My case against artillery effectiveness in CM

[DEF BUNGIS]

Hey JT, great reading bro!

I once talked to a polish WWI veteran when I visited Wraclaw poland back in 1989, right after the wall came down.

This guy told some great stories, we talked for probably 3 or 4 hours in this little coffe shop. He swears up and down that it was the soviet mass ARTY barrages and constant ARTY pounding that just wore down the moral on the germans and eventually won the east front. NOT THE T-34! He said the T-34 was over rated. I kind of smiled and agreed to appease him, but ****, who am I to argue with a veteran of the eastern front.

As far as the ARTY in CM, well, if any one has played the scenario

"Sherbrooke fusiliers" you know that it is very effective.

I just finished playing as the germans.....

oh boy, what a mess.

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Better to make the wrong decision than be the sorry son of a bitch to scared to make one at all

[Count Sessine]

Well, well. Thanks for the qualified support, JTMauney. Its nice to know I'm not alone with my point of view. My experiences with armylife is limited to a two year period as a sergeant in the Danish Royal Guards regiment, infantry, and since that was before Bosnia I never saw active duty. But my initial reaction to artillery effectiveness in CM was that, wow, those german East Front veterans sure gets scared easily, running like little girls, like you said LOL. I hope your input revives my case, that at least arty damage when soldiers are in foxholes should be dramatically toned down.

/CS

[Guest Michael emrys]

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

The problem is that the troops shoulnd't have exposed themselves.

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So remember, guys, keep those zippers cinched up tight!

Michael

[:USERNAME:]

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

Background: 6 years infantry mortars, 81mm and 60mm (mostly the former), USMC 1986-1992. Served in all squad positions, FO and FDC Chief. Also attended LFTCPacific Fire Support Coordinator's School and served as 81mm Fire Support Coordinator in the BN FSC Center (The looey wanted to be in the field, so I got the job-- and the education

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Excellent post

I believe VT in WWII terms were the radar fuze weapons that the US brought in to use at the end of the war?.

Have you heard about the new 120mm mortar ammo the army wants? It gets shot up into the air and at the top of the parabola it deploys spring mounted fins! It then becomes a glide bomb (greatly increase range) and has a laser seeker on the warhead!

It probably has less HE but can be put right where its needed.

Lewis

[JTMauney]

Lewis wrote:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Have you heard about the new 120mm mortar ammo the army wants? It gets shot up into the air and at the top of the parabola it deploys spring mounted fins! It then becomes a glide bomb (greatly increase range) and has a laser seeker on the warhead!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The DoD has been kicking this idea around for quite a while. The original concept (to my knowledge), was primarily an 81mm round called the "Merlin". It was to be a kind of mortar equivalent of the artillery "Copperhead" round. I heard rumors of it as far back as '87, but I don't think it ever went into service. The problem with laser designated rounds is they have to be guided in by a MULE, which is a huge, bulky, expensive, and rather sensitive piece of equipment for a grunt to be lugging around. This means you'd have to have an ANGLICo team or a laser-equipped FAC or senior arty FO around to guide the thing. If you've got all those fire-support assets already, the mortar's ability to take out a tank is rather a moot point, isn't it? =) Lasers also suffer the drawback of not being able to fire through particulate suspensions (smoke and WP). While not a big problem from the air, it can become a bit of a pain when you have to fire 4000m or more across a smoke-filled battlefield. I've seen more than one Air Officer curse an FSC officer real good for laying down smoke screens across the ground FAC's lasing axis of an imminent airstrike. =)

I think that the reason it was originally designated an 81mm round was so that both the Army and the Marine Corps could utilize it. The USMC retired the old 4.2" (120mm) mortars, affectionately known as the "four-duece", about early-eighties time frame, as I remember. Too heavy, must be vehilce transported, and has a longer displacement time. The Corps likes its line battalions to be entirely foot mobile with all organic assets. (You have to pass the MCCRES once a year, which involves a 25-mile forced march in full equipment in 8 hours or less).

While there are some Ranger Batt's that have tried to use the 120mm as a foot mobile asset with a little trailer, you're still left with the problem of ammunition. What are they gonna do-- pull an ammo caisson, too?

In addition, I believe the new MAD technology that is supposed to enable artillery rounds to home on the magnetic field disruption of an AFV can be miniaturized for use in mortars, so the whole laser problem goes away. I'm not privy to any of that info, so can't really say for sure.

I've not heard directly of the Army 120mm project, ('til now), but I suppose if they used the four-deuce as a primary artillery piece at the Brigade level and below, it might be a viable alternative to Copperheads and plane-dropped LGB systems. The only Army service I did was with an ALRS unit (what used to be called a LRRP company) here in Houston for three years while I was in college. The exact TO&E of Army line brigades is a bit beyond my ken, as we mostly dealt with Divisional level assests as a Corps-attached recon company.

