On-Map arty & FOs

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

1) The current on-map mortars can get fire direction orders by a close HQ unit. IMO, the current solution is not very satisfyingly

- when you move with HQ units close to your mortar position, the chain of command can be 'stolen' by another, especially higher, HQ. This is very annoying, cause you now need 1 turn to move this HQ out of range and another turn to give the fire orders again. IMO it would make more sense to

- assign an FO to them or

- fix them to their platoon HQ or

- let the player assign them to a HQ in the setup

2) The on-map mortar must be in command range of the HQ. This is also not the best solution. The (81mm) mortar have radios. If the HQ has non, then it ussually has a messenger to transport the fire order. With some delay, of course.

3) It is a known fact that especially off-map 81mm mortars and partially also heavy Nebelwerfer units can fire far beyond there physical possible range in CM:BO. I assume this problem won't get better in CM:BB with larger maps. Wouldn't be the logic consequence to place them on-map with an assigned FO?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

1) The current on-map mortars can get fire direction orders by a close HQ unit. IMO, the current solution is not very satisfyingly

- when you move with HQ units close to your mortar position, the chain of command can be 'stolen' by another, especially higher, HQ. This is very annoying, cause you now need 1 turn to move this HQ out of range and another turn to give the fire orders again. IMO it would make more sense to

- assign an FO to them or

- fix them to their platoon HQ or

- let the player assign them to a HQ in the setup

I would lean towards having a command where you click on the mortar unit during play and then click on the HQ you want to control it. That way you could change the assignment during play. This should only be available to armies that possessed this degree of flexibility historically, however.

2) The on-map mortar must be in command range of the HQ. This is also not the best solution. The (81mm) mortar have radios. If the HQ has non, then it ussually has a messenger to transport the fire order. With some delay, of course.

Seems to me that trying to transmit firing adjustments via runners would be awfully unwieldy and time consuming. Not likely to have been done in practice, I would guess. I would prefer to stick with the existing system.

3) It is a known fact that especially off-map 81mm mortars and partially also heavy Nebelwerfer units can fire far beyond there physical possible range in CM:BO. I assume this problem won't get better in CM:BB with larger maps. Wouldn't be the logic consequence to place them on-map with an assigned FO?

Agreed this might be a problem, not sure yet that it is that serious though.

Michael

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

I think most realistic would be an attached FO or alternative an Mortar group with own HQ. The TO&E of a (German Jäger) mortar group:

1 Group Leader (1 Pistol)

2 Troop Leaders (2 SMG)

1 Range Finder (1 Pistol)

2 Radio Operators (2 rifles, 2 radios)

8 Mortar Riflemen (4 Pistols, 4 rifles, 2 mortars)

The CM:BO mortar group (with 2 mortars) has 12 men (as I assume):

1 Troop Leader

1 Radio Operator

4 Mortar Riflemen

That leaves two men, the Group leader and the range finder. Sounds to me like a two men FO troop.

Principly this could work for all kinds of on-map artillery that is able to fire indirect - unmounted and HT mounted mortars/Nebelwerfer, self-propelled Artillery (Wespe, Hummel, Katyuscha), maybe some kinds of fieldartillery(?).

[JAK]

Hi BTS, If you can model mortars and the like in CMBO then why on the very large maps in CMBB (ie 10 klicks or so) can't we have in game arty? Would a battery of 75mm infantriegeschutz be that far out of the question? Or how about assuming that a mortar battery has a readable map and a collective IQ higher than room temperature, therefore allowing them to fire at a location they can see resonably accurately (like a arty fire mission)? Hope you guys might fix this as it is Veeerrry inaccurate.

Thanks,

Jake

[Conscript Bagger]

I like to make and play on large maps, so I have sometimes thought it would be cool to see an FO's battery on the map. However, as I've read this thread and one or two previous ones discussing the same issue, I've reluctantly come to believe that in the vast majority of cases, there's really no reason to depict on-map indirect fire (more than it already is).

Consider a map that is 2 km wide and 5 km long(and thus one of the hotly-anticipated "10 km maps"), with the line of battle about in the middle of the map. How much of your artillery support would even be close enough to the extreme front line (within 2.5 km) to be shown on the map in the first place? Mortars, yes. Tube artillery, much less likely.

If the map were instead 1 km wide and 10 km long, you might be in the window for placing more types of artillery on the map, although 1000m is a fairly narrow slice of land. But assuming for the moment that there are one or two batteries of artillery directly east (or west, etc.) of your position to fall within that 1000m slice, how likely are they to ever play a part in the battle except through indirect fire? If the enemy starts 3500m away and has to fight your defensive line in the first place, chances are he'll never get within sight of your artillery (if he's even trying). It's much more likely that he'll never even realize your guns were on the map to begin with, so if all they're going to do is fulfill an OBA role, why bother putting them on the map? "The attacker might destroy my defenses and advance unopposed" you say... okay, maybe, but if that happens do you want to sit around for thirty turns while he comes to find your helpless guns? No thanks. Alt-U and challenge him to a rematch.

