ATGM urban tactics

[narciso]

I have a doubt about using ATGMs in urban enviroments: Which is the best floor to fire them from? Does the missile "know" it´s fired from an elevated position? I assume that higher floors are better for these purposes but I´m not sure:confused:

[Apocal]

Best floor: It depends, METT-TC, YYMV, etc.

Higher floors give you additional LoS. I have not noticed an increase in misses when fired from on high vs down low.

[narciso]

OK. Thanks, Apocal.

[Apocal]

OK. Thanks, Apocal.

Just to expand on my original answer a bit, there are a few factors to consider when choosing between up high or down low.

The first and foremost is the range. If you're system has a 300 meter minimum range and the building is surrounded by other buildings 50 meters away, that's obviously a non-starter. This variable, more than anything else, should have your less capable ATGMs on or near rooftops the majority of the time.

The next is the system's actual ability to ability to kill what it hits. From a ground floor, you can somewhat pick your shot, with an effective keyhole position overwatching a killzone, hopefully interlocking with other AT systems. This works well when you're facing top of the line armor with bargin bin ATGMs, as you can get 90 degree shots to the side armor, rear, etc. In case of only damage, you may have an opportunity for follow-up shots, which might not kill a tank but can render it pretty damned ineffective.

When you can reasonably expect to hit anything you can see and kill anything you hit (Kornets vs LAVs), it makes sense to bring them higher to gain more LoS and effectively dominate the terrain. The fantastic thing about ATGMs is that range does not appreciably degrade their lethality, you can hit short, you can hit long, both with equal effect on target. Whenever possible exploit the hell out of this.

Likely enemy support is another factor to consider. Light mortars can only hurt you if you're on the rooftops. Against medium (81mm, 82mm) mortars, you can stay at the top floor, they have a limited ability to penetrate rooftops and hit the floor below. Good enough to suppress the team for a minute or so, roughly, usually not enough to cause casualties. Against heavy mortars, I recommend getting an additional floor lower. And then expect casualties on top of an additional helping of suppression.

Light artillery (105mm, 122mm) is generally comparable to 81mm mortars in terms of effects and precautions necessary. Medium arty is a whole different ballgame. If your opponent has responsive and plentiful medium arty, I cannot recommend enough you either shoot-and-scoot with your ATGMs or stay on the low floors.

I haven't encountered rockets particularly often but they seem to be in-between medium and heavy mortars in terms of effects. Anyone with more experience is welcome to offer their insight.

Overall, lower floors are safer from indirect because the people tend to keep their fire support guys back where they only see rooftops and if you target a rooftop with a supporting asset, it will tend to knock the roof out and nothing else. Whereas supporting fires directed at lower floors tend to knock down every floor above the targetted one, in getting shells to it. You can easily test this effect by creating a long building and setting a linear mission to start at one end on the bottom and ending at the other end on the roof.

Direct fire HE is another concern. There is no "safe" caliber to get hit by. Large bore HEAT is at times surprisingly ineffective, other times it collapses a roof on your head. HE isn't as devastating, but more consistent. Rapid fire chain type guns (25mm mostly) effectively has better terminal effect by virtue of being strung more or less continuously until you ATGM is knocked out and/or the crew all dead. ATGMs vary, but if it'll knock out a tank, it'll knock out a crew. This ties back into making sure that you have a solid degree of overmatch (both capability and numbers) before you commit to a upper floor positioning plan. Nothing sucks worse than have a Kornet miss the BFIST and having said BFIST slather your building in HEI-T, while calling for fire on the guys it couldn't get with the chain gun.

Generally the lower the floor you can place your team and still have them dominate the terrain, the better.

In favor of higher floors, CMSF players are rarely stupid enough to advance armor without overwatching infantry, so any low floor ATGM launch is likely to meet a massive response of small arms fire.

There are probably other factors I didn't consider at all. But those are the main ones in my mind when deciding where to put my ATGMs.

[Sergei]

Firing from upper floors gives you the advantage of maybe hitting the weak top armour. Or you might hit front armour at an angle that negates its slope. But it's a suicide mission unless the position is keyholed by other tall buildings.

[narciso]

OK, understood.

[tyrspawn]

Is it even possible to use the javelin on any floor but the roof? I always bring the squad to the roof to use it.. just because in real life it would be pretty much impossible to fire it out of a window without a high risk of killing yourself since it shoots upward. I just assumed you couldn't fire from a window.

[Apocal]

Is it even possible to use the javelin on any floor but the roof? I always bring the squad to the roof to use it.. just because in real life it would be pretty much impossible to fire it out of a window without a high risk of killing yourself since it shoots upward. I just assumed you couldn't fire from a window.

You can fire it out of a window. Theoretically, I haven't tried it in real life insofar as they are not about to let me fire a $75K missile for personal enjoyment.

Firing from upper floors gives you the advantage of maybe hitting the weak top armour.

You'd need an absurdly tall building firing at a fairly short range to get anything better than a grazing angle on the top armor.

Or you might hit front armour at an angle that negates its slope.

That's a far more likely proposition, but still not really one you can count on. Watch vehicles carefully as they drive, they pitch forward and back regularly.

But it's a suicide mission unless the position is keyholed by other tall buildings.

Ideally, you shoot and scoot, generally from the rooftops or out of the front door because most ATGMs don't have soft launch, then run back inside. It's not really ideal, and it requires some forethought, but it works.