Bailed out tank crew call in artillery strike??

[Chris Ferrous]

Not noticed this before but it seems bailed tank crew (German anyway in my case) whose vehicle is a burning wreck can still access and call in an artillery strike even though they've no radio and are out of contact verbally or visually with any other unit.

This can't be right. Anyone else seen this?

BTW it landed bang on taget too!

[BigDork]

The part I find most worrisome about the whole story is the crew calling in an accurate strike. I cannot even get an elite FO team to do that. I swear I never get arty/mortars to fall on target.

[Chris Ferrous]

The crew had been in a recon vehicle (AC) so normally would be perfectly entitled to call a strike. Even if immobilised but the radio was working then no problem, but the AC was a burning wreck! They were not a FO team. The crew escaped over 200 metres away and sighted a target which they hit with linear fire in normal reaction time.

[John Kettler]

Chris Ferrous,

Dying to read the official explanation of this one!

Regards,

John Kettler

[c3k]

Well, since the enemy was beyond handgun range, the crew had no other choice but to use artillery. They are as accurate with the long guns as they are with the short.

[Michael Emrys]

It's well known that the Germans put the cream of their recruits into AFVs. These are men of godlike powers. Almost as good as the average Finn (thinks he is).

Michael

[womble]

The ability to call arty is tied solely to the continuing presence of the leader of the team or vehicle crew as a combat effective. You'll see the same thing if an HQ or FO's radioman is killed and the team deprived of the radio (either by battle damage or moving away before buddy aid is applied). Arty calls don't need CoC or even communications devices to be made. This is obviously a shortcoming in the model, but it's hardly desperate, even if it is odd. I'm sure BFC will find a way round it at some point when important issues have been resolved.

[Chris Ferrous]

No CoC for artillery? Are you sure?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Offboard artillery is available to all FO and HQ units regardless of their C2 status.

Yep, he's sure.

[Chris Ferrous]

Ok, I think I see how my scenario worked out now:-

So, the AC Recon toddles off down the road and disappears over a crest while the Company CO (with full CoC to artillery) anxiously watches its progress through his field glasses. Shhhtuk Shhtuk hisses the radio, 'Recon 1 reporting, 200m over crest, no contact, traversing right, plan to return by way of . . . '. The transmission is cut off abruptly and is shortly followed by a distant booompf sound accompanied by a pall of dense black smoke somewhere over the crest.

'Oh dear! Hans has bought it', shrieks the Adjutant.

'No, he's found the enemy, and he's got nine lives' says the CO. 'Chuck a bit of smoke over there, if there's any survivors it just may help them get back'.

Desperately straining through his field glasses once more, the CO spots Hans' crew running raggedly to the right through wisps of smoke while going to ground from time to time as they come under distant MG fire. The crew reach a patch of scrub near the crest and disappear into it.

The CO quickly issues orders for the Company to advance in a very loose formation with the Panzers just behind. As they move out he surveys the scrubby knoll concealing the bailed crew once more. What's this? Hans, yes it's Hans, is waving frantically and doing his best boy scout semaphore impression using two tunic tops as flags. Despite the incoming fire Hans relays his message, 'Platoon Shermans in line on road below, accompanied by about a Company of Infantry, location PDQ911, fire for effect immediate!'.

The CO immediately calls up a heavy artillery strike, which falls just before the advance reaches the crest. As they break the crest multiple plumes of black smoke rise from the valley below, and the battle scarred ground reveals the strewn bodies of scores of enemy infantry caught in the open.

Unfortunately a slightly more quietly brewing Sherman with just a slightly wonky barrel spots the 4 Panthers as they crest the rise, and despite being surrounded by burning debris, and full of holes, it fires unerringly into each Panther in turn, destroying 3 and casuing the fourth to retreat over the crest. It then pumps HE into the scrub which had been Hans' crew's haven only moments before. As the Sherman finally explodes, the only survivor, Brad, the youngest Tank Commander to come out of Springfield School, leaps to safety and takes cover behind a foliage bush type A from where he calls in a P51 air-strike by flashing the foil on the inside of his pack of Lucky Strikes at the waiting 'cab rank' above.

As the final Panther makes a graceful pirouete mid-air, and his Infantry cower in the crater pocked field the CO shakes his immaculately kid-skinned gloved fist at the P51 and shrieks, 'You may win this time you little Pheasant Plucker, but we'll be back tomorrow, and this field will be covered in Crop 6, you know the pretty one with all the blue flowers, and my dismounted AFV crews will advance in front of the infantry and meet your dismounted crews in unarmed combat. Then, only then, will you know the taste of defeat . . .'.

With a sinister smile the CO pressed ESC, QUIT, EXIT, and SHUTDOWN and while waiting for the inevitable updates to install quietly contemplated the battle tomorrow.

[Michael Emrys]

Clap, clap. (And no, that is not an announcement that I have a social disease.)

Michael