The Great (but not über) Finnish Thread II

[Ari Maenpaa]

Jon,

thanks for your knowledgeable feedback. I'll put my "artillery teachers" on the wall, if it turns out that the Korja was only a copy from the RA equivalent

Then again it is possible that the Finns compared their FO system to those of the Soviets and Germans only. Although wouldn't the Germans have copied a better system than their own was from the war booty after the occupation of France?

Originally posted by JonS:

Moving to OT makes the FOs job a bit easier, and the BHQs job a bit harder. With either OT or GT the BHQ still has to convert map data into something the guns can use directly, which is what the Korja and the RA equivalent does. The difference is that until the RA changed to OT their equivalent didn't also have to convert OT to GT, since the FO had already done that.

I'm not an expert on this, but I thought this was the main point of Korja. Making FO's work as quick and easy as possible. BHQ is the place where a whole team can make calculations in relatively peaceful conditions whereas the FO is on the hot spot. In fact, information in the museum said that it was possible for any soldier to act as a FO as long as his location was known at the BHQ and he could tell the direction and distance to the target(s) from his location. So an absolute minimum effort was required from FO.

Correct me if I'm wrong but basically all kind of fire concentrations and transfers were possible to do with even with the most antique indirect FO system. The real question was the time and effort needed to carry them out.

Incidentally, and slightly off-topic, I have heard of an RNZA FO who, during the war in Vietnam, would order corrections as a change in bearing and elevation. In other words, he had memorised the firing tables, and was able to convert OT to GT, and then figure out individual gun corrections in his head. He did this 'cos he found it quicker and more accurate than getting the BHQ to do the calculating for him.

How's that for über?

An emigrant Finn possibly

Also for me a plotting board is quite broad concept. Something like this for instance:

I couldn’t find specific picture(s) of the WW2-era RA Korja from the net, so could you point me to a correct direction or site? Maybe a more fitting headword? A picture tells more than thousand words, or how did it go?

Gotta have something more concrete before I can begin any “wall maneuvers”

And the Finnish 6000 mil scale is inherited from Russia.

Regards,

Ari

[JonS]

Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

Jon,

thanks for your knowledgeable feedback. I'll put my "artillery teachers" on the wall, if it turns out that the Korja was only a copy from the RA equivalent

Ari, I doubt very much that the Finns copied the RA, or vice versa. Rather, I think it more likely that two independant, talented groups of gunners came up with similar solutions to the same problem.

Then again it is possible that the Finns compared their FO system to those of the Soviets and Germans only. Although wouldn't the Germans have copied a better system than their own was from the war booty after the occupation of France?

Well, the Germans did win in France, so maybe they figured they had a pretty good system anyway? Following that, the RA went through a couple of years of brave, but fairly undistinguished and ineffective, service in North Africa, where the German system probably was better than the way the RA were using their own doctrine. (Note, the doctrine was OK, the implementation sucked). From El Alamein (late 42) on they got their act together again, but by then it was probably too late for the Germans to be thinking about making wholesale changes in their artillery methods - remember 6th Army was in the process of going down the gurgler at this time.

I'm not an expert on this, but I thought this was the main point of Korja. Making FO's work as quick and easy as possible. BHQ is the place where a whole team can make calculations in relatively peaceful conditions whereas the FO is on the hot spot. In fact, information in the museum said that it was possible for any soldier to act as a FO as long as his location was known at the BHQ and he could tell the direction and distance to the target(s) from his location. So an absolute minimum effort was required from FO.

Right on all counts. The point I was making was the Finnish method(OT rather than GT) and tools (Korja) weren't really that much different than the RA method and tools. As an FO using OT rather than GT certainly is easier, but if you're trained to use GT, and that's all you've ever known, and all your systems have been designed with that in mind ... ?

Also, regardless of the method used, once you have the first round on the ground and can start adjusting, everything else is a piece of cake.

Correct me if I'm wrong but basically all kind of fire concentrations and transfers were possible to do with even with the most antique indirect FO system. The real question was the time and effort needed to carry them out.

