Artillery, FO?

[weapon2010]

 My mg hq called in an Artillery strike, the delivery time is about 10min, he was killed a few minutes after the Artillery was called in.What happens to those Artillery orders, it seems locked now and nothing can be done? Is this correct?

[Bud Backer]

They will eventually cancel but at the moment you have no control until that occurs.

[slysniper]

its a feature that can really cost you if you lose a unit that has called the strike.

Some times I have seen the whole mission wasted. other times because the arty unit recognizes it has lost contact, the mission will cancel at some point and you will have access to it once again.

If spotting rounds have not dropped or been adjusted, I am pretty sure it will just cancel it before a strike is allowed.

[transporter]

Running into the same challenge.  Started fire mission with multiple 155's when spotter got killed a few seconds before fire for effect was called.  However, on target was not on target with most of the rounds covering a wide area. There has to be someone in the chain of command that can order cease fire. 

[John1966]

Slightly off topic (but not entirely): If you order your FO to hide after calling a strike, does that affect the accuracy?

Being doing it a lot lately to avoid the scenario in the OP but it seems the arty is coming in all over the shop.

[domfluff]

The speed and accuracy of an artillery strike will depend on the skill of the FO, but also their vision on the target. Partly that's obfuscated by the spotting system, but some things are clear (e.g., Laser Designators will improve this, if the FO has LOS to the target).

Hide is basically "get down and stay down" in practice. If the FO is lying down, their vision over the target is inevitably going to be reduced, so Hiding an FO during the spotting phase is (probably) going to make that worse.

[John1966]

41 minutes ago, domfluff said:

Hiding an FO during the spotting phase is (probably) going to make that worse.

I assumed as much but I wasn't sure if it was modelled into the game. From what you're saying, it is.

42 minutes ago, domfluff said:

Laser Designators will improve this, if the FO has LOS to the target

I only play the WWII version of the game so that doesn't come up very often. 

[SimpleSimon]

A lot of the time scenarios seem too light on TRPs I think. Especially if fighting in the area had been an ongoing or routine event generally the battery commanders would keep data on previous fires. I also think TRPs are a good abstraction for the quality reconnaissance flights you can achieve with air supremacy. Every US Army Infantry Division had a component of around 10 or so Piper Cubs-organic to their formation, not USAAF aircraft-who's job was aerial spotting for the Division's artillery. 

At this time most designers seem to emphasize TRPs in defensive situations and discourage them in offensive situations and they've got it backwards. Attackers have the benefit of initiative and planning, they are initiating which means the T junction at the back of the map was planned as a point of advance for your assault a week ago and yes there's a TRP for the player to use in his assault. Conversely, unless the Defender has had time to entrench and plan, he really shouldn't have TRPs as often as he does since attacks generally come as a surprise. For the Germans especially there was a tendency to husband guns and keep as much firepower in reserve as possible for the inevitable counter-attack to seize lost ground or more usually because of insufficient ammunition reserves. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by SimpleSimon

[John1966]

5 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

A lot of the time scenarios seem too light on TRPs I think.

Absolutely. And if you're playing the Brits in a WWII scenario, they're essential.

Amazing how difficult it can get for the Brits without them.

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, domfluff said:

The speed and accuracy of an artillery strike will depend on the skill of the FO, but also their vision on the target. Partly that's obfuscated by the spotting system, but some things are clear (e.g., Laser Designators will improve this, if the FO has LOS to the target).

Hide is basically "get down and stay down" in practice. If the FO is lying down, their vision over the target is inevitably going to be reduced, so Hiding an FO during the spotting phase is (probably) going to make that worse.

However, if there is a chance that the FO himself will be spotted it is a good tactic to hide him until spotting rounds start falling.  So long as he has a good view of the spotting rounds, he can even move away while waiting.  It is a common tactic when delay times are long to move the FO to a better position so he is ready when spotting rounds start landing.

[Zveroboy1]

3 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

 Conversely, unless the Defender has had time to entrench and plan, he really shouldn't have TRPs as often as he does since attacks generally come as a surprise.

Probably true from a historical perspective and for a human vs human game but in a scenario played versus the AI, it needs all the help it can get. The AI is rarely going to use its arty efficiently. It doesn't anticipate by plotting a barrage ahead of time and then cancelling it when not needed etc, it uses its arty piecemeal using mostly short harassing fire it seems. And more often than not, if the tempo of the attack is fast enough, shells are regularly going to be falling 200 m behind you doing very little harm.

[MikeyD]

Quote

If you order your FO to hide after calling a strike, does that affect the accuracy?

Hiding until the spotting rounds start falling won't affect anything but you do want him to have eyes on target so he can adjust the mission and give the okay

[c3k]

A hide with a covered arc usually allows intermittent spotting. 

I'm not sure if it is applicable to this specific instance, but it would be interesting to set a short (50m?) pie-wedge covered arc towards the target while also Hiding.

[SimpleSimon]

2 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Probably true from a historical perspective and for a human vs human game but in a scenario played versus the AI, it needs all the help it can get. The AI is rarely going to use its arty efficiently. It doesn't anticipate by plotting a barrage ahead of time and then cancelling it when not needed etc, it uses its arty piecemeal using mostly short harassing fire it seems. And more often than not, if the tempo of the attack is fast enough, shells are regularly going to be falling 200 m behind you doing very little harm.

