Progressive artillery spread

[SenorBeef]

My random idea of the night.

Currently, artillery is sort of 'fudged' in punishing you not being in LOS by affecting the dispersion of rounds rather than how far off-center the barrage lands. Historically, as far as I know, incorrect, but it serves a gameplay role.

Anyway.

Whether you have a hill 5 meters in front of you, and you're firing 1000 meters away, or you're firing 25 meters into a dense woodline (the start of which you can see), both cases are punished by the same degree of disperson.

To me, this feels unrealistic. If you can see a treeline, you would be able to simply think "I want to fire 40 meters behind the start of the treeline, and I can see the start of the treeline, so I'll just add 40 meters to that in my calculations."

As opposed to being behind a hill and not being able to see see the area at all, and were guessing where you wanted the shells based off a map.

So, a proposal I'm making is to have the degree of artillery dispersion based on the ratio of observed and unobserved points in your targetting line.

To elaborate, you take wherever your targetting LOS is broken, and break the first and second parts into sections. The section of the line stemming from you is your 'seen' targetting line, and the point past the break is your 'unseen' targetting line.

Now, if you're firing into a patch of woods 500 meters away, and you want to fire 40 meters into the woods.. and your LOS is blocked by that last 20 meters of woods, you've now got 520 'visible' firing line, and 20 meters 'invisible' line. In real life, this should provide fairly accurate artillery fire, since you can nearly see your target, just not quite, and you can calculate the difference.

However, in a situation where you were behind a hill close to you, firing at the same woodline 500 meters away.. your vision would be cut at the hill, say 100 meters away, leaving 100 'visible' target line, and 440 meters of invisible firing line. So now you're guessing off a map, radio reports, ect, and your fire should be less accurate.

I realize, already, that there are holes in this line of thinking. For example, "Whats the difference if a hill blocks you at 10 meters or 100 meters? You still can't see the area you're targetting, why should the dispersion be progressive there?"

Thats a perfectly valid concern, and to be honest, I'm not sure how to handle that outside of inflicting a 'maximum' progressive dispersion amount, perhaps from 1-150 meters of 'blocked' firing line, to represent the fact that you're still able to see your target in that case, but beyond that, it becomes less of an issue.

Also, if CM starts simulating unspotted fire missions more accurately by affecting the center-point of the barrage, rather than its dispersion, then this above idea would apply to how far a centerpoint is likely to be off from the targetted point.

In any case, this is just sort of a random idea I was thinking of, and thought I'd write it down for proposal. I admit its flawed, but it might work into an idea worth something. Mainly, I merely think the current system is a little screwed up in that firing 20 meters into a woodline will provide accurate targetting, but 25 meters is out of LOS and will provide totally scattered artillery rounds. A simply LOS/no LOS switch is overkill in this particular instance, and perhaps a progressive scale might help some, in this case.

Your thoughts are welcome, anyone.

[ 05-28-2001: Message edited by: SenorBeef ]

[M. Bates]

This is a superb idea.

Your system would mean that a player could fire in the middle of wooded areas, and behind buildings. At the moment, a spotter can SEE the woods and trees, but he cannot fire into them without calling in non-LOS fire, which is inaccurate.

Now we need someone to represent this idea in a graphical mock-up, so that others can support this suggestion.

[Triumvir]

I respectfully disagree with your observation suggestion. The real fix for this is to model artillery with a fixed centre point for dispersion. By doing that, you will solve the problem of arbitrarily scattered rounds.

I think that the way to handle unobserved fire is to have it come down at normal speed (since that's how it'll be processed anyway), but apply a significant dispersion factor to the centre point and for any further adjustments. This is more realistic, because the characteristics of the gun do not change whether the FO can see his target or not.

In fact, in one exercise, our FO couldn't see the fall of shot and called a halt to firing. When we went to find out where the rounds landed, they had landed with perfect precision 2km out of the target range, right among a herd of cows. There was no difference in the dispersion of the rounds, unfortunately for the cows.

I'd also like to see CM II incorporate individual gun fire for FOs. This'd let us put proper blocking and box barrages on targets; if I want to shell a road lengthwise, I should bloody well be able to.

[Stixx]

Great Idea Triumvir.

