Woods as Artillery Cover

[Rayak47]

I've just played two scenarios where I've ID'd woods along the route of advance as a great place for ambush, have nailed it with artillery set to personnel (air burst), no other cover available and still had ATGM's pop up where I know they were peppered by 155's. It doesn't seem like they should have survived, maybe they moved there, but does anyone know if perhaps woods provide good cover against air burst, perhaps "general" (PD) artillery might have worked better? To late to save and experiment. Does it make any difference?

[YankeeDog]

I've never tested this in-game, but if BFC has it modeled right, then heavy forest will provide good cover against artillery with a VT-airburst fuse.

Say, for example, that the ideal airburst height for a shell is 10m, and so the fuse is set to detonate at this altitude. If the tree cover is heavy enough, the transceiver in the nose of the VT shell may get a strong enough radar return from the treetops to think that they are the "ground", and detonate 10m above the treetops, rather than 10m above ground level. The higher detonation means the blast effects will be weaker at ground level, and branches and leaves can also intercept a lot of the shell fragments.

So yes, a General barrage, with some shells set for quick impact detonation, may be more effective against troops in heavy trees. In real life, at least.

[Rayak47]

Good point, I didn't think about the VT fuze sensing the trees and detonating that much further way.

[MikeyD]

In WWII one of the horrors of fighting in the Hurtgen forest were the artillery tree bursts. Far from providing protection, they caused the shell to explode at the optimal altitude to do the most damage! But this is modern times, and we're talking radar altimeter fuses. The shells were going to explode at the optimal height regardless. I somehow doubt a 155mm shell exploding 10m too high would help you much unless you were already right at the edge of the lethal radius. A mortar round exploding 10m too high might be another matter.

[Rayak47]

I thought the same thing after my first experience with them surviving VT fuzes in the woods when calling it in the next scenario. I thought about calling a general strike in case there was a tree/airburst effect but thought even in trees 155 vt would be more effective. Something's letting survive this much better than they should, I had hits right over the position! Guess I won't know until I experiment a bit...Trying to finish the Dutch campaign before Normandy though. (and tree airbursts had better be modeled there!

[YankeeDog]

In WWII one of the horrors of fighting in the Hurtgen forest were the artillery tree bursts. Far from providing protection, they caused the shell to explode at the optimal altitude to do the most damage! But this is modern times, and we're talking radar altimeter fuses. The shells were going to explode at the optimal height regardless. I somehow doubt a 155mm shell exploding 10m too high would help you much unless you were already right at the edge of the lethal radius. A mortar round exploding 10m too high might be another matter.

The other nasty thing about treebursts is that the branches and trunks of the trees create additional projectiles, though wood flinders are pretty light so they loose velocity quickly and are usually only dangerous close to the detonation point.

As far as VT detonating over treetops, keep in mind that this not only means that the shell is not detonating at ideal height (which, as you note, would only cause a modest decrease in lethal area for a large shell like 155mm) but it also means that the shell fragments have to penetrate through the tree cover to hit soldiers lying on the ground. And shell fragments are generally poor penetrators -- they're jagged, un-aerodynamic pieces of metal that lose energy quickly, even when traveling through relatively soft matter like twigs and leaves.

And while a shell fragment that travels straight down only has to pass through 10m (or so) of leaves, twigs, branches, and trunks, one traveling at, say, a 45 degree angle has to pass through much more vegetation before it reaches ground level. So the aggregate cover provided by all those leaves and twigs can be pretty profound.

Of course, this is only for the first few shells, while the tree canopy is relatively intact. 155mm is going to strip the twigs and leaves off of the trees pretty quickly. And it depends a lot on the density of the trees and the canopy.