Reuqirements on spotters for arty

[GreenAsJade]

Can someone clarify what a spotter has to do in order to call in a barrage successfully.

It's clear that he has to have LOS onto the target at the time of calling. After that, I'm not at all clear what he has to do. Suppose it's 12 minutes till the full barrage. Does he have to maintain LOS that whole time? What if something temporarily gets in the way? Does he have to be able to see the spotting rounds? If you spot a spotting round that he clearly can't see, then does that tell you the barrage will be off, or will the arty keep firing spotting rounds till he _can_ see one?

Thanks!

GaJ

[rampantone]

Will be interesting to find out... I have a unit that has called in fire support on target X with confirmation from firing unit. The call-in unit is probably going to cease to exist soon, so i'm wondering too if the the orders will proceed.

[Thin Red Line]

From one of my PBEM i can thell that if he receives too much enemy fire and gets pinned down before the barrage start to fall, the mission will be cancelled.

[GreenAsJade]

I'm pretty sure that if the spotter dies the barrage will stop. It says in the manual that if he goes out of C&C with the arty for too long then the barrage will stop. So in my mind this is about the only thing I'm reasonably clear on.

To me the question is "what if he stays in C&C with the arty, but moves around/gets blocked/can't see spotting rounds" etc.

GaJ

[Blackcat]

Well, we know that in CMBN can take a little time to set up a radio comms link. I also fairly sure from my casual observations that man-portable radios cannot be used on the move. So it maybe that if the spotter is on foot and moves the coms link will break and need to be re-established. That in turn suggests that if the link is down at a crucial point in the cycle (e.g. spotting rounds landing) then, according to the manual, the mission is likely to be delayed. It may also be off target when it does arrive though the manual is silent on this point.

In CMAK if the spotter's view of the target area was obscured by smoke/dust etc as the spotting rounds were landing then the mission could be relied upon to land anywhere but on target. There were threads in the forum about this at the time. I don't know if this behaviour is replicated in CMx2 but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

Setting up reliable tests to explore these issues would be difficult and very time consuming. However, BF will certainly know the answers and might just tell us, if we ask nicely.

[Baneman]

This would be good to know.

I've also asked this in other threads, but still haven't seen a definitive answer : "How do we, the player, know if the Spotter sees the spotting rounds or not ?"

[Scipio]

I'm pretty sure that if the spotter dies the barrage will stop. It says in the manual that if he goes out of C&C with the arty for too long then the barrage will stop. So in my mind this is about the only thing I'm reasonably clear on.

To me the question is "what if he stays in C&C with the arty, but moves around/gets blocked/can't see spotting rounds" etc.

GaJ

My experience in CMSF was different. If the spotter dies, the artillery order can not be changed anymore, it will be carried out til it's completed. I do not expect that this has been changed for CMBN.

[A Canadian Cat]

Since seeing how good arty was against me I have been playing with more of it than I did in the CM1x games. From my experience here is what I think I have seen and thus learned:

Can someone clarify what a spotter has to do in order to call in a barrage successfully.

They need to have and maintain LOS to the target and ideally some more so they can see errant spotting rounds. They need to be happy and calm (by that I mean *not* taking fire on their position) during the receiving and spotting phase. Once they call for the FFE it does not matter any more.

In one game against the AI I had a FO call for a barrage from a nice safe place to try to stop an armoured assault. They were safe during the receiving and spotting. They called for FFE just a few moments before the protecting screen of infantry collapsed and they had to run, took fire and lost the FO officer. The barrage seemed to go fine but was to late to save the position. The shells kept falling for several minutes even after what was left of the FO team and his infantry screen were pushed back into the woods.

This would be good to know.

I've also asked this in other threads, but still haven't seen a definitive answer : "How do we, the player, know if the Spotter sees the spotting rounds or not ?"

