Louie the Toad Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 I have a high capability A-O, in a fantastic location at the edge of a rather steep drop in scattered trees. He can see alot and apparently cannot be seen by the enemy as he spots for 3 mortars that are out of enemy sight and therefore firing indirectly. When I aim the mortars I often find that the spot I want them to hit is just a little off of where the A-0 can actually see, especially now that there is a lot of smoke. Anyway, when this happens I have to replot the mortar again. Since I can't really tell if the mortar can hit the spot I want, I often find I must do this several times before the indirect fire line "sticks". The only way I can think of to avoid this is to have the A-0 draw an area fire line to the spot and work from there. Then remember to erase the area fire line from the A-0 since I don't want him to give away his position by firing. Am I missing the obvious? Toad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Maybe I misunderstand the question, but I always see either an 'area fire' or 'sight blocked' message on the info tag after the range and terrain type. 'area fire' means it'll stick, 'sight blocked' that it won't. But surely the answer can't be that simple? Chris Walker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Originally posted by Louie the Toad: I have a high capability A-O, in a fantastic location at the edge of a rather steep drop in scattered trees. He can see alot and apparently cannot be seen by the enemy as he spots for 3 mortars that are out of enemy sight and therefore firing indirectly. When I aim the mortars I often find that the spot I want them to hit is just a little off of where the A-0 can actually see, especially now that there is a lot of smoke. Anyway, when this happens I have to replot the mortar again. Since I can't really tell if the mortar can hit the spot I want, I often find I must do this several times before the indirect fire line "sticks". The only way I can think of to avoid this is to have the A-0 draw an area fire line to the spot and work from there. Then remember to erase the area fire line from the A-0 since I don't want him to give away his position by firing. Am I missing the obvious? ToadI also like to use the A-0's firing line as a "pointer." Then I'll click on the mortar, scroll over, and hit "T" to target, then click like mad around the desired area until the area fire command actually sticks. I really messed up once w/ the "pointer" idea. I gave the Captain a RUN order to where I wanted to move a 234/1 and a Marder such that they could shoot a patch of woods, but not be seen by a Ma Deuce. But I forgot to take off the run order, and he ran out into the open, 180 degrees from a gleeful Ami Platoon! He managed to make it back w/ only 1 casualty, but that almost sunk me b/c it was the end of game about then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louie the Toad Posted April 4, 2002 Author Share Posted April 4, 2002 Silvio, When you say "click like mad around the area" I must be having a problem because as soon as I click on a spot that isn't actually a target I lose the line and have to replot. Toad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louie the Toad Posted April 4, 2002 Author Share Posted April 4, 2002 Walker, What you are describing is for direct area fire. My question was about shooting indirectly. When you do that you get a black line that may or may not "stick" and turn to gold depending upon the los of the commanding spotter. Looking for the gold..... Toad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenSplatton Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Either I'm really missing the point, or not. What you are saying is you can't figure out where to aim the mortar based on the A-O unit's line of sight? If so, this shouldn't be a problem. Just highlight A-0 AND the mortar(s) and do your targetting (you'll get the blue line where you can target, black where you can't). Then, when your done, go back to A-0 and hit X to cancel his targetting line. The mortar's line will still stick regardless of whether the A-0 still targets the area or not. Doing this, you can quickly target 6 or 7 mortars on one space all at once, or 7 mortars on 7 targets one at a time, whatever you want. Just be sure you only pair the mortars you want to fire with the A-0 unit when you set the target. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Uber General Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 You know your mortars have locked in indirect fire when the target line is brown, not red. If it is red line and the target is not visible to the mortar, they wont fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Originally posted by Louie the Toad: Silvio, When you say "click like mad around the area" I must be having a problem because as soon as I click on a spot that isn't actually a target I lose the line and have to replot. ToadLouie, Sorry about that. I do click like mad, but I alternate the clicks with hitting T to get the targeting line back. Gen Splatton, Thanks for that pointer, I had forgotten about that great shortcut. Its a bummer to have to plot say, six 60mm and two 81mms to an HQ's target 700m+ away w/o doing your shortcut. I just tested it out, and was able to target a bunch of mortars w/ just one click; then I un-targeted the HQ. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenSplatton Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Your welcome. Only took me a year to post something useful over here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walker Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Louie, I still don’t quite get it. We’re talking about on-board mortars e.g. on a wooded reverse slope with no LOS worth mentioning but with an HQ unit spotting for them, right? So, I click on a mortar, press ‘T’ and a red/black targeting line appears. Then I drag the cursor with the targeting line to wherever I want to target. An info tag appears next to the cursor: Range Terrain type Sight Blocked /or/ Area Fire e.g. 650m light building Area Fire ‘Sight blocked’ means the spotting HQ can’t see that particular spot. The targeting line won’t stick. ‘Area fire’ means the HQ can see that spot and the mortar can hence fire on it. Then if LOS is a close call I hit shift-P twice to get the target lines and target the other mortars on top of the first unit’s yellow line. Gen Splatton, Thanks for the reminder. The shift-click method of grouping units had completely slipped my mind too! I just checked it out w/o the HQ as part of the group and it works fine too, with Sight Blocked / Area Fire as above. I wouldn’t dare run the (in my case very real) risk of forgetting to cancel the HQ’s fire, which would be like raising a banner saying ‘Bomb This Area – It’s Packed With Mortars’… Chris Walker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louie the Toad Posted April 4, 2002 Author Share Posted April 4, 2002 Ok, I am going to have to test these different methods on a shooting range. Although when I plot the indirect fire of the mortars I am always working with black lines not blue or any of the other colors mentioned above. To the test range! Toad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvio Manuel Posted April 4, 2002 Share Posted April 4, 2002 Hopefully this will be useful and not redundant but... Let's say you have six 60mm mortars on the backside of a hill (NO L.O.S. to target). You have your HQ who can see your proposed target. The quickest way to get all yer tubes firing seems to be...double-click the commanding HQ, which should also highlight all the mortars. Then, while this whole big bunch of mortars & HQ are high-lighted, AND you have the HQ's info on the bottom status screen, have the HQ target where you want the area fire. If you have "all targets" activeated by using the Control-P hotkey, you'll see all the mortars PLUS the HQ target that area. Then just un-target the HQ's firing line, and re-hide him if you like. Voila. This might not work if you mistakenly double-click a MORTAR team instead of the HQ. [ April 04, 2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Silvio Manuel ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GenSplatton Posted April 5, 2002 Share Posted April 5, 2002 I wouldn’t dare run the (in my case very real) risk of forgetting to cancel the HQ’s fire, which would be like raising a banner saying ‘Bomb This Area – It’s Packed With Mortars’… Never forgotten personally. It's still the easiest way by far to target on board, out of LOS mortars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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