Pausing artillery

[Scipio]

In spend my military service in a heavy infantery company, using 120mm Mortars, so I guess I have a bit knowledge about this:

Why can't I order my artillery spotter to pause fire?

An offmap artillery unit is ussually at the same place, and all fire orders are written down in a log. If the order is received to hold fire, it's unusual that the guns are unloaded and brought back into prefire position - they hold position til the next fireorder. So, if they receive the order to fire again at the same place, they can do this with very short delay. But if I stop artillery fire in CM and order it again a round later on the same place, I have to wait again 2-4 minutes.

Principly, all executed fireorders would produce a target reference point (for that artillery unit only, of course), cause all earlier fireorders are recorded by the artillery HQ. They only need to adjust the tubes again, while a new fireorder must be calculated and tested (that's why usualy a single shell falls before the barrage starts in the game)

Scipio

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[Gremlin]

I've been doing some reading about arty in WWII, and it seems that in some regards, such as the one you mention, it's not always that realistically modelled in CM. For an assault, you can't really carry out a proper linear infantry barrage, with pre-planned lifts and so forth. Too bad sound ranging and CBF missions aren't modelled either. Then again, I'd be righteously angry if I went to use a spotter and nothing happened

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[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Gremlin:

I've been doing some reading about arty in WWII, and it seems that in some regards, such as the one you mention, it's not always that realistically modelled in CM. For an assault, you can't really carry out a proper linear infantry barrage, with pre-planned lifts and so forth. Too bad sound ranging and CBF missions aren't modelled either. Then again, I'd be righteously angry if I went to use a spotter and nothing happened

As you know, we debated counter battery fire recently and came to the same conclusion you spell out in your last sentence.

I would like to see more flexibility - ie timed barrages - they didn't stop using them in 1918, but how do you get the AI to "lean on" a rolling barrage? It would be very tricky to implement, I should think. Another item for your CM10 wishlist, when everyone is running P2000 machines and Steve's children have taken over the family business, with a staff of 100 programmers?

[Guest Scott Clinton]

Good points and I seem to recall that they have been brought up before and the mention (IIRCC) was made that these items would be "looked into" for CM2.

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Please note: The above is solely the opinion of 'The Grumbling Grognard' and reflects no one else's views but his own.

[Gremlin]

Michael, I'd imagine a proper rolling barrage could be incorporated fairly easily in at least two ways:

1) a scenario could start as if the barrage had already just occurred in the area that's being attacked. Create a map with lots of rubble and craters (may need editor additions for that) and lots of panicked troops. (The morale effects of different arty durations and intensity in tons of shells/hour were studied and noted.)

and/or

2)a special FO unit could be available during assault QB's or at least scenarios which could call in a realistic barrage. You could give company CO's a new order to fire a flare to signal a lift, for instance, or a mortar team to fire star shells, and/or give FO's the order to lift the barrage to the next line, etc.

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[Schugger]

The only way to I've find out to delay artillery fire in CM is by constantly adjusting the target point in the order phase of each turn ( green target line ).

Works well to preserve some ammo and to spoil an opponent's advance.

Don't know if this is that what you're looking for, Scipio ( the elder? )

[Leonidas]

Scipio,

I agree that artillery is not very realistic in CM. Pausing fire is just one issue. You could also ask why the defender must pay for some firing reference points, when you would assume that the defender would spend some time chatting with the battery guys before the battle, pre-plotting some likely bombardment points. It isn't like that costs resources.

The one that bothers me most is that each FO team is linked to only one battery, so if you lose those two men, you lose the use of the entire battery. Historically, I think that pretty much any FO team or HQ could talk to any battery, though that's a complex subject that differs by nation.

The answer to all this is that artillery doesn't really operate on the scale of CM. Artillery is about hours-long bombardments, most of which are very inaccurate. So the current system is an attempt to bring artillery within the scope of CM, subject to some restrictions that are unrealistic but necessary for game balance. It isn't a perfect system, but I think it works pretty well.

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

Originally posted by Gremlin:

1) Create a map with lots of rubble and craters (may need editor additions for that) noted.)

I've done this before, simply drop the terrain level by 1 point, and cover that square with rubble. doesn't look half bad.

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[saru3000]

As soon as an FO embarks on a vehicle he pauses the artillery strike.The FO will keep the area targeted so unembarking will cause the artillery to begin firing without delay.Factoring in command delay and any pauses, you can control the length of fire.

The timing is crude but it allows you to shell a target for the first half of a turn,pause and have your forces follow it up immediately to take advantage of suppression.

A couple of drawbacks:

1)moving your FO draws attention and fire.

2)any shells fired after LOS is lost will be scattered so it's best to make sure the vehicle has LOS to the target.

I hope this made some sort of sense.

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Leonidas:

The one that bothers me most is that each FO team is linked to only one battery, so if you lose those two men, you lose the use of the entire battery. Historically, I think that pretty much any FO team or HQ could talk to any battery, though that's a complex subject that differs by nation.

