Artillery absurdity

[stoex]

I'm wondering - are all you guys actually measuring the time span between the fire request and rounds on target according to the game timer, or are the 2/5/10 minutes in this argument just the numbers shown in the fire request setup?

Personally I have not tested this thoroughly, but I am quite confident that almost every call for indirect fire in CMSF yields rounds on target FASTER than the specified interval. My feeling is about like this:

2 mins specified in fire request -- rounds on target in 60 to 90 seconds

5 mins specified -- 3 to 4 mins

10 mins -- 6 to 8 mins

Is it just me or does anyone else feel the same way? It's the reason why I'm not worried about this, anyway, whether I'm just imagining it or not .

[stoex]

Too late for EDIT, but -- Example: I have never seen a specified time below 2 mins in the request setup, yet USMC 60mm mortars with a good spotter with C2 start spotting almost immediately after confirming the request, and with 2 spotting rounds on average, rounds on target usually appear within 1 minute, less if the first spotting round is close enough. I have just experienced this in-game again.

[Battlefront.com]

Secondbrooks,

I just don't get the ideology that flaws in US side gets corrected very fast (sure they are fast to prove flawed unlike Syrians). But for Syrians it takes time to correct anything quite important (rule of thumb seems to be about year)... if things are corrected ever.

Sorry, I have to call "BS" when I see it. This is a flawed perception on your part, not fact. Look at the hundreds of improvements to the game since the first release and you'll see how absolutely ridiculously wrong your statement is. The bias isn't on our part.

We have a very, very long and well established history of fixing things when they are proven to be in need of fixing. We also have a long and well established history of rejecting requests for change when they aren't backed up. We've seen TONS of that with CM:SF, where people want us to make the Syrians like Russians or to change things so that Pet Peeve Of The Day is tweaked to make the Syrians more gamey and less realistic.

Steve

[Secondbrooks]

Steve: I was about to eraze that part of post which you quoted as too flaming, should have done that. But i think my main point stands (=the part you didn't quote).

Yes i'm biased because i see these as very important aspects, unlike some other tweaks.

[Yair Iny]

Secondbrooks,

Thanks for you detailed reply. In my experience, you don't walk around with your finger on the map, when you have a good idea of where you are, you can turn that good idea of your location into an exact coordinate, but it can take a bit of time to orient yourself in order to find that exact location. I wasn't in the infantry, but in the artillery, and not in the kind that shoots the regular 155s, so I don't have much personal experience with fire missions from either side. But communicating anything precise over a military radio is fraught with errors, hence the readbacks required and verifications that take time. Note that this is done for far less dangerous tasks than requesting fire support. It just takes some time. Next, figuring out an azimuth and distance on a regular paper map also takes time, maybe 30 seconds, and again, you want to double check because you are going to fire in close proximity to friendlies, this takes time too. As I and others have said, if anything, 2 minutes seems like a very fast (maybe too fast) time to me, not the opposite. Only explanation I can think of that makes this realistic is good GPS equipment on both sides, maybe some LRF to figure out the distance to target (from the calling side) faster, etc.

Cheers

[Ryujin]

I guess it depends on how careful and how much info is being sent to the FDC. I don't have any experience with this, but from what I understand the shortest call you could make (for the US anyway) is using laser polar and leaving most of it up to the FDC for first round fire for effect. I really don't know what the fastest and most ideal stuff would be for the FDC/tubes side of it.

If the FDC knows where you are, you could locate the target via "laser polar" and get within 10m (range to within 10m and direction in mils from you). You could basically point your laser at stationary target, get the range, and give a call with the minimum input like:

FDC, this is FO, fire for effect, laser polar, over

(FDC reads back)

Direction 1225 , Distance 840, over

(FDC reads back)

1 BMP in the open, over

(FDC reads back)

Once approved, the FDC would respond:

MTO, battery callsign, 4 rounds HE quick in effect, target number AB0001, over

(FO reads back)

And hopefully they hit it (this requires nice GPS and lasers on the FO's part and previous communication about the FO's location). If the FDC is good and the tubes know where they are, it could be pretty fast (not 2 minutes fast probably). I'm sure without GPS and lasers it's a mess, not to mention if the FO wants to make a huge call covering tons of details.

[Bigduke6]

Yair,

Thanks for the correction, Mount Hermon it is.