Yes, but the two keys are good comms, and excellent systems.

An emigrant Finn possibly

LOL - hadn't thought of that Damn Finns, they're like cockroaches: they keep popping up everywhere, and are so damned hard to kill

I couldn’t find specific picture(s) of the WW2-era RA Korja from the net, so could you point me to a correct direction or site?

I'll see what I can do.

And the Finnish 6000 mil scale is inherited from Russia.

Ah. Of course. Blame those bloody Russians for anything less than über

Be cool

JonS

[ October 22, 2002, 08:45 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[JonS]

re: 6400 vice 6000 mils.

I first found out a few years ago that different countries used different sizes, and was a bit surprised, but I guess I shouldn't have been. Anyway, at that time I did some broad comparrisons of my own to determine which was better, in my mind. Remember that I learnt 6400, so my bias was there to begin with.

I came up with two main points of difference, one technical, one practical.

Technical difference:

A 'true' mils circle 'should' have 6283 mils in it. 6400 is a bit closer to that ideal figure than 6000, therefore it has less intrinsic error associated with it (this was the 2.5% I talked about earlier). AIUI, there are a few countries that use 6200, which would give a very low error.

Practical difference:

6400 divides by 2 nicely many more times than 6000 does.

6400 (full circle)

3200 (half circle)

1600 (quarter circle / 90°)

800 (45°)

400 (1/16th circle)

200

100

50

This is reasonably important 'on the ground', since that's the way you eye (well, mine anyway) tends to break up the view.

For 6000 the equivalent is

6000

3000

1500

750

375

187.5

etc

When you get into the smaller angles, the divisions just aren't as nice, IMHO.

YMMV

Regards

JonS

[Olduvai]

Originally posted by Juha Ahoniemi:

Hehe, we just HAD TO show for everyone Olduvai's hot chick:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />posted by Olduvai into the previous thread:

I dated a Korjausmuunnin in college once. Nice girl.

(thank you, thank you. i'll be here all week. don't forget to tip your waitress)

I hope this isn't invasion of his privacy </font>

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

Well I'm quite positive that it takes at least one certain über-Finnish korjausmuunnin:

Ari

SHAMEFUL! SIMPLY SHAMEFUL!

So all these claims of ÜberFinn artillery practices are based on some sort of primitive, northern form of roulette?!

The world gasps in horror.

I might say, I've read both these recent Finn arty threads with a great deal of interest. Very informative, very interesting.

I felt that most all participants stayed focused, and, although sometimes the 'warriour passions' were elevated, everyone tried to stay focused on the issues, and were genuinely respectful to each other, even backing-off a position or attitude where called for, or where it was better to smooth the fur.

Most of the really pointless rhetoric came from those who had nothing more to contribute than throwing pop bottles from the stands in order to interrupt the game. They should have buggered off.

Oh, and tero, you lose points for constantly shifting ground and attempting to 'redefine' the argument when put into a false position. But you know I love you, ya bluff, hearty, ÜberFinn, you!

Carry on. Quite a good on-going thread.

[JonS]

Heh, that's the second fanboy post. You and Winecape should start a club or sumfink. You could have newsletters and stuff. How quaint

[Tero]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

SHAMEFUL! SIMPLY SHAMEFUL!

It is, isn't it...

So all these claims of ÜberFinn artillery practices are based on some sort of primitive, northern form of roulette?!

And a rigged roulette at that.

Oh, and tero, you lose points for constantly shifting ground and attempting to 'redefine' the argument when put into a false position.

It will be a sad day when BFC introduces ratings to postings.

Just gathering all the über-BS FLAK so the REAL debate team can give the coup-de-grace.

Seriously: Steve knows about a lot of things. But he just will not spill the beans on the actual arty modelling and what went into it when the design decisions were made.

He is constantly referring to the big picture and integrity of the model while I'm dabbling with the minutae I feel are relvant in relation to the big picture as I see it.

