Ultradave

Not too much different than how they were employed in WW2 really, at least for Airborne operations. Seize a vital piece of ground in the enemy near-rear and hang on to be relieved by mobile forces. That would be the mission in Europe should they have been employed there. Whether that was to cross a river and secure a far bank, seize an airhead or isolate a surroundable enemy force, would depend on the situation. We trained on what at the time was termed the Airborne Anti-Armor Defense (AAAD). It was a strong point mutually supporting defense in depth with all the AT weapons we could carry against an assaulting mechanized force, because of course as soon as you hit the ground they are coming for you. The air environment was likely to be pretty dangerous for large scale airborne operations. You need to have very good local air superiority to drop a brigade or division. That was unlikely, at least in the initial stages of a European ground war, and maybe for the whole course of it. If employed in a supporting theater (Middle East being the most likely), the most likely scenario was seizing an airhead and holding it until reinforcing mech units could arrive. This type of mission is much more likely to be used in an air superiority environment that in the middle of Germany somewhere. Third possibility is to hold down guerrilla opposition in Central American countries, in concert with Marines, which is another thing that was extensively trained. Again, air superiority is much more likely to be established. In both the first 2 cases the expectation was that we had to last 3 days without reinforcements. It takes a significant amount of airlift capacity to move an airborne division, and REFORGER would also be going on or even if at the time when we had already sent everyone to Germany we were going to, huge airlift capacity would be required just for supply. It would be smart to "stage" these units at the outset to make the lift a short one instead of all the way from the east coast. Dave

Hence the nervousness in 1983 when it looked to THEM like we were taking a page from their book. I read a while back that then SecDef Caspar Wienberger was shocked to learn later that the Russians even thought we would attack. Like, why would they think that? The US administrations did not understand the Russians. At all. They also didn't understand that the Russians were always worried about our nuclear weapons. Here in the US we always think we'd never use them first, just for defense. From the Russian standpoint, the US had already used them twice and they thought, we'd have no qualms about using them again. Again, Weinberger was floored when he found this out. We are lucky we are alive with both sides not really understanding the other's mindset, and some of the glitches in early warning systems that happened. Too much paranoia. Dave

Your general comment is well taken. Everyone is an expert. Actually BEING an expert in one very small area gives you a good perspective in how much you DON'T know. I was reminded of that every time I went to a technical conference. Even in my own field I sat there thinking sometimes everyone here is smarter than me. Not true really - everyone there has their own narrow area of expertise. One of my favorite things when I was teaching at NC State was going to a post doctorate symposium where post docs would present their research. There were 50 presentations selected from all areas of the university. One or ours was presenting but I was so impressed with all the others. So much valuable and fascinating research being done in so many different things. A lot of it to me was "I don't really know anything about this subject but I CAN see why the research would be really important." Most of my career was in industry though. But I loved the time I did teaching. It was great working with students. Dave

It's been so long that I can't remember exactly what the standards were that we were required to meet, but from a battery in a set position, if I remember, I believe we had to have the first adjusting round out in 2 minutes or less from the end of the call for fire being received. That would be the same for a FFE mission. We planned to be on the move quite a bit to avoid counter-battery fire, so a "hipshoot" where you get a fire mission while driving to a new position, I think we had either 6 or 9 minutes, can't remember for sure. 15 minutes to fire off the drop zone after a parachute drop. (THAT one is a real challenge). We were fast and consistently beat the required times. I had an excellent fire direction center team. My team sergeant was outstanding and we worked really well together. I think the times are realistic. In CW and BS the times are longer than what I would normally expect, but the electronic warfare environment is to blame for that. Makes it much harder to communicate. That extra time would simulate trouble getting the call for fire to the battery and communicating adjustments. Calculating data and firing the rounds wouldn't' be affected. So overall, yes, I think they are in the ballpark. Note though that I can only speak for US, British and Canadian (I've had experience on exchanges with British and Canadian artillery and they are much the same as the US). Dave

I have a PhD in Nuclear Engineering and a 38 year career in nuclear weapons, nuclear power and nuclear non-proliferation, so yeah, I'm an expert. That was their strategy back then. I didn't make it up. Allows mobilization and deployment under the guise of an exercise. Dave

Reading your question again I’m thinking maybe it’s confusing who has the data. The guns don’t have firing data for TRPs. The FDC does and sends that data to the guns for the mission. The FDC controls the execution of a fire mission after receiving the call for fire. The guns get provided type of round and fuse, how many, deflection, elevation and time from the FDC. Same for every mission. A gun crew has no idea whether it’s a TRP or target of opportunity they are shooting at. Dave (I also ran a FDC at both battery and battalion level. My favorite jobs I had. )

