Artillery absurdity

[eniced73]

Lots of good information in these posts about delievery times on artillery but I would like to see some on accuracy. I did pick up some information from this post

The Syrian FO was crack like every one else, so my theory about green FOs must go with Syrian commandos is worthless. Perhaps in some scenarios the engine attempts to "balance" things, in part, with the quality of the attached FO.

Anyway, this FO had no GPS. I called in a single barrage, maximum intensity and duration, area strike over a circle with a 75 - 80 meter radius, fitting nicely over Americans were bogged down trying to dig the commandos out of a town. The FO was over a kilometer away, and was not only no surpressed, he was sitting on the side of a hill in the open.

The strike arrived almost exactly in four minutes, it took three registration rounds. And the fires came down about 300 meters from the desired impact area; not a single American was hit.

I am requesting this because I am involved in 2 Red vs. Red pbem games right now (my first two I confess) and I ordered artillery (120mm i believe) from my FO's. In the first game my FO was "green" and all of his rounds (spotting included) hit in the same location which was about 300-400 km from the target location (area fire- 30km). He was spotting the whole time without sustaining any close incoming fire. It was not an emergency call and he did not lose LOS the whole time. I accepted this as him being "green" and shrugged it off.

My second game I had an "elite" FO perched on a rooftop with LOS to a 30 km long line target area. No incoming fire and LOS never lost. Target was only about 300km away. Learning from my first game I seen the spotting round (only one) was about 500km further away from my target area. I adjusted the fire mission hoping that it would be adjusted. The mission did not get adjusted and all rounds landed on the area I stated above - about 500km further away from the target than wanted.

I understand that every spotter in every game is not going to be dead on with all fire missions. But two in a row in a pbem really frustrated me. I guess my question is should I expect this on the majority of my games using the Syrian forces or is this a stroke of bad luck with 2 misfires back to back. I just want to know how much effort I should put into relying on artillery when playing the Red side. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

[Ribosom]

about 500km further away from the target than wanted.

Orbital artillery?

[Secondbrooks]

I understand that every spotter in every game is not going to be dead on with all fire missions. But two in a row in a pbem really frustrated me. I guess my question is should I expect this on the majority of my games using the Syrian forces or is this a stroke of bad luck with 2 misfires back to back. I just want to know how much effort I should put into relying on artillery when playing the Red side. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

I think that with Syrians and with some US troops (lack of GPS or something) also it's good idea to get rounds into area where FO can clearly see.

-If there's just small visible spot in forest at which FO uses as target there are changes that rounds go off.

-Same with landscape, trying to target rounds into high hill peaks which other side in not in LOS of spotter has same issue.

So one should try to judge that does FO see area around desired impact zone enough well. This is my belief because in both cases i've seen sometimes that rounds can land to totally another location. It could be due other factors, like smoke and suppression which i have not been aware of. I can't tell.

But i can say that lately i haven't seen misfires anymore, because i try to evade situations mentioned above. Well i don't much use Syrian arty anyways, because when FO can give fire-for-effect for arty battle usually is already finished. And if it's quick battle with 35 minutes time limit i don't have time for waiting tubes to respond anyways.

[Ryujin]

That's a good point, I always assumed, but never tested, that the FO has to actually have LOS to the spotting rounds. If he can't clearly see where they are landing it makes it harder to call an accurate fire mission. Like for example with targeting a pointing terrain feature, the FO could have trouble bracketing it if some of the spotting rounds are falling out of sight.

By extension range from FO to spotting round might matter, closer rounds tend to be easier to spot

But then again the spotting rounds may just be "eye candy" and a waring to the receiving player, the AI FO might not actually have to see them.

[Bigduke6]

I just fired an 82mm mortar mission in a PBEM game. Syrian Special Forces, Company commander was making the call, Crack quality. Calling unit was not only unsupressed, but undetected. Target was blue troops in open, distance approximately a kilometer. Daytime, very hot. The caller had binoculars and night-vision equipment.

The mission was to inflict maximum blue personnel casualties, so I aimed a full basic load on the blue dismounts, emergency, heavy, immediate, area target, 75mm radius.

Five minute delay. Two or three spotting rounds, I didn't notice. Barrage landed about 150 meters off target, middle of desert, no blue forces hit. About 3 - 4 red casualties from stray rounds. It was my last chance to kill the, er, good guys, so battle over.

That's two for two flubbed red artillery strikes in PBEM, consecutively, since I started counting, and since it's PBEM I've got a witness.

Will keep playing, but a couple more wasted red indirect missions and I'm going to suspect there is something similar to the ZiS-3 is built into the resolution for red artillery fires.

[Battlefront.com]

A reminder that Emergency has no Adjustment phase because, well, it's an emergency So no, I'm not surprised at all that people are having terrible accuracy problems with Emergency fire missions. That's what is supposed to happen, even for Blue. The difference between Blue and Red is that Blue is geared towards greater accuracy on less information more predictably than Red is. Therefore, the chance of a Blue Emergency fire mission getting close to the target area is inherently higher than it is for Red.

Steve

[Blackcat]

"The mission was to inflict maximum blue personnel casualties, so I aimed a full basic load on the blue dismounts, emergency, heavy, immediate, area target, 75mm radius."

You called an emergency fire mission and think it is noteworthy that the resultant strike was 150m off target? Jeez, I have never had an emergency mission land on-target and I only play blue against the AI (I am not sure I'll ever forgive Battlefront for dropping WEGO TCPIP).

I have also had a majority of bad experiences using 60mm mortars. Nine times out of ten they are are off-target by 50-100 metres.