It would help if Steve would reveal for example if the topographical aspect was considered when the model was being worked out originally. Or how the differences between the German and the Western Allied methods and procedures were qualified and and quantified for the model.

Yes, I am well aware the big picture has to be taken into account when establishing the global parameters. It would help to know what is relevant to the big picture and what is not.

But you know I love you, ya bluff, hearty, ÜberFinn, you!

You should know in Finland you can not go around saying you love a guy.

Thanks anyway.

Carry on. Quite a good on-going thread.

I think so too.

[Tero]

Originally posted by JonS:

You could have newsletters and stuff.

I have always had a feeling Peng is an überFinn.

[Tero]

Originally posted by JonS:

Ari, I doubt very much that the Finns copied the RA, or vice versa. Rather, I think it more likely that two independant, talented groups of gunners came up with similar solutions to the same problem.

True. But the sameness of the problems do not automatically mean the solutions are similar in nature even if the net result is the same.

Then again it is possible that the Finns compared their FO system to those of the Soviets and Germans only.

Actually, AFAIK during inter-war years Finnish officers went to (at least) France, Sweden, and the UK to receive training in various fields.

(Note, the doctrine was OK, the implementation sucked).

Could the fact the British (and the US) army was a professional army while the German (and the Finnish) army was based on conscription have a bearing in these matters ? The Brits did lose a lot of trained (pro's) and semi-trained (territorials) personel early on that would account for the impelmentation sucking when there was an influx of trained but inexperienced personel. For the Finns during Winter War it was a matter of insufficient resources. During Continuation War the situation regarding resources got infinitely better.

Right on all counts. The point I was making was the Finnish method(OT rather than GT) and tools (Korja) weren't really that much different than the RA method and tools. As an FO using OT rather than GT certainly is easier, but if you're trained to use GT, and that's all you've ever known, and all your systems have been designed with that in mind ... ?

At the BHQ the GT does not alter one bit. The Korja only made calculating the changes faster since an FO could give directions and any/all batteries on call could do the calculations independently based on that one direction.

Also, regardless of the method used, once you have the first round on the ground and can start adjusting, everything else is a piece of cake.

You have to remember the Finnish method called for directing a whole battalion instead of a single battery. And most of the fire types called for TOT fire to boot. The IJN used different colour dye to tell apart who was shooting where. That is harder in dry land when you have three (or more) batteries firing at a 100m x 100m target.

This is why the topographical data being spot on is so important and it was the artillery who was responsible for developing the entire Finnish survey service.

Yes, but the two keys are good comms, and excellent systems.

Very true. However, the bad comms you can work out and come up with alternate methods and still make the excellent systems count whereas bad systems are far harder to eradicate and replace no matter how good your comm's are.

Damn Finns, they're like cockroaches: they keep popping up everywhere, and are so damned hard to kill

And we pop up in the damndest places. You do know the guy who is credited with developing the Linux is a Finn ?

I'll see what I can do.

Please.

Ah. Of course. Blame those bloody Russians for anything less than über

The Finnish army was a queer mix: most of the officers were trained by the Imperial German army but the ones who became really prominent were ex Imperial Russian army (Mannerheim and Nenonen).

[Nabla]

Originally posted by tero:

It will be a sad day when BFC introduces ratings to postings.

But don't worry. If serious problems occur, just turn the measurement scale around, and once again the blessing hand of the überness is upon you.

Excellent posts in this thread again.

[ October 23, 2002, 03:13 AM: Message edited by: Nabla ]

[JonS]

I was just about to start a QB against the AI, but answering this will be more fun

Originally posted by tero:

True. But the sameness of the problems do not automatically mean the solutions are similar in nature even if the net result is the same.

I can accept that, but if the net result (ie, delivery of rounds to the target) is the same, is there any need for differences between FOs? IOW, if all the differences are off the CM map, do we really need 'force specific modifiers' (or whatever)?

