John Kettler Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Am in a QB, with great visual conditions. Russian armor vs Russian armor. The 1st Tactical Group (reinforced MT-LBM Battalion) has run into a hornet's nest, and casualties have been heavy. The special BTR-80 FO vehicle did some incredibly stupid stuff, drove across the advance path and got everyone blown up. The 1 TG command vehicle is disabled, but everyone's intact, apparently in comms, and the Air Controller party (down to just the +1 Fadeev after his track got hit) is dismounted and very close. He has excellent LOS to the village ~500 meters away which is the target for an Emergency 3-gun (half battery?) 2S3M1 107 meter Area Target, Medium intensity (think that was all the parameters) Immediate fire mission. And with my force blowing up all over the place, Green C3 and the 1 TG Komandir maybe 2 AS away, my wait time is what? 13 minutes! Guess I should be grateful ECM is at zero! Maybe I missed the staff memo, but to me, this seems ridiculously long. If this is the modern Russian Army, I shudder to think how long it took to bring fire down before Constellation and such. During the Cold War, the US Army, using a Dedicated Battery, could, I think, bring down fire in 4 minutes. That was responsive fire. This feels more like one step up from having no fire support at all. What gives? Have no mortars, period, so am stuck with what I believe to be DIVARTY or BGDEARTY. Still learning the ropes and am unsure where those tubes belong. Could someone please explain to me why, with everything at stake, comms working and everything else copacetic, that it takes so blasted (deliberate ordnance refererence used) long to get steel on the target? Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) Just so you know John, most of the detail you're offering is useless. All that matters for the "estimated" time-to-FFE is (some of) the soft factors of the spotter and (some of) the soft factors of the battery firing combined with the type of support module and any bonuses given for being in a dedicated command/fire control vehicle. Mission weight (except "Emergency", which just skips the "walking onto the target" spotting segment of the mission), duration, tubes firing, comms, C2, visibility, other units nearby, don't affect the time to impact if you can call fire at all. As to why it's taking so long, someone who knows more about the BS game will have to answer: 13 minutes is "longish" for even the WW2 titles; even naval gunfire doesn't take much longer to come in. Edited June 6, 2015 by womble 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abdolmartin Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 From my personal experience, Russian arty is very slow when not called in by an FO team or an FO vehicle. And I think it needs to be fixed. Russian air/arty is already annoying enough with the inability of anyone but FAC teams to call in air, so at least the arty has to be a bit more flexible. However I don't know how realistic it would be (or how realistic it is right now). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincere Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Pfft- try playing with a regular/green mix of Ukrainians 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Your FAC is calling in the arty? Well, that's probably the issue. A FAC calls in air. An FO calls in arty. Your FAC is telling the air coordination center what he wants. The guy back there has to tell his supervisor what the FAC just said. THAT guy, then runs to the next track and relays to the XO what was just said. The XO uses his cell-phone to text his buddy from the Frunze Academy (who is the XO of the arty regiment) what his FAC wants. The arty XO tells the sergeant what to do. The arty sergeant relays that on the radio to the battery fire control center. That FCC translates plain english (or Russian ) into digital commands and sends it the half-battery assigned to fire. After asking for verification. It's not that it takes your FAC a long time to scream into the microphone that he wants arty, it's that the radio net/command structure is not in place to do so very responsively. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) john first of all i always buy TRPs. second if you have a tactical grp dknt u have 120mm mortars the response time should be much lower on that. also the Fo vehicle would have lowered the time a lot. you cant really blame the vehicle. it should have mever been anywhere near where it could have been shot and you as complete godlike cmdr of your forces put it in position to stupidly drive across tbe path of vehicles and be destroyed. FOs or FO vehicles are essential for reasonable artillery call times. i agree with the others if you use the FAC or a non FO unit thats why the waits so long. i routinely without TRPs but using FOs or FO vehicles can call in the 152mm arty with the battalion tac grp in 5-7 mknutes probably less. 122mm even less. Also as others have stated emergency doesnt make the fire come in sooner as far as min until delivery it just skips the spotting phase and goes straight to barrage. honestly i never use it. Edited June 6, 2015 by Sublime 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nidan1 Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 With a naval gunfire liason officer in the command section of the engaged unit, 8 inch cruiser fire could be called in accurately within 100 meters of friendly positions, and the first round would be on the way within 90 seconds, and this was back in 1966. I cant figure out why it takes so long in CMBS. Are their any current vets on board who can relate modern time on target times that come close to what we see in the game? Or do they really seem to be slow and unrealistic? Five minutes can seem like an eternity when the bad guys are overrunning your positions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fade2Gray Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 (edited) From my personal experience, Russian arty is very slow when not called in by an FO team or an FO vehicle. And I think it needs to be