But the question is, are Syrian commandos so inferior, that they lack things like GPS and trained mortar crews? That they can't perform basic tasks like pre-plotting TRPs? That they rely on limited radio for communications, although Soviet doctrine is that if infantry sets up for more than a couple of hours, the comms guys run telephones, and the first connection pretty much always is company commander to the mortar platoon? (As the infantry platoons have runners, the mortars do not.)

Also, is it reasonable to assume a high-end Syrian infantry unit, would be unaware of the Americans listen in to everything that goes over the radio, and further that the civilian telephone network is primitive, wire-based, and thus great for secure military communications?

Well, let's see what the engine assumes.

Ok, I ginned up a quick battle, huge, US assault, Syrian special forces defending, Syrian quality maxed out.

The engine gives the Syrians a Crack airborne engineer company w/ an FO, but the FO is green. About every other unit in the airborne enginers have GPS. Most have night-vision devices, all have a radio.

The FO doesn't, what's more, he doesn't even have a radio.

Two more tries, exactly the same result. Tried it on Huge and Large battle size.

The quick battle engine clearly thinks, that even when the very best Syrian infantry deploys in the most deliberate defence possible, they should get no mines, no IEDs, no suicide bombers, AND that there should be a single 82mm attached, that that FO should be green, and without a dedicated radio.

You don't want to know about the US force the engine thought was "fair" against that Syrian force. One example: A company of Bradleys, with infantry of course, 3 x TUSK M1A1, and about 5 artillery units in support, of which two were 155mm. I didn't check air support.

Next step is to go into the scenario design engine, order a super elite fanatic Syrian airborne infantry battalion, and max out everything, and see how well GPS and radio are distributed, especially viz. FOs.

One thing seems clear: If you order up a quick battle and play Red special forces, the engine will give you a crappy FO, and only a crappy FO. This is questionable from a TOE POV, but it might explain why it's taking so long for my Syrian commandos to call down fire.

[Secondbrooks]

One thing seems clear: If you order up a quick battle and play Red special forces, the engine will give you a crappy FO, and only a crappy FO. This is questionable from a TOE POV, but it might explain why it's taking so long for my Syrian commandos to call down fire.

Organic 81mm mortar with elite experience with Elite Syrian Special Forces FO (in company level)... Time should be around 5 minutes. We are talking about cream of the cream here with great kit. If they would be veteran and i'd expect time to rise to 7 or 8 minutes.

Mean while regular US marine grunt (his team leader died) will be able to call his battalion's 81mm mortars faster. Company's 60mm mortars much faster... Compared even to Elite level Syrian special forces FO.

Problem here is that most of part of time which takes time in requesting fire comes from firing unit. Put lowest kind of Syria FO or rifleman to lead US mortars (yes it's possible in mission editor, just change sides from missions parameters to BLUE before buying mortars and back to RED when buying FO) and you see what i mean. Fire for effect wills land in around 5 minutes if talking about light 60mm or 81mm mortars. As fast as Elite Syrian special forces FO lead fire of his organic 82mm mortar... Can be that this has changed due patches but i doubt it.

[Bigduke6]

Ok, so I cranked up another QB, to test the theory that since I was always putting the Syrian commandos in defence, somehow maybe that was telling the engine to give them a green FO. Medium battle, Syrians maxed out, commando light infantry. US heavy infantry opponent.

The Syrians had a company in UAZ (yes the UAZ have radio); the Americans wound up with a company of infantry on foot plus three of those funny 105mm Strykers.

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've seen this before, the Red artillery ranges in, gets on target, and then drops the fire for effect in a different place than the target area. I assume this is engine compensating for the actual tube operators not getting their tube settings in sync with the spotting tube.

It is a little strange that Syria's best infantry managed that bonehead error, although I certainly can't exclude the chance of it happening.

I can say, however, that US/NATO artillery shoots always seem to come down where the spotting rounds are. But maybe that's my impression, some one correct me if the US misses with its shoots sometimes.

It seems to me that CM1-type TRPs would make sense for a unit in the defence. They shorten call-to-effect times in RL, why should they not exist in CM2?

P.S. - Let the record reflect that the Syrians in this battle nonetheless kicked the Americans' tail, shot them to pieces as well they should, seeing as it was human vs. the A/I. Crack Syrian infantry in cover put out a ton of fire and US infantry trying to move in the face of it gets ground into hamburger, in about a heartbeat. Of course, I saw a Stryker keep on trucking after a pair of RPG-29 hits in the bow, I somehow suspect RL that particular engagement would have turned out a little different.

