Avoiding inaccurate arty rounds

[Juardis]

OK, I've done my fair share of whining about CMBB arty. I scanned the 1.02 list at Boots and Tracks but did not see any mention of arty being fixed, but admittedly it is only a partial list. I also saw where Steve said 1.02 is done and there will be no more patches unless a really horrific bug is found. So, here's hoping 1.02 will indeed fix the inaccurate arty, but if not, here is how to avoid it...

My problem stems from the fact that once LOS to a target is broken, arty is very inaccurate. But even bigger I think is that retargetting does not improve the situation too much. Here's a test you can do. Target a point that is just out of LOS. Let the first rounds fall. Then readjust the target point a few meters until you do have LOS to it. You should get the green line saying you have LOS and the time should increase only slightly indicating you have requested an adjustment. Now, when the next rounds fall you would hope that they would land where you requested but you will probably find that they are still way off. On the surface, this seems ludicrous. I mean, you have LOS, you can see the rounds are not falling where they're supposed to, and your FO does nothing to prevent the precious loss of ammo. On the other hand, it seems that CMBB is making an adjustment to the original landing location. So asking for a 10m adjustment on a barrage that was off by 200m is not going to magically make the rounds fall where they're supposed to. That appears to be what is going on.

Not sure how to get around this if LOS is ever broken. But I think everyone should be aware of this to minimize your frustrations.

1. Always ALWAYS plot a strike within LOS

2. Try not to do things that will block LOS between when the strike is ordered and when the rounds start landing

3. And if the first barrage is horribly off target, then don't even bother adjusting fire. Cancel it altogether and start over.

That's been my observation anyway. Anybody have anything different? I'm especially interested in how to get the rounds to land where you want them to land if LOS was ever broken.

[ February 07, 2003, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Juardis ]

[MikeyD]

Another thing that rarely gets mentioned is to pick your artillery type wisely. Some weapons systems are MUCH more innacurate than others. Why purchase 85mm(?) rockets when 120mm mortars are more deadly, more accurate, and have a quicker reaction time?

Has any tested out relative accuracies? I'm guessing (without having tested) that the longer range artillery will tend to be less accurate on the map?

[Juardis]

I haven't yet in CMBB. But in CMBO it seemed the bigger caliber was way more precise than the smaller caliber. But yeah, rockets are a crap shoot.

[Becket]

Bah, who cares if rockets are inaccurate. Ever see the films of Katyusha batteries firing? Man, what a sight. I'll throw those into my games any time.

[Pak40]

I believe you may have found the problem, Juardis. Hopefully it is fixed.

[CombinedArms]

I also think this might be the answer. I'll bet my problems have come when I've started a fire order when the FO was out of LOS, and figured it could walk into LOS before the arty came down. So the arty did come down with the FO in LOS, but the TacAI acts as if it's not. This "walk into LOS" approach worked fine in CMBO, but it looks like it doesn't work so well in CMBB.

[Juardis]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

I also think this might be the answer. I'll bet my problems have come when I've started a fire order when the FO was out of LOS, and figured it could walk into LOS before the arty came down. So the arty did come down with the FO in LOS, but the TacAI acts as if it's not. This "walk into LOS" approach worked fine in CMBO, but it looks like it doesn't work so well in CMBB.

That's actually how I came to my conclusion. Although I did target an area in LOS, lost LOS when smoke fell, then my entire strike fell 200m off target because I lost LOS between when the rounds fell and when I gave the orders. That kinda sucks. I hope it gets fixed, but then again, knowing why is sometimes half the battle.

[manchildstein (ii)]

it seems to me that the 'barrage way off thing' can also occur if you call it in on a point within los, but if the spotting rounds themselves are falling out of los.

it appears that what is needed to ensure an accurate barrage is to call it in within los, and make sure every spotting round is also within los.

also it appears as though 'within' los means 'can your FO see the actual ground where the spotting round hits' and not, 'can your spotter see the explosion from the spotting round.'

[Juardis]

that perhaps is true manchild. I have not done that extensive of testing. But the manual does say that you should look for the spotting round and if it comes in way off target, to retarget the same spot. That seems stupid to me since that is supposed to be the FOs job, but nevertheless, that is what the manual says so...