Artillery Bombardment in CMBS

[Kinophile]

Ref ammo for fire support in CMBS, we need an "unlimited" option.

I've always felt that artillery fire support in CMBS had oddly truncated supply amounts, to wit, that a single battery has a maximum amount available and...that's it. I've always been curious about that, esp with CMs roots in WW2, where continuous and extended artillery support was the expected norm. Obviously there were times when it wasnt possible but it was expected to be available until and combat had ended. 

With CMBS I often play longer, hour-long games, in real time. I invariably run out of fires, esp as UKR/RUS, because I follow the doctrine - arty the living **** out of your opponent as you move forward. Plus I'm not very good and arty is the first resort of the second-tier commander :).

Even so, when playing  RUS v US the Russian arty is the only real leveler that RUS has and, as this horrible war has shown, it is their primary battlefield technology that enables everything else. 

When I create scenarios with Russian forces (and again, I build larger ones, I usually go full battalion level) I find I have to add a ridiculous amount of additional 152 batteries to give Russia the level of fires I've instinctively felt it would use ( a bloody lot) and which has been borne out in real life (even more than I've anticipated). I've one scenario involving a UKR Mech Co retreating 2 Kms under fire and I needed to provide at least 6 x 152 batteries, coming in at staggered intervals, to give the sense in-game of 2 batteries firing continuously at the retreating Ukrainians along their route. 

Now, I'm no gunner, so I dont know what is the preferred maximum firing time of a Msta battery, but I'm pretty sure they don't run out of shells after 30 mins.

I'm not saying CMBS needs to perfectly reflect RL. But we do know that the attitude to fires support is very different between the two sides, with Russian very much erring on the side of quantity. Yet that is fundamentally not reflected in the ammo available to Russian batteries. 

Please, BFC, can I have some moar?...

Edited December 14, 2022 by Kinophile

[Simcoe]

On 12/14/2022 at 9:10 AM, Kinophile said:

Ref ammo for fire support in CMBS, we need an "unlimited" option.

I've always felt that artillery fire support in CMBS had oddly truncated supply amounts, to wit, that a single battery has a maximum amount available and...that's it. I've always been curious about that, esp with CMs roots in WW2, where continuous and extended artillery support was the expected norm. Obviously there were times when it wasnt possible but it was expected to be available until and combat had ended. 

With CMBS I often play longer, hour-long games, in real time. I invariably run out of fires, esp as UKR/RUS, because I follow the doctrine - arty the living **** out of your opponent as you move forward. Plus I'm not very good and arty is the first resort of the second-tier commander :).

Even so, when playing  RUS v US the Russian arty is the only real leveler that RUS has and, as this horrible war has shown, it is their primary battlefield technology that enables everything else. 

When I create scenarios with Russian forces (and again, I build larger ones, I usually go full battalion level) I find I have to add a ridiculous amount of additional 152 batteries to give Russia the level of fires I've instinctively felt it would use ( a bloody lot) and which has been borne out in real life (even more than I've anticipated). I've one scenario involving a UKR Mech Co retreating 2 Kms under fire and I needed to provide at least 6 x 152 batteries, coming in at staggered intervals, to give the sense in-game of 2 batteries firing continuously at the retreating Ukrainians along their route. 

Now, I'm no gunner, so I dont know what is the preferred maximum firing time of a Msta battery, but I'm pretty sure they don't run out of shells after 30 mins.

I'm not saying CMBS needs to perfectly reflect RL. But we do know that the attitude to fires support is very different between the two sides, with Russian very much erring on the side of quantity. Yet that is fundamentally not reflected in the ammo available to Russian batteries. 

Please, BFC, can I have some moar?...

Totally agree. If the next engine had nothing else but an artillery rework I would be a happy man. 

Artillery should be subject to counter battery if fired for too long.

Create full fire plans at the deployment phase.

Rolling barrage. 

Artillery redeployment and resupply.

[domfluff]

So, you're not wrong, it would be great to have more control over artillery ammunition loads, and have a deeper artillery model in general. What's in CM is significantly better than most representations - it's broadly a good model for how things work - but that doesn't mean it's without fault.

