Trey Marshall

One artilleryman here Trey

Its tough - it takes my system about 15-20 minutes to process a single turn. Trey

Released for beta test over at the scenario depot. For hard core CMBB micro managers with patience only. This battle uses a to scale map and historical combatants - read: Its freaking huge. 6 battles covering a single day engagement on the rolling steppes and farmlands before Prokhorovka as the Liebstandarte runs head first into the Soviet 29th Tank Corps and 9th Gds Airborne Division. This battle is intense as it features a couple hundred + tanks, half a dozen air sorties per side, artillery battalions, etc. You want to see a battlefield littered with dozens of smoking tanks - here it is. Don't even attempt to play if you aren't prepared for a committment. Trey

My Provhorovka scenario will have engagements up to 4+ km with rolling hills and little obstructions. Trey

I'm building a historical one day operation of Prokhorovka that will push CMBB to the breaking point. Its absolutely huge and its a massive armored slug fest. Trey

Yes, it is if it has been planned in advance. Firing HE and Smoke is not a standard practice and crews will experience delays if observers get "creative". Smoke is normally used to impact in front of the enemy to screen your own actions. But yes, you could tell the FDC any number of combinations beforehand. Also, planning nice smoke screens takes much longer than normal HE missions. In planning smoke, FDC crews have to consider the length of the screen, attitude of the screen, observer's requested duration of the screen, current wind speed and direction, etc. It easily takes about 5-7 minutes to get a good smoke screen downrange. If observers want smoke right away like under an ambush, FDC run an immediate smoke mission which is just a predetermined number of WP rounds at the target location. Way I look at in CMBB - TRPs (Targets to artillerymen - TRPs are for tankers and infantrymen) are used as preplotted targets that the FDCs/Observers/and gun crews have rehearsed in advance and have data precomputed. Any other targets are on call and thus subject to the longer delays. Trey

Speaking as someone who has been a fire direction officer in a field artillery battery - it is not as simple as reloading new HE shells into the breach and firing away. The Observer would have to tell the Fire Direction Center (FDC) to change shell type to HE and the FDC would have to calculate brand new data for the battery. Then the commands would have to be sent down to the guns. Then tubes laid on proper data and then loaded. Roughly: FDC to recieve change of shell type: 15 seconds FDC Computes new data: 45 seconds FDC sends data to guns: 15-30 seconds depending on comms Gun relays on target: 30 seconds Reload and fire: 15 seconds Total time: 2 minutes roughly. Variables can add time especially comms and training of observer/artillery crews. Trey

Working on a historical Prokhorovka operation. Its huge and will be heaven for the micromanagers out there. Trey

I don't know if TRPs are modeled like this. In field artillery, we use "priority targets" where one target is allocated to main effort maneuver forces. Each battery can have only one active priority target at a time. Basically, the battery "lays" on the target when not engaged in an active mission so when the observer sends "Fire Red!" Red being the Priority target, all the battery has to do is load the shells and fire since data is pre-computed. In the defense, priority targets are normally final protective fires which are linear targets plotted along the most likely enemy avenue of approach. When recieving an order tyo fire the FPF, the battery will fire until the FO requests "Cease Loading." FPFs are stop gap measures to prevent defenses from being overrun. In the attack, priority targets would be plotted in the areas that would have the most impact on the battle. So realistically, you should only have one priority target (TRP) per FO team. As a minor note here, TRPs are used by maneuver forces to designate ground references for direct fire fights while Targets are used by artillery. Anyone in artillery calling targets "TRPs" would receive a good drubbing. Trey [ October 01, 2002, 07:23 PM: Message edited by: Trey Marshall ]

I think what you are referring to are batteries laying on priority targets or FPFs (Final Protective Fires). Yes, it was and is common but only for the main effort forces. Trey

Armored Roadblock Small, 4 battle historical operation, dealing with the 6th Panzer Division's attempt to dislodge a single KV-2 tank. Posted at the "Scenario Depot" at http://ns9.super-hosts.com/~dragonlair.net/combatmission/. Don't know how long it will take to get put up so feel free to email me if you want it sooner. Trey