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Artillery Direction - Is there a way for me to fire just behind a hedge


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It is extremely annoying sometimes that a forward observer cannot fire just behind a hedge because he cannot see past the hedge. Whether an enemy has been spotted there or not seems to be irrelavent.

I assume this has been done for two reasons:

(i) The forward observer should not be able to call in fire where he cannot see.

(ii) The forward observer should not be able to call in fire when the passage of information has not fully moved down the line to him.

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Tried that and for some reason all the rounds went convieniently around the AT gun in a radius of 20m but hit everywhere else in the circle in a perfect pattern.

Besides that this method is extremely inefficient and in this case the circle covered less than 25% of the target area behind the hedge.

Also tried line but could not get a good line behind the hedge because I could not see there.

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Generally, if you've got a good LoS from your observer to the hedgerow, you can drop your mission in a line behind the hedge. IME etc. It's intended that observers can drop missions "just" out of sight: one AS back from the edge of "impenetrable" forest, f'rex. A point mission for ATG-killin' should certainly be able to drop there if the FO has a "target" icon for the ATG.

I thought that "Line" along a hedgerow put rounds just behind it. No?

Any mission will have enough dispersion that one AS either way isn't going to matter very much. Line behind, and half the rounds (or a bit under) will drop this side of the hedge, line on top and a bit over half the rounds will drop in front of it.

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Yes -- Womble has it right. Usually you can target an artillery mission just behind a hedge or other LOS obstruction. It is a deliberate design feature of the game that the LOS rules for plotting artillery missions are slightly more generous than those for general LOS.

In fact, I am doing this in a game right now...

If you can't plot just beyond a hedge, there must be something else degrading your observer's LOS.

One caveat: regardless of whether or not the game lets you plot the mission, rules regarding the observer being able to see the spotting rounds still apply. So be careful plotting artillery missions at locations where the observer has only very marginal LOS; if he can't see where the spotting rounds fall, the mission may well end up delayed and/or off-target.

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Does the observer need to see the GROUND at the place where the spotting rounds are landing ?

Sometimes the ground level of the tiles is slightly masked by something like an ordinary grass, the observer could easily see a crouched man at this tile, but has no LOS to the base of this tile. If a spotting round lands there, is it counted as "seen" or "not seen" ?

I't quite common that a unit, that is not positioned close to the ground, have actual solid LOS to only part of large terrain ahead, though it can see and spot _other units_ on a much larger part if the same terrain - even on tiles where it has no LOS to the ground. Because those other units also have some height.

I hope that spotting of an let's say 150mm HE round is done rather by casting some object (an object represending the huge explosion and the plume of dirt and smoke) - that has some height - at the place where it landed and then actually "spotting" this object by FO, than by simple check of "does the spotting unit has a formal LOS to the ground tile where the shell has landed?".

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Sure we can. I can live with that. But I would still prefer to put the center of the pattern about two tiles BEHIND a hedge, because that is the place where lot of enemy soldiers are now or will try to escape trough :). Why waste half of my HE on an empty ground ahead of the hedge ? I guess the change needed would be to allow targeting arty missions for about TWO tiles further than the LOS, not ONE tile.

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Does the observer need to see the GROUND at the place where the spotting rounds are landing ?

No; there is some allowance for this. I don't know exactly how it works, but based on testing I did back in CMSF days, there is definitely some sort of allowance in the game to account for the fact that a spotter may be able get a good idea of where a round impacts, even if he can't quite see the ground where the shell actually hits.

I haven't re-tested this in CMBN, but I don't see why they would change this and everything I've seen of spotting behavior in CMBN suggests that this game feature works in more or less the same way it does in CMSF.

But I wouldn't rely on this *too* much. In general, I assume my spotter needs perfect LOS to a broad area around the target point. If the above feature saves my ass when a round comes in further off target than I expected, great. Kind of the same way I assume I need to maneuver into a situation where I am pretty sure I will get first hit with my Panther to be confident of winning a fight vs. an M10 or a 76mm Shermans. If I judge wrong, the other side gets the first hit and the Panther's good armor saves my ass, that's great. But I don't count on this.

