Off map arty and realism

[JasonC]

To Scipio - how wide the pattern of shells is when it comes down is called the sheaf in artillery lingo. When all guns in the battery aim at the same point, you get a "converging" or "closed" sheaf. That gives about the impact pattern that CMBO depicts for observed artillery fire, or fire at a TRP. If you fire all the guns along the same compass direction, the shells come down more or less in the pattern the guns are laid out in, in the battery position. The gives an "open" sheaf. (Actually, you can also aim to slightly dispersed directions to "open" to any desired degree, but you get the idea). That typically would give about the pattern of shells you see in CMBO with either unobserved "map" fire, or observed fire using the "target wide" order.

Mortarmen typically get less drill in this stuff tha tube artillery does. The tube guys are firing from farther away and shoot larger missions, always in battery and often in battalion strength or more. Mortars are closer and typically fire in battery but not larger formations. Manipulating sheafs to get coverage in an artillery fire plan is thus more important for the tube artillery guys. You can do the same things with mortars, but it isn't so central a part of their usual fire control drill, because aggregating fire missions into big fire plans isn't essential for the mortars.

Most artillery rounds fired in WW II were almost certainly shot open sheaf in missions of battalion size, or upwards. Notice, I didn't say "most fire missions", but most shells. The bigger missions obviously expend more shells, and they were typically fired at much larger targets (e.g. a whole village or ridge line). You shoot "open" to cover area, especially against dispersed targets like infantry. You shoot "closed" to go after point targets like individual guns.

You can see the reason for open sheaf firing at infantry in ways players typically try to deal with artillery fire in CMBO. Players play dodge ball, trying to stay away from tight, tiny patterns of densely falling shells. The artillery shooter plays this game, despite its potential for outright misses, because he is trying to get the utmost "bang" out of strictly limited shells in CM. Far more limited than they were in the real deal. To make the arty last and pay for itself, he uses tightly control missions with limited numbers of shells on exact locations where he sees or expects enemy targets.

In the real deal, they were not so worried about ammo expenditure. They were perfectly willing to throw more shells, and often had far more guns in range than CM depicts. A typical real fire mission would look like 3 CM FOs simultaneously firing at the same general area with "target wide" orders, with the aim points 100 meters apart or so. For 2-3 minutes at least, and sometimes 5 minutes or more. The result is a wide beaten zone, perhaps 300 by 300 meters, with (e.g. 105mm) 100-150 shells, up to 250-300 in longer barrages, impacting in that area. Instead of a typical CM "surgical" mission of 16-32 shells on an area only 60 by 150 meters or so.

Obviously it is much easier to correctly aim the bigger zone so as to hit something, and completely impractical to dodge or run clear while the fire mission is in progress. The reason CM players don't use artillery that way despite these considerable advantages is they are effectively on "strict rationing" in ammo terms. The real world barrage would cost the Americans 642 points as regulars for the 3 firing batteries, and then give 2-3 short or 1 long fire mission on the realistic scale. Instead CM players buy 1-2 FOs and get 3-6 fire missions out of each one. But unrealistically tiny ones. They make up for them being tiny by using "point", close-sheaf targeting far, far more than in the real deal.

Basically, the prices of shells are so high in CM, and the artillery is responsive enough, that the responsiveness must make up for the expense. To be economical in artillery use, that is. The extreme is players who use 150mm or 155mm batteries with 35 shells to fire 15-30 second "mini-missions" of 4-8 shells, adjusting them on the fly every turn. One battery of 4 guns fires 4-8 fire missions, each with only a handful of shells. In the real deal, three times as many guns would fire just 1-2 missions, but much bigger patterns.

As for rolling barrages, the CM 100 yard "time free" adjustment is obviously meant to allow that to be implimented. You put the barrage line a few hundred yards ahead of the infantry, and "lift" 200 yards in 2 minutes, a small drizzle falling in between. Then you fire for a solid minute or two, and "lift" again. That was indeed done.

But sometimes rolling barrages were less continuous than that, with wider spacing in time. As in, the battalion fires three missions in a line at this phase line for 3-5 minutes. Then they fire at this phase line 500 yards farther on for another 3-5 minutes. This was commonly used against defenses constructed as multiple lines of trenches.

There was little point in dropping shells between them, and it just slowed up the friendly infantry behind the shells. As soon as the shelling of a particular trench line lifted, the infantry would rush that trench line. Meanwhile the artillery was working over the next one, suppressing its long range fire to support the first, and setting up the next "bound" by the infantry.

All of these rolling barrage tactics were employed with much larger groups of guns and with much larger ammo expenditure than you typically see in CMBO, though. 3 FOs minimum, and 9 FOs entirely normal, would give the right rate of fire for typical rolling barrages. Firing "target wide" and stretched out in a line, side by side.