I would love to be able to bring down individual shots.

I just played a scenario with 2 7.2inch spotters each with only 10 rounds. It would be great to be able to bring them down singulary rather than the standard 4 shot Salvo.

[Triumvir]

Sitxx, I don't necessarily mean bringing down individual shots per gun, but rather being able to target individual locations per gun. So that for example (damn this non-fixed width font! BTS, do somefink!)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX <-- treeline

oo

o o <-- Platoon adv. two up

x x x x x x <-- 6 gun barrage

I could do the above. Or, better yet,

| T | | T |

| x | | |

| | | |

| T | | T |

| | | x |

| x | vs |xxx|

| I | | x |

| | | |

| I | | I |

| x | | |

| | | |

I can call fire down upon a convoy on a road.

All this can be done by modelling a centre point and a CEP.

[Stixx]

Yeah sorry mate i understood what you where saying but didn't explain myself well in my last post.

It is a great idea but why is it i hear a

"It's beyond the games scope" comming on?

[Paco QNS]

I think that the dispersion of rounds in unspotted fire represents a tactic directed to "harass" your target. At least a minimal percentage of your barrage impacts it. IMO it is military logic: instead of an "all or nothing" dice throw, you obtain a "less than best" result over your target. (All of this pertains to artillery fire non in close support of friendly troops).

The reason to disperse fire: since the moment your FO can´t see the fall of the spotting rounds, it is "unspotted fire" on map coordinates, and applies the tactic explained above.

But, hey, you can spot fire (in your example in the treeline) and then add the oportune correction. I suggest to permit "corrected fire" (with green line-of-sight) even into and unobserved area -and deny ulterior corrections- (since it is unobserved fire).

Finally, an spanish say: "The Artillery is especially effective killing infantry; preferably the enemy infantry".

[Michael Emrys]

Good suggestions both, SenorBeef and Triumvir. Hopefully more flexible and realistic artillery rules will get written into the game engine rewrite.

Michael

[Triumvir]

Personally, for the engine rewrite, there are a carpload of things I'd love to see. Revised artillery is nice, but :

I'd like some way to rearrange personnel between units; to overstrength/understrength squads based on need; to arbitrarily split off scouts into units of one man, if need be. Then artillery batteries can actually defend themselves if attacked.

I'd like to see crews armed with personal weapons, and _gigantic_ losses involved with using them as impromptu infantrymen. I'd also like to be able to dismount crews from weapons, so that they can wait out counterbattery fire ala SU practice.

I'd like variable cost weapons, so that you don't get the optimising munchkins who go Ah, 600 pts -- 1 of this, 1 of that, 1 of this again. Not as in rarity, but genuinely variable, fluctuating with a mean and SD just so that you can remove tailor-made Kampfgruppe. This is hard because unit cost is correlated with effectiveness, but can be overcome by making crew/man ability fluctuate along with price.

Pursuant to the above, I'd like impromptu shortages of weapons. Playing and winning with the hand that someone else dealt you is a mark of skill.

I'd like impromptu entrenching; you can dig a shellscrape in 5 minutes if you're really motivated and not too fussy about shaping the scrape.

I'd like a sub-command view, so that you could command a company in, say, a battalion attack, the other forces being drawn up and handled by the computer so that you can't do map-edge creeping.

I'd like access to the unit parameters, to be able to decode and modify ORBATS like you could with Steel Panther MOBs and KOBs.

I'd like weather shifts during battle; snow doesn't always fall for 30 continuous minutes.

I'd like indirect fire available for onboard artillery at _all_ points, not just those in LOS (yes, I know that this can be fixed by relative spotting.) and reregistration of artillery upon movement. For instance, when you move an 81mm, magically by the next turn it's registered and in position, no matter whether you change path halfway across the move.

I'd like variable-cover terrain, so that not all scattered trees or woods are equal for cover or concealment.

There are so many things I'd _like_.