In a different game I was calling some fire on a possible enemy approach from the opposite side of a town. My Company CO (who was making the call) had key hole LOS between buildings to the woods where I wanted the fire to land. Trouble was he could see just bits and pieces of the area not the whole target area and certainly he did not have good visibility around the target area. The spotting rounds were long and to the left. I watched them land way off. I guess I could have checked with the targeting tool to see if he could see where they landed. I believe that he did not see them land because after several spotting rounds - which were all off target the FFE was called and the full barrage came down on the long and to the left location near where the spotting rounds landed. I could have called it off but since my fire was speculative anyway I let it go.

At the same time one of the platoon HQs called in fire from a different battery on another suspected enemy approach location. This time the HQ had much better LOS and after the spotting rounds came in the barrage started and was right on target. These two calls were simultaneous and the barrages started at about the same time. It was interesting to see the rounds for one inside the green circle and the rounds for the other a ways long and left from the circle.

So to answer your question when the spotting rounds come in use the target tool to see if your FO can see where the landed. The smoke / crater from the spotting rounds should be enough to let you find out if the FO had LOS for the spotting rounds. I have the PBEM files for the above scenario so I should be able to verify that my Platoon HQ could see were the spotting rounds landed and the Company CO could not.

Ian

[Stitch]

In a different game I was calling some fire on a possible enemy approach from the opposite side of a town. My Company CO (who was making the call) had key hole LOS between buildings to the woods where I wanted the fire to land. Trouble was he could see just bits and pieces of the area not the whole target area and certainly he did not have good visibility around the target area. The spotting rounds were long and to the left. I watched them land way off. I guess I could have checked with the targeting tool to see if he could see where they landed. I believe that he did not see them land because after several spotting rounds - which were all off target the FFE was called and the full barrage came down on the long and to the left location near where the spotting rounds landed. I could have called it off but since my fire was speculative anyway I let it go.

Ian

Last night I had a similar experience. My FO called for a 81mm off-board med/med mission at a Victory location from over 600m away. With the LOS checker, I could see that the view was spotty at best, but I managed to get an area target established.

The FO remained immobile and unfired upon for 6 minutes before the spotting rounds came in, which was about 100m to the left and out of the FO's LOS. Not wanting to waste more time calling in another more accurate fire, I adjusted the mission and reset the original area target of my mission. After a minute more of waiting, the FFE came down accurately on where I initially wanted it to fall.

It appears to me, that if the spotter can see both the mission area and the spotting rounds clearly and not be interrupted, there's a good chance for an accurate FFE without further user intervention.

[Baneman]

...

So to answer your question when the spotting rounds come in use the target tool to see if your FO can see where the landed. The smoke / crater from the spotting rounds should be enough to let you find out if the FO had LOS for the spotting rounds. I have the PBEM files for the above scenario so I should be able to verify that my Platoon HQ could see were the spotting rounds landed and the Company CO could not.

Ian

Yes, that's about the only way I can see at the moment, but it does have 2 serious drawbacks.

a) It's a clumsy solution to determine something the player really should know - after all, the game-internals "knows" the answer so it should be possible to let us know in some way.

( Maybe a GUI thing - little green circles or red X's next to the artillery you're calling in - similar to the barrels-heat thing - you need more greens than reds or it's off target. )

If/When more than one barrage is falling ( yours or theirs ) and/or spotting rounds for other nearby fire ... how the heck are you going to know which impacts to check against ?

[A Canadian Cat]

Yes, that's about the only way I can see at the moment, but it does have 2 serious drawbacks.

a) It's a clumsy solution to determine something the player really should know - after all, the game-internals "knows" the answer so it should be possible to let us know in some way.

( Maybe a GUI thing - little green circles or red X's next to the artillery you're calling in - similar to the barrels-heat thing - you need more greens than reds or it's off target. )

If/When more than one barrage is falling ( yours or theirs ) and/or spotting rounds for other nearby fire ... how the heck are you going to know which impacts to check against ?

Good points. Perhaps it is just not realistic to be calling fire when you can see so little of the area around your target. I can see the conversation now:

FO: Are you guys there? When am I going to get spotting rounds?

Battery: What are you talking about? We fired spotting rounds two minutes ago.

FO: No one knows where the spotting rounds landed. What do we do now?

