What's the reasoning for the long wait times for artillery in Combat Mission

[Simcoe]

3 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Nope you have up to 15 minutes to play with in the beginning of every game. Say the average game is 1 hour it means the strike will take place at the 45th minute mark. Subsequent adjustments can make you postpone your strike at infinitum. Artillery you organize your echelon. Mortars at the front, (which can be used in direct fire mode) heavy stuff on your objectives. With all respect on Veteran you have a very unrealistic scenario. Like hunting for cows in the paddock. My opinion only. 

Fair points but you seem to be talking about preplanned artillery while I'm discussing artillery called during the game and regarding the US in WW2. From my research, they called artillery early, often and it came very quickly. I think Veteran is a good depiction of that. In my opinion, it makes the game more fun regardless of the authenticity.

That's what the choices are for right! Makes for fun discussion though.

 

[chuckdyke]

54 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

discussing artillery called during the game and regarding the US in WW2.

Call it in ASAP even when you don't have a LOS on your area. Establish where your KT's are and the function (fire or observing). One game is Chaumont 1st round if you get 105 mm call in times is 12 minutes which is realistic. Take for example Omaha Beach on D-Day all the battleships had direct LOS on the German positions but no communications with the landed troops. The best reference I have is Destroyers at Normandy. They put a time of around twenty minutes as quoted before effective fire was established using an FO. The preplanned bombardments were an absolute failure. WW 2 artillery is more about area denial. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by chuckdyke

[chuckdyke]

56 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

they called artillery early, often and it came very quickly.

Sounds like what we call preplanned, artillery in CM is very tentative. Preplanned is more the British Tactic you get TRP's with a lot of 25 pounders aka a set piece attack. Love him or hate him it was something Montgomery did well his command and control with artillery. The US had far more radios even for squads for them you need LOS over long distances. Don't know or this is mirrored in the game. With 105 mm and up I would suggest have a good look at the preplanned option. The US with their radios in a armored platoon they have two. Which makes your forces very flexible. Assign a 105 mm howitzer to a HQ Company Sherman as a suggestion. It sometimes makes the game boring. 

[Combatintman]

16 hours ago, The_Capt said:

As I understand it organic air assets get rolled directly into fire planning and have direct contact with troops on the ground for coordination of fires but someone who has served in this type pf organization would have to step in here.  In my personal experience, air showed up much like arty and had to be walked onto the target by someone who knew what they were doing, they were not baked in...but when the showed up, it was worth it.  

Exception was UAVs but they were also linked back to a JTAC/controller, we did not talk directly to the drivers.  But response times and feedback was definitely more intimate.

Airspace deconfliction ... Hot ROZs (decided not to Google that in order to keep the wife off my back) etc would be planned at formation level from memory.  With all that in place it would be (put simply) knowing that the ROZ was either 'hot' or 'cold' which I think would be either determined by the JTAC or communicated to the JTAC from the relevant formation.  In Afghanistan you could pretty much guarantee that there would be buckshee fast air allocated on the ATO to orbit for ECAS/ad hoc tasking in addition to anything that had been specifically committed to any given unit/operation.  So if they were needed they could just be whistled up and, as Afghanistan isn't that big, they wouldn't take long to rock up.  I recall on my first Afghanistan tour that the Danish recce squadron attached to Task Force Helmand got about 21,000lb of ordnance dropped from a B-52 onto some Talibs who were giving them bother on one of their trips up to Now Zad which was certainly not planned CAS.

[Simcoe]

1 hour ago, Combatintman said:

Airspace deconfliction ... Hot ROZs (decided not to Google that in order to keep the wife off my back) etc would be planned at formation level from memory.  With all that in place it would be (put simply) knowing that the ROZ was either 'hot' or 'cold' which I think would be either determined by the JTAC or communicated to the JTAC from the relevant formation.  In Afghanistan you could pretty much guarantee that there would be buckshee fast air allocated on the ATO to orbit for ECAS/ad hoc tasking in addition to anything that had been specifically committed to any given unit/operation.  So if they were needed they could just be whistled up and, as Afghanistan isn't that big, they wouldn't take long to rock up.  I recall on my first Afghanistan tour that the Danish recce squadron attached to Task Force Helmand got about 21,000lb of ordnance dropped from a B-52 onto some Talibs who were giving them bother on one of their trips up to Now Zad which was certainly not planned CAS.

That's crazy. Any idea how many Taliban were there? Imagine the cost of that ordinance compared to the total cost of the AK's and flip flops the OPFOR had.

[Combatintman]

1 minute ago, Simcoe said:

That's crazy. Any idea how many Taliban were there? Imagine the cost of that ordinance compared to the total cost of the AK's and flip flops the OPFOR had.

Not many, probably no more than 25-30 which was standard for 'bigger engagements' - they just took a lot of winkling out.  It did raise eyebrows for sure.  You forget to mention the well-paid aircrew and not overly cheap aviation fuel in your costings by the way ... 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

14 hours ago, Combatintman said:

I recall on my first Afghanistan tour that the Danish recce squadron attached to Task Force Helmand got about 21,000lb of ordnance dropped from a B-52 onto some Talibs who were giving them bother on one of their trips up to Now Zad which was certainly not planned CAS.

Jebus! 

I'm gonna need more IEDs! 

13 hours ago, Combatintman said:

You forget to mention the well-paid aircrew and not overly cheap aviation fuel in your costings by the way ... 

The B-52 costs $70,388 per flying hour. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[The_Capt]

13 hours ago, Simcoe said:

That's crazy. Any idea how many Taliban were there? Imagine the cost of that ordinance compared to the total cost of the AK's and flip flops the OPFOR had.

Welcome to war in the 21st century.  Billion dollar platforms firing million dollar weapons at 50$ targets.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

8 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Welcome to war in the 21st century.  Billion dollar platforms firing million dollar weapons at 50$ targets.

Yeah, I recall the Daily Mail reporting how the RAF had successfully struck ISIS in Syria.....Three militants in a pickup truck, taken out with a Brimstone, launched from a Typhoon that took off from Cyprus. 

On the bright side, BAE shares are up. 

 

[Holman]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Welcome to war in the 21st century.  Billion dollar platforms firing million dollar weapons at 50$ targets.

I write an $80,000 check to Lockheed-Martin every time I launch a Javelin in CMx2.

[Combatintman]

4 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Yeah, I recall the Daily Mail reporting how the RAF had successfully struck ISIS in Syria.....Three militants in a pickup truck, taken out with a Brimstone, launched from a Typhoon that took off from Cyprus. 

On the bright side, BAE shares are up. 

 

Dear God, you read the Daily Mail ... bit of an admission

[chuckdyke]

Better a WW2 Typhoon they were not fancy but they were cheap. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 11/26/2021 at 3:45 AM, Combatintman said:

Dear God, you read the Daily Mail ... bit of an admission

I read everything I can, from Al Masdar to XInhua.