The FO's position is generally NOT known to the FDC (Fire Direction Center). And like I said, it's not really necessary to know. The FO is walking or riding with the infantry. The FDC will only know very generally where that is. That's why one of the parts of a call for fire is the FO providing his azimuth to the target. The FDC doesn't know WHERE he is except he's on that line plotted back from the target, but providing that azimuth gives them the FO's reference as to what the FO is saying is Left/Right or Add/Drop corrections. Plot those corrections, then calculate new firing data to that new plotted point as deflection and elevation for the guns. The guns don't get L/R A/D - they get deflection and elevation and time (if applicable) provided by the FDC, which is in control of the mission. Sorry, not sure which HQ are you talking about when you say in contact with the HQ? As a FIST Chief I was within reach out and touch distance of the infantry company commander so it was really easy for him to say "Get me some fire on this hilltop" or whatever. The FOs walk or ride with the Platoon Leader, so same thing there (CW period) In WW2 you usually had a FO with each infantry company, not platoons (talking US). So the FO might be with the Co Cdr in which case he'd get a request relayed from a platoon leader, or he could be up front with the lead or center company and then could directly call it because he's looking at it (whatever "it" is) Depends on the situation (that's a running joke in the Army "Depends on the Situation"). If you are going to call a fire mission on a TRP, the FDC has the list of TRPs and firing data for them and will send that firing data to the guns/mortars. If it's a grid location, then the FDC calculates on the fly data to hit that point. The guns don't have firing data. The FDC provides it. The guns have no permission to fire until the FDC sends them the elevation data. With that data they are free to fire. They will have already been told something like "battery 3 rounds HE, Time" of something similar while data is being calculated so they are busy getting the rounds ready to go. I know you keep talking about 60mm mortars and they generally will not have TRPs to work with. Pointless because 60mm mortars are always moving. No use having a bunch of TRP data, when you have to figure out new firing data every time you move for a short range weapon. They are meant to be close support weapons and they are more of a special case. There you would estimate range, figure an elevation to hit it, determine adjustments, dial them in, fire again. Thing to remember about TRPs is that they are preselected, then the firing unit calculates firing data to each of them FROM ONE KNOWN LOCATION. If they subsequently move their battery position they have to recalculate all that data - deflection and elevation and time from the NEW battery location to the TRP. Hope that helps. Dave

Both of those are easy in real life, and would certainly be done. The second is simply "Repeat, over" assuming that you want the same mission again immediately after. The FO can also request a mission final data be recorded as a new TRP, then making it easy to call another FFE a bit later, when "Repeat" wouldn't be appropriate. In the first case the FDC would automatically assume that the first FFE wasn't effective enough and more rounds needed, since no adjustment was given. The first would be something like FFE, same data, [new target description]. The FO provides the target description, and the FDC sets the mission parameters based on that (battery 3, or whatever, where "battery 3" means 3 rounds from each of all 6 guns - they will be fired as fast as each gun reloads, no waiting, unless there is some reason not to) So his initial mission description might have been something like "infantry patrol in the open" and the new one could be, say, "mechanized infantry platoon in the open" That gets a much bigger response from the FDC. Dave (amazing how this stuff comes back when answering questions )

Like coffee and donuts at the beach on a weekday morning. No one there yet. Just heaven.

Ah, right. Got the date wrong. I should remember. I have a good book titled “1983” that goes into much detail about that and a few other things. I just retired. Guess my brain cells started dying Dave

“Able Archer” Big NATO exercise. Russians were worried about NATO attack because attacking from a large scale exercise is what THEY would do. Exercise also simulated raising DEFCON to a high level and the Russians saw that. They were quite worried at the time.

It’s worth pointing out just for info that this is completely true in real life as well. Might have a rough idea of where company mortars are, but not the direct support artillery battery, Bn mortars or anything at a higher level. They could be anywhere. And really don’t care as long as they provide service Dave

The authors of a scenario can’t do anything it if the capability isn’t physically in the game. It’s real life capabilities and usage that would be nice to have the option to use in game. Maybe even a scenario editor option to turn on off based on country doctrine, training. Its the same as a TRP really except the calculations are real time on a target of opportunity. Dave

An accidental war was completely possible though. We almost had one in 1988 but saner heads prevailed, or at least made everyone pause enough to reevaluate what was going on. Dave.