A scenario may be representing some rear-area raid where artillery is itself the main defensive force, but in that case you shouldn't be making such a large map that indirect fire would even be possible, since the whole point is that the artillery were surprised by a nearby enemy before they had a chance to limber up and retreat.

And as for a 10 km long map, how many of those do you want to see in the first place? "Oh boy, another chance to develop my waypoint placement skills." The only reason I can think of for a map that long is for a delaying action, during which your artillery would be scrambling to get off the map before the enemy reached them anyway, not taking calls for indirect fire missions.

Another thing - I've probably spent upwards of 30 hours creating a 2 x 2 km map, and it's still not done. I don't even want to think about how long it would take to make a map more than twice that size - yet another reason I think 10 km maps will be rare.

I mentioned mortars earlier, and they can of course fire indirect at TRPs. This works fine, as long as the scenario designer gives the defender enough TRPs to cover the battlefield sufficiently. If you really want to represent onboard mortars being directed by an FO, then buy a normal spotter, place a battery of mortars of corresponding size on the map with no ammunition, and if they get destroyed or forced to retreat, don't fire your spotter anymore.

Sorry for the long post; I'm not usually so effusive. Anyway, like I said at the beginning, I don't think it's a bad or dumb idea to have enhanced on-board indirect fire, in fact I'd love to see it too. I'm just not at all convinced it's necessary.

[ March 01, 2002, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Offwhite ]

[JAK]

Hi, wouldn't it be possible in RL during WW2 to recieve a fire mission at a mortar battery by radio and fire at the target without line of sight? Say for instance, you were the battlefield commander (like you are in CM) and you knew there was an enemy infantry element coming through an orchard. Couldn't you call for arty fire on a known local based on a map, like at cordinates so and so, mark with smoke and fire for effect. I asked my dad about how to avoid arty fire and he said that SOP for soviet and soviet trained armies was to fire a WP or smoke round at an area so if you saw a hazy area around a locale that is clearly marked on a map (ie. a intersection of a road) stay the hell away!

hope this stirs up some ideas,

Jake

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by JAK:

Hi, wouldn't it be possible in RL during WW2 to recieve a fire mission at a mortar battery by radio and fire at the target without line of sight?

You can do that in CM with on board mortars if:

1)you have a TRP on the spot you want the shells to fall,

2)and the mortar hasn't moved since the beginning of the game.

[JAK]

Hi CMplayer,

What I'm trying to say, and obviously failing at is in CMBB or the rewrite would it not be more historically accurate to allow mortar crews in C&C of a HQ unit to fire anywere on the map without LOS (exactly like arty units)? If they fire at targets out of LOS the accuracy of the pattern is degraded, again like artillery. If the code exists and its not much trouble then why not make it realistic?

Jake

[CMplayer]

I see. Yes, what you are saying might be realistic but I _believe_ a decision was made not to include it because it would exaggerate the problem of 'borg' spotting.

Basically if any wounded crew, stuck behind enemy lines, located an enemy position, the player would be able to use that command to call in indirect fire on it, even though the crew would have no possible way of communicating the info back to the main body. So this had to be sacrificed to avoid gamey abuse.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Offwhite Take a map of 4 km length. Place an on-map 81mm at the border: it has a range of ~2500m. If the same mortar is off-map, let's imagine 5m behind the visible border, represented by an FO only, it can reach every place on the map. Even over 4 km. So it isn't an additional feature to place them on-map, in princip it's a must for a realistic simulation. The next step must then be to change the way of guiding indirect on-map artillery fire, or the system don't works.

CM Player Good point. I wonder if BTS will find a way to simulate a 'line of communication'

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

If the same mortar is off-map, let's imagine 5m behind the visible border, represented by an FO only, it can reach every place on the map.

If the mortar's range is 2500 meters then I doubt that you should ever assume that an on board FO's battery is 5km behind the back edge of the map.

But I see your point.

[JAK]

Many Maps can be made in CMBO already which involve a FO far out of range of a 81mm mortar battery calling in targets, this in my opinion is not realistic. My question still stands, can we fix it by making mortar represented as they were in real life? Would it really be a huge mess to implement out of LOS fires simply by tweaking the arty codes? The mortars already can fire out of LOS but with TRPs so how hard would it be to make that applicable to the whole map?

