BTS & Troops: Problems with rockets

[John Kettler]

In my current Quick Battle against Kingfish, as the German player I received 25 rounds of 21 cm rocket fire. My plan was to hit one objective with five rounds (one launcher) and reserve the rest for other targets. That was the plan.

To make it happen, I carefully delayed the arrival of fire until only 15 seconds remained, figuring that would severely limit how many shots would be fired. That's not what happened, though.

The movie playback revealed a ripping sound, followed by huge rolling detonations over much of that end of the board, several of which practically fell on my guys. It was spectacular, but I never saw a spotting round, never had a chance to adjust fire, and frankly, was deprived early of a potent fire support weapon.

I was utterly baffled by this unplanned instant exhaustion of my rocket assets, but I think I may have at least a partial explanation, which is that rockets aren't fired the way tube artillery is.

Rate of fire for rockets is unaffected by the need to load complete artillery rounds or shell and powder, as in tube artillery, for the rounds are already in their individual tubes, and their firing rate, once loaded, is limited by the need to avoid round-to-round interference, not the normal reloading processes of tube artillery.

The result of this is that rocket fire in CM is the functional equivalent of many FOs all bringing down fire nearly at once, FOs who don't really have a good fix on target location either.

I would therefore like to add my plea to Bullethead's: please give us the ability to fire a specific quantity of rounds, given that 15 seconds are as tightly as players can control game events at present.

Also, having nearly been immolated by my own support fires, it would really help if we had some sort of impact zone footprints that appeared when rocket artillery/hevy and superheavy artillery is being plotted. If I'd had any idea how vast an area would be covered by my rocket fires, I most emphatically would've chosen a different aimpoint.

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this.

Sincerely,

John Kettler

[OGSF]

Hi John,

I agree that being able to specify the number of rounds fired (as an option) would be great. Regarding the "zone of impact", someone some weeks ago conducted a firing test and published their results on this board. I forget who, but that doesn't diminish my thanks to them.

The data they supplied was:

Arty Spreads-

Regular Impact Pattern Selected:

LOS & TRP: 100m x 50m oriented E-W

LOS, no TRP: ditto

Blind & TRP: ditto

Blind, no TRP: 200m x 100m pattern oriented E-W

Wide Impact Pattern Selected:

LOS & TRP: 200m diameter circle

LOS, no TRP: 250-300m diameter circle

Blind & TRP: 200m diameter circle

Blind, no TRP: 350m to 400m diameter circle

Rockets:

*Always produce a 650-700m diameter circle pattern (350m radius)

**In all cases, center of pattern coincides with center of target area on map.

Hope that helps!

OberGrupenStompinFuhrer

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OGSF will be happy to know that he pointed out a nice little bug with bazookas hitting the back doors of bunkers. No idea when this stopped working, but the fix was rather easy. It will be in 1.1.

- Steve

[Olle Petersson]

Sending a salvoe of only 5 rockets?

Why? The effect would be next to nothing, and each launcher has 6 barrels IIRC.

Rockets have always been fired in full battery (or more) volleys, without any spotting rounds. This is a necessaty because of the great dispersion. With fewer rockets the target area won't be saturated.

There are 24 rockets per battery in a volley, so what you can do is to fire 24 rockets at one target, and then re-aim for the final rocket...

Cheers

Olle

[Formerly Babra]

Maybe it's the cynic in me. My reading of the problem is this: "I'm inexperienced with rockets, didn't use them right, and I'd like them to be idiot-proof."

Don't feel bad, most people screw them up, me included. Just takes practice.

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I remember it perfectly: The Germans wore grey; you wore blue...

[Guest Germanboy]

The 150mm Nebelwerfer had six barrels, and they all had to be fired simultaneously. Larger Werfers had at least that or even mroe barrels, from what I remember of pictures I have seen. Rocket artillery is not like ordinary arty in that it gives away its position extremely clearly when firing, due to the smoke produced by the rockets. It also had to be rather close to the frontline, IIRC, making it quite vulnerable to counter-battery fire. Reload time was higher, because the crew had to take shelter away from the launcher during firing. Also, because it was an imprecise weapon, it might have made more sense to go for smothering the target area. A bit like using heavy bombers in pre-offensive bombardments.

All these attributes make it a very different animal from tube arty, and I believe make the concept of spotting rounds and firing a limited number of rockets rather impractical.

Babra has a point, BTW - PBEMs are not the place to experiment with weapon systems. If you want to know how X is performing, fire up a QB against the AI. As soon as the weapon I want to try has been used, I usually surrender and view the map, to see the effects. Much safer.

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Andreas

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/greg_mudry/sturm.html">Der Kessel</a >

Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 11-27-2000).]

