dog6880 Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 Ok I have a question. Do mortars need line of sight to fire at a target? Why cant I position a mortar unit behind a hill, building, tree line etc... and lob shells into known, or suspected enemy positions?am I doing something wrong or is this just an unfortunate aspect of the game. My real life mortar support NEVER sees the enemy and if they do they are probably dead already. cant infantry tanks or HQ units just direct the mortars? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiram Sedai Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dog6880: Ok I have a question. Do mortars need line of sight to fire at a target? Why cant I position a mortar unit behind a hill, building, tree line etc... and lob shells into known, or suspected enemy positions?am I doing something wrong or is this just an unfortunate aspect of the game. My real life mortar support NEVER sees the enemy and if they do they are probably dead already. cant infantry tanks or HQ units just direct the mortars?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Both on-map mortars and off-map mortars can use a platoon leader or company commander with LOS (Line of Sight) to a target. Basically you hide the mortar guy behind the commander and whatever the commander can see, the mortar guy can hit. Just target with the mortar guy. Easy as pie. ------------------ Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hiram Sedai: Both on-map mortars and off-map mortars can use a platoon leader or company commander with LOS (Line of Sight) to a target. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Not exactly correct. Off map mortars (and any artillery) requires a Forward Observer. HQ units cannot spot for off map arty. On map mortars can use an HQ unit for spotting if they are in communication with the HQ unit. [This message has been edited by Phoenix (edited 12-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiram Sedai Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Phoenix: Not exactly correct. Off map mortars (and any artillery) requires a Forward Observer. HQ units cannot spot for off map arty. On map mortars can use an HQ unit for spotting if they are in communication with the HQ unit. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I said "target with the mortar guy" I should have said target with the FO? Thanks for the help, Phoenix. ----------------- Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal [This message has been edited by Hiram Sedai (edited 12-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog6880 Posted December 28, 2000 Author Share Posted December 28, 2000 ok cool but i need C&C... also i read in COmputer games magazine that a HQ unit can take the spotting job of a dead FO is that true? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hiram Sedai Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dog6880: ok cool but i need C&C... also i read in COmputer games magazine that a HQ unit can take the spotting job of a dead FO is that true?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Once the FO dies, all the arty he had goes with him. sorry ------------------ Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog6880 Posted December 28, 2000 Author Share Posted December 28, 2000 thats silly. i saw my CO pick up a "Simulated dead" FO's radio and waste a company.. lol o well. also i wish i could reman and abandon tiger with my cowering sherman crew. or even and abandon sherman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 The time scale of CM doesn't allow for the use of abandoned armor. If a tank was abandoned it was probably for a good reason. The tank sustained enough damage to make the crew want to bug out. If the tank was knocked out then no one is really going to want to go back inside it. Abandoned tanks were sometimes recovered after a battle and repaired if possible. CM models this in operations. As far as the usefullnes of tank crews from abandoned or knocked out tanks, the recent program on the History Channel about Sherman tank crews showed how physically and physchologically wasted the crews usually were. They were usually in no condition to continue any sort of fight. What I would like to see is the ability to recrew an abandoned artillery piece once the crew recovered from whatever scared it away. I have seen many situations where incoming artillery caused a crew to leave its gun even though the gun was undamaged and the crew suffered few or no casualties, but later recovered its composure only to sit there and do nothing. One note about on board mortars: if an HQ unit is spotting for your on board mortars, those mortars can only target with area fire. They will keep lobbing shells onto the target until they run out of ammo even if the target is destroyed or moves away. Mortars in direct fire mode will stop firing at a target if it is destroyed and will follow a moving target as long as it has direct Line of Sight. [This message has been edited by Pvt. Ryan (edited 12-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dog6880 Posted December 28, 2000 Author Share Posted December 28, 2000 all understood. i guess you can only go so far with a game. your gun situations is right. but I got a sherman stuck in a mine feild. only got inmoblized, lost a tred i guess. no big deal get out find a working tank and fight on. We are americans (well maybe your not)we dont give up and have tea in an empty house during an engagement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dog6880: no big deal get out find a working tank and fight on. We are americans (well maybe your not)we dont give up and have tea in an empty house during an engagement!