Tero

Originally posted by Iron Chef Sakai: I did not realize how big that tank actualy was until i saw that picture, for some reason i always assumed they were slightly bigger then a T-34 with heavier armor, sort of like a Russian Matilda if you will. Lots of armor but not a giant. Comparing the size of the T-34 and the KV-1: As you can (hopefully ) see the difference between the KV and the T-34 in size is not that great.

Originally posted by Rollstoy: So suddenly our listeners have 1 degree directional resolution?? Before we had what? 45 degrees? I was going with the example given. And if you remember I think I did mention that for a LP the resolution could be up to 45º. It could be less. The whole thing depends if the mikes had any directional features in them. The sound detectors used for detecting incoming planes had it. I am not sure the technology was advanced enough for observing arty. A human observer could use a direction wheel to get a reading on what he thinks is the bearing to the source. But he can not reliably give the exact time of the observation. A human observer accompanied by a mechanical unit can get the timing right and the direction down to an acceptable margin (ie. ruling out some of the possible positions). Since you insist that it was possible in real life ... do you have any proof??? We have seen plenty of evidence that three or four listening posts were employed! Indeed. And I do argee that more than two give more reliable results. But what was the barest minimum required for the formula to work ? I say you can make do with two LP's. Where is the historical support for two posts achieving the same? Working on it.... And, by the way: are you SURE that you do not mistake sound spotting with flash spotting, were accuracies of 1 degree should indeed be possible?!?! I'm actually working on the assumption both were used in unison rather than being used separately. Then again the Ozzie and the überFinnish experience seems to be contradictory. Seems there is a considerable difference depending on who you are surveying against. Of particular interes is the 50/50 share the flash ranging seems to be getting in both cases. [ February 19, 2002, 09:07 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Very correct! A true challenge for the Über-Listening-Post! </font>

Originally posted by Graaf Spee: Very nice pic But it actually proves that three sources are needed. With three sources you get three LINES. But with two sources you only get one line. If you instead had four sources (which seems to have been the case in the real world™) you would hav gotten six lines. Here are two pictures two (hopefully) prove my point. One teeny-weeny fallacy in your train of thought : as it is not a table top we are talking about at (say) 10km's four gun shots tend to blend in as one, if they are fired as a salvo within one second of each other. A guy at LP may be able to make out four different reports but he will only be able to say the general direction of the shooting without any distiction between the individual shots. The guns are withing 25-50 meters of each other anyway so at 10km's they might well be next to each other. If you had an observer that could tell exactly from which direction the sound came from it would of course be possible with only two sources. But I doubt that a human being would be able to determine it. This is what they trained these people for. IIRC all were competent FO's to begin with and they specialized in this particular field. They may not be able to give the exact direction but at 10 km's I think the propability of only two LP's being able to get a close enough fix on the source is high. Mayne give the general direction, but that would only narrow it down a little. If the base (distance between the two LP's) is wide enough any high school student could figure out the approximate location of the source. Can we all agree on this now? Two sorces is NOT enough. You need three and would like to have four. Two LP's are enough But the more the better. BTW: what was the OOB of a sound/flash ranging unit anyway ? Did they have men to man more than the required two LP's ?

Originally posted by Rollstoy: I do not understand your post, tero! To many points mixed up. That is RL arty field procedures for you. If you claim that two listening posts (without any direction finding) can locate a sound source purely by measuring a sound delay, then you are, unfortunately, wrong. The 13-00 is the Finnish convention for expressing direction. And as it happens I did try to point out you can not measure delays as such and alone, especially if there are multiple sound contacts being plotted. It is fairly easy to plot a single gun firing a single round but try to keep up with multiple batteries doing max ROF all over the horizon. Re-reading your post I see that you mention direction finding! Not direction finding as such. The directions are already known, the observer notes them when he does the observation. Station A: "Gunfire, multiple shots at 13-00 (I know, the direction given is too precisise but lets ride with it) 1200,30hrs". Station B: "Gunfire, multiple shots at 11-30, 1200,33hrs" How is this supposed to work? Does it not contradict to your 45 degree perception statement?! Perhaps the 45º arc is too wide. But given such things as echo, athmospherics etc that is about as wide I personally would allow for as being realistically accurate. You can give only a general direction of the sound you hear if you can not actually see the source (a fact of life I think). The fine thingies displayed were for listening to approaching aircraft and to pinpoint their location. No such luxuries for the arty pukes at the front line. Any FO (well, überFinnish anyway) had the landscape in front of him ID'd and directions pre-noted in the 00-00 convention for arty direction purposes. LP's and flash ranging stations had the same data. If you note a sound coming from a certain quarter at XX:XX,xx hrs you can do a simplish trigonometry calculation from two points, provided you are certain the reports are of the same sound.