[mjkerner]

Since seeing how good arty was against me I have been playing with more of it than I did in the CM1x games. From my experience here is what I think I have seen and thus learned:

They need to have and maintain LOS to the target and ideally some more so they can see errant spotting rounds. They need to be happy and calm (by that I mean *not* taking fire on their position) during the receiving and spotting phase. Once they call for the FFE it does not matter any more.

In one game against the AI I had a FO call for a barrage from a nice safe place to try to stop an armoured assault. They were safe during the receiving and spotting. They called for FFE just a few moments before the protecting screen of infantry collapsed and they had to run, took fire and lost the FO officer. The barrage seemed to go fine but was to late to save the position. The shells kept falling for several minutes even after what was left of the FO team and his infantry screen were pushed back into the woods.

In a different game I was calling some fire on a possible enemy approach from the opposite side of a town. My Company CO (who was making the call) had key hole LOS between buildings to the woods where I wanted the fire to land. Trouble was he could see just bits and pieces of the area not the whole target area and certainly he did not have good visibility around the target area. The spotting rounds were long and to the left. I watched them land way off. I guess I could have checked with the targeting tool to see if he could see where they landed. I believe that he did not see them land because after several spotting rounds - which were all off target the FFE was called and the full barrage came down on the long and to the left location near where the spotting rounds landed. I could have called it off but since my fire was speculative anyway I let it go.

At the same time one of the platoon HQs called in fire from a different battery on another suspected enemy approach location. This time the HQ had much better LOS and after the spotting rounds came in the barrage started and was right on target. These two calls were simultaneous and the barrages started at about the same time. It was interesting to see the rounds for one inside the green circle and the rounds for the other a ways long and left from the circle. Ian

God, I love this game!

[Wildman]

Good points. Perhaps it is just not realistic to be calling fire when you can see so little of the area around your target. I can see the conversation now:

FO: Are you guys there? When am I going to get spotting rounds?

Battery: What are you talking about? We fired spotting rounds two minutes ago.

FO: No one knows where the spotting rounds landed. What do we do now?

I did read a book "Company Commander" and they discussed calling in artillery at night based on sound. One platoon commander called the arty in and a platoon sergeant was calling in corrections based on the "sound" of the arty shells. They did this on two seperate nights when they heard an engine sounds that they thought was a tank coming into their positions on the Sigfried line.

[Wego McPbem]

Ians observations fit with what I've seen so far. I've stopped calling fire missions where the observer doesn't have a decent view of the area around where I want to hit unless I'm really desperate. Los to a tiny area just isn't good enough, usually results in the arty being way off.

[Offshoot]

To add another question to the mix, is there a limit on the number of simultaneous fire missions a single observer can direct and/or does adding more than one affect the accuracy or timing of them? In one scenario I had a very busy veteran FO but I did wonder if I should share the work around with less experienced spotters.

[gunnergoz]

I try to use the actual artillery FO officer (if there is one in the scenario) as he seems to yield the best results if properly placed with good LOS on the target. Alternately I use my senior officer on the field (company CO) or if need be the weapons platoon (or weapons company) commander. I check them all out and the one with the shortest time to call in fire is usually the one with the best skills anyway and I use that one.

And no, they do not seem to suffer from multi-tasking; I've seen one artillery FO manage 4 separate fires at one time, with no problem.

[GreenAsJade]

Surely the whole point of spotting rounds is so that the FO can call for FFE if they are in the right place.

If the game has the arty go to FFE while the FO can't see spotting rounds _and_ has C&C, then this is broken, right?

If the FO doesn't have C&C I can imagine a scenario where the arty says "OK, we didn't hear so we'll fire anyhow".

Note that the manual specifically says that if there is significant downtime of C&C then the barrage may cancel. I guess if the FO dies in the minute before the FFE is due, then this isn't "significant downtime".

If the FFE goes offtarget even if the FO has LOS and is calm to the target, but doesn't see the spotting rounds, then what's the point of the FO having LOS?

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

(BTW, I just had a successful barage where the FO called it in then left his post halftway through "spotting". He called FFE while wandering through the woods to his next mission! )

GaJ

[TrailApe]

FO: Are you guys there? When am I going to get spotting rounds?