fixed. Russian air/arty is already annoying enough with the inability of anyone but FAC teams to call in air, so at least the arty has to be a bit more flexible. However I don't know how realistic it would be (or how realistic it is right now). Bingo. Vet your artillery and your FOs, and use FOs to actually call in arty, and response time is much much higher. Using your tank platoon commander(just a random example) instead of a FO to call it in causes a significant delay. Also, FACs seem to have a less delay than a random commander, but I haven't used them enough to really get a good grip on it. Also, realize that the only difference between emergency and any other selection is that emergency doesn't use spotting rounds. The time lag between calling in a strike and the first round between any option, including emergency, is exactly the same. Edited June 6, 2015 by Fade2Gray 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted June 7, 2015 Author Share Posted June 7, 2015 Fade2Gray, Were I manually selecting my force, I would avail myself of high quality artillery if I could, but on Automatic, I get what I get. Indeed, I have zero information regarding those supplying my fires, other than that a 3-gun section of 2S3M1s is conducting the mission. All, Here is my FAC's shoot in progress viewed from overhead. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ybzd0h88tdib9v/Screenshot%202015-06-06%2001.56.59.png?dl=0 This is the redoubtable Fadeev at work, in a QB I forgot to say was at IRON (figure I might as well learn to play under realistic combat conditions), but I'm not quite sure what's going on. The green is obviously the line to the target, the red shows in command, but I can't figure out the yellow line, having issued no command to move that way. It doesn't show any waypoint when clicked on, is there with Alt-P selected, is still there with Alt-P canceled. So far, RTFM is getting me nowhere, and I'm most reluctant to do anything which might screw up my shoot, such as it is. Fadeev is in excellent shape, which leads me to doubt he's fleeing his post, either. What does that yellow line signify, please? Do I need to do anything about it? https://www.dropbox.com/s/peui1aw8bofl4f3/Screenshot%202015-06-06%2018.28.22.png?dl=0 While we're on challenges, either my memory is off, I'm not processing what I'm reading in the CM 3.0 Manual correctly (not super sharp today) or both. Why? Try as I might, I can't find a proper button labeled HALT. Did we lose that in one of the engine upgrades, but I somehow missed it? Unless I'm somehow not seeing a full sized button, what happened to big bold HALT? The closest I've been able to find is the tiny little icon, which doesn't ID itself when moused over, for PAUSE in the section allocated for INSTANT COMMANDS. I am, of course, used to the other PAUSE button, but in the sense of adding a 15 second delay, not as the full-blown HALT equivalent. I don't recall having any issues in my prior CMBS QBs and consequently feel somewhat confused. Thanks for any and all help! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Some people prefer to play 'Iron mode' rather than a lower setting as a point of pride, but one big downside is the extended artillery call-in times. If you want faster call-in times back off on the settings a bit. From what I recall from past conversations on the topic the typical Russian soldier does not exactly have his battalion's artillery assets at his beck and call. Russian command doctrine in not a mirror image of the West's so one shouldn't expect mirror-image reaction times. If you want to play Russian may I suggest you purchase lots of TRPs. These can represent preplanned phases of the assault. That road junction or factory building or likely defensive point can then be attacked in turn with no delay. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Your FAC is calling in the arty? Well, that's probably the issue. A FAC calls in air. An FO calls in arty. Your FAC is telling the air coordination center what he wants. The guy back there has to tell his supervisor what the FAC just said. THAT guy, then runs to the next track and relays to the XO what was just said. The XO uses his cell-phone to text his buddy from the Frunze Academy (who is the XO of the arty regiment) what his FAC wants. The arty XO tells the sergeant what to do. The arty sergeant relays that on the radio to the battery fire control center. That FCC translates plain english (or Russian ) into digital commands and sends it the half-battery assigned to fire. After asking for verification. Wow. Anybody that claims BFC isn't dedicated to accuracy needs to be punched in the face...twice. Mord. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sublime Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 kettler for halt you either hit backspace until the unit has no move orders or u hit pause consecutively until theres not a time for pause it simply says pause. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOS:96B2P Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Could someone please explain to me why, with everything at stake, comms working and everything else copacetic, that it takes so blasted (deliberate ordnance refererence used) long to get steel on the target? John, I think the above posts reference using the F/O for arty calls, instead of the FAC when possible, is at the core of your problem. The below link has some interesting information on the topic which you might find useful. While the thread is from a WWII title it also has information for calling for fire in Black Sea. Good luck with that. http://community.battlefront.com/topic/118608-command-vehicle-radios-vs-backpack-radios/#entry1590508 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 kettler for halt you either hit backspace until the unit has no move orders or u hit pause consecutively until theres not a time for pause it simply says pause. Or you can use the other "Stopsign" shaped instant command which cancels all pending waypoints, erm, instantly. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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