Originally posted by Cpl Carrot: I was generally talking about GPS. Which is basically a triangulation affair through and through at 300km's rather than a (basically) a simple excersise in trigonometry at sea level. However even on the ground you need the third to tell you whether the sound was in front or behind (of course the sound should be front or their might be some upset arty boys ) Not to mention some rather PO'd senior officers. That is the basic assumption. And that is why you can get the job done with two listening stations. And I think all the nice graphs and calculations are a bit amiss because without flash ranging you can only pinpoint the sound at a 45º arc (human sense of hearing being what it is). And this being the case you can not backtrack the start of the sound because you can not get a reference on the timeframe. This is why the guys doing the actual ranging have to use simple trigonometry rather than applied maths as seen here. And for that you need only two stations. Lets say station A gets an audio at 1200hrs 30secs from (say) direction 13-00 and station B at 12hrs 33secs from (say) direction 11-30. With a 3 sec difference (assuming the base line between the two stations is wide enough and the speed of the sound is constant and there are no impediments and no echo) a third station plots the reports on the map (the plane as we call it in the coastal arty ). As more stations report the audio in the better but you can get a fix on the sound source with just two LP's. QED, I think.

You need three points because the world is a sphere (well close enough). Two points gives you a point on a plane (a flat surface). I guess if you believe the world is flat then you will need only two. </font>

Originally posted by killmore: I won anyway but since when Finns joined the British army? Are you sure your Brits had not joined the Finnish army instead ? BTS I have the turn saved but you will probably not be able to reproduced this situation Silvio has. Allies 2 - Germans 0 so far.

Impossible. If they had been true Finns they would have reversed the tank into a safe location and put out the fire. And after plugging the hole made by the 88 with a log they would have come out again fighting like hell.

Originally posted by Andreas: As for the number of mikes - three are really the minimum, based on empirical data (although I still have to have a look at the link Brian kindly provided). The whole system consisted of four-six for a battery, spaced well apart. All this calculating stuff is really not very meaningful in this context unless you look at how the real life system looked like... What about flash ranging ? IIRC sound and flash ranging was done simultaneously whenever possible. If you have two mikes and one or two flash ranging posts I think there is no need for a third mike.

You can use screens that deflect the sound to so that they appear to generate from a diffrent location.

Originally posted by Juha Keratar: I'm definitely against using CMBB on the tournament, though not very optimistic about playing after the first round. Quit stalling then and send me the turn. :cool: How many squads do you have on the map that require coaching ?

Double post. [ February 12, 2002, 06:30 PM: Message edited by: tero ]

Double post [ February 12, 2002, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: tero ]

While pistol ports are nice I would like to know if the blind spots/areas are going to be modelled. In CMBO a tank can spot, aim and fire on a target which would normally be in the blind spot or more exasperatingly fire at in a location which the gun would not historically be able to fire at it (due to depression limits or what not).

No matter what it is called you still have to be able to heat the food in it. Otherwise the bratwurst will freeze onto it and then the soldier would have to eat the mess kit to be able to reach the bratwurst.

