Arty

[L4Pilot]

This has indeed been an interesting thread. I wish I had gotten involved a little earlier, but I was too busy playing CM. Having owned a Piper Cub for 13 years and having gotten to fly an L-4J in WWII markings on a 500 mile delivery trip, this is obviously an area of special interest for me.

Some things come to mind - Charles, spotter planes being hit by their own sides artillery was unfortunately not a unique occurrence but happened multiple times in a given theater (several times in western Europe and several times in Italy) even though the pilots took pains to make sure they were not in the line of flight of the shells. Not common but definitely happened.

Re: VT fuzes - America was so afraid about the shells falling into enemy hands that AAA use by the navy was originally restricted to deep water only, so that unexploded shells could not be recovered by the enemy and copied.

RE: Counterbattery fire - I seem to remember that the American's at least had specific counterbattery direction units that were able to locate enemy firing arty units by triangulation and flash-sound timing methods. At least some of these units were composed of black soldiers in America's segregated WWII army.

As for spotter planes in CM, there might be a way to simulate this relatively easily - just one more line on the force selection screen under artillery. Then the FO position for that unit might be restricted to the original allied set up area. (Not too many forays were made over enemy held territory in a 73 mph aircraft.) Then the line of sight could be drawn from that position to the potential target but with a starting height (of the line of sight) of 200 - 300 meters up. Good for seeing over woods and buildings but certainly not omniscient. Think about it, Steve and Charles. And would certainly represent a major strength of the American's in this campaign.

The only text I'm aware of that covers spotter planes in depth is "Fighting Grasshoppers," authors name forgotten in an alcoholic haze. Excellent history and photos.

[This message has been edited by L4Pilot (edited 06-28-2000).]

[Guest Snakes1000]

Nowadays all counterfire is done by radar but in WW2, it was much more simplistic. One method is by Radio Direction Fixation since artillery units are the biggest users of radios and generate most of the radio traffic. Get three seperate RDF units fixed on an enemy signal and you can triangulate his position - FFE. Also, most divisional artillery units had counterbattery units. They'd have to mark an impact crater and thus determine a back azimuth to the enemy gun and then use flash/bang or sound ranging equipment to estimate distance to the enemy gun. Once you get direction and distance, you can calculate a grid. Counterbattery has traditionally and doctrinely been conducted by corps artillery battalions as opposed to divisional artillery.

Snakes

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by coe:

can someone explain how counterbattery fire works? If you have a 150 mm and you put it

in range of the front line (but out of LOS)

then how is the enemy artilery supposed to hit you if it too is placed behind their lines. (i.e. does it have to have a bigger

range) and how do they spot it (assuming

there are no airplanes around)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Guest Snakes1000]

I would rate German artllery to be more responsive to calls for fire (CFF) than Allied artillery due to the layers of command. German divisional artillery would parcel out its batteries to support individual tank/infantry battalions. The german battery FO would talk directly to his battery. US divisional artillery would dedicate one of its battalions to suppport an infantry/armor regiment and the FOs would often talk directly to the battalion Fire Direction Center (FDC) rather than to the Battery FDC. Also, US forces would reinforce the primary effort regiment by assigning that artillery battalion more corps artillery battalions. For example, the 3rd Infnatry Rgt would have the 3rd Artillery battalion as its direct support artillery bn. If the 3rd regt was assigned as the main effort, the US Corps would reinforce that regiment by assigning five additional corps artillery battalions under the control of the 3rd artillery battalion. My point is that the german FO talks directly to his battery while the American counterpart must talk to his battalion FDC, who then relay their commands down to the other battalions/batteries which takes longer than the Germans. Massing several artllery battalions on a single target takes much more time than one FO talking to a single battery because their are more layers of command and control in the US system. the germans rarely massed like the US and UK did but I'd say they were more resposive for calls for fire. As far as accuracy goes, it was my understanding that the US was marginally better than the Germans because the US used an innovative tool, similiar to a sliderule - which Im wondering is anything like the GFT (Graphical Firing Table) used today. Instead of consulting a hefty table out of a large book for firing data, this sliderule could give you the information a little more accurate. I also understand that the British tended to be a little less accurate in favor of being more responsive and deals with the way the brits decided to perform battery survey quicker at an accuracy hit. Whew. I was a former active duty artillery Fire Direction Officer and current national guard FDO.

Snakes

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Big Time Software:

Rhet - actually we do track each incoming round of artillery. It's not so hard to do. After all, we track every ordnance round from on-map units.

I would amend this (as CM does) to:

American - Excellent response time, excellent accuracy and excellent weight of fire.

German - Good response time, good accuracy and average weight of fire.

Brittish - Good response time, good accuracy and good weight of fire.

Nobody beats U.S. artillery in 1944-45.

Perhaps I'm using a slightly different scale than you, however (note that there is only one "average" rating in there and all others are good or excellent). I do this because I'm leaving room for the Russians at the low end of the scale in the next game.

Russians - Poor response time (Comrade! You need more artillery? Obviously you are not attacking bravely enough!), abysmal accuracy (Comrade gunner! Just be sure you destroy more enemy than friendly this time!) but massive weight of fire.

Charles

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>