[mensch]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Formerly Babra:

Don't feel bad, most people screw them up…

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I grab the golden idiot award for this one.. (germanboy you sit down)

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Der Kessel Home of „Die Sturmgruppe“; Scenario Design Group for Combat Mission.

[tss]

My standard advice on rocket weapons is:

Write 100 times to the blackboard: "Rockets are not surgical weapons".

- Tommi

[jgdpzr]

John,

By saying you are trying to limit the fire until the final 15 seconds, do you mean by using the pause command? It is my understanding that the pause command refers to movement orders only, not fire orders. Hope this helps clarify why that barrage came in when it did.

[jshandorf]

I usually use the big 300mm rockets and mostly for the comical and maniacal effect it has on me. I love watching those big explosions go off and cackling to myself.

Other than that any useful purpose they may display I have found is merely luck.

But one helpful hint.. If you buy rockets.. buy a TRP. It helps ALOT.

Jeff

[Maximus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Formerly Babra:

Maybe it's the cynic in me. My reading of the problem is this: "I'm inexperienced with rockets, didn't use them right, and I'd like them to be idiot-proof."

Don't feel bad, most people screw them up, me included. Just takes practice.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The cynic in me also says that. The whole issue is that rockets are EXTREMLY innaccurate. In the very first battle I played with the release version, I called in rockets. I also had a platoon or so running down through this valley towards some enemy infantry. Well a Rocket round landed practically on top of my running men and it totally decimated them. Must have killed at least a platoon and a half of men.

Even today's US MLRS is not very accurate either. The goal is with rocket is to fire a huge volley to saturate an area with LARGE warheads. They are a long range weapon system. They are not meant to be fired in close proximity to allied troops. So in CM's rather close quarter map sizes, it's a wonder BTS even included them.

I'll say it again. Rockets aren't close-support weapons.

[Jarmo]

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

They are not meant to be fired in close proximity to allied troops. So in CM's rather close quarter map sizes, it's a wonder BTS even included them.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Can you imagine the amount of moaning and complaining if the

nebelwerfer wasn't in?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Hi John,

People above have hit the nail on the head. Rocket artillery was pretty much an all or nothing weapon. The effect of 6 rockets is about nil. Try something in the editor. Change the ammo count for a rocket FO down to 6. Set up a similar situation to the battle when you expected to use them and play the game hotseat. See how much effect they have. Unless one of the 6 rockets scored a "direct hit" on a target that really mattered to you at that moment, the effects from the German's perspective will be very disapointing.

The ability to select number of ARTILLERY rounds, as Bullethead originally suggested, is being looked at for CM2. But it will not be extended to rocket artillery if we do in fact get that feature in. As far as we know this would be as unrealistic as it would be useless from a game standpoint.

Steve

[GriffinCheng+]

Allow me for my ignorance:

Why did rockets in CMBO time peroid inherently inaccurate? I think the German ones were fin-stablized. I am not sure about the American ones.

Griffin.

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"+" is just the beginning. Expect to see "GriffinCheng76", "GriffinCheng(105)" or "GriffinChengA3E8" more should Forum problems occur again

[Kingfish]

Griffin,

I'm not an expert on rockets, but I believe the inaccuracy of rockets in due in large part to the differences of "burn-time" from one rocket motor to another. A difference in a second or two can be the difference between a rocket landing on target or off the map.

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Frag Hanoi Jane

[John Kettler]

First of all, thanks for all the replies. I shall now attempt to address the issues you raised in your responses.

OGSF, thanks for the dispersion numbers. I saw them some time ago, but they didn't stick.

Olle, the bigger werfer launchers had fewer tubes, hence the multiple was five, not six. 5 launchers with 5 tubes each = 25 rounds. You would be correct for 15 cm Nebelwerfer, though.

Formerly Babra, I expect friction in battle. I read Clausewitz and understand the concept. The above said, though, I as the player found myself in the unenviable position of having neither the knowledge of nor the control over the assets my FO called in. The real FO for a rocket unit would have a considerable knowledge of his weapon's characteristics, dispersion pattern, and what constituted a safe impact distance from friendlies. I had none of these. What you misinterpret as complaining about my screw up and demanding control I shouldn't have I see as simply asking for what I'd reasonably have in the real world. A Regular FO would have a solid knowledge of all the facets of his job. He wouldn't be totally devoid of usable knowldge, as I was.

Germanboy, I'm well aware of the smoke trails and consequent vulnerabilty to counterfire of rocket troops. Launchers were therefore well dispersed and camouflaged until fired. Rounds per launcher go down as launcher size increases. Formerly Babra made no such point as you indicate regarding PBEMs. I am aware of procedures used by several countries to range in rocket launchers. The Russians, for example, used a single round from one launcher in a battery of Katyushas to range in the battery. Of course, what we see on TV is surprise fire by massed rocket brigades.