I do think it's worth doing some numbers on this, however:
 

A BTG might typically be supported by a regiment of artillery - so three batteries of something long ranged, alongside it's own organic 120mm mortars. The supporting fires would typically be a mix of 152mm Howitzers and MLRS in the modern period, but since we don't have rocket artillery in CMBS we're left with the SPGs. 122mm howitzers would be more typical for Cold War, and these do exist in CMBS, but are being phased out.

2S19 is then the standard artillery piece for CMBS, either the base, M1 or M2 versions, which all have the same ammunition loads and similar characteristics.

They all carry:

180 Rounds HE
18 Rounds Precision
60 Rounds Smoke

Per battery. Maximum rate of fires differ, but their sustained rates are all 1 round per minute.

Medium fire missions are the lightest fire mission that actually maintains the sustained rate (after starting at a "medium" ROF, whatever precisely that means), so should be your default. and this works out in-game to a 152mm battery fire mission that lasts 16 minutes.

 

It's interesting to compare this to other close-support artillery historically, at a similar scale. During the Somme, 4th battalion, Duke of Wellington's Regiment was part of an attack that had a supporting fires plan in two phases, one to support the trench they were assaulting, and one to suppress the trench behind that, to fix any supporting assets. This first phase was a three minute bombardment, and the second was an eight minute bombardment. And this was the Somme.

As a rule of thumb, you essentially need artillery as an enabler to do anything, or at least to do anything properly. Part of the reason for the three-battery approach is that a BTG should be able to take on three sequential objectives in the space of a CM battlefield, and as such each of those moves should be supported by an artillery battery, whether that battery is providing suppressive fires, denying fires, obscuring fires or actually destroying things.

These tasks should be pre-planned, either literally with the interface, by laying down TRPs on the needed areas, or just giving yourself enough time in the plan to wriggle an FO forward safely and call in fires. "pre-planned" doesn't have to mean "fixed" - those three objectives might actually be marked with five TRPs: 1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, with branching paths and flexibility as to how they're used.

 

So... yes. Whilst it should be possible to stockpile more ammunition beside the vehicles, the hand-waved explanation is that SPGs have to remain mobile, so can only carry what they actually have with them, particularly in the context of CMBS which is a significantly more mobile and high-tempo operation than actual-Ukraine has turned out to be.

In general though, 3+1 batteries of the stuff is doctrinally correct, and usually gives a good representation of what this should actually look like.

 

[fireship4]

A Russian brigade artillery group's 2 battalions of howitzers together are 36 guns... I have never seen that kind of support available in game outside user-made scenarios.  Furthermore, artillery in game has been accused of being weak, and I agree as far as I can judge.  I believe this has all been gone over before in any case.  Would love to see it change!

[domfluff]

I don't think artillery in CM is weak.

CMBS often has too little artillery (as do many scenarios in the WW2 titles), but some of that is down to wargaming habits, I suspect.

CMCW, and the recent CMRT battlepack are firm exceptions to this, where you often have appropriate levels of artillery for the formations depicted.

The six batteries of the brigade would be unlikely (but not totally  impossible) to turn up in support of a single battalion tactical group. More likely in practice this would be split between the two btgs the brigade or regiment is expected to provide.

 

[Kinophile]

Thank you for weighing in! 

Very informative and clear posts, thank you.

[domfluff]

Oh, and a side point on "the only leveller the Russians have"

The artillery superiority is certainly powerful, but the advantage in air defence and EW are significant as well - Russia can dominate the ISR fight in CMBS fairly easily.

EW is a bit awkward, because it either has to be a scenario design point, or agreed before a QB - it does cost points, and it's very powerful. How common it should be is another question - the kit exists and is deployed at appropriate levels, but turning on the EW gives away its position, so it's not clear how common these should be. It's well worth using though.

 

 

[fireship4]

10 hours ago, domfluff said:

The six batteries of the brigade would be unlikely (but not totally  impossible) to turn up in support of a single battalion tactical group. More likely in practice this would be split between the two btgs the brigade or regiment is expected to provide.