Then they'd each fire off somewhere between a full module's worth of ammo each and 2-3 times that, depending on how many batteries were doing the shoot. In the most common field artillery calibers (25 pdr and 105mm), you might easily see 1000 shells overall.

[Mr. Johnson--]

Thats why I stopped playing QBs. I only play scenarios with reinforced battalions with each side getting 9 FOs with full ammo loadouts, everything else is so unrealistic, its unplayable for me.

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Moon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scipio:

I wonder how Arty mission wthout LOS will work in CM:BB. It is totally unrealistic that they come down just more dispersed, cause the FO is out of LOS. They will come down with the same disperse, but at the wrong location.

That's what happens in CMBB. They "might" come down in the wrong locations...</font>

[Scipio]

JasonC, indeed we only trained to align the whole section with the same fireorder, so in princip, all barrels were paralell all the time.

BTW, I agree to your description of barrages. I think the most common type of an artillery mission was the preparing barrage (that we will have in CM:BB). Of course, in reality it was much longer (even hours) and with much more ammo then we can and will see in CM. But hell, how impressive it would look

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Moon wrote, referring to pre-bombardment,

“ordered during the setup phase to strike a certain location at a certain time”

If this means what it appears to mean, it follows that we have what I would call “Fire-Plans”. I started what turned out to be e very long thread no Soviet artillery in CMBB many months ago, my greatest wish was for “exactly” a feature as described by Moon. I cannot believe my luck!

All gets better and better.

Greatly looking forward to CMBB,

All the best,

Kip.

[Moon]

Yes, Kip. it means exactly what it appears to mean

[Porajkl]

Moon, please tell us that in CMBB it's possible to buy TRPs ine every type of engagement, not only when defending. Is it?

[Redwolf]

Originally posted by Scipio:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by redwolf:

... You cannot do that in a wargame like CMBO since the player may find the wrong place useful nontheless and keep ouring on, thereby gaining fully effective artillery strikes without having to observe them. So wargames have to find some way to make it not only inprecise but also less useful to the player. ...

Mh, really? It is true that the player has the advantage of an 'all seeing eye' - but nevertheless he is only able to see what the game let see him. If he fires blind, then a simple thing could be : don't let him see were his fire comes down. Switch of explosion 'fireclouds' and the craters unless a friendly unit has LOS (like foxholes). Just an idea...</font>

[Scipio]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Not showing the impact of the shells if no unit is in sight.

That doesn't work in CMBO because the player will see things that non-arty-spotter units can see, so you get the "lucky" precision with the spotter out of LOS. You cannot hide the bursts altogether when no spotter is looking either, since that would hide too much, including troops under friendly arty fire without showing you.

It would work in TacOps where every unit can adjust. Still in both games it would rob some fun not to show the impacts.

Redwolf Of course I meant that ALL friendly troops will see the fire results if they have LOS to the impact zone. This may cause that a wrong firemission with a nevertheless acceptable result will be continued. But it this so unrealistic? A FO is not an isoltated person that runs over the battlefield. He is a specialist to guide artillery fire, but he does not command the fire. In a CM game it is realistic to see it this way: he is attached to a frontline unit, this units commander give him the order to fire on a target, and the FO follow this order and guide the fire. Of course, the commander of the unit is also not independent, he as some kind of communication net with his subunits. So hide the impact zone makes sense when no friendly unit has LOS.

But something to keep in mind is of course delay. If artillery fires, it should take some time to STOP the fire. This can cause some very unpleasant results in case of a missguided firemission. But of course we also would need than generally fireplans in the way like 'Fire twenty shells to location x,y' - similar how fireorders are given in the real world (at least in my mortar unit).

[Olle Petersson]

Here are a couple of issues;

National characteristics:

British artillery thrived on fast response, sacrificing accuracy and some flexibility in the process.

They used many guns in each mission to get the target under the sheaf. Spotting rounds were less common, since correcting the guns would take time.

To somewhat conserve ammo, as well as speeding up the process, it was the artillery commanders that acted FOs. This way the FO had about same rank as the commander of the unit they were supporting, which helped in coordinating the arty with the supported units as well as preventing unnecessary fire missions. The FO also (obviously) ordered a fire mission.

With accurate maps there would be shells in the air within two minutes from the FOs first target aquisition. (One minute for the FO to calculate range and switch from the zero line and report it to the TCP. Another 30-60 sec for the TCP to calculate firing angle, lay the guns and fire.)

(Source: British Artillery in WW2, a fairly reliable site, as far as I can tell.)

US artillery practices differed a bit from the British.

They used a refined "tape measure" system, originally invented by the Brits. It was so simple that just about every commander, from platoon level up, could use it and act as FO.

This meant that to get a fire mission the commanders had to request fire.

Then there might be a response if any artillery within range was available at the moment, not firing a mission for another unit.

Response time, given that any artillery unit was promptly available, was about three minutes for the battalion and regimental artillery. Another three minutes were needed for divisional artillery and yet another three minutes for corps artillery.

