Have you ever noticed...

[deadeye3]

For some odd reason lately, when plotting artillery fire, one shell will drop in the location specified. The problem is this happens about 23 seconds from the main bettery. What is this? Some sort of goofy warning shot? Not that I mind much and it happened to my opponent more than to me and I was able to always move my men and gear out of the way.

[Guest ciks]

No. That is called Spotting Round.

It is fired for FO to adjust the target (basicly FO sees where the spotting round lands (on the target or not), and then adjusts the main barrage).

[deadeye3]

That's what I figured, kinda takes the suprise away doesn't it?

[Guest ciks]

Well it does, yes.

But you can sometimes "use" it against your PBEM opponent as i did once. He had some troops in the large patch of trees, and i targeted it with 81mm mortars. In the movie, in 50-something second, a spotting round lands (and i knew that my opponent saw it). So in the next turn i canceled the order, expecting enemy to move out. HE DID. He moved 2 platoons into LOS of my to hidden tanks.

[Horncastle]

Does the accuracy of the spotting round affect the time it takes for the delivery of the fire mission. For instance a real wayward spotting round meaning more adjustments needed thus longer time to fall?

[Matt the Paladin]

Don't think it would make a big difference in real life., the actual adjustment of aim doesn't take very long, it's mor getting all the orders in and figuring out where to aim. It might have been modeled this way in CM, however.

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"War is like a cat, it is easy to let out of the bag, but hard as hell to put back in!"

-Me

[Mlapanzer]

The time it takes to bring on a full barrage from the first Spotting round depends on several factors in real life.

1) The distance that the guns are away from the target. Usually the bigger the gun the farther away from the battlefield it it.

2)What kind of stress is the Spotter under. If he is under fire his accuracy will usually suffer.The life expectancy of an Arty spotter is very short in a battle. He is a high priority target by the enemy and also by me in CM :-D

3) how good is his LOS. Does he have a clear Los or is it obstructed.

4)The experiance of the spotter and gun crew.

I'm not sure how all of this is modeled in CM but it seems they have taken these factors into account since the time between the spotting rounds(yes it can be more than one) and the barrage varies.

The US army was very adept at putting arty on a target in WW2. They would coordinate attacks so that various guns at different distances would arrive on target at the same time.Try this in CM with 60,82mm morters and 105,s etel. It's tough to do but when you can bring several batteries down on a target at once it is VERY effective.

"No man ever won a war by dieing for his country. He won it by making the other poor sob die for his country" PATTON

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Mlapanzer:

The US army was very adept at putting arty on a target in WW2. They would coordinate attacks so that various guns at different distances would arrive on target at the same time.Try this in CM with 60,82mm morters and 105,s etel. It's tough to do but when you can bring several batteries down on a target at once it is VERY effective.

This was called "Time on Target" artillery fire and by all accounts it was one of the most frequently practiced and effective US artillery tactics (and never really exploited by the Axis on any consistent basis). The idea was that you caught the enemy with all his men and equipment uncovered, achieving greater losses and more demoralization than with more scattered fire. My guess is that this is one effect that was easier to achieve in real life than in CM. In real life, I presume, you call up all your batteries, give them the same map coordinates, and tell 'em to start firing at 1400 hours. In CM you've got to calculate the delay between FO orders and firing time for different weapons, including varying delays for limited LOS, etc. But it's still possible, though maybe not worth it unless you've identified a particularly juicy target--though that was true in RL also.

There may be reasons why the Americans were particularly good at this--and apparently they were from their first entry into the war--and other countries not, though I don't know the history of it in detail. I do know that the Americans put a lot of research into ballistics and artillery accuracy, etc.--some of the first quasi-computers were devoted to this. All in all, US artillery thinking seems to have been more leading-edge than US tank thinking, though there seems now to be much less literature on artillery. Anyone have more detail to add, or good sources to consult? (I'm going mostly on the general info in Doubler's (sp?) excellent "Closing with the Enemy.")

[deadeye3]

Here is some more info on artillery that I acquired. Can't remeber from where tho:

http://www.combat-missions.net/bootcamp/arty.htm

This person (Gremlin)has done quite a bit of research from what I can tell. He answered my questions

[Mlapanzer]

You are right Combined Arms.

First off "Closing with the Enemy" should be required reading for anyone playing CMBO.

One of the main reason the US Army was so good at it was it's communications network was superior to anyone elses. Also The ability of the spotter to talk directly to Arty units and not neccisarily having to go through the chain of command.

Is it difficult to do in CMBO? Absolutely.But It can be well worth the time to do it. When possible I like to bring several arty units down on a position at once. Soften up the positions a bit then attack. While moving in for the kill lift the arty a bit onto the defenders retreat route and watch them break and never return. Then blow your Shermans through the hole to victory. Of course it doesn't always work that way.

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"Nuts" If you don't know who or when shame on you