How to properly use artillery, CAS, and snipers

[ilhan89bln]

Hi guys,

new here to the forums and appreciate the community. I have a question in regards to how to properly use artillery, cas, and snipers.
Artillery and CAS seems to take way too long to come into effect, even when spotted by an FO. Snipers seem to be FOs and recon teams with just another name.

What am I not getting about these three?

Cheers,

ilhan

[AttorneyAtWar]

Sniper teams have sniper rifles, that's the primary difference to an Forward Observer team. FO's generally call in artillery and air support faster, there isn't really a way to decrease the time for a call for fire. The fastest way is to use a FO vehicle such as a Bradley BFIST, which usually comes with communications equipment and FO's. Forward Air controllers also call in air support faster.

Edit: Electronic warfare interference also effects the time taken for artillery/cas calls.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Raptorx7

[ilhan89bln]

1 minute ago, Raptorx7 said:

Sniper teams have sniper rifles, that's the primary difference to an Forward Observer team.

Yes, and doctrinally they are either used against high value targets and recon. So are you supposed to use them against HQs?

[AttorneyAtWar]

Sniper teams are good for reconnaissance, and calling for fire. You can use them against the enemy anyway you want, some sniper teams have anti-material rifles that are good against light APC's.

[Michael Emrys]

Snipers should be extra stealthy compared to the two man scout teams taken from straight squads. They can also be good at picking off officers and other high value personnel and even when not scoring kills will add to suppression of enemy troops. In addition to taking out lightly armored vehicles with anti-material rifles, they can take out trucks and other unarmored vehicles. Used properly they are an asset, but don't expect too much from them.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Regarding artillery lag times...I agree that it can be frustrating. I play at the Veteran level, which means that the delays are less severe, but I still often confront the problem that by the time the shells arrive, the tactical situation has already changed to make the barrage superfluous. I still buy artillery, but a lot of it goes unused. It often proves to be more economical to buy large caliber direct fire guns, particularly ones on armored automotive chassis.

Michael

[Haiduk]

18 hours ago, ilhan89bln said:

Artillery and CAS seems to take way too long to come into effect, even when spotted by an FO.

You shouldn't worry about that. In 2014 in order to receive corps level arty support, our troops in avarage wait about 15-20 minutes and about in 1,5 times less for brigade-level. CAS delay could be 20...30+ minutes. Of course, dynamic of real actions is much slower than in CM. Roughly, 1 minute in CM turn can be equal 2 minutes of real fight or even more. So artillery delay in the game in whole is made correctly.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Haiduk

[Armorgunner]

7 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Regarding artillery lag times...I agree that it can be frustrating. I play at the Veteran level, which means that the delays are less severe, but I still often confront the problem that by the time the shells arrive, the tactical situation has already changed to make the barrage superfluous. I still buy artillery, but a lot of it goes unused. It often proves to be more economical to buy large caliber direct fire guns, particularly ones on armored automotive chassis.

Michael

That means, that, like in real modern warfare. Maneuvering is critical to sucsess, even in defence (when spotted) A spotted force, which are not maneuvering. Is just a few minutes away from talking to the Grim Reaper

[Armorgunner]

From the 70´s to the 90´s. When Sweden had an 850.000 men strong, mostly sitting duck conscript army ( around 100.000-150.000 of them was in mobile brigades though). The field fortifications, to survive the suspected "Storm Fire" as it was called. Was one of the most important things in the education of the conscripts.

And we where told that our Artillery struck targets. But the Soviet Artillery annihilated entire grids on the map. What they lacked in precision, they compensated by pure firepower  And Russia today, still belives in the heavy use of artillery. So beware. They outnumber the Mighty US in that, and they like to use it. And they are a Heavy user of thermobaric munitions. They learned in Afghanistan, that conventional munitions had quite low effect in rocky terrain. But after starting to use thermobaric artillery grenades, they got better effect. Since it kill people that are in cover.

