Indirect fire.

[Kcat]

I post these things not just to bitch, but to see if I am missing some cammand function. And in hopes the designers are listening in and maybe trying to add stuff from what they hear.

[Wicky]

You can do what you want by using a spotter (representing off map guns) with a target reference point.

I don't think you'll see the developers making a patch for something that was discussed to death many, many moons ago - conclusion was to stop gamey abuse, as others have pointed out.

Some tanks do have smoke ammo which can be targeted as you reverse, while others might only have smoke dischargers which are under the control of the tacAI.

You'd be better of checking out the CM-SF forum where the new and improved game engine is being developed.

[ March 30, 2006, 03:42 AM: Message edited by: Wicky ]

[flamingknives]

They won't be adding anything to CMAK, CMBB or CMBO

CM:SF or later, perhaps.

Oh, and you're supposed to get absolutely wasted in "A Series of Misfortunes"

[MikeyD]

"Wouldn't smoke shells be a different load?"

I once calculated the difference between smoke shells and HE & AP in Sherman 75s. The HC smoke shell had something like 1/10th the muzzle energy of an AP round, not much use for direct fire beyond 2000m. VERY low MV. It was amazing the shell turned out to be as accurate as it did! The rarer white phospherous shell (76mm guns didn't even have WP, it seems) was a different matter, treated more like an artillery shell with substantially more HE-like charge.

You can tell your unit to shoot smoke & scoot IF you're packing smoke shells. Some guns don't have a smoke round, some guns like the early-war Brit 3" gun ONLY has smoke shells!!! A Sherman may show up with anywhere between zero and a dozen smoke rounds (after a ceertain date, I think).

One thing I recently learned - the Abrams doesn't field a smoke round! The reason is simply that a WP shell would need to be stored vertically so the shell contents don't settle to one side, making the shell unstabile. The Abrams' turret bustle stowage rack is horizontal stowage only and its considered unsafe to store rounds in the fighting compartment these days.

[JasonC]

It is a gamey tactic and unrealistic in all respects.

Real world smoke is not the wargamers impenetrable brick wall with predictable coverage and duration. It was used dramatically less in actual combat than in wargames, because wargames can't simulate it well enough - not even close. Instead they create a Star Trek force field.

If you want to lay smoke indirectly, buy an FO. Those are allowed to fire smoke or HE with the decision made a few minute before, not even at purchase time, and unlimited portions fired as smoke. The real world never had it so good.

If you can't be bothered to coordinate 2 different kinds of units, with one role for the FO and one for the tanks and a whole 3 minutes of planning time (instead of everyone dancing to your conductor's tune on 10 second timescales with perfect information), why are you playing a strategy game?

[MikeyD]

Of course theres 'smoke, then there's 'smoke' and there's 'smoke'.

There was the famous 'American smoke', the HC tank smoke shell used remarkably often as an offensive weapon - the Germans positively despised the round; and a WP smoke round whose caustic incendiary qualities made it inadvisable to walk through the cloud or to drop on your own position. U.S. and Brits have the roof mounted smoke mortar that fires a small smoke shell in front of the vehicle for defensive purposes. The Germans had their Nebelkurzen (sp?) smoke candles for awhile. The Brits and Russians also had smoke generating equipment (using diesel fuel to make the smoke?) mounted at the backs of some tanks. Then there's heavy mortar smoke. The U.S. 4.2 inch mortar was specially designed for throwing chemical rounds. Most river crossings i've heard of were accompanies by massive amounts of heavy artillery smoke. Plus there's individual infantry smoke grenades

Lots of smoke during a scenario may be annoying to play against but I don't consider it particulary gamey.

[Corvidae]

OK I Think we are off topic now ,,

can we try to go back???,,

or should we blunder on forward into adventure and insanity ???

[Joachim]

@Corvidae:

We're already amidst insanity, no need to blunder forward. Adventure is nowhere in sight.

@Kcat:

You could try to target just behind the top of the ridge. Many shots will go wrong and hit somewhere behind it. Train a bit and you might get some use out of it. Not much... more like RL.

There is some discussion on that scenario. To win:

a) Dust is a very effective smoke. Use the wind to your advantage. Divide and conquer works - as you probably guessed.

Read Jason's posts on suppression... Lots of incoming in a short time will get the crews to pin/panic. MG fire is enough to keep them pinned.

c) Use area fire and small (blue) armor covered arcs that are small enough not to include targets with a few. This should enable you to deliver some rounds even after the crews pin and drop out of LOS or have 0% exposure for your tanks. It is pretty annoying if your tanks lose target.

d) Do not use all tanks for area firing

e) Overrun pinned guns (keep them pinned with MG fire)... Drive full speed towards them. Saves precious ammo.

f) Advancing tanks go full speed - make sure you don't throw up dust in the firing lines of the overwatch tanks.

g) Do not attack piecemeal.

Some basic principles and knowledge of the game engine helped me to win that scen. Guessing that most guns were placed in the center of the sandbag positions helped, too.

Gruß

Joachim

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Stalin's Organist,

You might wish to reconsider your position. That big cylinder on top of, inter alia, the modern M-109

Paladin 155mm SP is a panoramic sight. The links indicate that a panoramic sight is used with artillery.

Fair enough - the question remains though - was the T34 panoramic sight suitable and used for indirect fire?

I have no idea whether this is a characteristic intrinsic in the design of panoramic sights, or if they have to be properly designed for this usage - the naval landing gun site you list, for example, has a seperate screw jack mechanism for siting the gun indirectly and I dont' see that in hte T34.

I have no problem with online info generally, and I also have various books on the T34 and Russian tanks in general and none of them mention indirect fire usage for the tank at all as far as I've seen.

[ March 30, 2006, 07:40 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[flamingknives]

The question for me is:

Is the panoramic sight atop the M109 used for laying the gun to fire indirect, or might it serve some other purpose?

The Challenger 2 has a panoramic sight for the commander, but I've seem nothing indicating that this can be used for indirect fire.

[JasonC]

Yes the panoramic sight is used to lay an M109. The way it works is a glorified compass with optics called a colimeter is placed some distance away from the gun, the gunner then puts his sight on that and gets the absolute angle off the compass reading. That is dialed into the sight as its base, after which you can dial absolute deflections into the sight directly. Then when you move the tube, leveling your horizontal aiming bubble will align the tube with that absolute deflection. For the quadrant (elevation), gravity provides the absolute reference automatically, you just dial in the desired/called quadrant and raise the tube until that bubble levels.

Meanwhile the battery as a whole does the same sort of thing but with 2 or more absolute angles to visible terrain features, to plot its absolute position on a map. It then shoots angles to the gun positions from the position so plotted and plots those on the map. Each reduced to a grid square for reference, these days also entered into a computer etc.

When the location of a fire mission is called (by grid square etc), the angle from plotted battery position to plotted point of aim is found on a map with a protractor - or you can get it mathematically from the coordinates themselves with a little quick trig - or again these days by computer. You get deflections either for the whole battery, or that with individual half-mil corrections for each gun, sometimes.

These days some of those steps can be accelerated with GPS position readings - what I describe is the old fashion surveyer's way of laying a battery. You still need absolute angles to get the right deflection though, so the role of the sight on each gun remains the same.

But there is nothing magical inside a simple sight that tells you your absolute position or the deflection you need to fire an indirect mission. All of that requires actual plotting or calculation by a battery's fire direction center. It is not something the individual gunner is doing on the fly, nor is the equipment on his vehicle alone doing it for him.

And yes, I served on M109s...