As to the VT fuze bit; my understanding is that the VT (variable time) fuze was the only one available in WWII. The radio (or "radar"), fuzes were not available to the best of my knowledge. The issue is somewhat confused by the common modern-day practice of calling a radio fuze (which detonates at 20-30 feet above ground by signal return) a "VT" fuze. This is not the case-- its only a case of convention combined with laziness. The only *true* variable time fuzes in use today (in mortars) are on illumination rounds and the new red phosphorous rounds, (replaced WP--mostly). RP is *purwy*, too. =) 'Specially with a gunline in effect set for high airburst. Talk about a smokescreen from hell! My last evolution as a FDC chief (and active duty) was on a TACP shoot (marking for flyboy strikes), in the Chocolate Mountain range in SE California. It was my first use of RP, and when it was over we had several dozen RP left. I decided to see what kind of a smokescreen we could put up, since it was supposed to be a lot larger coverage area than WP. OMG! With four tubes traversing, it took us less than 1 minute and a dozen rounds of RP to have a dense smoke screen a kilometer long across an entire ridgeline-- and it was nearly 3000m out! One of the pilots was flying away and came over TAC1 to ask where the hell that arty came from. Hehe...

[Quentin]

I've watched the debate on artillery effectiveness very carefully. Artillery effectiveness in wargames generally is a subject that I've been fascinated by for over 10 years now--ever since ASL came out, I suppose. One thing that has been clear to me for a long time is that artillery effectiveness in post the post WWI era is a bit like marching attrition in the pre-ACW era--reality just doesn't jibe with our sensibilities very well, and most games bow to our expectations rather than the facts.

My comments aren't going to change anybody's mind, but for what it's worth my sense is that arty in CM (demo version!) is too effective, but primarily only because it is too predictable. The thing about artillery is that it tends to do nothing for a good while, and occasionally land that one shell that blows up one guy and wounds a couple more (and ruins the combat effectiveness of the entire squad for the rest of the day). My experience matches those who have said that arty seems like something you can count on to take out a fixed target in a minute or two, and I doubt that's completely accurate. (I've got to include a caviate with even this slight concern, because I had an early demo version, which I understand has been tweeked, and it may be that those fixed targets are no longer so vulnerable.)

Having said that, I don't think the arty is generating more casualties than it deserves to. The 70% statistic one of the BTS folk cited is actually lower than the stat I've settled on after my research--I generally quote people 80%. For the purposes of games above the operational scale, units' attack strength consists of essentially nothing except for artillery. (AFVs are disproportionately important for the purposes of opening holes in the line, but don't let me get sidetracked here...)

The huge problem with modelling units at that scale which results from that simple but counter-intuitive fact is that artillery strength is itself tremendously variable. Generally, the number of tubes isn't the issue once you get above the operational scale--the problem is how many tons of ammo you can get to the units. You just can't imagine how much easier it is to load that ammo up and fire it off than it is to shlep it up to the front. So, because most games want to measure the offensive punch of artillery by counting tubes, they get it wrong. They tend to assume average firing rates assuming average supply levels, which of course, is accurate about as often as a stopped clock. For a GAME, it's just too much of a nuisance to have a system that measures and accounts for the real factors at work. (If you doubt it, try a game of CNA some day.)

And, incidentally, that's also why the entire German front line didn't evaporate! It would have, I can assure you, if the Americans had an infinite supply of ammo stacked up with the guns. And, incidentally, that's why the American infantry was so bizarrely tough for it's numbers--they were backed up by a supply chain like the Russians and Germans couldn't even conceive to dream about. In a nutshell, numbers (times combat experience) measure the infantry's ability to suck it up, and trucks carrying supply to the front measure your ability to dish it out.

Now, looking at CM, which is, of course, a tactical game, I think you'll see that BTS' comments are spot on. The issue isn't whether arty can generate the casualties on a battlefield--they can, and they did. The problem is that it's real easy to get more arty in a scenario than really deserves to be there. (Again, please note I've only played the demo scenarios, so I can't speak to those with the game itself.) But if you try to put together an OPFOR using a TOE from a handbook somewhere, you're going to include the arty by counting the tubes--and that's assuming too much. Just look how fast you burn that ammo once the game starts, and consider how much heavier (and therefore harder to replenish) those 105mm shells are than the other munitions you're using, plus the fact that they get used in all sorts of situations when you don't even have tactical contact with the enemy, and you'll see why most tubes spent most of their time hoarding, not blasting.

Of course, when the boys are taking fire, that's when those hoarded shells get burnt up, so you can bet that in the kinds of situations scenarios represent it's a case of "smoke 'em if you got 'em." But quite often, they just aren't going to have 'em--especially when the engagement isn't part of a planned offensive, where the supply gets massively built up in advance.