Good point, especially : why can a HQ guide the fire for an on-map mortar, but not for the off-map artillery battery? IMO, this would be a perfect job for company and higher HQs. They are high enough in the chain of command, and they have (IMO) good comunication lines to the hinterland. This would give us also more sense to place them on the map. Certainly not so accurate like a spotter, except on TRP.

[Abteilung]

Good Day all !

This is my first post here and forgive me if my question has been covered already, but it relates to the arty spotters. Why are there spotters for 14" naval cannon? These weapons were directed by spotter aircraft and not under the jurisdiction of local units. If anyone has seen the effect one of these shells has, you would also know that freindly units would be sevral klicks away from the intended barrage destination if at all possible. If anyone can shed more light on this I'd appreciate it very much.

[Jarmo]

Originally posted by Abteilung:

Why are there spotters for 14" naval cannon? These weapons were directed by spotter aircraft and not under the jurisdiction of local units.

I assume it's the same kind of abstraction as in not allowing company commanders

and such call in arty. Since there are no spotter planes, it's either normal spotters

or no 14" at all.

And I like those big booms.

[chrisl]

With a little bit of practice you can get the troops to rush in right behind a barrage-- you have to time things so that the guys will be up and running before the end of the turn, and just outside the barrage radius just as the turn ends. You then cancel the barrage order and the troops continue in. It's pretty cool to watch when it works right.

If they're running in from far out, you just set pauses followed by a run order, estimating where they'll get by the end of the turn. If they're in small arms range at the start of the turn and it's a very short run to the barrage area, you give them pauses, followed by a medium length crawl order, followed by a run into the attack zone. When the turn ends, you change the crawl to a run (now there's no command delay) and they go charging in. If you've timed it right, the enemy is still suppressed.

If you have two FOs you can mix smoke and HE as well, but with one it doesn't work as well, since the clouds of smoke don't appear until 30 seconds after the shells hit-- by then your guys are in the thick of things.

The 14" stuff is only available for a limited time period, and I suspect they only put it in for fun. I've dropped it pretty close to my own troops, and it's a sight to watch. I had a barrage of it that took out 1.5-2 platoons of enemy troops, and about 10 of my guys.

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[Abteilung]

Originally posted by Jarmo

I assume it's the same kind of abstraction as in not allowing company commanders

and such call in arty. Since there are no spotter planes, it's either normal spotters

or no 14" at all

I would assume it would just be able to be treated like an airstrike is currently. They will fly over, target at their discretion and let fly. Why not "arm" an air attack solely with 14" guns and place a delay on when the salvo actually arrives from the time the spotter flies over? I'm no coder so I can't comment on the programming involved, but it would seem simple enough to the layman. Anyway, thanks for reading my rabble.

[This message has been edited by Abteilung (edited 02-02-2001).]

[Goofy]

Originally posted by Abteilung:

Why are there spotters for 14" naval cannon? These weapons were directed by spotter aircraft and not under the jurisdiction of local units.

I tend to look at the 14' guns as "invasion support" because of the relative short distance it could be used from the beach and the availability of facilities for spotter planes. It's not like you could fly over the channel and do the spotting and by the time the facilities were available the battles had moved "Beyond Overlord" (catchy huh?! Maybe BTS could use that somewhere!) That's the reasoning I use anyway. The Naval FO seems to make sense.

I do think there is plenty of argument on a historical and game level for light aircraft to spot for artillery but this becomes more of a "wish list" item for CM2 since they aren't coded for the game we have now.

I tend to do as Shugger suggested with shifting fire to keep it from falling. Two added benefits of this are to possibly drop a spotter round to get your opponent (Would the AI react to this?) to displace before everything falls on them (I've seen it happen without the barrage falling.) and to determine the accuracy of your spotter's time to impact by clicking on your spotter and comparing his clock to the game clock. I know this is a function of troop quality but the fuzzy logic kicks me in the head every now and then when I try to determine accuracy of time vs quality of spotter. Some times (usually when I need it the worst!) it seems to get stuck on a time and not move or the 60 game seconds rolls off only 14 seconds on the spotter's clock. Good thing to know in advance of needing it!

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[This message has been edited by Goofy (edited 02-02-2001).]

[Gremlin]

One problem I see is that, even though you can walk an arty strike, you still can't do a proper creeping or rolling barrage, where the arty falls roughly in a line all across the defensive emplacements (usually coupled with barrages on specific emplacements, whose positions almost to the meter have been previously gleaned by sophisticated intelligence gathering). The barrages were carefully coordinated with the proposed advance speeds of assaulting troops, in order to suppress and damage the enemy until right when attackers were on them.