I'll settle for better artillery for now, thanks. 8)

[Michael Emrys]

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

Then artillery batteries can actually defend themselves if attacked.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Artillery batteries per se do not really belong on the CM battlefield, though I concede that it might be nice once in a while to stage a rear area raid.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd like to see crews armed with personal weapons, and _gigantic_ losses involved with using them as impromptu infantrymen. I'd also like to be able to dismount crews from weapons, so that they can wait out counterbattery fire ala SU practice.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

See above.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd like impromptu entrenching; you can dig a shellscrape in 5 minutes if you're really motivated and not too fussy about shaping the scrape.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Frankly, so would I.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd like a sub-command view, so that you could command a company in, say, a battalion attack, the other forces being drawn up and handled by the computer so that you can't do map-edge creeping.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Might be interesting.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd like indirect fire available for onboard artillery at _all_ points, not just those in LOS (yes, I know that this can be fixed by relative spotting.) and reregistration of artillery upon movement. For instance, when you move an 81mm, magically by the next turn it's registered and in position, no matter whether you change path halfway across the move.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that is a tad too liberal, but re-registration after 5-10 turns would be okay.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I'd like variable-cover terrain, so that not all scattered trees or woods are equal for cover or concealment.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Already implemented to some extent. Seasonal changes are accounted for. It should be no great trick I should think to have it vary to some degree on a random basis as well.

Michael

[Simon Fox]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> if I want to shell a road lengthwise, I should bloody well be able to.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Ken oath! Or a hedge row laterally.

[Dr. Brian]

The ideas are good, and probably more accurate. HOWEVER, by doing so, you will GREATLY increase the effectiveness of arty, to the point of ludicrous.

Why? The player is all knowing, and with the type of control and changes being proposed, would take away from the uncertainty, however incorrectly modelled, our sim counterpart would have.

Remember, we have a total view, and control over a lot.

I'd say keep it as it is, with maybe very minor minor changes for tweaking only. It works well within the system. Why screw it up?

My 0.02 zlotey.

[Triumvir]

Disagree entirely. Artillery is _the_ reaper in war, having accounted for about 70% of all casualties in "war"[1] from WWII onwards.

The amount of command and control we have is not that much greater than that of a battalion commander; you could abstract all this out to grease-pencils and a terrain map and still maintain the fidelity of the model. What we have that a battalion commander doesn't is _time_. _Time_ to plot and make sure that artillery comes down where it's needed, not where you think it's needed.

I particularly disagree with the "it works well as it is, why screw it up" ethos. The aim of the game is to have fun, and why limit yourself to having less fun than you can?

If I want to say "right, my men will advance under cover of an arty prep, till they reach their FUPs, whereupon we will place a box barrage around the enemy's lines of retreat," I should jolly well be able to. Right now, I can do the first part, but not the second.

Combat Mission is the best WWII simulation I have seen so far bar none. But best doesn't mean perfect. The artillery system is great, but it's abstracted. If we reify it and give more control to the player, where's the problem in that?

[Dr. Brian]

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

Disagree entirely. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I expected that, but the player is omniscient, and I don't think you can actually think oterwise.

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

If we reify it and give more control to the player, where's the problem in that?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The probelm is that, then it wouldn't be ... heaven forbid, "realisitc????"

Which by the way, is fine by me ... I prefer total control, like chess. I'm a "gamey" player.

[ 05-29-2001: Message edited by: Dr. Brian ]

[Triumvir]

Well... no, actually I can. The player has a better view than a single commander, but he doesn't have a perfect view unless you turn FOW off. I've never led any infantry unit larger than a section, but granted that the information given to a section commander via his map, his commander briefings, etc, is scalable to his company commander, then there's not that much of a difference between an OC and a CM player. Yes, the maps look much prettier, but with a good 1:25000 and a smart mind you can do the same interpretations. Otherwise, how would you play TacOps?

As for reifying being less realistic... huh? I'm asking for a realism _increase_, not a _decrease_. If I can handle artillery the way an FO would, give it shapes the way an FO could, how does that make the game less realistic?

[JonS]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr. Brian:

The ideas are good, and probably more accurate. HOWEVER, ... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why, oh why, do so many people think that it is perfectly acceptable for artillery to be abstracted to near the point of emasculation, but NOT ok to omit skipping shells, dead bodies, grazing fire, or any one of numerous topics-ofthe-day which have illuminated this board with their fury in the past?