A battalion of SPG artillery was expected to travel with the BTG apparently, or two battalions plus MLRS plus AT guns plus attached artillery as part of a brigade formation, according to 'The Russian Way of War', which I think was based on a bunch of military training material left on a Russian general educational website, with commentary.

With regard to artillery being weak, we see 152mm artillery destroying tanks in Ukraine without hitting them directly, and I doubt a 10min 120mm barrage by a mortar battery on their heads should leave an infantry company a viable force.

Edited December 19, 2022 by fireship4

[domfluff]

Yes, that's about right. The Russian Way of War is an excellent source, but it's sources aren't all Russian - a lot of them come from cold war US field manuals (the whole section on artillery nomograms, for example).

Artillery in CM can do all the tasks artillery is good for in reality, and a 10 minute barrage from 120mm mortars would indeed destroy an infantry company, assuming you were using a sensible density of fires (e.g., as per the above artillery nomogram).

The artillery effects (especially secondary effects) against armour are perhaps not what they could be - there's no overpressure modelled for one - but m-kills are extremely likely under any kind of barrage, and light armour will be devastated by any decent attack. In any case, HE is not a tool you'd want to use against tanks to begin with. You might be forced into doing it, but it should never be plan A. Excaliber rounds are an exception, of course, as is DPICM in Cold War, but then both of those are specifically designed to deal with main battle tanks.

So no, I don't think artillery in CM is weak. It's modelled far more accurately than is typical for wargames in general, and the effect allow you to perform all of the four main tasks that artillery is useful for.

[snarre]

artillery is on good spot right now . some gind counter battery system could be nice to have . 

[Artkin]

Artillery sucks in these games. Theres no arguement against it. How many times do we need to prove that artillery needs an overhaul before anybody believes it? 

[chuckdyke]

28 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Artillery sucks in these games. Theres no arguement against it. How many times do we need to prove that artillery needs an overhaul before anybody believes it? 

Tell us what  you think is wrong. Compared with real life it maybe a little too effective Imo. Look at D-Day aircraft battleship blasting away with very little to show for it. You need to specify which era.

Edited December 22, 2022 by chuckdyke

[Artkin]

6 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Tell us what  you think is wrong. Compared with rea life it maybe a little too effective Imo. Look at D-Day aircraft battleship blasting away with very little to show for it.

I thought I came across my own images lately but I was wrong.

152mm + 203mm artillery fails to destroy M1A2 Abrams from top hits in cmbs. I've photographed hits right behind the smoke launchers, with the abrams suffering no component damage.

Artillery also fails to kill as often as it should.

Hand grenades especially, the effectiveness of hand grenades is attributed to the veterancy of the unit throwing it, instead of where the hand grenade lands.

[chuckdyke]

19 minutes ago, Artkin said:

I thought I came across my own images lately but I was wrong.

152mm + 203mm artillery fails to destroy M1A2 Abrams from top hits in cmbs. I've photographed hits right behind the smoke launchers, with the abrams suffering no component damage.

Artillery also fails to kill as often as it should.

Hand grenades especially, the effectiveness of hand grenades is attributed to the veterancy of the unit throwing it, instead of where the hand grenade lands.

British WW2 I think it was their heavy artillery knocked out a STUG III. I take the animations with a pinch of salt. It takes some infantry in a squad  4 seconds and up to react to a full contact at less than 50 meters. Most of the time the guy with binoculars looks the opposite way than his last waypoint. It is not only artillery which behaves oddly. Happy gaming. 

 

[Kinophile]

To be clear,  this thread is not about if CMBS arty is good or not. Those discussions in other threads have been lengthy,  in depth and highly informative,  as well as vexing to many concerned! 

It's the quantity and duration of RUS fires that I'm raising. I've read an account of UKR companies under sustained fire, over an entire day, from a single RUS battery which they could identify but no assets were available to hit. 

Now,  obviously CMBS is not modeled or runs any battles as 24hr sims,but it's the availability of RUS fires that I'm interested in,  as I don't get that sense from the game. 