[stoex]

Bigduke6,

US can certainly miss their arty strikes as well. It happened to me last night, not for the first time. Two subsequent calls on a stationary BMP by a Veteran US Army Squad resulted in two and three spotting rounds respectively, and not a single round, spotting or FFE, came within 150 meters of the target. The BMP did not move an inch throughout. The FFE rounds did, however, land in a very tight sheaf close to the last respective spotting round.

It happens a lot less with FOs, and less the better quality the spotter and arty units have, but it does happen!

[Bigduke6]

Ok, that's clear, thanks.

[Battlefront.com]

Remember that TRPs are unavailable to both sides, so it is not something that shows bias EVEN THOUGH practically speaking it is usually more valuable to the Syrians than to the Blue. There are other limitations/shortcomings in the artillery modeling that haven't even been mentioned here. It's simply the old issue of too many things to do and not enough time to do them. The artillery modeling for CMx2 is many times better than CMx1 so we're happy with its current state, even though we definitely will be improving it over time.

When comparing the Syrians to the Blue's capabilities you guys seem to be missing the obvious:

The US Army (and probably other Blue forces) has a goal of being able to fire for effect with only a single spotting round. And to do this the US Army (and Blue in general) spends millions of Dollars and untold numbers of hours training.

Does anybody here seriously think that the Syrians have the means and technology available to pursue the same goal to the same degree as Blue? Does anybody here think that all of this money and time spent by the Blue doesn't give them an edge? I really hope not

Therefore, no matter what minutia you wish to quibble with, the overall effect SHOULD be that Blue kicks Red's butt when it comes to use of artillery. If there is anything other than that the game would be less realistic than it is now.

Steve

[Yair Iny]

Bigduke, I don't know about Syrian commandoes, but when I was in the IDF, in an artillery unit that had some fairly sophisticated weaponry, we didn't have GPS. This was '93 thru '96. Even as a reservist, we didn't have a plethora of GPSs, though I know they are now prevalent. Considering the state of the Syrian economy and its armed forces, I wouldn't take it for granted that every unit has GPS, NVG and LRF. I don't know what BF's sources are, and it's not like I have any better ones, but I'm just saying I wouldn't be surprised if they were haphazardly supplied and thus their availability and the knowledge of how to use them would be haphazard too.

[Yair Iny]

Steve, just to satisfy my curiosity, from the information given to you by the large number of US armed forces personnel (current and past), can US spotters really regularly call in accurate fire in under two minutes? Do they transmit the requested target information by speaking over the radio or by systems communicating? I'm just thinking that even speaking, reading back, and making sure you got the right info would make it go over two minutes...

[MikeyD]

I recall when the Syrian army pulled out of Lebanon in 2005 they had some difficulty because a large percentage of their transport trucks didn't survive the road march to the border. That does not sound like an army that would have purchased top-of-the-line everything for every unit. Perhaps the president's brother-in-law's command would get some GPS units, but would others?

Oh, and about GPS. In an all-out war the U.S. would no doubt switch the satellites to from open to encrypted transmission. The Syrians would then have to rely on the Russian GPS equivalent, GLONASS.

[Sgt Joch]

One thing to keep in mind is that the in-game capabilities of Syrian artillery in 1.21 is probably better than real life. BFC really gave the Red side the benefit of the doubt.

Syrian Special Forces, which are the elite of the Syrian Army, have been steadily decreasing in capability since the collapse of the Soviet Union:

May 28, 2009: Syria's elite units are falling apart. The total number of elite troops in Syria exceeds 15,000 personnel. This in line with their Soviet era doctrine and tactics that insist on special units in massive numbers. But years of poor funding, rapidly aging equipment (even small arms), and lack of action have turned Syria's special forces into a paper tiger. This is rapidly becoming a crisis for Syria because it is the only remaining frontline Arab state (the other two being Egypt and Jordan) that borders Israel that has not signed a peace agreement with the Jewish nation. Syria still harbors ambitions of eventual armed conflict with Israel to regain the Golan Heights. As ludicrous as this goal is, the Syrians have remained recalcitrant and stubborn in their relations with Israel. Secondly, the Syrians rely on their best troops maintain order and put down potential threats to the regime.

