it?)

Just remember this thread when you're facing thatched roofs in Normandy. :)

Ken

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C3K,

I get what you're saying but here's my two dirhams:

- Humans inside of buildings, as opposed to humans out in the open, have lots of extra cover from frag (walls, furniture, etc.) and being humans they will be very active indeed in finding that place that is safest from flying frag.

- Buildings by their nature are stuffed with stuff, and stuff intercepts frag.

- Pretty much all buildings have not just roof but attics of some kind, that's an extra layer of protection you may not be taking into account.

- Buildings are relatively large relative to humans, and humans (see intitial point) have a real tendency to make themselves small when things are going splodey on the building they're in. So just because a shell hits a building with a human inside it, doesn't mean the frag has a great statistical chance of hitting a human.

- Buildings very frequently have small spots that are especially good for hiding from explosions and fragmentation, for instance basements, bathtubs, interior closets, etc.

Obviously, if the building collapses you have a better chance of harming the humans inside of it, but personally I would be careful not to underestimate the ability of humans to try and stay alive, most of them will suprise you with how imaginative thay can be when it comes to figuring out a way to avoid death.

Personally, I think CMSF artillery is overly effective, when main gun rounds hit squads out in the open it might as well be nerve gas.

I find that if they're inside buildings CMSF infantry tends to get cut down over a very short time if there's a single roof over them, which is not right in my book, I would assume people under fire in a building would generally survive a short bombardment; and for practical purposes all CMSF fires are short bombardments.

But on the other hand CMSF soldiers with a whole floor between them and the booms, say they're on the first floor of a two story building, seem to survive very well indeed; and me I think that's excellent simulation.

Matter of taste of course, but if it were up to me I would dial down artillery effectiveness in the game, those nerve gas main gun rounds really fry my grits.

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C'mon guys. You're saying a Syrian roof can protect against properly fuzed artillery? Really?

Nope, nothing of the kind.

How thick are the roofs?

Depends.

How strong is the material they're made of?

Middle Eastern construction is typically quite **** and rebar seems to be their kryptonite.

How does that compare to stacked log and dirt overheads?

Fairly well. A few floors down and it becomes hands down building.

What can a 105 or 155 do to those?

105... IME, not much. 155 can do a lot, but tends to do far less.

Why is it that lower floor occupants are NOT affected by rounds coming through upper floors?

Huh? I'm not sure I'm reading this question correctly. For starters, they do take some suppression, obviously they aren't actually dying because the effects aren't reaching far enough.

No snideness meant; I'm quite sincere in trying to understand why it takes so many direct hits on a building to incapacitate a unit, let alone the many times the survivors are still fighting back. Abstract the interior all you want, a 40 meter square building hit by a 105 should not act like a bunker. (Or should it?)

Historically, there has always been a huge difference between perceived effectiveness and the real thing.

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C'mon guys. You're saying a Syrian roof can protect against properly fuzed artillery? Really? (No airbursts, no contact fuze; if I call a strike against a building, I expect the red-legs to do their job and fuze for a delay.) Why can't the round get down to the ground floor??? Seriously.

When I give a 'General' type fire mission then detonation on impact is exactly what I'm expecting. You have that control, don't expect your virtual artillery men to be mindreaders.

Have you tried the 'Armor' target type against buildings? I'd be interested in how they'd perform, been a long long time since I used it, TBH.

And l concur with Apocal on perceived effectiveness. Time and time again I read about bombardments or direct fire HE leading to high expectations and, almost invariably, disappointment regarding the ability to kill whomever is shot at.

It's not like arty is completely ineffective, just not the kill-o-zap you want it to be.

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Armour doesn't seem to ever make a difference against buildings, infact I'm not sure it's different to general in any way (just a placebo effect). Perhapse the armour setting should be taken out of the game? It could be changed to a new "Delayed" setting that does exeactly what's wanted for buildings.

The other problem I have is people on the roof of a building aren't remotly threatened by air-burst shells.

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Armour doesn't seem to ever make a difference against buildings, infact I'm not sure it's different to general in any way (just a placebo effect). Perhapse the armour setting should be taken out of the game? It could be changed to a new "Delayed" setting that does exeactly what's wanted for buildings.

I'm open to clarification on this myself. What exactly is the difference?

The other problem I have is people on the roof of a building aren't remotly threatened by air-burst shells.

Really? I seem to have very little trouble clearing rooftops with it. It's my SOP in any urban area to first have some air bursts to depopulate the roofs.

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Armor is supposed to be a more concentrated grouping of rounds in an attempt to hit a smaller target.

Since the last patch I have noticed that air bursts are nearly ineffective against troops on the roofs of buildings. You get suppression, but few casualties. I find I need to collapse the roof if I want to be sure the troops on the roof are killed.

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I assume the armour setting was put in back when BFC was going to put in copperhead type shells. There is apparently a tighter grouping with armour shells but it really so insignificant that it might just be a coincidence. The actual explosion from the shell and its effect is not observably different from general.

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Hmmm, look at this:

Okay, it didn't copy. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M114_155_mm_howitzer

Tabular data shows -

Concrete penetration, mm[4]

Ammunition \ Distance, m 0 914 2743 4572

HE M107 Shell (meet angle 0°) 884 792 610 488

Different methods of measurement were used in different countries / periods. Therefore, direct comparison is often impossible.

Meeting range to penetration shows at 4572 meters range the M107 shell should penetrate 488mm of concrete. Obviously shell type, geometry, impact velocity, etc. will affect the numbers. But the salient point remains that the M107 shell (which may or may not be applicable to CMSF) should penetrate about 1/2 meter of concrete.

Who says that Syrian roofs are equivalent to 1/2 meter of the concrete used in this test?

Agree with BigDuke6 - soldiers survive a LOT of blast and impact. Abstracted building interiors provide many nooks and crannies to help that survival.

I still think more shells should explode INSIDE the buildings, not on impact with these roofs.

Thanks for the discussion. Regarding the data I posted above, any thoughts???

Ken

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Who says that Syrian roofs are equivalent to 1/2 meter of the concrete used in this test?

Agree with BigDuke6 - soldiers survive a LOT of blast and impact. Abstracted building interiors provide many nooks and crannies to help that survival.

I still think more shells should explode INSIDE the buildings, not on impact with these roofs.

Thanks for the discussion. Regarding the data I posted above, any thoughts???

Ken

Hold up, wait a minute! Is your aimpoint at the ground floor a building, or the rooftop?

Something I found out a few weeks ago, aiming for the floors below the roof is the only way to get fuze delay. Otherwise, the FDC assumes you want to hit the roof and uses fuze quick/superquick. I'm pretty sure I made a post about it, but it probably got lost in the sauce.

Before:

http://i34.tinypic.com/34fb13c.jpg

After:

http://i33.tinypic.com/2ljpafo.jpg

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Hold up, wait a minute! Is your aimpoint at the ground floor a building, or the rooftop?

Something I found out a few weeks ago, aiming for the floors below the roof is the only way to get fuze delay. Otherwise, the FDC assumes you want to hit the roof and uses fuze quick/superquick. I'm pretty sure I made a post about it, but it probably got lost in the sauce.

Before:

http://i34.tinypic.com/34fb13c.jpg

After:

http://i33.tinypic.com/2ljpafo.jpg

That's good stuff to know....

However, what if you are trying to target a block of interior buildings? How do you target the ground then?

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