Could the fact the British (and the US) army was a professional army while the German (and the Finnish) army was based on conscription have a bearing in these matters ? snipped

No, I don't think so. The doctrine called for massed fire, and close co-operation with the supported arms. But, in the Western Desert the British Army became enamored of speed and mobility and small forces and dispersion and basically anything that was the opposite of what had been done during WWI. In part it was a subconcious need to eschew anything remotely resembling what was seen as the carnage and folly of 1914-18, and in part it was inept copying of Rommels tactics. The point is that it was supported and encouraged by British Corps and Army Commanders, they had the power to stop the dispersion, but didn't.

What it meant was that the doctrine the RA was supposed to use simply wouldn't work because the mini-division Brigade Groups were scattered all over the place, out of range to effectivly support of each other. The civilian conscripts did they jobs as they were ordered to - it wasn't a lack of skill that defeated them but lack of control from the very top.

This changed fairly abruptly at Alamein in August '42 when Montgomery took over. He discarded the Brigade Group idea - and forced everyone to toe the line. Once that started to happen, the RA could start to reassert itself.

You have to remember the Finnish method called for directing a whole battalion instead of a single battery. And most of the fire types called for TOT fire to boot.

And in turn you have to remember that the RA was working to exactly the same principles throughout the war. As outlined, the principles got lost for a bit between early 41 and late 42, but by mid 43 they were back on top, and just went from strength to strength.

Very true. However, the bad comms you can work out and come up with alternate methods and still make the excellent systems count whereas bad systems are far harder to eradicate and replace no matter how good your comm's are.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the situation - a static defence or a planned attack can probably come up with workable alternates, but in a mobile/fluid situation I think I'd rather have the good comms One of the things that got drummed into us was that provideing fire support is only a secondary (or tertiary?) role. The primary one is to relay tactical information back up the artillery CoC. The infantry do the same thing, of course, but the structure of their radio nets means that information travels far more slowly via grunt means than it does over gunner means. But for that to work, you need good comms

And we pop up in the damndest places. You do know the guy who is credited with developing the Linux is a Finn ?

LOL - I just did a couple of Linux installs today. Yes, I know who Linus is

Regards

JonS

[ October 23, 2002, 03:22 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[argie]

Originally posted by Seanachai:

SHAMEFUL! SIMPLY SHAMEFUL!

So all these claims of ÜberFinn artillery practices are based on some sort of primitive, northern form of roulette?!

Roulette?

That is evidently an uber-ouija board!

You don't even need the FOs with that!

[Nabla]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Keke,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Aren´t the scale of CM just right for specialized destruction teams anyway?

Yes, and this is what the tank destruction teams are supposed to represent. I remember something about why there are no satchel charge teams in CMBB for the Finns, but I can't remember why. I will ask Charles about it but do not expect an answser soon (he is away for a while).</font>

[Merten]

Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

Also for me a plotting board is quite broad concept. Something like this for instance:

As a sidenote, the plotting board the Finnish field artillery hasn't really changed that much since WW2-era. I spent a week plotting with the same kind of thing about a year ago - it's just that the ballistics table had a bit more range on it. The "Korjausmuunnin" (or the modern equivlaent, at least to my knowledge, "Korjausympyrä", looks quite familiar as well).

About the other issues - I might inquire about the origins of of Finnish field artillery practises from my boss, who's a retired FA officer (and, incidentally, has done developement work on the calculators our FA nowadays use).

Oh, yeah. Hi everyone. I'll probably have to buy the game just because of this thread.

[Marko Litmanen]

Tero:

I was in the army at the same time as Linus Thorwalds (father of Linux).

Reserve officer school, Hamina 90-91.

We are both Artillery spotters in reserve, Linus and I!!!!

Let's invite him to join this forum shall we?!!!!