Leonidas, from what I've read, the Western Allies, at least, could very accurately locate and bombard targets. They used the military equivalent of forensic science to determine where shells from an enemy gun, for instance, were coming, by examining impacts, shell fragments, etc., using aerial spotting, sound ranging that could pinpoint a gun within 25 yards at a range of several thousand yards, etc. (i.e., no FO needed to actually see the spot.)

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[Gremlin]

Another arty suggestion:

Heavy bombardments should create relatively impassable terrain, through extensive cratering, building debris strewn into the streets, destroyed roads, etc. Ever since WWI, heavy barrages and bombardments have created those sorts of problems for advancing infantry and vehicles, particularly in damp conditions with all the mud.

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[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Gremlin:

Leonidas, from what I've read, the Western Allies, at least, could very accurately locate and bombard targets. They used the military equivalent of forensic science to determine where shells from an enemy gun, for instance, were coming, by examining impacts, shell fragments, etc., using aerial spotting, sound ranging that could pinpoint a gun within 25 yards at a range of several thousand yards, etc. (i.e., no FO needed to actually see the spot.)

The Germans did use sound and light spotting as well. But that is CBF, and I still believe outside the scope of CM. It was coordinated and controlled off-map (in CM terms) and more importantly, the effects also occured off-map only. So I find it hard to see a case for putting it in. I think of the longer command delay the Germans have as one abstraction for the better Allied CBF.

Another point - local HQs controlling arty. Maybe that was how the US did things after a certain point in the war, I don't know. The Commonwealth and the Germans did not though. So you would need to code an entirely different model for the US to use, since otherwise you would give the Commonwealth and Germans abilities they did not have.

Leonidas - the defender pays for TRPs because they have an effect in the game. It is not a resource issue in the game. But so isn't the appearance of the King Tiger to the local commander. Cost is a reflection of effectiveness, I believe.

Scenario designers can currently create a scenario starting after a rolling barrage. IMO that is sufficient. In fairness, would you like to be in a PBEM where all you see for the first thirty turns is your troops being shredded? I think rolling barrages (and the famous Commonwealth 'peppershots') are outside CM's scope.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

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

[PawBroon]

Originally posted by Germanboy:

In fairness, would you like to be in a PBEM where all you see for the first thirty turns is your troops being shredded?

Yeah! Roight! Exactly!!

So I take it as a willingness to stop shelling me in our current PBEM then?

In all fairness of course...

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[Big Ron]

I've tried following in right behind a barrage. Be prepared to lose some of your own troops while you're practising. The first time I tried I wiped out one of my own platoons

[Gremlin]

Germanyboy, I'd say barrages and pepperpots, for that matter, are very much in CM's scale, since scenarios and QB's can and do model portions of assaults on fortified/dug-in positions. Obviously, you can't model a full divisional assault, but one part of the line of advance, certainly. So to have full barrage lines stretching across the map would be realistic. Of course it wouldn't be fun for human defenders, but that's war It would be fun for the attacker against the AI, though.

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[Guest Germanboy]

Originally posted by Gremlin:

It would be fun for the attacker against the AI, though.

I doubt it, since you don't need a lot of skill. The peppershots ended mostly with the infantry walking into the target areas collecting the dazed and sometimes gone mad survivors. I have read some accounts by UK infantrymen who did that. I am sure they much prefered that over fighting for the ground, but even against the AI it would not make a good scenario. YMMV, of course.

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Andreas

Der Kessel

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

[This message has been edited by Germanboy (edited 02-02-2001).]

[Michael Dorosh]

PepperPOTs, please, gentlemen!

I may have used the term "rolling barrage" incorrectly.

Is this the same as a creeping barrage?

This is what I meant.

Germanboy, don't think for a second that a creeping barrage ever killed every last defender - infantry in the wars proved very hard to kill - a creeping barrage with timed lifts would be, if simulated correctly, an interesting tool to be able to use. The concentrations along the line of the bombardment were usually brief, and the barrage lifted at regular intervals. During this period, the attackers counted on the defenders being dazed - not dead.

So while the barrage lifted 150 yards or so, you had a few minutes to rush forward and neutralize all the units the bombardment didn't kill.

This would provide a very real challenge for both attacker and defender in CM.

[Leonidas]

I don't doubt that artillery was fairly accurate in that it could hit was it was aiming at. I just wonder how they knew where to aim. The tactical artillery in CM usually waits until the enemy reveals himself before calling down a strike on a fairly narrow area. If you call down arty before the enemy reveals himself, it seems to me you've got a good chance of bombarding empty ground. When I'm on attack, sometimes I will try to guess where the defender is, and call a strike on that area before I have any contact. Most of the time I guess wrong and the shells were wasted.

What if there were an option to buy pre-battle strategic bombardment? You could buy two or three times as many shells for the same price, but they are fired blind and fall randomly before the battle starts.

[Gremlin]

Michael, the way you describe it seems to accord exactly with the reading I've done on the matter. I also agree it could make for some really fun scenarios.

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