Arty question from newbie

[SATCOM_Ranger]

I am new to CM. First I must say Excellent game. I played Squad Leader in High School and College and only played a few scenarios of ASL before I joined the real US Army. For some strange reason I stopped playing when I joined and only recently found CM and I'm addicted again to gaming again.

Now for the question. Like I said, I am new to CM. Last night I started playing the "Valley of Trouble" scenario as the Axis and I noticed the Arty reference point. How is this used?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. :confused:

[Schrullenhaft]

These are called 'Target Reference Points' in the game and they can be put anywhere on the map during the setup phase (unless they are padlocked by a scenario designer - not the case with the Demo's scenario). Once you've clicked 'Go' to complete the setup phase you can't move the TRP. Your opponent (or the AI) can't see the TRP, so they won't know that it's a pre-registered target that they're standing on.

The TRP can then be targetted by Artillery FO's, on-board mortars and 'guns', and anti-tank guns. FO's will gain a reduced delay time for rounds to fall, while on-board mortars can target a TRP and gain an accuracy bonus or even target it out of LOS (if they haven't been moved from their original positions since completing the setup phase). Anti-tank guns and other larger-caliber weapons will gain an accuracy bonus if they're aiming at a target that is on or very close to the TRP.

The most common use in many games for a TRP is for the Artillery FO's.

[ 11-29-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p>

[WWB]

Pretty simple, really. Just target your arty to that point and it will come down relatively instantaneosly. Worst case scenario (conscript spotter, big guns, no LOS could be two minutes. Best case scenario is seconds. And when the barrage does it, it is much more accurate. No LOS is like having LOS, and I find that with LOS the grouping is so tight as to be overkill that I often use target wide instead. No spotting round making arty much more effective as there is no warning before the main strike.

In addition, on map mortars which have not moved may target TRPs without LOS. And the points are also pre-ranged WRT direct fire weapons, making first round hits much more likely.

WWB

[Madmatt]

Moving this to the main forum as its not a technical issue.

Madmatt

[Bullethead]

One thing about TRPs: While they are more effective than in real life in that all weapons can use a single TRP regardless of which one created it, they are horribly less effective than in real life because they prevent the rapid adjustment of FFE off of the TRP to follow moving units.

It works like this. If you don't have a TRP, you can move your FFE up to 100m and only incur an interruption of a few seconds. However, if you were using a TRP, ANY movement off of it makes you start the whole delay time over from scratch, like 2 or 3 minutes.

Hopefully this will be addressed in CMBB