[TN]

Here's another link to an article that compares different schools and doctrines of artillery thinking. Please note that the author wrote it without notes, and make sure you read the correction at the end when you read the part about U.S. artillery. And I believe every nation did their ballistic homework (weather, wind, gun characteristics, charge variables like temperature etc.) well, and not only the Americans. At least the Finns had their tables for calculating a firing solution in every conceivable situation.

http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp

The article's focus on impromptu fires is spot-on, because walking artillery fire up to the target is usually relatively fruitless since the target can move or take cover. (Unless the situation is like in one memoir I've read, where the target was a Chinese bunker in Korea and the firing unit was a battleship 30 miles away ) This is especially true in WWII situations, where the artillery could be quite small-bore (75-105 mm).

The goal for the Finnish FOs has always been always that calling fires should be "target coordinates, battery, one round - left 100, add 200, fire for effect". Accurate TOT fire without any preceding corrections is the Holy Grail of redlegs everywhere. (And in modern aside, this is what many current weapon systems can do, even when the number of weapons is limited. The new Finnish-Swedish joint effort AMOS (Advanced MOrtar System) can drop six rounds on a target simultaneously from a two-barreled turret).

What interests me in this discussion is to determine if there were in WWII significant performance differences between armies in terms of speed and time consumption when placing impromptu artillery fires on targets, when all situational factors are constant except artillery and observation SOPs, and if so, why ?

rgds,

TN

P.S. If we invite a Finn to join this thread, then I suggest colonel (ret.) Matti Koskimaa rather than Linus

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by tero:

Seriously: Steve knows about a lot of things. But he just will not spill the beans on the actual arty modelling and what went into it when the design decisions were made.

I hope you (or BFC) don't mind me calling your bluff on this one

He is constantly referring to the big picture and integrity of the model while I'm dabbling with the minutae I feel are relvant in relation to the big picture as I see it.

As near as I can tell you bring up 3 points over and over again. These points not only appear to come directly from the winter war site's article on finnish artillery practices, you also consistently bring these same points up in such a way that they (should) appear relevant to the topic at hand.

It would help if Steve would reveal for example if the topographical aspect was considered when the model was being worked out originally.

Here we go on the mapping aspect again... nice way of putting it though.

But to give you an answer on this, one that should be close enough to what BFC might tell you, no of course topograhical info wasn't considered when they designed the artillery system.

How could they? Only by determining a priori for every time-period and every type of mission how well the topography was known and how good the maps available.

That is not only next to impossible without resorting to sweeping generalisations [say of the sort "Finns have great mapping they should have faster response time" ], it would also be unrealistic because some defences would be better prepared than others (which includes topographical survey) and a system that uses any kind of pre-determined assumptions on topographical info would be inflexible in this regard.

Now in a more sophisticated artillery model this could of course be handled better. But currently this issue is handled by TRPs, which is obviously not a perfect method but at least it's flexible and doesn't disadvantadge one nationality more than others.

[Edited to clean up the text a bit]

[ October 23, 2002, 07:40 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by tero:

Also, regardless of the method used, once you have the first round on the ground and can start adjusting, everything else is a piece of cake.

You have to remember the Finnish method called for directing a whole battalion instead of a single battery. And most of the fire types called for TOT fire to boot. The IJN used different colour dye to tell apart who was shooting where. That is harder in dry land when you have three (or more) batteries firing at a 100m x 100m target.

This is why the topographical data being spot on is so important and it was the artillery who was responsible for developing the entire Finnish survey service.

So basically you are saying that because Finn doctrine called for multiple batteries to hit the sam target, thereby making readjusting fire from individual batteries next to impossible, the Finns must have been able to hit any target (no matter how small) on the first round every time :confused:

Personally I would think that firing several batteries at the same point in time and space would be the exception rather than the rule, and would represent "max intensity fire".

[ October 23, 2002, 06:59 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[Tuomas]

Originally posted by JonS:

re: 6400 vice 6000 mils.

Technical difference:

A 'true' mils circle 'should' have 6283 mils in it. 6400 is a bit closer to that ideal figure than 6000, therefore it has less intrinsic error associated with it (this was the 2.5% I talked about earlier). AIUI, there are a few countries that use 6200, which would give a very low error.

