Artillery target in the dark.

[Dave R]

From Dave.

Give me a break yank artillery targeting to 10 yards in the dark and knocking out 2 companys, the only thing they where good at was knocking out there own friendly units, if anyone thinks different answer.

Bit annoyed Dave

[YankeeDog]

The meaning of your post is a bit difficult to understand. I would kindly suggest paying a little more attention to your composition when posting so we all know what you're talking about. :confused:

If I have guessed the thrust of your post correctly, you seem to have an issue with the accuracy and/or effectiveness of American artillery at night.

It's difficult to give much of an opinion without details, but I assume since the artillery in question knocked out "2 companies", it was something pretty large bore - probably 155mm or above.

I'm not sure what you mean by "accurate to 10m" - do you mean that all shells fell within a 10m radius? If so, this is would be EXTREMELY rare in CM, but certainly possible for a single volley of 4 shells. Or do you mean that at least one shell fell within 10m of the aiming point?

The degree of accuracy for artillery depends on a number of factors; type of artillery and LOS (or lack thereof)of the spotter to the target area being the two biggest. Luck is also a really big factor. Even with small bore artillery (like 81mm mortars) with good LOS, it is certainly not "accurate to 10m", though. In my experience, you usually get a 50% spread (area in which 50% of shells will fall) of something like 100m in range, and 50m or so in bearing. this area gets somewhat bigger for larger shells, and much bigger if the spotter doesn't have LOS. I've seen American 240mm shells land more than 300m off target when the spotter doesn't have LOS.

In summary, it sounds like you just had some bad luck. While I wouldn't say that American artillery was "only good for knocking out their own friendly units", friendly fire (for all sides) certainly did happen, and does in CM.

I would suggest posting more details of your experience if you want feedback on whether it was

'realistic' or not.

Cheers,

YD

[athkatla]

Originally posted by Dave R:

From Dave.

Give me a break yank artillery targeting to 10 yards in the dark and knocking out 2 companys, the only thing they where good at was knocking out there own friendly units, if anyone thinks different answer.

Bit annoyed Dave

It could be that TRP's were used, that would account for the accuracy!

[freaky ol'man w/very long wings]

I think that what Dave is implying is this; He had ordered an FO to target two companies at 10 Yards in the dark and that in the process the barrage fell on his own units.

One, if you were defending I would call this daring.

Two, if you were the attacker and those two companies were your own in the setup zone, I only hope you have enough units left to continue the advance

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by freaky ol'man w/very long wings:

I think that what Dave is implying is this; He had ordered an FO to target two companies at 10 Yards in the dark and that in the process the barrage fell on his own units.

One, if you were defending I would call this daring.

Two, if you were the attacker and those two companies were your own in the setup zone, I only hope you have enough units left to continue the advance

Hmmm. . . maybe you're right. It's rather hard to tell.

[Durbish]

I think he targetted his artillery 10' away from his own positions cause that was as far as good LOS went, thus calling in arty on himself.

[JasonC]

Use of artillery at night in CM has a few quirks. Since LOS tends to be short, and FOs don't want to be in the front lines, lose their barrage if they panic and panic more easily at night if fired upon, it can be hard to get observed fire missions. When the LOS range is 100-200 meters, targeting at the edge of LOS range will still bring down the nearest rounds close to the FO himself, let alone any friendly troops in front of him. Also, you face the delay between calling for the mission and its arrival, with the enemy having very little ground to cover before reaching the FO during that interval.

If instead you target beyond visual range - "map fire" - then you get wide sheaf targeting and twice the time delay. That does let an FO call down fire in support of friendlies well ahead of him, and is probably more common that observed night fire in CM. The wider shell pattern can still hurt people if the artillery caliber is 105mm or better and the mission is continued for 2 minutes or so.

A seperate problem with this way of firing, though, is that somebody has to notice the enemy, or you have to correctly guess well ahead of time when he will have people roughly where. Since the time delay is doubled, and the range of detection is only about as far as the size of the wide sheaf barrage itself, that isn't so easy. The Americans are marginally better at it because their shorter delay times can be still livable when doubled for "map fire".

By far the most effective form of night artillery fire, though, is TRP fire. With a TRP, you can get the shells down rapidly even unobserved, and the sheaf stays tight even without LOS to the target. There is also no warning from spotting rounds. An American regular quality battery can put a tight shead on a TRP after only 1 minute of delay, unobserved, with no warning from spotting rounds and a full minute of fire landing the 2nd minute.

It is very likely that is what the complainer ran into. Of course, it is not unrealistic at all to face accurate artillery fire when TRPs are involved, night or not. The shells don't know it is night, or care. If the target has already been ranged and registered during daylight, the guns just point the same way and the shells land in about the same place.

The key to avoiding TRP artillery, day or night, is not using the most obvious avenues of advance. As one of Murphy's laws declares, "the easy way is always mined". Artillery registrations are the same thing, effectively. At night, you can sometimes afford to use routes through more open ground to avoid artillery traps on the covered approaches, counting on limited LOS distances to avoid enemy small arms.

Another thing that works to minimize TRP artillery damage is of course not bunching up too much. If you put 2 companies in the same bit of woods on the obvious avenue of advance, you deserve everything you get, when the enemy turns out to be waiting for you. In addition to proper spreads, occasional unpredictable changes of direction - especially unforced ones to the rear from time to time - can throw off enemy artillery timing.

I hope this helps.