I would like:

1) lots of things

but mostly I'd like a similar level of interest and care given to arty as it is to, say, AFV penetration algorithms. Some abstraction is (always) inevitable, but IMHO what we have now perpetuates the belief that The God Of War isn't that useful.

Ubique

Jon

PS. Dr Brain, this isn't aimed specifically, or only, at you. You just happened to be the one around when I got fired up.

PPS. Hi Labrat Keeping well?

[Simon Fox]

I agree wholeheartedly (much as it pains me to do so him being a malingereing kiwi and all) with what Jon said regarding the Herr Doktor Professors comments. It doesn't work properly at all at the moment. Some of the realism changes proposed would not have such a huge impact in terms of effect anyway, though others certainly would. There are ways of balancing the game apart from artificially reducing the effectiveness of a weapon to an unrealistic level. Thankfully Steve and Charles seem to be capable of thinking laterally and I am sure they have taken note of the many informed comments which have been made on the subject.

So Jon, you back yet? Whats with the new username, lost the old one?

[JonS]

Hi Simon

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Simon Fox:

... him being a malingereing kiwi and all ... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I see the chip on the shoulder is coming along fine then?

As for the username ... yes, I forgot the password after so long without use. Shame really - otherwise I would have a sexy low number like your good self.

And yes, I've finished. In fact, as I type I'm in your fair country eating Sushi and drinking VB

[ 05-30-2001: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Simon Fox]

Yikes, I'd better lock the front door and draw the curtains. VB eh? Got yourself a hard earned thirst up there I guess. Anyways when are you planning on breaking out that pristine CD of yours?

The member number doesn't signify much. After all Bastables is #34 or somefink. There are a fair few other exceptions that make a mockery of it as any sort of pecking order

[JonS]

Speaking of whom, I saw Bas the other day. We were heading in opposite directions, so to speak. I must say, it was a little weird finally meeting someone from this forum F2F. Not that Bas is inherently weird or anything, just the situation.

As for that shiny CD - she'll be up and running in about, um, 10 days or so. Need to get back to the right time zone and get a new PC. I'll email you for a game when I'm ready?

Ubique

[Vanir Ausf B]

Being as we are throwing out random thoughts on possible improvements to arty modeling in CM, I will reprint here part of a post by X-00 on CM arty. X-00 was an artillery officer for 15 years.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>X-00:

Sheaf:

(a) Both the normal and target wide are basically a converged sheaf. An open sheaf (all guns firing the same deflection)was the standard form of delivery

( It's east-west orientation should be rotated 90 degrees to reflect (a) above.

© Guns are usually placed 50-100m apart in a Lazy W. Using an open sheaf the rounds would fall on a frontage of basically 150m-300m with a depth of 50-100m (depends on the probable error in range).

C2:

Similar to onboard indirect fire, if an allied leader has C2 over an FO that leader should be able to adjust fire. Additionally, in order to increase the importance of Company Commanders if a Company commander can see a target regardless of C2 with a CO he should be able to adjust fire.

Target Shift Time:

The 100m adjust radius (the green line) is arbitrary and frankly shows no understanding of how fire direction is conducted. To a Fire Direction Center it doesn't matter if the correction is 50m or 500. For example say an artillery Battery is 5000m from the target and is directed to shift the gun-target line 50m left or right. The deflection correction would be 10 mils (less than a degree)for a 500m correction it would be 100 mils (about 6 degrees). The FDC and the Gun-line can apply these corrections in seconds. Today and then.

Effects:

The effectiveness of an artillery "barrage" significanly decreases after the first "salvo". The Joint Munitions Effects Manual (JMEMs), a classified document, reflects this. Soldiers under artillery fire are very good at finding effective cover after the first "surprise". Veteran soldiers are very good at finding cover. If they weren't they wouldn't be veterans. Additionally, foxholes provides much better cover than is reflected in CM.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[JonS]

Interesting post - Thanks Vanir for bringing it up (I hadn't seen it before), and thanks X-OO for making it.

One observation though - the comments about the Lazy-W betray your origins, so to speak Not everyone used/uses it. The Commonwealth in particular, with larger batterys, used different battery displacements. This has noticeable effects at the target end when LoFP (Lines of Fire Parallel) is used.

Ubique

JonS