Hilts Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Hi all! Here's the situation. Three man FO team calls down an off map mortar strike. Next game turn two of them are incapacitated in an enemy mortar attack. The access to the friendly planned off map mortar attack is now denied to the one remaining FO (as well as everyone else) despite him having a radio. It has now reached the spotting round stage and it seems that there is nothing I can do to adjust or cease fire. Why is this as I am now watching my mortar ammo supply dwindle with every GT that passes? If the guy has the radio why can't he just either spot correctly and let the strike begin or call it off? Cheers... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Didn't 1.10 solve this? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilts Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Didn't 1.10 solve this? Is it a bug then? I'm already running 1.10 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bimmer Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 It was definitely a reported bug in v1.01. I had hoped that 1.10 solved it, but this suggests that perhaps it has not. Ugh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Childress Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Hi all! Here's the situation. Three man FO team calls down an off map mortar strike. Next game turn two of them are incapacitated in an enemy mortar attack. The access to the friendly planned off map mortar attack is now denied to the one remaining FO (as well as everyone else) despite him having a radio. It has now reached the spotting round stage and it seems that there is nothing I can do to adjust or cease fire. Why is this as I am now watching my mortar ammo supply dwindle with every GT that passes? If the guy has the radio why can't he just either spot correctly and let the strike begin or call it off? Cheers... I recall there's only one 'Observer' on an FO team. If this guy catches a bullet you're SOL. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pak40 Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 The funny thing about this predicament is that the mortars still have to communicate with the dead spotter to adjust the fire during the 'spotting' rounds. This really needs to be corrected if it's still the case. IMO the spotting unit is exactly that - a unit. All persons in a FO were trained to call in artillery, not just the leader. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilts Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Are we saying then that there is nothing to be done about it until the mortar runs out of ammunition in about 60GT's time? You would have thought that if the mortar battery had not heard from the spotter that requested the fire say within five minutes that they would cease fire themselves. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 Are we saying then that there is nothing to be done about it until the mortar runs out of ammunition in about 60GT's time? You would have thought that if the mortar battery had not heard from the spotter that requested the fire say within five minutes that they would cease fire themselves. Not only this, but that they will refuse to communicate to anyone else for the remainder of the battle. "I don't care if you're Ike himself, I only take orders from FO Veeblefetzer. If he's dead, then your request is DENIED !" 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fry30 Posted March 21, 2012 Share Posted March 21, 2012 If its a bug, its a bug. If it isn't, I can see why. Want to know how? Scroll down the main forum page, and you'll stumble upon it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanzfeld Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 or not. Try not to be clever. or are you trying to refer to LOS. How could you possibly know that would apply here? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humbug Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Bumping this. Just playing a PBEM where I used a tank commander to call in a heavy and maximum artillery strike with offboard 25 pounders. A minute or so after calling the strike, with about 12 or so minutes before it would even begin spotting the tank was hit and only one member survives. This artillery is then blocked for usage by any other spotter, and even the surviving member himself can't abort or direct the strike. It has now started spotting on the other side of the map from where I intended it right in front of my advancing infantry. Quite an annoyance to say the least. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 If this is still occuring it may be something more specific. I had an FO team call in artillery fire and the team was eventually wiped out as the strike was being called in. The fire was resolved and the battery eventually was available for other observers. It may have gotten past the spotting rounds though, prior to the team being hit. I didn't bother with a save at the time as I expected this was fixed and it was performing as expected. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humbug Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Not entirely sure but I think it has always become available after the strike is concluded. The problem lies in wanting to abort the strike or direct the spotting rounds. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinOrLose Posted May 9, 2012 Share Posted May 9, 2012 Is there a definitive on this. My FO died during the spotting phase. Do I need to wait 150 turns of the off board arty firing one spotting round per turn until it runs out of ammo? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilts Posted May 9, 2012 Author Share Posted May 9, 2012 Is there a definitive on this. My FO died during the spotting phase. Do I need to wait 150 turns of the off board arty firing one spotting round per turn until it runs out of ammo? Well, in the example that I mentioned at the start of this thread, I noticed that after the observer was killed, spotting continued for about 5 or 6 minutes and then the mission appeared to be cancelled and the off map mortar battery became available to all again. Hope this helps.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WinOrLose Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Just an update. The fire mission took place, though delayed, on its completion the arty has become available to other HQ units albeit at about double the call in time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultradave Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 I recall there's only one 'Observer' on an FO team. If this guy catches a bullet you're SOL. By job title sure, but everyone in an FO team knows how to call fire and in an emergency (like the whole FO team is KIA and GIJoe picks up the working radio screaming for help), every mortar and artillery firing unit is taught how to talk an untrained observer through a mission over the radio. That includes first making sure it's a good guy on the other end of the radio :-) Dave - formerly (more years ago than I care to admit, and before everything became computerized) Fire Direction Officer of B Btry, 2/321st FA(Abn), 82d Abn Div. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 By job title sure, but everyone in an FO team knows how to call fire and in an emergency (like the whole FO team is KIA and GIJoe picks up the working radio screaming for help), every mortar and artillery firing unit is taught how to talk an untrained observer through a mission over the radio. That includes first making sure it's a good guy on the other end of the radio :-) Dave - formerly (more years ago than I care to admit, and before everything became computerized) Fire Direction Officer of B Btry, 2/321st FA(Abn), 82d Abn Div. That was the case when you were serving, but was it true in WW2? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultradave Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 That was the case when you were serving, but was it true in WW2? Really I'm old enough that I don't think things had changed that much since WW2. I'm not old enough to know first hand, though. :-) We had more observers than in WW2. A 2 man FO team (observer and radio) with every infantry plt and a 3 man hq team with the Co CO. But the techniques and equipment hadn't advanced that much. For the FOs, 20 something pound radios, binos, grease pencil and a map, and "charts and darts" and slide rules in the fire direction center. The rest of the Army had computers but we couldn't jump with any of that so everything we did was the old way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Really I'm old enough that I don't think things had changed that much since WW2. I believe you're right in terms of the proceedures, but not so much in terms of pushing that capability out to other personnel. Dr. Howard Carlson's memoir, for example, gives the impression that while /he/ knew how to conduct a mission, that knowledge wasn't diffused out to the rest of his team*. Spike Milligan's memoirs (seriously - there's a lot of good insights in them), Jack Swaab's diary, and George Blackburn's trilogy all convey pretty much the same impression. I have no doubt that there were occasions when Private Numbnuts or Bombadier Ballbags called in a mission. But I contend those occasions were exceptional, and as such aren't a good rationale for including that capability in CM. Jon * Also, FO "teams" in WWII seem to have very ad-hoc affairs anyway, with men coming and going very rapidly, meaning the horizontal dispersion of knowledge would be less likely and less robust. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Posted May 14, 2012 Share Posted May 14, 2012 I'm having the same problem only I have two men left. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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