During the Cold War, Syria's elite units were considered, by Arab military standards, to be well-disciplined, thoroughly trained, and armed with the latest Russian (then Soviet) equipment. They had extensive battle experience against the Israelis on the Golan in 1973 and Lebanon in '82 and, according to most accounts, these units acquitted themselves well.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War is generally considered to be the high point of their war fighting achievements. During the war, Syrian commandos and paratroopers managed to capture Mount Hermon from the Israelis using a helicopter-borne attack. Armed with RPGs and Dragunov sniper rifles equipped with infrared sights, the Syrians managed to beat off a determined counterattack on Hermon and slugged it out with the elite Golani Brigade on the last day of the war in an eight hour battle that lasted an entire night. The Syrians were actually better-equipped than the Israelis, who had no night vision equipment and, in many cases, obsolete antitank weapons. During the war in Lebanon in the 1980s, although again beaten by the Israelis, the Syrians managed to adapt innovative tactics to inflict major damage. The 20th Commando Battalion developed tactics involving "hunter-killer" teams for stalking tanks and armored vehicles that proved especially effective against Israeli armor.

The situation hasn't been that good for almost twenty years. The fall of the Soviet Union and crippling debt had not only affected Syria's air force and army mechanized units and equipment, but has even damaged the reputation and ability of their once-proud shock troops, which are now a shadow of their former selves.

Currently, Syria maintains the 120th Mountain Infantry Brigade and the 14th Special Forces Division, along with ten additional independent commando regiments, which actually amount to enlarged battalions. Despite its reputation for fostering and aiding anti-Jewish terrorists, the Syrians have some counter-terrorist capabilities of their own. They are well aware of how easily today's allies can become tomorrow's enemies in the Arab world and do their best to plan and prepare accordingly. This role is taken up by one of the SF regiments and goes by the name of Al-Saiqa (Storm). The unit allegedly trains intensively in hostage rescue, intelligence gathering, and anti-hijacking operations.

Ideally, these units would be equipped with sophisticated weapons and spend countless hours in intensive training, but this isn't happening for a number of reasons. For one, very few countries, and certainly nobody in the U.S. or Western Europe, is willing to sell Damascus high-tech equipment and the ones who are demand the money up front. Thus, like the Serbs during the '90s, they are forced to buy what equipment and technology they can off the black market in whatever quantities they can afford.

Also, given their cash flow problems, training is nowhere near as frequent or as long as the Israelis. Finally, Syria's maintains an excessively large number of elite troops for a military of its size. Instead of a few compact, professional regiments that can pack a major punch, the Syrians have literally thousands of special forces soldiers organized into countless regiments. More personnel means more people to train, pay, and send through exercises, all of which is not free.

With too many officers and enlisted men, too little money, and no one willing to give them the gear they need, Syria's commando seem destined to age poorly. The prospects for the Syrians to regain their previous effectiveness seem dim.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsf/articles/20090528.aspx

the situation in the regular syrian army can only be worse.

[Battlefront.com]

Yair Iny,

Steve, just to satisfy my curiosity, from the information given to you by the large number of US armed forces personnel (current and past), can US spotters really regularly call in accurate fire in under two minutes? Do they transmit the requested target information by speaking over the radio or by systems communicating? I'm just thinking that even speaking, reading back, and making sure you got the right info would make it go over two minutes...

Depends on the unit and what mortars are firing. The game assumes that if mortars are available they are setup and generally orientated to your positions. Therefore they are pretty much ready to fire when they get the command. A Squad Leader can communicate directly with the firing unit if that is determined ahead of time, which we assume is the case (again, a further revision of the system would explicitly simulate choosing which units have priority of fire). All Blue units have at least GPS. Some have GPS and laser range finders. A Blue unit with just a GPS and radio connection could certainly get artillery on the way within 2 minutes, but the accuracy is likely to be lower for first round than a dedicated FO unit. That should be evident in the game as it is now.

Steve

[bodkin]

Why are there no pre-registered target points in CMSF and will they return for CM:Normandy?

[YankeeDog]

Steve, just to satisfy my curiosity, from the information given to you by the large number of US armed forces personnel (current and past), can US spotters really regularly call in accurate fire in under two minutes? Do they transmit the requested target information by speaking over the radio or by systems communicating? I'm just thinking that even speaking, reading back, and making sure you got the right info would make it go over two minutes...

another part of your question:

It's been a while since I read about it, but as I recall, the US Military does have devices that can relay detailed targeting information electronically from the FO to the battery FDC, rather than having to communicate everything via voice over a radio or similar. But I don't recall all of the details of exactly what devices do this, and who carries them. I would expect that this tech is currently limited to dedicated FOs and vehicles like the Bradley FiST.