Also worth noting that one of the things that U.S. forces found extremely difficult about fighting in the bocage was targeting mortar and artillery fire accurately, since the bocage made long LOS difficult. So generally speaking, it should not be too easy to plot artillery concentrations in bocage terrain. This is a problem you should expect to have to deal with when attacking into bocage terrain. The defender, with access to TRPs, should be a lot better off.

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Also tried line but could not get a good line behind the hedge because I could not see there.

It's widely known that you can, in fact, call in artillery just behind a bocage or crest of a hill. It is even stated in the manual. A spotter is granted a "little extra" beyond what he can see with direct LOS. In your case, it seems like it's more than a "little extra". You're just going to have to move your spotter closer or to higher ground if possible.

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Okay heres a thing.At the very beginning of a scenario and only for the first turn and without TRPs,i believe you can call in arty or mortar fire without LOS,to any part of the map within range.I'm assuming the game is taking into consideration using a map and plotting co-ordinates.Why can't this be done all game if this is the case,it's what FOs do,they have all the necessary equipment radios ,grids,maps and the training.Why should they need LOS.

I played one game.where the FO had LOS to a target a field away.radio contact,mortars in C2 and because he couldn't actually shoot at the target with his rifle,it being greyed out he couldn't call in arty.Thought that's not right.

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Okay heres a thing.At the very beginning of a scenario and only for the first turn and without TRPs,i believe you can call in arty or mortar fire without LOS,to any part of the map within range.I'm assuming the game is taking into consideration using a map and plotting co-ordinates.Why can't this be done all game if this is the case,it's what FOs do,they have all the necessary equipment radios ,grids,maps and the training.Why should they need LOS.

So-called "map fire" is certainly possible, and was done, but generally speaking it takes a lot more advance preparation, and/or also requires resources like aerial spotters. In CM, this is abstracted by allowing such fire only during setup.

I played one game.where the FO had LOS to a target a field away.radio contact,mortars in C2 and because he couldn't actually shoot at the target with his rifle,it being greyed out he couldn't call in arty.Thought that's not right.
Not sure; it sounds like you may have been in a situation where the radioman or other member of the spotting team could see the location, but the FO/officer could not. Best way to deal with this situation is to either move the unit an action square to the right or left, or just issue them a face order in a slightly different vector, to get the team to re-orient in the action square.
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Okay heres a thing.At the very beginning of a scenario and only for the first turn and without TRPs,i believe you can call in arty or mortar fire without LOS,to any part of the map within range.I'm assuming the game is taking into consideration using a map and plotting co-ordinates.Why can't this be done all game if this is the case,it's what FOs do,they have all the necessary equipment radios ,grids,maps and the training.Why should they need LOS.

Pre-planned arty is called that for a reason. If you want to be able to have preplanned fires on an ad-hoc basis, buy some TRPs. They're available to both sides. The arguments for blind fire being disallowed have been repeatedly stated.

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Wasn't really my point,my point being you should be able to adjust fire surely albeit,the otherside of a hedge.Sometimes you can't,it can be fickle at times to get proper LOS for such a task.

As far as blind firing,i realise why it's not ingame and have read some of the previous posts.Again not the point i was making.

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Okay heres a thing.At the very beginning of a scenario and only for the first turn and without TRPs,i believe you can call in arty or mortar fire without LOS,to any part of the map within range.I'm assuming the game is taking into consideration using a map and plotting co-ordinates.Why can't this be done all game if this is the case,it's what FOs do,they have all the necessary equipment radios ,grids,maps and the training.Why should they need LOS.

The pre-bombardment is a way to simulate the "softening up" of defending forces before an attack. Don't think of it as a bunch of pre-registered spots that the battery has already recorded. Instead think of it as the 1 pre-registered spot that was picked before the battle. Since you're the battle planner, you get to pick the 1 spot that the artillery battery will pre-register.

Let me know if that's not clear enough. It's hard to put it in words.

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I recall playing one game where I had 4-5 TRP's and I used them specifically to target unseen but likely enemy rally locations behind hedges and treelines near my defensive perimeter. Worked like a charm and I wreaked great slaughter on the Jerries who were forming up to assault me from behind that cover. The eventual assault force was depleted by over one half even before it began.

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