Calling in Artillery: Pre-bombardment or FO spotting, which do you prefer?

[Alsatian]

OK, I'm terrible with artillery. When I decide to use a pre-bombardment on the first turn, I always pick some spot on the battlefield that turns out my opponent wasn't using at all. It's on target, but it's a big waste of ordinance.

When I decide to save my shells for targeting during the battle, and I bring my FO into clear line of site and I call in the fire order, inevitably the fire comes in way off target. I end up killing more of me than of the other guy.

So, which school of thought are you: Pre-Bombardment, mid-game spotting, or some combination? If you go either way, what's your thought process on which tactic to use?

[flamingknives]

Depends on map size and arty calibre.

Rockets, on the other hand, always get used on pre-planned barrages, as they're so inaccurate you'll hit your own men if they're more than half-way across the map.

Anything up to 155mm usually comes in during the game, unless I'm playing as the Russians.

Really, the best use for cheap, large and unresponsive arty is clearing out where you want to be rather than where you think the enemy is. Make sure you have time to get into position before shells start falling so you can advance into the danger zone as soon as it has stopped, thereby getting the full benefit of the suppresion effect. Rocket arty comes in on turn 1, as it has such a wide spread.

[PLM]

use pre-planned barrages with heavy caliber weapons when attacking unless you are prepared for the delay. especially as soviets, the delay can be very long.

when defending, its important to buy some Target Reference points so you can drop just about any caliber in up to 2 minutes.

be sure to study the enemy side of the map when pre-planning one. where would you put troops? if he's smart and defending, he might put troops behind a flag expecting a pre-planned barrage. especially in woods because that could be a mess if he had a lot of guys in there.

i dont care for pre-planned barrages during Meeting engagements. it seems kind of cheap.

lately ive been cutting out on using indirect artillery at all outside of pre-planned attacks. especially when playing as russians. why not just bring a few infantry guns or mortars? they are much more accurate.

dont bother dropping light caliber artillery (under 105mm) when attacking someone pre-planned. at least i wouldnt.

[RawRecruit]

I believe the experience level of the FO counts for both reducing delays and the accuracy of the bombardment.

[Slappy]

Anything with a 3min response time or shorter is in game, anything longer is preplanned or TRP only.

I find preplanned with a delay works better than turn 1 for everything but rockets on the attack. I try to set the delay for how long it will take my forces to get into position to exploit the fire. This tactic can surprise the defender and gives him less time to recover, regroup and reenforce before the infantry move in.

[Carl Puppchen]

Don't forget that you can pre-plan a bombardment but not have it come in turn 1 - i.e. a delay of a few or more turns can help you to bring your troops into position so that you can benefit more from the suppression or smoke effects. It is hard to predict what will happen that many turns out, but if you can it is a very effective combination.

One subtle benefit of pre-planned bombardments is that even if your observer is KIA all the shells will fall. Hopefully your observers never get killed, but it has happened to me

If you are playing a scenario where you have to assault quickly (limited time) it is nice to put up a smoke barrage that drops on the first turn with your low caliber arty.

Of course I agree 100% with the fact that if you have slow Soviet or minor arty you are better off pre-planned or the shells might never come.

[Snorri]

most grunts simply beg the smoke is there when it should..

[JasonC]

My cut off for called fire is 5 minutes of delay. With the Germans, 170mm and 210mm gets preplanned, as do rockets. Otherwise, called. With Russians, 122mm and up is preplanned, 120mm and below is called. On defense TRPs make called fire feasible, if you have enough of them. In MEs, pre-planned isn't even allowed.

Preplanned I usually call for the fire between minutes 5 and 10. Only rarely on turn 1, when e.g. there is one hill with cover in the middle of the enemy set up zone that I know is the only place that can see early approach routes, or something similar.

Otherwise, I want my men moving out first, and closing the distance. I wanted the planned bombardment falling on enemy positions as I am completing the approach to contact. I pick large areas of cover on major approach avenues. Sometimes a shoot turns 10-15 is called on an area with wide LOS or near flags or both.