And as Stalin has been said to say "quantity is a quality in its own"

Edited September 2, 2017 by Armorgunner

[Armorgunner]

Conventional artillery kill by pressurewave, and splinters. And "can" do so in a quite big radios. But troops in cover, it doesn't kill. Since they are in cover from the pressure, and the splinters. A thermobaric grenade, has a smaller killradios  (in the open, not confined) but it killes everything there. Cover, and body armor has no effect att all, Everything is dead within the killzone. 

[IanL]

2 minutes ago, Armorgunner said:

, has a smaller killradios  (in the open, not confined) but it killes everything there. Cover, and body armor has no effect att all, Everything is dead within the killzone. 

Wow that that is quite a claim. I admit to not knowing much about therobaric munitions but that sounds to good to be true. I thought it was more effective in confined spaces and less effective in the open. 

For my education could you point me to a good source to explain how it works. 

[Armorgunner]

38 minutes ago, IanL said:

Wow that that is quite a claim. I admit to not knowing much about therobaric munitions but that sounds to good to be true. I thought it was more effective in confined spaces and less effective in the open. 

For my education could you point me to a good source to explain how it works. 

It is less effective in open space,  when it comes to killrange. Which is much shorter. But it is whitin the killradio, that the effect is so much more deadly. In confined space,  it has a larger killzone than conventional munitions, as we all knew.

And no,  i have no links sorry. This is from books, and learning from service. But you would probably find the same on the Web?  

Edited September 2, 2017 by Armorgunner

[IanL]

Alright a searching I will go.

[Armorgunner]

The US is in these days for example, using thermobaric Hellfires  on drones, and Apaches to effectivly kill targets. But with less collateral damage. In the US thermobaric munitions are called fuel Air bombs

Edited September 2, 2017 by Armorgunner

[Armorgunner]

In checnya, when Russian tanks were rpg'd from basements. They used thermobaric artillery. Since that was the only way to kill them. And it proved to be very effective..Convention artillery had no effect on the sellar fighters. So there is a reason for the Russians heavy use of thermobaric munitions.

[ilhan89bln]

11 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Regarding artillery lag times...I agree that it can be frustrating. I play at the Veteran level, which means that the delays are less severe, but I still often confront the problem that by the time the shells arrive, the tactical situation has already changed to make the barrage superfluous. I still buy artillery, but a lot of it goes unused. It often proves to be more economical to buy large caliber direct fire guns, particularly ones on armored automotive chassis.

Michael

I play at iron, and I find artillery utterly useless. The situation has totally changed when the shells arrive and it seems to me just like a waste of ammo. So I was thinking maybe I am missing something.

6 hours ago, Haiduk said:

You shouldn't worry about that. In 2014 in order to receive corps level arty support, our troops in avarage wait about 15-20 minutes and about in 1,5 times less for brigade-level. CAS delay could be 20...30+ minutes. Of course, dynamic of real actions is much slower than in CM. Roughly, 1 minute in CM turn can be equal 2 minutes of real fight or even more. So artillery delay in the game in whole is made correctly.

Sounds very frustrating and useless when attacked by a fast opponent.

[Haiduk]

23 minutes ago, ilhan89bln said:

I play at iron, and I find artillery utterly useless. The situation has totally changed when the shells arrive and it seems to me just like a waste of ammo. So I was thinking maybe I am missing something.

Sounds very frustrating and useless when attacked by a fast opponent.

TRPs is your remedy , especailly if you play on small and medium maps, when enemy advancing can not give a time for artillery targeting. Like in real life. Good example Donetsk airport defense. Artillery/mortars has many "TRPs", so fire was calling much faster and suppressing enemy. If enemy is advancing fast and you havn't TRPs on some line, your only way is to delay their advance, to tie with heavy fire and to target artillery in that place. Also you can use linear protective barrage of different intensivity. 

Edited September 2, 2017 by Haiduk

[Erwin]

Re your original "...how to properly use artillery, cas, and snipers."