I agree. I’d still like to see both though as they reflect real world use. Maybe someday. They’re on my wish list

The fire direction center does the calculations for defection (azimuth) and elevation for the firing unit. There are two general types of fire missions "Adjust Fire" and "Fire for Effect" that a FO would call for, and they are exactly what they sound like. So for adjust fire, one round at a time is sent out, the FO sends back corrections, and the last correction should be 50m, so you get close and then call, "Drop 50, Fire for Effect" and the battery or mortar section sends the FFE, whatever that is determined to be (which is determined by the FDC normally, based on the FO target description in the call for fire). Fire for Effect is exactly that. FO calls in a fire mission with coordinates, FFE, and target description and gets, say a batter 3 rounds on target. The possible error here is greater, unless the FO has a pretty much perfect location coord of the target. Sometimes that's possible (crossroads visible on a map for example). And of course, if you are in a hurry (and who isn't in combat?), you can abbreviate the adjustment, maybe "Add 200, Fire for Effect" rather than a couple more rounds to get within 50, realizing that the FFE might be less accurate, depending on how good you are at estimating distances at a distance, target movement, etc. What a TRP does for you is cut time by having firing data to that point already calculated, and typically TRPs are selected so that their location is accurately placed, such as a crossroads, the tip of a treeline, a bridge - anything that can be very accurately picked from a map. The battery (or mortar section) would have pre-calculated firing data to the TRPs on the list, including time round data, so that a FFE call can go out quickly. A typical use would be to specify "From AB001, Add 400, Fire for Effect, Infantry Company in the open" AB001 being the TRP number. We had TRP numbers assigned by maneuver unit in blocks when I was doing this. In either of these cases you are still going through the FDC, just different procedures/data. Of course if your FO is standing next to you or can shout, the mortar crew just dials in the pre calculated data. Keep in mind that 60mm mortar crews will be moving around a lot so TRPs are kind of useless for them. They'll know where the TRP is but have to recalculate the data anyway. As an artillery battery we knew we'd be moving a lot too, because counter battery location radar was something that WAS quite good back then. Rule of thumb was 6 volleys from a position and time to move. So when you set up in a new position first thing is to recalculate all the TRP data, which you may be doing in between on call fire missions. We had 2 plotting boards, but they'll be busy, because one is primary, the other is the checker, and they'd be plotting a mission AND repotting the TRPs simultaneously. We practiced this a lot. Now with the more modern titles, like BS, and SF2, the FOs have the advantage of GPS, so they at least know their own positions very accurately. Cold War, GPS was just coming available, not in wide use and certainly not to the FO level. Laser designators were just making their appearance, usually for designating for air strikes. Our XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery did have a limited supply of rocket assisted 155mm rounds (can't remember the name - first ones available), and those were final guided by laser. Pretty much just in field test mode then. Computerized fire control was in its infancy during the time covered by CMCW. TACFIRE was just being tested - computerized fire control system. Very bulky, kind of balky. We had FADAC (Field Artillery Digital Analog Computer). We never used it. It weighed 400 lbs, didn't work after being airdropped (we broke several) and was really slow. We could easily beat it with good old charts and darts, which did not change significantly from WW2, through Korea, Vietnam and the CW period. Same techniques, updated data, more radios to comminicate. I think most of this is represented in game pretty well. There are 2 things I'd love to see in CM: 1) The ability to call a FFE on a map location, without having any eyes on it or a TRP. In real life this is common. You might have a sound contact or saw a unit that went out of sight behind a rise or treeline and you'd call in a FFE on a map location. Might be accurate, might not. But you'd do it. 2) An initial call to shift from a TRP, rather than wait for the TRP mission and then adjust. Again a VERY common call for fire. Your last part is correct. Without a FDC and being significantly off line, corrections are going to be iffy for accuracy. I expect you'd do very rough in your head conversion of the adjustment, or the FO would do it before stating the correction. For example a 45 degree offset means .7x the stated correction, that sort of thing. Dave

I see. It doesn't take a lot of time to do the calcs to switch from the observer's iine to the firing line. And for mortars, time of flight is quite significant when compared to howitzers (factor of 2x - 3x depending on range), so that calculation is even less of the total time. So while it might be marginally easier to have an observer on the line of fire as opposed to a significant angle, that's going to be a VERY small difference in the total fire mission time. So for indirect fire I would not expect to see much difference in on line of fire or off line of fire FO location. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough with that by getting too much into the details of the data calcs. For direct fire, it should be quite a bit faster because the mortar crew is observing and rather than plotting anything, they will quickly convert a "drop 100" adjustment, for example, to a quick adjustment of the elevation of the piece and fire again. If you are using some kind of hybrid where it's sort of direct fire because you have someone a distance away yelling corrections or giving hand signal corrections (never heard of doing this btw), without firing charts, then being off line makes a difference, and the mortar crew would have to do some trig to convert. (much easier to have a plotting board than try to draw and solve the triangles). So in THAT sort of hybrid case, it should make a difference. This hybrid is what chuckdyke keeps describing. They are different things. But you specifically asked about an indirect call for fire using the fire support tab, which implies a FDC of some kind with therefore charts and darts with firing sticks/tables. I hope that's helpful. Incidentally, these basic indirect fire principles apply to howitzers as well. Of course, for direct fire of a howitzer it's a different thing entirely than with a mortar. Dave

Call in times for the initial mission delay? That would make sense. The initial call for fire includes the FO azimuth to target but that info is not used until the FO provides corrections on the adjusting rounds.