When I was in the army I heard that the Swedes use 6300 mil circle. I don't know if this is really true but it could give you better accuracy. Of course dividing would be terrible.

BTW. what is AIUI?

Practical difference:

6400 divides by 2 nicely many more times than 6000 does.

This is reasonably important 'on the ground', since that's the way you eye (well, mine anyway) tends to break up the view.

When you get into the smaller angles, the divisions just aren't as nice, IMHO.

This is true however I disagree on the importance. Firstly the corrections needed were usually under 150 mils, never much more. That would be nine degrees. For me degrees mean nothing for me. I can tell the difference between 45­° and 30° but my eye is not much more accurate. And dont I think mills are used for big angels anyway, I could be wrong though.

Methods we were teached (using your straight palm as measurement, this is probably used everywhere) dont rely knowing what those corrections are in degrees. So what I am trying to say is why would you want to divide the circle more than 16 times? Below that you can use mils straight away.

But as you said YMMV.

-TNT-

[Foxbat]

Originally posted by TN:

[QB]Here's another link to an article that compares different schools and doctrines of artillery thinking. http://www.combatmission.com/articles/Arty/arty.asp

Interesting, if a bit global, article that really puts the finger on the sore spot (as it were).

It also shows just how 0ber Finnish artillery really was, as the Americans congratulate themselves on being occasionaly able to fire multi-battery TOT mission in as little as 10-20 minutes!

Another trick of the Americans was the Time on Target mission (TOT). With this one, every battery in range was told the grid coordinates of the target and time when all shells were to initially land at the target. Each battery did its normal firing computation and then calculated the time to "pull the lanyards" by backing off the time-of-flight from the target time. TOT was particularly nasty because the initial shell from every gun landed virtually simultaneously before any defender could take cover. [..] Very nasty and only Americans could pull it off (Jim claiming it required as little as 10 or 20 minutes preparation).

According to Tero this was apparently day-to-day routine stuff for the Finns, who had such good maps that a 6min delay for such fire is to be considered excessive

The goal for the Finnish FOs has always been always that calling fires should be "target coordinates, battery, one round - left 100, add 200, fire for effect". Accurate TOT fire without any preceding corrections is the Holy Grail of redlegs everywhere. (And in modern aside, this is what many current weapon systems can do, even when the number of weapons is limited.

That sounds like a more realistic assesment of how things worked in reality..

P.S. If we invite a Finn to join this thread, then I suggest colonel (ret.) Matti Koskimaa rather than Linus

I don't think there is a lack of Finns on this this thread, heck there are even several very knowledgable ones among them

[EDIT tourine=routine, obviously Finns don't need taurine to keep their spirits up ]

[ October 23, 2002, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: Foxbat ]

[OldNick]

AIUI = As I understand it.

[Ari Maenpaa]

It occured to me that the first pic of Korja may have given wrong impression of it’s size, use and purpose. AFAIK it wasn’t a plotting board, but a much smaller calculation tool. About the size of usual letter paper sheet as can be seen in the pic below.

Korja in a showcase.

Here are pretty self-explanatory pictures of the Finnish artillery methods:

Before the korjausmuunnin. This was so called tulenjohtokorttimenetelmä (someone else may translate that).

And after the introduction of korjausmuunnin.

I’d like to point out that the earlier system also made dense fire concentrations and quick corrections possible, but it required more work from the FO and thus limited the actual possibilities in action. So even if the pictures don’t reveal great differences in theory, in practice it was something else.

I would be interested to know the history of the RA Korja equivalent. When was it taken in use? Was it used in the prewar French artillery, for instance? We now know quite much of the Finnsih Korja, but knowing the histories of both tools would give better basis to discover possible differences.

The already mentioned RA web site makes an interesting mention of post WW2 developments in RA in 1950:

“They also developed a very efficient and unique CP instrument, the plotter, to provide solutions to the geometry of converting OT to BT (amongst other functions).”

A pic of that instrument too would be nice.