Jake

[Conscript Bagger]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

Offwhite Take a map of 4 km length. Place an on-map 81mm at the border: it has a range of ~2500m. If the same mortar is off-map, let's imagine 5m behind the visible border, represented by an FO only, it can reach every place on the map. Even over 4 km. So it isn't an additional feature to place them on-map, in princip it's a must for a realistic simulation. The next step must then be to change the way of guiding indirect on-map artillery fire, or the system don't works.

4 km is a pretty long map in CM.

I ask again what is the chance that on-board mortars will ever play any part in the battle except indirect fire? In other words, how likely are they to be spotted and fired on by the enemy? It's not going to happen very often, so leave them off the map in the first place.

This raises the range issue you mentioned. Sure, the abstraction makes unrealistic shelling of the far reaches of the map possible, but how often will you have any reason to do so? The fact that my opponent can call down a blind bombardment anywhere he likes is more than offset by the sheer size of the map; if he wants to waste his ammunition, I don't care if it's at a realistic range or not.

I have a suspicion that a lot of us, myself included, use bigger maps than necessary. Why have, say, an 8 sq. km map if the fighting's only happening in a 4 sq. km area? Just so we can put mortars on-board and watch them shoot?

If you do put them on the board anyway, there is already a way to direct their fire, like I said earlier - lots of TRPs.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

I wonder if BTS will find a way to simulate a 'line of communication'

We could start a strident thread along the lines of "BTS! We want runners in CMBB". I'm sure that would go over real well...

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

CM Player I said meters, not kilometers

JAK Indirect on-map artillery fire is exactly what I want to see. My idea is to use FOs even for on-map artillery.

Offwhite Indeed I think that direct fire by mortars was not the common way to use them - maybe except the real small 50/60mm thingys. It's IMO just stupid - why build an inderect fire weapon and use it for direct fire? In my military service (in a 120mm mortar platoon) this was told be an emergency measure only.

You missunderstood the range thing. Why should I fire blind? I can move the FO in LOS, or any other unit, so I have at least an idea where the enemy is.

Bigger maps the necessary should not provide bigger areas to fight, but bigger areas to maneuver

TRPs are not available in QBs, except to defenders.

CM Player We already have runners. Of course only abstracted . But that is not the point. If a unit has a radio, it can receive orders or give reports on each place of the map. Even if it's a cut of crew behind the lines with a radio. A unit without radio can only use view or acoustic contact to another friendly unit, or messengers, of course. The borg spotting problem arises because every unit can always report or receive order. But indeed, this is a theme for another threat.

[Andrew H.]

I think that CM's borg spotting model would lead to unrealistic counterbattery fire if indirect artillery assets were placed on the map. It would be too easy for a lone enemy unit to get LOS to the arty, permitting unrealistic counterbattery fire. Not that counterbattery fire is unrealistic, but it was not based on infiltrating sharpshooters getting LOS to the enemy arty.

And destroying 4 or 6 high caliber guns would probably be worth a lot of points.

Having said this, of course there are situations where enemy arty units were overrun, or were forced to set up very close to the front (i.e., 75mm pack howitzers, etc). But I think that these situations can be adequately (not ideally, but adequately) addressed by just having the guns fire over open sights at any attacking units.

None of this is perfect, but I think that having on board arty firing indirectly would lead to a lot of unrealistic gameyness.

It would be less unrealistic with mortars, I think - but these guys can already fire indirectly with TRPs, so that takes care of some of the problem. It's still not perfect, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the gameyness potential of on map arty.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

TRPs are not available in QBs, except to defenders.

Which is why it would be very cool if CM allowed the establishment of TRPs during play. You call in a few spotting rounds and you get a TRP on that spot. Repeat as necessary.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Andrew I agree - anyway, I have started an own threat for the borg spotting problem. Beside that, I didn't meant to place artillery always on map. 'Normal' artillery, 75mm and above, can fire on ranges over 10km, so the range problem does not exist for them anyway.

I was more thinking about the artillery we have on map already : 81mm mortars (mounted and unmounted), Self-propelled artillery. Heavy HT-mounted Nebelwerfers would fall in this catergory, too, cause their range were below 3km.

CMplayer I agree

[ March 02, 2002, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[JAK]

Can we get a grog to sort this out? Ranges and common SOP's for US and Wehrmacht 81mm mortars would really help establish some solid ground.