[Secondbrooks]

"The mission was to inflict maximum blue personnel casualties, so I aimed a full basic load on the blue dismounts, emergency, heavy, immediate, area target, 75mm radius."

You called an emergency fire mission and think it is noteworthy that the resultant strike was 150m off target? Jeez, I have never had an emergency mission land on-target and I only play blue against the AI (I am not sure I'll ever forgive Battlefront for dropping WEGO TCPIP).

I have also had a majority of bad experiences using 60mm mortars. Nine times out of ten they are are off-target by 50-100 metres.

Which is somewhat funny as from what i've read from OIF it seems that artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly.

Even poorer equipped mortars (no computers) and FOs (no GPS) seems to be enough accurate without spotting rounds shot. I'd quess thatit's rule of thumb that 100 meters is the maximum distance which impact zone's center will go off from target. Well that depends of distance and naturally map's accuracy and scale (1:50 000 or higher might not be ideal anymore for getting accurate coordinates ) if i recall correctly. So that rule of thumb might closer to optimal than sub-optimal conditions.

[Blackcat]

Secondbrooks,

"Which is somewhat funny as from what i've read from OIF it seems that artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."

I can't comment on what you have read, but calling for FFE on non-registered targets seems a decidedly dodgy idea. Certainly in Afghanistan in the last couple of years spotting rounds were the norm. Can you give me a source to suggest that modern practice has moved on?

In terms of desired accuracy, if one's supporting artillery is missing the target by 100 metres then, unless the calibre is very large, it is useless.

[Bigduke6]

Addition to last - I checked, it was a veteran not crack CO. It was definately emergency fires, the whole wad all at once. So maybe there was no spotting.

The shells land about 100 meters adjacent to the desired impact area. It takes about 8 minutes from call to shells landing.

As I understand it, the files are on the way to BFI.

[JonS]

Secondbrooks,

"Which is somewhat funny as from what i've read from OIF it seems that artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."

I can't comment on what you have read, but calling for FFE on non-registered targets seems a decidedly dodgy idea. Certainly in Afghanistan in the last couple of years spotting rounds were the norm. Can you give me a source to suggest that modern practice has moved on?

Yeah, it's been modern practice for, oooh, about 70 years.

The basic idea is that since you're going through the adjustment procedure anyway, you may as well be throwing down a btys-worth of rounds at a time. That way you're more likely to get some splash on the target, and therefore start suppressing the target immediately. So, the drill is; target grid plus 1 RFFE, adjusment plus 1 RFFE, adjusment plus 1 RFFE, adjusment plus 1 RFFE, etc until the rounds straddle the target, then go nuts. As you can see, it's not strictly true to say that there are no spotting rounds or adjustment, it's just that the adjustment is done with bunches of shells rather than just one at a time. Back in the day the RA took it a step further, and their standard opening call for fire for an IN mission was 1 RFFE from the regiment (3 btys, or 24 guns), with subsequent adjustments at 1 RFFE from the regt. The effective impact area for a regt is 300 x 300m.

However, that is *not* the kind of thing you'd want to be doing for a danger close mission (which anyway has it's own unique adjustment procedure), or any mission where time is not critical. It's also mainly intended for high intensity, high tempo ops, which OIF was. Afghanistan is neither.

Also, with recent advances in solutions to different parts of the gunnery problem, it has become increasingly likely that initial rounds will have some effect on the target, even if not complete coverage of the target area. Thus, opening at 1 RFFE makes more and more sense.

CMSF cannot adjust at 1 RFFE.

[Blackcat]

JonS,

Thanks.

I was aware that predicted fire was developed during WWI. I am also aware that the "grid square removal service" provided by MLRS doesn't require spotting rounds either.

However, neither case fits into the scope of the game.

I also must remain with my point that, unless the calibre is large, 100 metres off is useless.

[JonS]

I wasn't talking about MLRS at any point in that last post.

100m off is only useless if your impact area is less than 100m. If your impact area is greater than 100m, then you will get *some* effect on the target area.

[Ryujin]

This is why those fire support vehicles are great. I just did a test using FOs sitting in a BFIST, first round fire for effect (emergency) on a point target (to check accuracy) and they were off by around 5 meters (and these are 155mm shells!). Had I done an area target it would have more than close enough.

The BFISTs/Stryker FSVs have all the equipment to make super accurate calls for fire, they're extremely useful.

[Blackcat]

JonS,

You are absolutley correct and I was obviously talking rubbish from a position of complete ignorance.

[JonS]

You are absolutley correct and I was obviously talking rubbish from a position of complete ignorance.

:confused:

I wasn't having a go at you*. Apologies if it came across that way.

* And, FWIW, I suspect Secondbrooks was wrong about the OIF thing too ... or perhaps misunderstood what he read. Adjusting with 1 RFFE is not the same as "artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."

[Blackcat]

:confused:

I wasn't having a go at you*. Apologies if it came across that way.

* And, FWIW, I suspect Secondbrooks was wrong about the OIF thing too ... or perhaps misunderstood what he read. Adjusting with 1 RFFE is not the same as "artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."

Please do not worry about it.

[Secondbrooks]

And, FWIW, I suspect Secondbrooks was wrong about the OIF thing too ... or perhaps misunderstood what he read. Adjusting with 1 RFFE is not the same as "artillery and mortars were used usually with out spotting rounds, so FO called fire-for-effect instantly."

Yup. That is probably my mistake. actual sentence used was: "1st round FFE" and "1st Round Fire for Effect Was the Norm", when describing about Paladin and FIST.

Blackcat:

There were mentioned in document named:

Fires in the Close Fight:

OIF Lessons Learned