Re ARTY and CAS:

You have to accept the artillery (or CAS) time delay in the CM games as they are more realistic than the average entertainment "wargames" out there.  A large part of any CM game (as a player) is sitting around patiently waiting for a barrage (or CAS) - but having a plan that you can immediately put into effect as soon as the barrage starts (or ends).  So, you need to evaluate clearly WHY you order a barrage - ie: pick the right target for indirect fire vs direct fire.

Ideally you should be doing something while waiting for the barrage.  But on a small CM map, sometimes you just have to wait.  CM requires a lot of patience.

One technique (maybe gamey) is to order an arty barrage at set-up on a suspected target that would benefit from being blasted but with a time delay (max allowed is 15 mins).  You then spend that 15 minutes getting an FO to a position where they can confirm that there actually is a valid target at the desired spot.  If not, the FO can ADJUST the barrage to another location.  This is usually much quicker (and more accurate) than canceling the original barrage and ordering a new barrage.  IIRC one cannot adjust CAS but you can still have it ordered so it arrives in 15 minutes over an area.

Re Snipers:

They have binoculars.  Useful for recon - maybe partner them with (and provide overwatch for) a scout team or recon team.  Ideally specialized troops like snipers, engineers and recon should be one or more experience levels higher than regular infantry.  That is when you see them do good work.  Snipers should be placed carefully in good covered locations with good LOS and just let them either do observation (short covered arc so they don't shoot) or long/no covered arc and let em select and shoot at their own targets (better to not use TARGET order for Snipers imo).

 

[Apocal]

17 minutes ago, ilhan89bln said:

Sounds very frustrating and useless when attacked by a fast opponent.

Nobody runs around that fast on the real life battlefield and real life artillery barrages might very well cover half a CMx2 map. The Russians aren't shy about dumping massed artillery in company- or even platoon-level fights. Within CMx2 scope, artillery's suppression comes from dudes just not sticking around where artillery is falling (or even might fall) and/or keeping their heads down while it rains. It is just in-game most troops act like Rambo and pop their heads right back up without much fear, even if you wipe out half the platoon, and usually retain their core firepower (machine guns and rocket launchers) so the effectiveness is limited compared to the real deal.

That, and players lose a platoon for every committed company in a battle and count that as a success whereas anywhere else it is a complete disaster.

3 hours ago, Armorgunner said:

Conventional artillery kill by pressurewave, and splinters. And "can" do so in a quite big radios. But troops in cover, it doesn't kill. Since they are in cover from the pressure, and the splinters. A thermobaric grenade, has a smaller killradios  (in the open, not confined) but it killes everything there. Cover, and body armor has no effect att all, Everything is dead within the killzone. 

First off, if artillery was incapable of killing anyone in cover, WW1 would have been a much different conflict. It isn't as good as catching dudes out in the open, but even for troops in the highest quality field fortifications melt away under heavy artillery over longer time scales. Secondly, thermobarics don't work anywhere near as reliably as you state. The Marines had them in 2nd Fallujah and still found dudes could fortify a building enough to limit the effects to the point where the most reliable method for dealing with it was surrounding it and using a bulldozer to  demolish the structure entirely. Thermobarics aren't alien death rays.

[ilhan89bln]

5 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

TRPs is your remedy   Like in real life.

Agreed. Unfortunately the number of TRPs is limited by the engine.

 

9 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Re your original "...how to properly use artillery, cas, and snipers."

Re ARTY and CAS:

You have to accept the artillery (or CAS) time delay in the CM games as they are more realistic than the average entertainment "wargames" out there.  A large part of any CM game (as a player) is sitting around patiently waiting for a barrage (or CAS) - but having a plan that you can immediately put into effect as soon as the barrage starts (or ends).  So, you need to evaluate clearly WHY you order a barrage - ie: pick the right target for indirect fire vs direct fire.

Ideally you should be doing something while waiting for the barrage.  But on a small CM map, sometimes you just have to wait.  CM requires a lot of patience.

