Arty in CMBB

[Monwar]

Hi,

I'm new to CMBB but a veteran of CMBO. In CMBB, arty without LOS falls in wild locations, way off mark (which is a good thing ). But can I actually get it to be somewhat more precise? I have read about retargeting etc, but they are quite time consuming. TRPs may also be an option. But is there any way to use arty without LOS efficiently? Any tips will be appreciated.

[WWB]

Not really. Use Target wide if you dont have a TRP or cannot pre-plot bombardment.

WWB

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by wwb_99:

...pre-plot bombardment.

There's your answer right there, Monwar. Most of the indirect fire artillery used in the East was preplanned, and the game shows that. If you target your arty on the first turn, it is assumed to have been precisely ranged in, so it always falls exactly on target. Note that once planned, it can't be moved. I guess it can be canceled, though I never had occasion to try that. You don't have to have it all (or any for that matter) fall on the first turn though. You can program in as many turns delay as you want.

If you want precise on-call fire, your best bet is to buy a bunch of on-map mortars or cannon.

Michael

[Cabron66]

I'm relatively new to CMBB as well and have just started working with pre-planned fire missions. Under some circumstances the pre-planned missions cannot be cancelled, but I'm not sure what those conditions are. I suspect that FOs with radios are capable of cancelling and vice versa, but I don't really know. This would be a better question for some of the more fanatical players. Just the other day I had to watch an FO drain all his ammo on a position when all I wanted was a few rounds to keep their heads down. :mad:

[Kaiser Soze 71]

Originally posted by Cabron66:

pre-planned missions cannot be cancelled,

This you can find from the manual too. I think it's a good thing you cannot cancel the barrage.

You can call artillery to fire on exact spot in the beginning, even without LOS. But the price is that you will have to spend all your ammos to that spot. A good compromise me thinks.

Realistic? Maybe not. But in all movies when they start the attack after artillery, the barrage is heavy and long. Then the infantry advances.

There is a one movie, where was this really sucky barrage. In the movie Talvisota (Winter War) Finns shot about 5 shells against Soviet advance. One soldier asked from his mate :"Why the barrage halted?". The other guy said :"We got brand new shells from Sweden, but they are 1mm too big, so we cannot use them. We don't have more shells."

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

There's your answer right there, Monwar. Most of the indirect fire artillery used in the East was preplanned, and the game shows that. If you target your arty on the first turn, it is assumed to have been precisely ranged in, so it always falls exactly on target. Note that once planned, it can't be moved.

Well, yes, but real-life pre-planned fire was much more flexible than what we have in CMBB, even and especially for the Russians.

Walking barrages and moving box barrages were the norm for missions that were fired right at the beginning of an attack (as opposed to interdiction fire the night before and earlier).

And CMBB artillery falls in a pattern that is spread north-south, not horizontal line or box oriented, which seriously reduces the capabilities of preplanned fire.

If you want precise on-call fire, your best bet is to buy a bunch of on-map mortars or cannon.

Agreed but we are missing a middle element here. Also, the on-call fire mechanism in CMBB isn't especially realistic either, too predictable in some aspects, not predictable enough in others.

[Florian Gross]

But we still want a somewhat balanced game, don't we

[ September 27, 2003, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Florian Gross ]

[Florian Gross]

Russian Arty was way superior to german arty in numbers to late war german arty but they were not as responsive. So those preplanned barrages the russians did, do seem reasonable to me. They were just slow to react to new threats and thats in the game e.g. the slow zeroing in etc...

[atiff]

If you are making a scenario, you can get artillery to fall in a "wide" pattern rather than the standard "narrow and deep" pattern by adjusting the friendly map edges to North/South rather than East/West.

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by atiff:

If you are making a scenario, you can get artillery to fall in a "wide" pattern rather than the standard "narrow and deep" pattern by adjusting the friendly map edges to North/South rather than East/West.

This is not a good idea since you mess with all the other factors influenced by the friendly edges (morale hit on cutoff, which direction the withdraw command works, prisoner evacuation becomes easier etc.).

[atiff]

I never said it was a perfect solution....