How to use Nebelwerfers

[Scipio]

I'm curious : can they be used sensefull, and if so, how?

I once tried to bombard a village with 6 veteran 150mm Rocket spotters - all with LOS to target. The result was : 2 destroyed buildings, only few enemy casualties. The target locations were all within a radius of 250m.

What am I doing wrong?

[Herr Oberst]

NW's really are a saturation/wide-area weapon.

I've used them in a similar case where I targeted all of the spotters on the same point, mortar smoked to the left and right to partition the battlefield, and ran the infantry through as close on the heels of the bombardment as I can/dare.

Occasionally the misfired round will cause some damage to your troops, but with the 150's, and a decent saturation, you are really going for suppression, not outright destruction.

[Mark Dutton]

I had a PBEM game where I used the nebelwerfers to clobber a road I suspected my opponent would move down to get into position to assault me. The randomness of the rockets caused some havoc for my opponent who wasn't clumped together but spread out somewhat. He lost 2 towed AT guns and several squads. I also suffered some light casualties on short rounds but it was a net gain. From a psychological standpoint they can be unnerving. You see the first round impact and you know there is no place to move your troops to, unlike regular artillery which tends to fall into tighter patterns.

[Silvio Manuel]

I've never tried it, but some ppl use NBW's for Defense. Buy 1 TRP and a few Rocket Spotters, and fire away roughly near the enemy setup area immediately on turn 1, at the TRP of course. Hopefully the rockets catch troops on the move and/or in the open.

[-Havermeyer-]

I've run a host of tests with up to 6 150s in defense type games. I'd rather buy wire for what they killed.

It doesn't have the same eye appeal, but it sure does muck up a flanking attack.

Lots of wire. 40 tiles of wire...

[ May 15, 2002, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: -Havermeyer- ]

[Soddball]

Just used 1 150mm spotter in a 1500pt PBEM game with a small map. All 25 rounds hit the ground.

Casualties: 0

My conclusion: They sucked this time :mad:

[Sargon]

Try adjusting your fire on target every 60 seconds

it will not come in so WILD....should be a nice tight pattern with lots of fire and smoke...

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Sargon:

Try adjusting your fire on target every 60 seconds

it will not come in so WILD....should be a nice tight pattern with lots of fire and smoke...

I assume you never used rockets? They usually come all down within 30 - 60 seconds. But timeshift works good with 'normal' artillery.

[JasonC]

The variation from salvo to salvo is much higher with rockets than with other types of arty, and highest for the weaker 150mm rounds than for the big 210 and 300 ones. The big ones have so much blast that they achieve reasonably good overlap of blast radii, and so damage significant portions of whatever is under their "footprint". Single near hits or tree bursts can also account for half a dozen men (sometimes full squads) at a time. And they put down this fire very fast, compared to the "adjusted drizzle" 150mm and up tube artillery produces.

But the 150s are a gamble. A single one is very likely to do nothing - you really want 2 with the same aim point to have any sort of coverage of the targeted area. And 1/3rd as many big rocket modules will typically do more, more reliably, than 3 times as many 150s. As with most medium arty, they also suppress more than they kill. If you fire at men in good cover, early in the game especially, you will often do little and the men will rapidly recover.

The best target of 150mm rockets is advancing enemies, in the open, not long before the moment they'd make contact with your ground troops (or just before you plan to come off "hide", on defense). Set them so that the near side of the beaten zone will fall not too far ahead of your men, and they will usually stretch over the full depth of the approaching attackers. You want a target as big as their whole footprint, not just one platoon in the middle of it.

Light vehicles are fairly vunerable to even the 150mm rockets. Soft skin stuff gets knocked out even far from the nearest impact point, and a few shells often will land close enough to KO halftracks and such. Infantry riding on vehicles or in the open is also vunerable, and tends to react poorly to lowered morale states.

The net effect you want is a "spoiling barrage" that disorders the attackers when they need order most - right at the time of contact. Use the period when they are still getting up to shift a reserve, move a key AT shooter, get out of their way, or firefight the forward elements in a many on few engagement before the rest of his force can support them.

Note that 150mm rockets are poor attacker's weapons, because unlocated and dug in defenders are a poor target for them. The big rocket modules (210 and 300) can hurt men in good cover with their very high blast, but the average distance a 150mm will land away from any given target makes foxholes or building an effective defense for defenders. Meeting engagements are OK if you get good intel before ordering the barrage. The big thing is not to hit men in strong forms of cover with just 150s.