Ah, good. That's the question I answered with the discussion about azimuth to the observer and converting from the FO point of view to the firing element point of view. Dave

Whatever. He asked for experience virtual or real. I gave him real world. And I'm quite well aware of the definition of indirect fire, thank you. I'm done here. Dave

Here's his question. Whatever you discussed last week, RIGHT NOW he's asking about indirect fire and the FO's relative bearing to the target. The question is quite clear and so is my answer. Dave

No, he's not. He specifically stated indirect fire with "target, FO, gun." Lining up with the observer on the line of fire is much easier if you have no FDC. This is because without a FDC there isn't a way to plot the observer's line of observation and convert HIS right 200, drop 200, into what that means in left/right add/drop for the mortars to calculate new deflection and elevation numbers to fire. So if he is close to the line of fire (no matter the distance from him to target or mortar), his add drop left right will be the same as what the mortar needs to account for. Then "all" they need to do is convert range to firing data. The FO just needs to have a good estimate of the distance at the target location. Normally in indirect fire, WITH a FDC, it makes no difference at all where the FO is in relation to the target or firing element. In the Call for Fire (CFF) the FO will report HIS azimuth to the target. That's the compass direction from the FO to target. In the FDC you plot a back azimuth from the target. Somewhere along that line is the FO. Now when the FO provides corrections, you plot them in relation to that FO to target azimuth in meters L/R U/D (what the FO is seeing and wants). Mark the new target point. Then switch to the firing line and calculate new deflection and elevation to that new adjusted point. The FO can be anywhere. As long as HE (the FO) knows where he is, and can estimate reasonably accurately the range from him to the target and provide accurate L/R U/D corrections (which is why he needs to have a good range estimate from him to target), then the FDC can quickly convert his corrections into gun corrections.. Using a 60mm in direct fire, it's like having the observer right on the line of fire. Observe the rounds, estimate corrections, covert the distance in meters corrections to deflection and elevation corrections. Whump. Do it again. Dave

When I was Artillery School, it was always a running joke that some of the Marine instructors (we all go to Artillery School at Fort Sill, OK, Army and Marines, and instructors are a mix of Army and Marines), would keep the Marine LTs after class to tell them "what of all this good $hit you just learned about we DON'T have." So I think the USMC must have been worse off than the Army at the time. Reagan also had the good timing that he came into office when a number of the new, much higher quality weapons programs came to fruition, M1, M2, M3, B1, etc. Some had been started years before, languished and finally became production ready. William Perry as under-sec of def under Carter had much to do with that quality vs quantity push. (need enough qualitative superiority to overcome the numerical superiority). Personally, I was always grateful for Carter for the 2 very large raises we got in one calendar year. Made a huge difference in quality of life. Probably kept many good soldiers IN the military. Dave

Yes, that's pretty much it, and we were under no illusions at the time how difficult and how costly that was going to be. For example, as a Field Artillery officer, one of the important things we were taught about the nuclear artillery shells of the day was how to completely destroy them to keep them from falling into Soviet hands as we were overrun. I don't think anyone really had any confidence that REFORGER would actually have time to work, should it happen for real. Dave As for this comment, the Army back then was good. We were well trained, and we would have been fighting on "home ground". We knew every detail of the terrain and had prepared fighting positions and detailed tactics on how to use them and how to fall back and make an invader pay a price. Every inch of West Germany was well surveyed and mapped, and we trained over and over again on the course of a potential invasion. The issue is more that the Soviet Army would have been larger, and their equipment was equivalent or slightly better, with the huge advantage of a head start in passing out ATGMs like Halloween candy. They were everywhere. Dave

Lots of good advice here. I would add, as a former Cold Warrior myself, what was drilled into us at the time. Knowing the Soviet Army to be a very capable opponent, the mantra was : "If you can be seen, you will be hit. If you are hit, you are dead." None of this M1 Abrams shrugging off multiple hits. One thing that has been discussed is creating a shoot and scoot command for movement. It's especially important here, and it's worth spending the time each turn to work on moving tanks or TOWs up to good hull down positions, pausing so they can acquire and fire, and then reverse back to cover. If you stay exposed, waiting to move until next turn, as soon as you fire, there will be (usually) multiple incoming rounds. Dave