Maybe someone with more up-to-date knowledge can add details.

[Battlefront.com]

The TRPs were excluded from CMx2 (so far) simply because there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. TRPs require rather complicated user interface for the player to place them, even in the Editor. This is something we have already addressed for CM: Normandy. The other time consuming portion is programming the interaction between the spotter and the TRP so that it affects artillery times and accuracy in a realistic way. Definitely the lesser issue of the two.

YankeeDog,

The LRAS3 automates spotting to a large degree. It is also super accuracy and works over very long distances in almost all environments. Which is why the units cost about $1.1 million each

Any unit with FBCB2 can also transmit basic targeting information and fire request parameters digitally. Since FBCB2 is tied into GPS the user only has to click on a position on the map and the coordinates are instantly known. The information can be sent digitally or communicated via voice. Someone with a manual map, GPS, and radio has to do a bunch of work compared to FBCB2.

Steve

[JonS]

... the US Military does have devices that can relay detailed targeting information electronically from the FO to the battery FDC, rather than having to communicate everything via voice over a radio or similar. ...

The Israeli's produce and export a similar system (that can double as a quasi blue-force-tracker). It is very shiny, speeds up fire mission proceedure, and reduces errors relating to the voice transmission of fire mission data (although it introduces some other potential sources of error).

When everything is lined up, comms are good, the fire unit is ready and waiting for orders, and the observer has all his sh!t in one sock, I'm confident that the system can, indeed, get rounds in the air within 120seconds of the observer pressing "send".

What's missing, though, IMO is the faffing about that the observer has to do *before* they press send. Identifying the target, figuring out where it is on the map, briefing the party, determining desired target effects, coordinating with the MAC, etc etc. All that can easily take up another couple of minutes.

You could say this is already built in to the time a player playing in RT takes to plot and enter a mission, or in the inevitable delay that a WEGO player msut suffer before the next orders phase. You could say that. I think that's still overly optimistic in terms of the time taken for rounds to arrive, and confuses the role the player is supposed to be on the battlefield.

OTOH, *everything* in CMSF happens at warp speed compared to The Real Deal, so making artillery faster and more responsive is at least internally consistent.

[Battlefront.com]

JonS,

OTOH, *everything* in CMSF happens at warp speed compared to The Real Deal™, so making artillery faster and more responsive is at least internally consistent.

Yup, and that's what we're trying for... internal consistency. If we start going down the road of seriously "faffing" things to match real life battle situations then we're going to have to do a lot of work to produce a game most people wouldn't like to play

The biggest problem CM, or any game for that matter, has is too much certainty. Even CM's advanced Fog of War and Relative Spotting systems offer the player too much accurate information too quickly and too consistently. This is relevant to the artillery time discussion because in real life the FO might spend 10 minutes or more double checking and making sure that he's got the right target and that no friendlies (or other considerations) are going to get hurt. Not to mention trying to get someone else's fire mission cancelled But since the player knows way more than he should, he probably only spends 1 minute or less evaluating his options.

Steve

[bodkin]

The TRPs were excluded from CMx2 (so far) simply because there's too much to do and not enough time to do it. TRPs require rather complicated user interface for the player to place them, even in the Editor. This is something we have already addressed for CM: Normandy. The other time consuming portion is programming the interaction between the spotter and the TRP so that it affects artillery times and accuracy in a realistic way. Definitely the lesser issue of the two.

Steve

Just asking as I'm already thinking of a scenario design for CM: Normandy that would try and replicate the German tactic of using MGs to pin down advancing Allied infantry in zones already pre-registered for their mortars.

Hopefully the AI will be up to the task of using TRPs effectively. Not trying to spoil your Christmas or anything with extra work.

[Yair Iny]

Steve, Jon, thanks for the info, very informative and interesting.

[Battlefront.com]

The AI will *love* TRPs once Charles informs it about them That's because AI programming for specific, predefined spots (by the scenario designer) is far, far easier than having the AI dynamically figure out how to use artillery. Which, based on customer feedback, is actually quite good already.

Steve