Btw. a second thought about that RNZA spotter: his correction requests must have been quite brief after all because lot of variables, which he couldn’t know, come into play as the corrections grow in range and time. The BHQ has access to much larger information pool consisting of essential factors like the changes in the wind, the ballistic temperatures, barometric pressures, the current temperature of the gunpowder and so on. This also leads to a question how any battery officer in his right mind would have been ready to take the responsibility for such mental arithmetic in actual combat situation? Just another urban legend after all?

Ari

[Keke]

Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

It occured to me that the first pic of Korja may have given wrong impression of it’s size, use and purpose. AFAIK it wasn’t a plotting board, but a much smaller calculation tool. About the size of usual letter paper sheet as can be seen in the pic below.

Thanx!

[Tuomas]

Originally posted by TN:

The goal for the Finnish FOs has always been always that calling fires should be "target coordinates, battery, one round - left 100, add 200, fire for effect".

Would that have been "Paavo Iivari Kalle kerta ampukaa!" or was it customary to use just one spotting round? At least the modern practice is to shoot with all the guns and separately only if one of them is firing clearly off the mark.

And I agree with you that the delays for Finnish artillery seem about right but the delays for other countries seem too short. And reading from that article you linked maybe artillery is too accurate to begin with. Brits used massive amount of tubes to cover areas just because most of the rounds were not hitting the target, roight?

And ordering strikes to allmost out of LOS. How can you correct them if you

can't see where the spotting round falls? (ie. though luck, it landed somewhere farside of that ridge...)

-TNT-

[Tero]

Originally posted by JonS:

I was just about to start a QB against the AI, but answering this will be more fun

I'm open for PBEM's

I can accept that, but if the net result (ie, delivery of rounds to the target) is the same, is there any need for differences between FOs?

That would lead to the follow up questions "Is there really any need to have different delays for anybody. Why not have all FO's act exactly the same with the same delays and what not ?"

IOW, if all the differences are off the CM map, do we really need 'force specific modifiers' (or whatever)?

Exactly. Why should a German FO get a different (better) responce time than a Soviet FO ?

The civilian conscripts did they jobs as they were ordered to - it wasn't a lack of skill that defeated them but lack of control from the very top.

Interesting.

The Finnish system was built from scratch after we became independent so there was really no burden of old traditions to hamper the development. And it does indeed seem there were striking similiarities in the RA and Finnish concepts. But also striking differences.

And in turn you have to remember that the RA was working to exactly the same principles throughout the war. As outlined, the principles got lost for a bit between early 41 and late 42, but by mid 43 they were back on top, and just went from strength to strength.

It is quite interesting how much of the changes and innovations happened around 1943.

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the situation - a static defence or a planned attack can probably come up with workable alternates, but in a mobile/fluid situation I think I'd rather have the good comms

Here is where we part way. I'd rather take the solid procedures over excellent comm's in all situations. Excellent comm's is a poor substitute for a accurate fire strike.

One of the reasons the Finnish WWII defensive tactics were so rigid even during the volatile phase (holding/delaying actions and holding on to the defensive positions at all costs until ordered to pull back) was the need to pin down the enemy so they could be engaged with artillery effectively even if the comm's were on the blink. Making the enemy attack over the same ground over and over again made the task of the artillery that much easier.

One of the things that got drummed into us was that provideing fire support is only a secondary (or tertiary?) role.

Seems the list is pretty much the same all around.

The primary one is to relay tactical information back up the artillery CoC. The infantry do the same thing, of course, but the structure of their radio nets means that information travels far more slowly via grunt means than it does over gunner means. But for that to work, you need good comms

Have you seen the movie Winter War ? There is a scene where a grunt dispatch runner arrives at the company CP and deliveres the requests for fire support. The CO grunts to the arty puke "See if you can spare a strike at Pärssinen" and the arty puke does not have to ask any questions he just picks up the phone and moments later the pathetic barrage is delivered on target. Without any ranging shots fired.

For £100: what was missing from that scene ?

A) the FO

the korjausmuunnin

C) adequate fire support

D) decent communications

E) all of the above