Cheers,

Jake

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

JAK I don't know the meaning of 'SOP', but about the ranges:

USSR:

50-PM-40 (50mm) - 800m

82-PM 41 (82mm) - 3100m

107-PBHM 38 (107mm) - 6300m

120-HM 38 (120mm) - 6000m

UK:

2-inch Mk II (50.8mm) - 450m

3-inch MK II (76.2mm) - 2500m

4.2inch - 3750m

Germany:

leGrW 36 (50mm) - 520m

sGrW 34 (81mm) - 2400m

sGr 42 (120mm) - 6050m

US:

M2 (60mm) - 1800m

M1 (81mm) - 3000m

and the Werfer/Rockets:

Germany:

15cm Wurfgranate 41 - 7050m

21cm Wurfgranate 42 - 7850m

28cm Wurfkörper - 2030m

32cm Wurfkörper - 2140m

30cm Wurfkörper 42 - 4550m

USSR:

82mm M-8 - 5900m

132mm M-13 - 8500m

300mm M-30/M-31 - ??

USA

4-5inch M-8 - 4205m

UK:

Land Mattress (127mm) - 7225m

[JAK]

Hi Puff, SOP=standard operating procedure (ie. would 81mm mortar crews fire missions out of thier line of site...yeh, it makes me laugh too

. So according to this information 81mm mortars can, should, did, and where there still in use do fire at targets out of thier line of sight. Not only that but they ARE represented in CMBO as an on map arty asset and they ARE modeled unrealistically! If a fire mission order comes in and a topo map is present (also one's location is fixed) then a target can be engaged in what is called "charts and darts" arty fire (typically this fire is accurate to within 100 meters without a FO directing the fire). Also, as much of a problem as "Borg" spotting is I think that such a grossly inaccurate way of modeling the 81mm mortar effects the game even worse. I am very hopeful that this is one of the very neat changes CMBB has undergone.

Jake

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

JAK Yes, of course is the 81mm mortar able to fire on targets without LOS. That's why it's called an indirect fire weapon .

The standart SOP (thanks for explanation) for indirect artillery fire is (AFAIK) that a 'fire by map coordinates' is something that does not excist in reality.

But that is the reason why an FO was needed, why target coordinates were prepared before the battle (in CM represented by TRPs) and why results of fire were always watched/corrected by an FO. You won't believe what a medium wind do with your mortar shells, for example.

Anyway, I would also be interested in some infos about the SOP of artillery. What was for example done when LOS was impossible - in night or fog etc.

[Conscript Bagger]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

Indeed I think that direct fire by mortars was not the common way to use them - maybe except the real small 50/60mm thingys. It's IMO just stupid - why build an inderect fire weapon and use it for direct fire? In my military service (in a 120mm mortar platoon) this was told be an emergency measure only.

Right - that's exactly why I suggested leaving them off the board to begin with. Or placing them without ammunition and using the corresponding spotter.

You missunderstood the range thing. Why should I fire blind? I can move the FO in LOS, or any other unit, so I have at least an idea where the enemy is.

True... although I suspect it's usually going to be more trouble than it's worth. But with clear LOS on the Russian steppes, I'll concede the point.

Bigger maps the necessary should not provide bigger areas to fight, but bigger areas to maneuver

I take your point here too; I think you're saying the same thing I was (but from a different perspective): a scenario designer should carefully consider what size map is most appropriate to the action he wants to depict.

TRPs are not available in QBs, except to defenders.

But preparatory bombardments will be available to the attacker.

It doesn't sound like I'm convincing you, which is fine, since I'd like to see the changes you suggest in CMBB too (I'm just explaining why I think the value of making the changes wouldn't justify the time it would most likely take). I do disagree that these issues are quite as crippling as you're presenting them right now; after all, just because gamey shelling is possible doesn't mean you're obligated to do it.

[flamingknives]

If you want to use mortars on board, take about three, and attach them to an HQ unit with two command upgrades. The HQ sneaks over the crest of the hill to spot for the mortars. It's especially good if you're generating a scenario because then you can assign a dedicated HQ/spotter to a mortar platoon. Brit 3" mortars are good as they have good ammo capacity.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

After thinking about it for a while, how about this:

- The player can purchase a special FO for on-map artillery. I guess the 30pp - the victory points value of a normal FO - would be sensefull.

- This FO can guide up to four on-map artillery guns of the same type per round, like 1-4 81mm mortars, but the type can change each round. This is not 100% realistic, but I guess the 81mm is anyway the most represented on-map indirect fire weapon. Howitzers are available, but more expensive then the off-map versions (I assume because they have more ammo per gun). Not to speak about there vulnarabilty against an enemy breakthrough...

So much about the possibility to guide on-map artillery.

Regarding the mentioned range problem... realistic would be when the player can only cover as much of the map with the artillery as the maximum range of the weapon allows, measured from the mapborder of his own setup zone. The affected units are mentioned somewhere above. Alternative he should be allowed to purchase them for on-map usage. No problem for the mortars, but maybe for the Nebelwerfer-HTs.

How about it, BTS?