Mensch and tss, your points are duly noted.

Jgdpzr, judging from what I just read in the manual, I believe you are right. This would explain much. I believe we may also have just uncovered a need for a fire control equivalent to Pause. There definitely needs to be some way for FOs to exert control over firing batteries that at least approximates what their real world counterparts had. We have no way to execute a "Fire on my command" order, mix ammo types on the fly during a fire mission, or do many other things real FOs could do, notably creating a TRP in a few minutes. How about it, Steve?

Jeff, my QBs vs. Kingfish all use computer generated forces. I got no TRP in my force list.

Maximus, your first point is correct. Your MLRS warhead statement is way off, though. Each MLRS rocket has a warhead consisting of 616 M42 dual purpose submunitions, with frag effect vs. soft targets and materiel and shaped charge effect vs. armor. That's why the Iraqi's called them the steel rain.

Steve, I'll try your suggestion. I do disagree with not allowing partial discharge of rockets, at least by a complete launcher, though. Judging by what I've seen in many film sequences of German wartime practices, it was simply a matter of not turning a rotary selector switch through all the launchers in the battery. Not that difficult to do, in my view. Utility of smaller doses of rocket fire is very much a function of the target to be hit. I sure wouldn't want to be in Reisberg if five rounds of 210 mm werfer fire hit downtown. In my QB, the rounds fell in the woods amid hilly terrain. Troops in the open anywhere near even a handful of 210mm bursts would've been in big trouble, given their huge blast radii.

GriffinCheng, the German ones were spin stabilized. One of the big accuracy problems occurred because the rockets were still burning well after launch. Wind forces on the rockets caused them to weathercock, or point into the wind, causing lots of dispersion, a problem tube artillery didn't have. Throw in lousy surface finishes, variable burnout times, bent fins on finned rockets, nozzle variations, and a host of other small problems, and the errors grew and grew.

I really do believe that some further work needs doing on FOs in general and rocket FOs as well. I believe, based on all the evidence I've seen to date, that we in the game lack many of the capabilities the real ones had. It would be great if we could have in-game targeting templates for fire support planning. This would really speed things up in bigger battles and in operations. Such templates are routinely used in real world fire planning.

Finally, I believe that we need to revisit rockets in direct fire (e.g., Stuka zu fuss at Stalingrad, 60 lb. rockets on Firefly tanks; both launched singly against strongpoints). While we're at it, why not the Sturmtiger?

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Since I raised several substantive issues in my lengthy response, bump.

[Doug Beman]

John, rockets launching create a LOT of flame. Would you want to have a live rocket sitting in the tube while 3 or 4 others took off? I wouldn't.

Also, in CM YOU are the FO, just as you are the armor commander and infantry commander. I mean, when you're giving orders to tanks you can't simply call up an explanation of overwatch-by-platoon, and when you're ordering infantry around you can't call up the correct way to occupy a town. It's dependent upon the skill of the player.

In order to get the "solid knowledge" etc etc you should set up some battles (make a map and then use different force mixes) and simply throw around artillery. It's fun, and useful. That will give you the experienced FO you're looking for.

Firing single rockets to "range in" simply wouldn't work, as rockets are inherently inaccurate. With the differences in burn time, casing/fin differences, any rocket could be several hundred meters off from any other. Getting the range with one wouldn't mean much.

I honestly think a "delay fire" command (like the PAUSE works now) would be too micro-managing. IMHO real life commanders in combat (at least in WW2) didn't have the ability to say "Johnson, you open fire in 15 seconds. Smitty and Kowalski, you open fire in 30, and I'll have the arty officer start the bombardment at 45 seconds."

DjB

[Guest Big Time Software]

Doug's suggestion about doing some tests in the Editor is a good one. Artillery is fairly predictable once you see it in action a few times. Also try my suggestion of loading up a rocket FO with only 5 rounds of ammo, fire it at a target (with FoW off) and see how much damage it does. Try this a couple of times to make sure you are seeing trends. I think you will be greatly disapointed with the results. Hell, I am often greatly disapointed with the results when the whole battery opens fire

In the end, the rockets were designed and used as saturation weapons. They were not pinpoint in any stretch of the imagination. So trying to use them like you would standard artillery is misguided. It would be similar to using a Sherman 75 to take out Jagdtigers. They simply weren't designed to do that

There will most likely be some changes to FO fire control in CM2. But we will not get down to the level of micromanagement that some have been asking for. That runs contrary to CM's design philosophy and would set us on a dangerous course of people demanding more control over other things as well. That would be very, very, very bad

Steve