Could easily be just me,  of course

Edited December 22, 2022 by Kinophile

[Artkin]

7 minutes ago, Kinophile said:

To be clear,  this thread is not about if CMBS arty is good or not. Those discussions in other threads have been lengthy,  in depth and highly informative,  as well as vexing to many concerned! 

It's the quantity and duration of RUS fires that I'm raising. I've read an account of UKR companies under sustained fire, over an entire day, from a single RUS battery which they could identify but no assets were available to hit. 

Now,  obviously CMBS is not modeled or runs any battles as 24hr sims,but it's the availability of RUS fires that I'm interested in,  as I don't get that sense from the game. 

Could easily be just me,  of course

You can solve the issue with on map mortars by setting mortar platoons to "dismounted" in the editor. Delete out the infantry and youll be given an ammo box full of everything that was inside of the mortar carriers vehicle. If you put all of these ammo boxes into a house they will turn into one when you start the scenario. 

You need to be on iron or elite to see the ammo boxes.

I like to incorporate ammo boxes into my scenarios regularly, especially with conscripts because they can seriously burn through their ammo

[Artkin]

On 12/19/2022 at 7:28 AM, fireship4 said:

A battalion of SPG artillery was expected to travel with the BTG apparently, or two battalions plus MLRS plus AT guns plus attached artillery as part of a brigade formation, according to 'The Russian Way of War', which I think was based on a bunch of military training material left on a Russian general educational website, with commentary.

With regard to artillery being weak, we see 152mm artillery destroying tanks in Ukraine without hitting them directly, and I doubt a 10min 120mm barrage by a mortar battery on their heads should leave an infantry company a viable force.

True... the first paragrah of this post agrees with what you just said.... 

This was posted in The Thread.

2 hours ago, Zeleban said:

In the Melitopol direction, the enemy continues to strengthen his group of troops. During the last 2 days, there was a movement through Melitopol towards Tokmak and Vasilyevka of a tank company (8 units of tanks) of a 122-mm howitzer battery on the D-30 and a Grad battery (6 units of 122-mm MLRS BM-21 "Grad" ). In the area of Vasilievka itself, 2 motorized rifle companies on BMP-1,2 were noted moving in a northeast direction.

In the area of Energodar - Bolshaya and Malaya Belozerka - Tokmak - Vasilievka - Dneprorudnoye, the enemy is strengthening the filtration regime. After several fairly successful remote defeats of enemy targets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Melitopol and Berdyansk directions with appropriate means in the tactical and operational-tactical rear of the enemy force group (control points, ammunition storage sites and weapons and military equipment), the command of the enemy troops came to the conclusion that there was a place to be " guidance and adjustment of the means of destruction of the enemy (i.e., the Armed Forces of Ukraine) by the Ukrainian terrorist-nationalist bandit underground.

According to this "bright opinion", the enemy decided in the areas of all more or less large settlements (Tokmak, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Energodar, Dneprorudnoye, Vasilyevka, Chernigovka, Primorskoye) to carry out "filtration and barrage measures in an enhanced mode", as well as to use additional measures to camouflage and conceal important objects and locations of their units and subunits.

As of December 21, 2022, the territory of Belarus:

On December 22, a temporary restriction on entry, temporary stay and movement in the border zone within the Loevsky, Braginsky and Khoiniki districts of the Gomel region is introduced.

In this regard, it should be noted that from open sources it became known about the arrival in this area of the mercenaries of PMC "Liga", which is part of the PMC "Wagner". It is obvious that this Prigozhin "special forces" ended up here quite by accident.

They are divided into two groups of 80-90 people and arrived in the area of the village of Krupiyki (Loevsky district, Gomel region) to perform tasks within the framework of "Russian-Belarusian cooperation in the defense sphere" (but why exactly in the border area of Ukraine). They have lightly armored vehicles and tilting trucks at their disposal. These groups are also reinforced by engineering units.

Therefore, the likelihood of provocations and the organization of "aggressive acts by Ukraine" in the border zone has clearly increased dramatically.