Originally posted by Slapdragon: The remaining would require extensive documentation (rather than urban legend) to bring in. Lets take the unit basic state of preparedness to set up field accomodations (gear they were allotted, tools etc). How would you say that affects the units fitness level and how much do you think that basic state of preparedness to set up field accomodations varied between the different armies ? But you are unlikely to get a -1 applied to all Germans because they ate Bratwurst in the field and a +1 to all Russians because they were dressed in uncarded wool underwear. If that Bratwurst is frozen solid the amount of energy the German soldier uses to knaw through and diggest it is not covered by the amount of energy the piece of bratwurst contains. So the German soldier is still cold, stays hungry and gets indiggestion as an added bonus. In the mean time the Russian wearing his uncarded wool underwear are warm if hungry. Which of them would you say is in better shape for the upcoming battle: the hungry Russian or the cold German having to **** through the eye of the needle while trying to keep his MG from freezing ? [ February 12, 2002, 06:47 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Smiler: Agreed, but it doesn't need to be hard-coded as FINN=APPROPRIATE_GEAR. I wonder. Even the appropriately geared überFinns or überSiberians get tired. What kind of a combo of settings would be required to model extremely tired Siberians not particularly taken aback by the weather against extremely tired Germans who suffer from the cold to boot in the same battle ? [ February 12, 2002, 06:36 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Bruno Weiss: Yeah but... We all know the effects of vodka on the circulatory system in cold weather and a truly accurate modifier would take that into account also. I hope you do know that from purely medical POV vodka is NOT what you want to drink if you feel really cold. The fact the red Army used it has more to do with force morale than the cold climate. On the other hand I know of a few instances when the Red Army unit would stop attacking to booze up when they came across a cache of vodka (not that it would have been beyond a Finnish unit for that matter ). And at leasts once a field kitchen full of warm food had the same effect on the starved Red Army soldiers breaking out of a motti. They died next to the field kitchen with their mouths full of sausages.

Originally posted by mensch: Oh look another, give the Finns and Russians better modifiers in Winter thread. look people did you see the German players saying "ooh ooh can you make the British troops worse since they haven't really worked out combined arms tactics, and the Germans perfected it!! I find it unfair that players can use combined arms tactics with the Allies, when in reality they were very underdeveloped!" [edited cuz of some damn url fix.] Except this here call for disparity is quantifiable and involves the universal effect of cold weather on all humans and how armies of certain nationality (and indeed citizens of certain nationalities) were better prepared for them than armies of another nationality. The differencies in tactics and doctrine are far more difficult to put in perspective. The cold, hard fact is that at -25ºC x wind chill factor you either have the appropriate gear or you don't, as simple as that.

On aural spotting and casualties: What has not been taken into account is the time it takes for the sound to travel. At ~300 mps the sound of a round leaving the mortar tube arrives (depending of the range of course) almost simultaneously with the first round. When you hear the sound of the round being fired you KNOW it is on its way and already upon you and you drop NOW. The same applies to guns with supersonic ammo. The Soviet infantry gun the Germans named Kratsh-Bum was nasty because the round exploded before you could hear the actual sound of the gun firing it.

Originally posted by karch: Because you would ASK for greater dispersion. If you can't see where you are firing and you want a better chance of hitting something "somewhere over there". Getting higher dispersion would give you a better chance of hitting SOMETHING rather than a nice tight pattern hitting squat. I figured this was accurate and correct. But not being a 33 year old WWII artillery vet, I really don't know. It just seems right to me. I'd probably ask for higher dispersion if I couldn't see where anything was landing.</font>

Originally posted by illo: Unless you have your tents in APCs and you have crossed a bridge too light for em. We had to wait those damn pioneers 8 hours with no food and shelter in -29C. Just goes to show how horses are better than mechanized transports under certain conditions. Even when the conditions generally favour the mechanized transports There i learned that sitting next to fire really isn't an option. Apart from your experiences: under actual combat conditions an open fire is the pits. Ruins your night vision and broadcasts your position to anybody within visual range. And you may not be able to move around. My clothes were covered in ice up to the hip Funny how looking back those experiences make you laugh but at the time it does not feel all that funny. [ February 11, 2002, 07:42 AM: Message edited by: tero ]

Originally posted by Cogust: The choice is not to send winter clothing or not, it's to send deperately needed ammo, tank, guns, food and fuel instead of winter clothing or not. It is interesting to note that the priorities seem to be inversely proportionate to the ability to sacrifice troops combat efficiency to the elements than to have them go short on ammo and fuel. The Finnish army could ill afford the man power losses to the elements and was thus well equipped for the winter. Some of the bigger armies, notably the Germans, the US Army and the Red Army seem to have disregarded at some point the manpower losses to the elements so as to be able to maintain the ammo and fuel supply at the operational level they have deemed is necessary. I'd rather be out of witnewr clothing than out of ammo/fuel as one can alwayd improvise the clothing somehow (throwing snow balls at the Russians won't do any good and tanks don't run on water). I on the other hand would rather have the decent clothes and take the arms and ammo I need from the enemy. Admittedly it will be hard to pry the rifles off their frozen hands. There is bound to be some lying around anyway. Their ammo is easier to take from their pockets.