The "tape measure" system relied on that accurate and detailed maps were available to all, something that every now and then wasn't the case. (Ever tried directing artillery using a sketchy tourist map?)

(Source: Artillery Practices by the ..., a less reliable site.)

German doctrine called for good survey of the land to be carried out. Further on it required lots of calculations taking all sorts of variables into account.

The result was a fairly slow (>15 minutes) but extremely accurate and, after corrections, dead on target fire mission.

(Source: Artillery Practices by the ..., a less reliable site.)

In general I think that battalion mortars were fast in all nations, and the figures above are more relevant to divisional artillery attached to a regiment.

Artillery (point) cost in CM(BO):

I tried to get a thread going on this subject. Arty ammo/spotter point cost?

In short; the point cost for spotters is constant (30 pts) but the ammo cost varies greatly between weapons and troop qualities.

Strange!

Pre-planned arty missions:

I know it's supposed to be represented/implemented in CMBB, but I don't know how.

Here's how I'd like it to see it represented:

- In unit purchase one decide the type and number of batteries involved and duration of each mission.

- The map representation seen during the game is a "bullseye", like the TRP.

- During setup the target point is placed on location. At the same time the sheaf (dispersed or converged) and starting time (any time from first to last turn) for the mission is set.

- The mission can be cancelled during any order phase. (If it's cancelled it's gone and can't be reclaimed or used in any other fashion.)

- Once the mission starts it's automatically on target. (Lots of time to do the calculations before the battle.)

The target location should be free to place anywhere, just like the TRPs. For practical purposes it might prove necessary to restrict it's use in the opponent's setup zone.

Moon's vague description of CMBB and arty missions off target seem promising.

You can't be really sure if the shells hitting your infantry is your map fire gone wrong or if it's the opponent's artillery...

Rocket artillery missions that aren't pre-planned should be treated like map fire; Spray and pray, no spotting rounds and no corrections. Rarely (if ever) should the mission be centered on the target point, although the target usually should be somewhere within the wide sheaf.

Response and flight time:

With projectile flight times of 30s or more it takes time to correct fire after spotting rounds.

It also take some time for a cease fire order to take effect. (You call a mission without spotting rounds, to get a fast response. The rounds start dropping on your troops, so you yell for cease fire. Since a couple of volleys are allready in the air shells will continue to fall for some time after the shooting stops.)

Cheers

Olle

[Keke]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

The "tape measure" system relied on that accurate and detailed maps were available to all, something that every now and then wasn't the case. (Ever tried directing artillery using a sketchy tourist map?)

I tried to search the net for details about Finnish artillery, but there´s was none (in English). Instead I´ll copy and paste some information about Finnish artillery I did find from another forum. It is written by Juha Hujanen (I hope he doesn´t mind me doing this without any permission, I didn´t correct any spelling mistakes ):

"In summer 44 during heavy fightings Finnish artillery breaked many Russian attacks.The finest hour of Finnish artillery was 4.6 44 [the correct date is 4.7.1944 (Keke)] during Tali-Ihantala battle when 21 Finnish artillery battalions (252 guns) fired barrage against same target area where Soviet tanks and infantry were starting a attack.Target area (200x300m) was hit during 1 minute 950 light and 720 heavy shells.So in theory one shell hits in every 6x6m.In one minute 200x300m target area received 9000kg explosives and 31000kg shell splinters.After that barrage there is no life in that area and not surpispringly Soviets did not attacked after that.That shooting method was developed by Finnish artillery general Nenonen and with that one artillery spotter could call artillery fire to one spot from all guns with range and shiff fire to next target in 3-5 minutes."

I´d like to add that like the American arty, Finnish arty relied on accurate and detailed maps. The difference was that these were always available, because most of the fighting took place on the Finnish soil.

[ June 05, 2002, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Olle Petersson]

Originally posted by Olle Petersson:

Artillery (point) cost in CM(BO):

I tried to get a thread going on this subject. Arty ammo/spotter point cost?

In short; the point cost for spotters is constant (30 pts) but the ammo cost varies greatly between weapons and troop qualities.

Strange!

Doesn't anyone have any opinion about this?

The point cost for artillery ammunition increase enormously with spotter quality!

Cheers

Olle

[PiggDogg]

Olle,

quote: Originally posted by Olle Petersson: Artillery (point) cost in CM(BO): I tried to get a thread going on this subject. Arty ammo/spotter point cost? In short; the point cost for spotters is constant (30 pts) but the ammo cost varies greatly between weapons and troop qualities.

Strange! Doesn't anyone have any opinion about this? The point cost for artillery ammunition increase enormously with spotter quality!

Cheers

Olle

One suspects that the increased cost of better quality spotters is due to the decreased response time with better spotters. It seems a bit wierd, but seems to also make sense. I'll live with it, but am open to suggestions and opinions on this subject.

Cheers, Richard