simast Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 I am playing Italians (Lemon Hill scenario, PBEM) - and was shocked to see I have an off-map asset. Since the Italian HQs don't have any radios - I am guessing they actually use telephone lines and runners? The ETA for artillery is 17 mins! This is silly.. My question is - can I use any of the vehicle radios to call in the artillery faster? As in positioning my HQ team next to a parked vehicle with a radio? Also, does that vehicle needs to be on an adjacent square or can I keep it in voice range? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 Some artillery assets are only of utility for initial (opening move) bombardment because their call-in time is so grindingly slow. There's been examples of this throughout the CM series back to 1999. If you have artillery rockets or offshore cruiser artillery with a 19 minute call time for a 30 minute battle you might as well call 'em in opening move and hope for the best. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted January 11, 2013 Share Posted January 11, 2013 I am playing Italians (Lemon Hill scenario, PBEM) - and was shocked to see I have an off-map asset. Since the Italian HQs don't have any radios - I am guessing they actually use telephone lines and runners? The ETA for artillery is 17 mins! This is silly.. My question is - can I use any of the vehicle radios to call in the artillery faster? As in positioning my HQ team next to a parked vehicle with a radio? Also, does that vehicle needs to be on an adjacent square or can I keep it in voice range? BFC has said that, as you surmise, FT and runners are "abstracted in" to allow radio-poor units to call arty. I'm pretty sure that giving the "17 minute spotters" access to a radio won't improve their call time; nothing except the incapacitation of the individual who's eligible to make the call seems to affect the time (and losing the spotter tends the call time to infinity...). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agusto Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 It is a good idea to delay an initial bombardment for a bit, so you can scout the target area before the rounds start hitting and, if there is really absolutely no valueable target there, call off the attack and save the ammunation. 17 minutes isnt that bad, in the lemon hill scenario you have got a full hour if i recall correctly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 AFAIK the only things that shorten artillery call times are - FOs, TRPs, or calling in artillery pre first turn. I have noticed that sometimes arty comes in a minute or two early if I'm lucky, but not always. With any Italian artillery besides mortars use it preplotted or lose it... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simast Posted January 12, 2013 Author Share Posted January 12, 2013 Well, the Lemon Hill scenario briefing mentioned that the Italian forces came under fire from the hill. And I imagine they did not really had the time to pre-plot the strike, just dismounted and went for it. Might be wrong however... Still, I decided not use the pre-plotted artillery against my opponent. The battle is 60min long, so I do have the time to get the strike ready. Still, it would be great (and logical?) if the artillery observers could somehow take advantage of nearby vehicle radios.. rather than run looking for field telephones 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted January 12, 2013 Share Posted January 12, 2013 Well, the Lemon Hill scenario briefing mentioned that the Italian forces came under fire from the hill. And I imagine they did not really had the time to pre-plot the strike, just dismounted and went for it. Might be wrong however... Still, I decided not use the pre-plotted artillery against my opponent. The battle is 60min long, so I do have the time to get the strike ready. Still, it would be great (and logical?) if the artillery observers could somehow take advantage of nearby vehicle radios.. rather than run looking for field telephones I think you'll find that the radio equipped HQs (IIRC, one of the ACs is an HQ) have arty call times only slightly longer than an FO, in the same way as any HQ has a longer call time than a specialist FO... It's not really the radio that's the problem, it's the C2 chain and responsiveness of the battery. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winkelried Posted January 13, 2013 Share Posted January 13, 2013 just checked the axis artillery in CMFI - nothing to worry about IMHO. The "normal" Italian artillery takes approx 3 to 4 mins longer to call than the German artillery (12 instead of 8/9 minutes). The Italian guns which take longer to call were usually corps assets, the AA guns and the cannone da 105/28 (19 mins) or were even used as coastal defense guns like the cannone da 149/35 (18 mins). So the C2 would be naturally longer, just as with the German 21-cm-Mörser 18 which were used in the Heeresartillerieabteilungen (takes 20 minutes to call). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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