Re Snipers:

They have binoculars.  Useful for recon - maybe partner them with (and provide overwatch for) a scout team or recon team.  Ideally specialized troops like snipers, engineers and recon should be one or more experience levels higher than regular infantry.  That is when you see them do good work.  Snipers should be placed carefully in good covered locations with good LOS and just let them either do observation (short covered arc so they don't shoot) or long/no covered arc and let em select and shoot at their own targets (better to not use TARGET order for Snipers imo).

I like the realism part and I was wondering from a realistic point of view how to effectively use CAS and artillery. Especially in the case of CAS, my impression was that one can use it as a form of QRF, but now I have come to the conclusion that it's best to send in CAS at a predetermined moment, allocate a big area as the mission, and let them do their work. It's not very good for taking care of a sudden armor breakthrough.

That's how I have been using snipers, but I was wondering if there is a way to use them actually as snipers, or if they are a form of glorified recon (in-game).
 

[Apocal]

Just now, ilhan89bln said:

Agreed. Unfortunately the number of TRPs is limited by the engine.

It is?

[ilhan89bln]

5 minutes ago, Apocal said:

Nobody runs around that fast on the real life battlefield and real life artillery barrages might very well cover half a CMx2 map. The Russians aren't shy about dumping massed artillery in company- or even platoon-level fights. Within CMx2 scope, artillery's suppression comes from dudes just not sticking around where artillery is falling (or even might fall) and/or keeping their heads down while it rains. It is just in-game most troops act like Rambo and pop their heads right back up without much fear, even if you wipe out half the platoon, and usually retain their core firepower (machine guns and rocket launchers) so the effectiveness is limited compared to the real deal.

Yeah. The thing that bugs me is that, when I have to defend a position as a company, and I see a tank battalion or even a tank company racing at me, I would expect that the artillery arrives much much faster. I think it is possible, and I think it should be possible to have an emergency artillery barrage for such cases. Which, in CMBS still takes forever.

 

3 minutes ago, Apocal said:

It is?

I thought so? Or is there a way of creating TRPs in Battles and Campaigns?

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, ilhan89bln said:

Unfortunately the number of TRPs is limited by the engine.

 

Like in real life too. "TRP" is created by many prelimainary shots, but must be re-adjusted by new shots every four hours due to atmospheric conditions changes. So, battery can't has 100500 TRPs - then they will continuolsly waste own ammunition to support of existing TRPs.

[Apocal]

1 minute ago, ilhan89bln said:

I thought so? Or is there a way of creating TRPs in Battles and Campaigns?

You can edit battles but not complete campaigns. But if you make your own battle or even go hog wild in the quick battle buy screen, you can have at least 25 TRPs. That's a lot of TRPs.

4 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Like in real life too. "TRP" is created by many prelimainary shots, but must be re-adjusted by new shots every four hours due to atmospheric conditions changes. So, battery can't has 100500 TRPs - then they will continuolsly waste own ammunition to support of existing TRPs.

This is a bit of semantics in-game, but a TRP (target reference point) isn't necessarily registered (the process you describe). It is just something used as a easy guide when referring to things around the battlefield. CMx2's TRPs are supposed to combine both, which is why all units get a bonus to accuracy when firing in the vicinity of a TRP.

[Armorgunner]

11 minutes ago, Apocal said:

 

First off, if artillery was incapable of killing anyone in cover, WW1 would have been a much different conflict. It isn't as good as catching dudes out in the open, but even for troops in the highest quality field fortifications melt away under heavy artillery over longer time scales. Secondly, thermobarics don't work anywhere near as reliably as you state. The Marines had them in 2nd Fallujah and still found dudes could fortify a building enough to limit the effects to the point where the most reliable method for dealing with it was surrounding it and using a bulldozer to  demolish the structure entirely. Thermobarics aren't alien death rays.

In WW1 thermobaric artillery rounds where not in use. Don't dumb your self down, just because you don't see the benefits of thermobaric rounds. The shorter killrange have i allready wrote about. If there where only negative effects in using thermobaric ammunition. Why would the king of artillery, the Russians, be in sush love with It?