Battery: What are you talking about? We fired spotting rounds two minutes ago.

FO: No one knows where the spotting rounds landed. What do we do now?

All this sort of stuff is covered in the drills that the FOO's have been taught. Not sure the exact drill they had then, but nowaday's the observer, if they were not sure of the fall of shot, would do a number of things - get the OP assistant to check the grid and check it was sent and recieved correctly while at the same time trying to get any clues like smoke, noise etc for where it might have landed. Part of the sequence of engaging the target would have been an appreciation (using the map) of the target area - any deep valleys, soft ground or any other factors that obscure LOS onto the adjusting round, so there should be enough data then to either

a) ask for the same again (called 'repeat' ie same method fired on the same data). This is usually the best and safest option

order a bold correction (drop left/right 800). This is the one that can be disastrous if it's wrong or really satisfying if you get it correct.

If you use (a), you will be ensuring that they report 'splash' ie 5 seconds before the shell impacts (the CP will know the Time of Flight) the CP comes up 'Splash, over' This gives the whole OP team a good focus and the FOO will have everybody available looking out on different arcs for the impact (imagine a foxhole with a bunch of Meerkats looking out).

Nightmare scenario is when even after the second adjusting round you are still non the wiser. You then go to ( and just hope, or perhaps try using smoke - not ideal.

Remember Artillery is an area weapon, so if you bring it within 500m of your troops you have an extremely good chance to see lots of little red crosses on you pixeltruppen – esp with the higher calibres.

[womble]

Remember Artillery is an area weapon, so if you bring it within 500m of your troops you have an extremely good chance to see lots of little red crosses on you pixeltruppen – esp with the higher calibres.

That does seem to suggest that arty isn't necessarily going to be of much use on many maps. So far (and I'm sure this will change), in the game, if I've got good LOS on the general target area, I'm fairly happy to drop 105mm or less within 100m of my troops, and haven't suffered any blue-on-blues that I've noticed, even from spotting rounds.

Oo, I just remembered something. If you make an adjustment to a falling barrage, I think it always goes where you put it, so a partial workaround might be to adjust once you're firing for effect. The first rounds will be wasted, and the ones already in-flight too, but if you've a long barrage, it's possibly worthwhile to move it rather than cancel and re-call. You won't have to wait as long, and don't, I think, risk the entire barrage dropping in empty fields.

[A Canadian Cat]

All this sort of stuff is covered in the drills that the FOO's have been taught. <snip>

That sounds quite reasonable and makes perfect sense - I was just trying to be funny:)

[A Canadian Cat]

(BTW, I just had a successful barage where the FO called it in then left his post halftway through "spotting". He called FFE while wandering through the woods to his next mission! )

GaJ

LOL - he must have said to himself "that's close enough"

[A Canadian Cat]

Surely the whole point of spotting rounds is so that the FO can call for FFE if they are in the right place.

If the game has the arty go to FFE while the FO can't see spotting rounds _and_ has C&C, then this is broken, right?<snip>

Sounds broken to me. Not sure what the priority should be though.

[A Canadian Cat]

Oo, I just remembered something. If you make an adjustment to a falling barrage, I think it always goes where you put it, so a partial workaround might be to adjust once you're firing for effect. The first rounds will be wasted, and the ones already in-flight too, but if you've a long barrage, it's possibly worthwhile to move it rather than cancel and re-call. You won't have to wait as long, and don't, I think, risk the entire barrage dropping in empty fields.

Interesting idea - sounds like it could work. If anyone can try it let us know (in my PBEM game the off target barrage is over so I cannot try right now). Sounds pretty gamey though.

[StellarRat]

Well there is one known bug with artillery now. BFC acknowledges it and says it will be fixed.

I'm with the camp that says if the FO can't see the last spotting round he shouldn't call FFE, but that doesn't seem to be how its coded and BFC has been mum on the issue.

One thing I've noticed is the last spotting round is not an indication of where the FFE will land. The FO seems to make one more adjustment from it when FFE is called, so FFE can be dead on even if the last spot was quite a way off target.