If you buy 2 150mm modules instead of an extra infantry platoon, you are gambling on the effects of such a spoiling barrage. If it has little impact you are out a platoon. If it has a dramatic effect you may well be better off than the platoon would make you. Compared to the rockets, the platoon (or a standard medium artillery module, 105mm or 120mm mortar), is money in the bank - safe return, but no dramatic upside.

Buying more than 2 150mm modules (in QBs obviously - in scenarios you use whatever you are given) is usually a mistake, though. You'd be better off with a heavy rocket module if you want instant but innaccurate firepower, and better off with a tube artillery heavy module if you want reliable point-target blasting power.

I hope this helps.

[-Havermeyer-]

Ahhh... JasonC post. Anybody got the Cliffs notes?

[Patgod]

150s suck, but are ok in numbers

210s and 300s are good, but dont hit what you want

they all suck on attack

hit them while they are in the open.

there, thats pretty much the cliff notes.

[Scipio]

JasonC Thanks for the answer. At least it helped me to learn that I better use my beloved 120mm mortars or their 4.2inch US counterpart as medium artillery.

Oh - BTW, what is - in the real world - the difference between the US (blast=72)and UK (blast=47) 4.2inch mortar???

[TSword]

They are only really deadly in scenarios with full ammo loadout.

2 x 21 cm Nbws with full ammo loadout (200) and LOS to center will level a town consisting of heavy buildings in 3 rounds and destroy almost anything in a square of roughly 400 x 300 yards.

The 15cm Nbw is just to weak to level a town normal ammoload much to low to achieve saturation effects.

If you want to kill massed inf fast and reliable in a PBEM choose the 15 cm sFH.

[CMplayer]

One thing the rockets do is make craters, which can help if you are attacking and there is a lot of open ground.

[Stalin's Organ]

The Brit and US 4.2" mortars are quiet different weapons. the Brit mortar uses a "bomb" much the same as the standard 81/82/3" mortars.

the US 4.2 fires somethign that looks more like a ergulr artillery round, comes with a propellant case attached to its base and weights about twice as much.

[Brian]

Originally posted by Scipio:

JasonC Thanks for the answer. At least it helped me to learn that I better use my beloved 120mm mortars or their 4.2inch US counterpart as medium artillery.

Oh - BTW, what is - in the real world - the difference between the US (blast=72)and UK (blast=47) 4.2inch mortar???

Why do you assume that they are the same, apart from the designation and calibre?

The British 4.2in was basically an upscaled 3in mortar, which in turn was based on the original Stokes mortar of WWI vintage. Its biggest problem was that it was intended from the outset to be utilised in chemical warfare and its HE round was designed as an afterthought. It was also made originally from cast iron and becuase of its weight, had a poor range/payload performance. In 1943, a newer, light bomb was introduced which corrected this somewhat but it never realised its true potential.

The American 4.2in mortar much more closely resembles the original trench mortars - effectively being designed more like a light artillery piece than what we'd call a mortar. It fired a shell which was optimised a great deal better and had a higher weight of HE filling.

[ May 17, 2002, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: Brian ]

[Olle Petersson]

I've got some experience in using the CM rocket artillery.

It's true what the others have said about 15cm being mostly suppressive and the heavier stuff being killers.

I've found that it's often a good idea to use a 50/50 mix of 15cm and 30cm rockets, all fired simultaneously.

The heavy stuff usually kill some infantry, and with some luck even knock out some heavier armour. The lighter rockets will help to keep the grunts running and break their morale, while not being so point costly.

The end result is typically a large portion of broken and routed enemy infantry.

They can still come at you, albeit delayed a couple of turns, but will have their fighting spirit greatly reduced.

Cheers

Olle

[xerxes]

I've used the 300mm rockets to reasonably good effect on the attack. In a recent tourny, I had 6 FOs and basically bombed the center part of the map with all of them at the same time. This was before my assault started so I was firing without ID'ing any opposition. My opponent later told me the barrage took out 2 105mm fo's, a TD, and hurt a mess of squads. This was with conscript spotters that are much cheaper. With regular quality, the rocket FO's are way to expensive and risky to buy (for me).

They do make an impressive sight when 150 300m rockets come down all in one minute. Talk about camera shake.

[xerxes]

Oh yeah, I had just started my infantry moving forward and I was sure I was out of the impact area. I was wrong. Mauled 1 rifle44 platoon an mg42.

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Brian:

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

JasonC Thanks for the answer. At least it helped me to learn that I better use my beloved 120mm mortars or their 4.2inch US counterpart as medium artillery.

Oh - BTW, what is - in the real world - the difference between the US (blast=72)and UK (blast=47) 4.2inch mortar???

Why do you assume that they are the same, apart from the designation and calibre?

</font>