Arguably there's plenty of battles where the AI shouldn't have fire support at all except for maybe mortars to punish some particularly visible and particularly immobile attackers. Anyway the fire support AI is yeah limited, biggest issue it has is that it's easily spoofed and can't discern between kinds of spots. It just shoots at the first thing it sees. An RNG of some kind would go a long way to mask its predictable scripting. 

[John1966]

4 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

And more often than not, if the tempo of the attack is fast enough, shells are regularly going to be falling 200 m behind you doing very little harm.

Where the enemy arty is landing is something I often treat as an indicator of whether I'm ahead or behind schedule.

If it it lands right on top of me, I'm obviously in the right place. 

[Zveroboy1]

Hehe

[domfluff]

If you play any side in CBMS, or against Blue in CMSF, AI mortars in particular can be very responsive - with a well-sited enemy FO, spotting rounds are a common response to revealing your position.

In general, forces that depend on artillery (anything Russian or Soviet based), I find that deciding on a solid fire plan upfront is one of the most important aspects to the plan, and will typically devote a lot of time to working this out.

TRPs in this case are essentially doing the same job as preplanned bombardments, but even with long call times you can and should predetermine what most of your guns are doing, with the possible exception of on-map or company attached mortars.

I'm not sure I agree that the british in CMBN/CMFI need TRPs to work. Your standard support are the 25pdrs, and they take a typical FO about 10 minutes to call in (5ish with a TRP).

10 minutes is far too long to react to unexpected troop movement, but that's not what they're for - it's more than fast enough to plan an attack in advance, using the fires to block reinforcement lines, deny a base of fire or suppresd the actual target.

[SimpleSimon]

Artillery doc is hard to parse and often the differences are overstated, especially between the Allied Armies. In general though the Royal Artillery was known for its rapid response to Request Fires. This is a trait they picked up in World War 1, where it was important to move the guns right in trail of the infantry and be ready to fight off an immediate counter attack that could emerge from seemingly any direction. Destruction-by-fire proved elusive on the Western Front and the British began to prefer Suppression-by-Fire. All of this thinking was completely captured by the 25pdr field piece, one of the war's most superb Guns and so successful it is still in use by some Armies today. 

The 25 pounder's caliber and explosive load are too light to ensure destruction of anything tougher than basic entrenchments, that's not what makes the gun so valuable though. What made the 25 pounder valuable was its light weight, fully swiveling trunnion (allowing the gun a literally unlimited range of azimuth once deployed), and two piece shell and basic brass cartridge.* All of this translates into a gun with enormous operational flexibility and a constant state of readiness to commence fires on a ridiculous number of targets planned and unplanned. The light and uncomplicated ammunition it used was easier to transport and stock than fragile powder bags and heavier 105mm rounds in standard use by most Armies. The full 360 base mount meant the gun was also more stable than the average Field Gun, but the British didn't place as much premium on accuracy as they did on speed. 

British Forward Observers were attached to their Battery, but highly independent and mobile. FOs were given a truck (which could carry a better radio than a Jeep) and a map showing great detail in 1km sectors, they were additionally trained to make use of pre-planned or canned mathematic "rule-of-thumb" calculations^. The idea was to dispense with as much complication and thinking as necessary and to respond rapidly to attacks or targets of opportunity. Times from first call to first shot were still highly dependent on a host of factors but I don't think the average for the British Army often exceeded 10 minutes. I've heard of times as low as 2 minutes. 

Combat Mission is not an artillery sim, it's a tactical simulator. The nuance of the Field Artillery isn't distinctly visible in the game but it can be abstracted in many ways, through TRPs, FO counts and quality, and gun availability. If you know what you're doing you can actually abstract even fairly complicated stuff like the creeping barrage or zone-and-sweep. 

*Earlier in the war the 25 pounder's favorable weight and ease of use meant it frequently found itself pressed into anti-tank gun duty. The British were dependent on the insufficient QF 2pdr and the 6pdr was in short supply for this job, and the 25pdr had AP rounds issued to it (although I suspect these rounds were originally envisioned with bunker-busting in mind) that happened to be ideal for stopping tanks. Problem was this exposed the guns to loss, and worse deprived British infantry of fire support leading to "holes" in the crucial fire umbrella that the British picture their troops operating under as much as possible. 

^For comparison the Americans dispensed with canned calcs and math formula fearing poor accuracy might endanger friendly troops. Instead a full time planning staff was retained at a Battery's Brigade HQ who would plan out firing solutions from potential sites and then feed that information down to Battalion HQ who would disseminate it to Battery commanders etc. The Americans wanted Battery and Battalion commanders to concentrate on their own movements and safety than to spend inordinate time planning fires. The Germans, due to a lack of radios, often made their poor overworked Forward Observers have to do all this planning. German FO's were highly trained to account for a ridiculous number of variables (including density altitude!) which ensured great accuracy but slow first-shot arrival. 

muh prose strikes again coffee time 

Edited August 29, 2020 by SimpleSimon