 

December 20 at 06:20 in the Vitebsk region at the railway station "Zaslonovo" was noticed the departure of a train of military equipment from Russia. The equipment was previously located at the Lepelsky training ground. The echelon consisted of 51 cars, including 46 platform cars with equipment: 31 T-72B3 and T-80 tanks, 13 Urals, 1 BTR-80 and 1 tracked engineering vehicle. Also, 3 freight wagons (with equipment and ammunition) and 2 passenger wagons were also attached, in which about 100 personnel were transported. At 05:30 on December 21, this echelon arrived at the Polonka railway station. It is likely that the equipment will be moved to the Obuz-Lesnovsky training ground, where the military from Russia is stationed.

It is obvious that the Russian command is gradually completing its units from the so-called regional joint Russian-Belarusian group of forces with regular military equipment and is gradually pulling it into the areas of concentration and deployment of units and subunits of the 1st Guards TA on the territory of Belarus.

 

 

[Simcoe]

19 hours ago, Kinophile said:

To be clear,  this thread is not about if CMBS arty is good or not. Those discussions in other threads have been lengthy,  in depth and highly informative,  as well as vexing to many concerned! 

It's the quantity and duration of RUS fires that I'm raising. I've read an account of UKR companies under sustained fire, over an entire day, from a single RUS battery which they could identify but no assets were available to hit. 

Now,  obviously CMBS is not modeled or runs any battles as 24hr sims,but it's the availability of RUS fires that I'm interested in,  as I don't get that sense from the game. 

Could easily be just me,  of course

I think it would be better to give the player unlimited ammo but restrict the times it can be used. Give us 100 rounds of mortar ammunition but after that's out the mortars need to resupply for 30 minutes. 

For larger guns you can use 30 rounds until they need to displace and then you're given another 30 rounds 20 minutes later.

Each number would be dependent on the scenario.

[Armorgunner]

As been brought up in earlier threads, is the artillerys weaknes in destroying AFV´s in CM. And the war in Ukraine, has showed. That artillery is a real AFV killer. We have seen drone films, of arty shells dropping maybe 30 feet from a BMP. And it starts burning. We seen film from a tank, when hit on the front. Smashing the front, and sending a road wheel forward. Hearing the crew screem inside. etcetera, etcetera

[Simcoe]

7 hours ago, Armorgunner said:

As been brought up in earlier threads, is the artillerys weaknes in destroying AFV´s in CM. And the war in Ukraine, has showed. That artillery is a real AFV killer. We have seen drone films, of arty shells dropping maybe 30 feet from a BMP. And it starts burning. We seen film from a tank, when hit on the front. Smashing the front, and sending a road wheel forward. Hearing the crew screem inside. etcetera, etcetera

Maybe when my grandchild is born we might see artillery damage tank subsystems other than it's tracks.

[Pelican Pal]

 

 

On 12/22/2022 at 3:06 PM, chuckdyke said:

Tell us what  you think is wrong. Compared with real life it maybe a little too effective Imo. Look at D-Day aircraft battleship blasting away with very little to show for it. You need to specify which era.

Specifically the artillery system doesn’t model fragments against tanks. So no external systems can be damaged except by a direct hit.
 

This lack of fragmentation modeling also means that a hit to an ERA block won’t cause any damage as it’s not calculated as a direct hit.

——

im not sure why we’re rehashing this when it’s a well known, tested, and logged issue.

[HerrTom]

On 12/22/2022 at 12:06 PM, chuckdyke said:

Tell us what  you think is wrong. Compared with real life it maybe a little too effective Imo. Look at D-Day aircraft battleship blasting away with very little to show for it. You need to specify which era.

I think this thread from 2017 (!! it's been a minute eh?) expands a bit on it. Particularly this post I have some plots showing the armour penetration power of a few standard artillery shells. The problem is in CM that only direct hits (i.e. shell hits tank) cause subsystem damage beyond the tracks.  The first post also has a good article grounding the investigation.

 

[chuckdyke]

Put it this way coordinate armor with a barrage. Tanks approach positions risk free. At least it saver than waiting for the barrage to lift like we do with infantry.