Arty is intended to inflict casualties. I want to predict where the enemy is. It is not enough to have it help get me some woods. If that comes too, fine, but the priority is hitting enemy infantry. Predicting where some of his troops will be is an art.

How does one start doing that? You consider the point size of the fight and the probable enemy force mix. I mean, "he probably has about a company of infantry plus guns tanks etc" or "he probably has almost a battalion", or whatever it is.

Then look at his set up zone - his half the map when he is defending - and look at the terrain. Put on his hat, and imagine how you'd defend that ground with a force that size. If you see multiple possibilities that make sense, remember them all, and look for areas that all of them wind up using.

A reverse slope tree area behind a baldish hill. A hill with wide LOS and good cover, and routes out the back in dead ground. The indispensible building area on the way to the objective (though direct HE is better against buildings than indirect, so woods are the first thing to consider). The only area of rough in an otherwise open steppe (or sand) sea. The only area of cover in the center ahead of the flags on short of the limit of his set up zone.

There generally aren't all that many places to put significant numbers of troops. Remember, he has HQ command line limits. He wants to place whole platoons places. All within command distance of some one point. He may have a few screening units out of command, or isolated MGs off on a flank. A few may be in trenches, in otherwise open ground. But his platoons go somewhere, they don't want to stand on top of each other, so they need room.

After you have some mental pictures in your head about possible enemy defenses, plan you own attack. You'll put a column up the left edge, say, turning toward the flags after reaching woods W or hill Z.

Well, you will immediately see the places along the planned route you need to take. You picked a route because it offers some cover or dead ground or both. Some of the ground is "mostly dead", but a few enemy high points can see it. Some of the cover is right along the path and inside the enemy set up zone and between the path and the flags. You get a whole new crop of potential targets this way.

The rest is pretty obvious. The two analyses will overlap. Aim there.

As for on map stuff, either keep your FOs in safe spots with good LOS in your start zone or close to it (distant FOs), using aim points near things, that they can see from there. Or put one each in "overwatch groups" with other long ranged support teams - HMGs, snipers, mortars. And have an HQ lead those teams. Move them behind a regular infantry platoon, letting the regular infantry scout their route.

The overwatch team then uses the right weapon for the enemy ahead of the column. A enemy gun gets a mortar. Infantry trying to come nreinforce gets MGs using fire arcs over the open ground bits. Snipers can pick their own shots. And enemy infantry in cover gets a called fire mission.

Call the mission ahead of time when there aren't any enemy spotting reports yet. To get the time counting down. But don't let it actually land. Just change the aim point to bump the time upward again if it gets low. Walk the aim point around, to hover over areas that can see the spot your infantry has reached or are about to reach.

When you get enemy spots, wait until you have several - 3-4 - in the same area, before letting the time tick all the way down to "firing". The best missions land while your own infantry are in contact, in an ongoing firefight. Then you follow up 1.5-2.5 minutes of shells with an infantry attack, while the enemy is still pinned.

As for having barrages miss on you, the key is to call for fire only where you can see, and to cancel the mission if you ever lose LOS to the aim point. Then recall it from scratch. In CMBB this is rarely a problem, but in CMAK, in the desert, it is considerably more difficult. Dust is the reason - you are much more likely to lose LOS to dust in an AK desert fight than just about anywhere else.

The main thing there is that you want arty to be the first thing to hit the guy, in a desert fight only. Direct fire by tank guns, on map guns, and on map mortars, are the usual culprits that put dust between the FO and the target before the mission has time to land. This can make FOs considerably less useful. Preplanned fire makes more sense in some desert fights because of it (you target the limited areas of cover).

AK fights that aren't in desert sand are less likely to be sent astray by dust. In dusty conditions, even HE arty missions should also be considered smoke like mission. You use them to obscure an enemy area and blind his shooters while you close.

This is certainly a harder thing to learn than the vanilla cases above. And tanks and high caliber on map guns are generally the most effective purchases in the desert, in part because of the difficulties getting this to work. (Also just because LOS is typically so wide open, making vehicle MGs dominate infantry, in turn making winning the armor fight the most important thing).

I hope this helps.