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Oh, brilliant commentary there. That'll go far to earn any respect around here. Sheesh. And regardless whether or not "we are Americans" crews did not bail out of one tank and run to another during a battle. Battles are on average 30 minutes in CM. Maybe in the movies they do it, but CM is not trying to simulate Hollywood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dog6880: thats silly. i saw my CO pick up a "Simulated dead" FO's radio and waste a company.. lol o well. also i wish i could reman and abandon tiger with my cowering sherman crew. or even and abandon sherman.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Dog, the research on this done by LOS (a vet with combat experience post WW2, AFAIK) has apparently shown that there were serious developments post WW2 in the training of lower ranking leaders in the US Army to call in arty. So to base the modeling in the game on your experience would probably lead to wrong conclusions. Also, even if it was right for the US Army, it would more likely than not be wrong for the German and Commonwealth armies. Regarding abandoned equipment - it is slightly damaged (can be repaired inbetween battles during an operation) and therefore abandoned. A gun crew going back to a gun they abandoned after coming under fire can as well shoot themselves first. Once OPFOR has the gun zeroed in they are toast if they go back to it. Regarding crewing enemy equipment - I doubt there are a lot of documented cases of that happening in battle (as oppoesed to between battles) in the ETO 44/5. I know there are documented cases of German use of Shermans during Goodwood and Nordwind (Herrlisheim), and of a UK Guards unit using a Panther, and 9 RTR taking along a Tiger (but not using it in battle) for a while. But these were recovered after a battle and used in future battles. ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. [This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 12-28-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted December 28, 2000 Share Posted December 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Germanboy: Dog, the research on this done by LOS (a vet with combat experience post WW2, AFAIK) has apparently shown that there were serious developments post WW2 in the training of lower ranking leaders in the US Army to call in arty.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This got discussed on the TacOps mailing list a couple of years ago. Apparently anybody (not just officers) with a radio that is on the artillery net can call in a mission. You do have to be able to give the artillery commander enough information so that he can dope out where you are and where the enemy is, but they seem to be pretty clever about that now. Things have come a long way since the 1940s. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted December 29, 2000 Share Posted December 29, 2000 Hi Michael, <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Apparently anybody (not just officers) with a radio that is on the artillery net can call in a mission. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Yeah, things have come a long way. Back in WWII if you had a radio, and it was working, it was only able to communicate in very limited ways with other units in the field. In the days before modern chip based radios each radio had crystals which determined the frequency they could communicate with. Some radios had more than one crystal, but my understanding of WWII hand held (i.e. Platoon level) radios were that they were dedicated to one frequency only. And then of course there is the whole element of range. So it was impossible to just "get on the horn" and call whoever you wanted. If a Platoon HQ wanted to call down artillery it would have to communicate through the chain of command. This would take time and ideal communication logistics. And we all know how often that happens in war So in theory, I think a preplaned use of artillery by a non-FO could have happened from late 1944 on. At least for the Americans and possibly Commonwealth nations. But on average, this would not happen. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Germanboy Posted December 29, 2000 Share Posted December 29, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software: So in theory, I think a preplaned use of artillery by a non-FO could have happened from late 1944 on. At least for the Americans and possibly Commonwealth nations. But on average, this would not happen.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> From my readings on UK unit histories, I would think it very unlikely to happen for the Commonwealth. Never came across it. Bastables (IIRC) posted a couple of times that the modern UK forces still use dedicated FOOs, since they don't believe in empowerment ------------------ Andreas Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los Posted December 29, 2000 Share Posted December 29, 2000 Not that I want to have this same discussion again for the second time this week, BUT, the on map mortar thing and how it pertains to indirect fire is not so much a limitation of trained FOs as it is in individual mortars crews scattered around the map not being able to set up their own FDC and have comms through the entire process requried to put that IF target. A search can lay this all out in repeated and excrutiating detail. Los Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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