Mortar accuracy when the spotter DOES see the spotting rounds

[Peach Operations]

Hi all,

I've seen some threads about spotters calling FFE when they don't see the spotting rounds -- but what about when they DO see the spotting rounds?

My experience in game has been that -- when the spotter DOES see the spotting rounds -- that my mortars are scary-accurate. Rarely does a point target land outside the targeted tile after FFE is called. When firing at the opposite side of a hedgerow with a linear barrage, most rounds land on the other side.

Even more effective are mortars firing in direct lay, using area fire -- after firing a few rounds, they zero in on the target and are landing right on the hostile squad's head. There's no delay, either, because it's area fire. It's like I'm using guided missiles.

I don't know whether this behavior is intended or not -- but it almost seems too easy. I'm tempted to start designing my battle plans around moving mortars into direct lay positions as the main damage-dealers, but that seems kind of gamey.

Were real life 60/82mm mortars this precise in WW2? I'm asking honestly here -- I have no real life military experience with these things.

[Vanir Ausf B]

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1261629&postcount=25

[Pak40]

From what I've read the 60mm were very accurate if they had direct los and still pretty accurate from an experienced observer.

Read "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge. He was a 60mm mortarman in the Marines. On Okinawa there were some passages where he describes them dropping rounds on small hut or building, a direct hit only took one or two tries. I think this was also featured in the Pacific.

[akd]

There is no reason in the game for observed fire that has been properly adjusted on to target to be inaccurate, but maybe you are saying it feels too precise.

[Peach Operations]

There is no reason in the game for observed fire that has been properly adjusted on to target to be inaccurate, but maybe you are saying it feels too precise.

That is what I am saying.

That said, it sounds like there is a lot of evidence for these weapons being as precise as depicted.

[Redwolf]

From what I've read the 60mm were very accurate if they had direct los and still pretty accurate from an experienced observer.

Read "With the Old Breed" by Eugene Sledge. He was a 60mm mortarman in the Marines. On Okinawa there were some passages where he describes them dropping rounds on small hut or building, a direct hit only took one or two tries. I think this was also featured in the Pacific.

"The coldest winter", a Korea narrative, also mentions mortar sharpshooting. The book is otherwise very down to earth and I don't think the authors is getting carried away. Keep in mind both the mortarmen and the FO learned this in training, and now they do it as a full-time job. They learned the physics behind what they are doing and they get yelled at if they don't get it right. Most were probably pretty impressive at delivering round where they were requested.

I think the reason why some of us are freaked out about mortars in CMBN is that the target side doesn't get enough cover from most kinds of terrain, including foxholes and trenches. 81mm and smaller mortars, no matter how accurate, should have a difficult time against a good number of foxholes. Otherwise why would they have bothered with bigger ones?

[JasonC]

During the actual war, they fired until they had an "over" and an "under" and then just dropped them down the tube. They did not try to fine adjust within about 50 meters of a point target. That should mean 25 yards as a common miss distance, not 4 yards. There is a reason they didn't have a motto of "one round, one kill", and why the practicioner Vanir cited allowed they are not sniper rifles, which did.

Yes, my experience is that they are too precise, and also too accurate, though the latter to a minor degree. The reason some of it is accuracy is previous rounds, being imprecise, would land 20-30 meters off and they'd consider it as good as they were likely to get. Inevitably this means the actual point of aim - center of the fall of shot - is not smack on the intended point target but somewhat off center, typically by something like half the typical error.

All that said, the error is much larger in the range direction than in the deflection (side to side). They should be falling in 50 meter long ovals no more than 20 meters wide, with half the rounds within half those dimensions and all within those dimensions.

FWIW...

[Battlefront.com]

We did some scientific tests internally and found Accuracy to be about right. Precision was not badly off, but we are seeing about lessening it somewhat so the hit pattern is "looser" than it is now. Elliptical pattern seems about right as well, though it is important to note that this has a lot to do with if the fire is coming from off map since distance influences how much the pattern deviates from a circular pattern.

Steve

[Fetchez la Vache]

Do the given wind conditions during a game affect accuracy/precision? IRL I would have thought you'd get a bigger 'elipse' if you have high/gusty high conditions...

[Killkess]

One thing i already wondered about is if the use of "point-target" and "linear target" for all kind off offmap assets. Was it common practice to use this kind of "target-order" expecially for bigger caliber batteries?

Was it comman at all to use 1 or 2 barrels for fire-missions? I was always under the impression that a much greater number of tubes was used.

Maybe we got to much influence from the "CMSF" setting in this case?

[JasonC]

Killkess - it was normal to use 4 tubes minimum for battery shoots (some batteries 6, and 8 in the commonwealth for 25 pdrs), 1 gun was for spotting rounds. Medium mortars might fire by section (2 tubes). Very heavy stuff (8 inch, 240mm howitzer) might also be fired by 1-2 tubes, but even that would be unusual (2 tubes was a full battery for the 240mm howitzer, but that's it).

As for point target etc, the normal commands would be closed sheaf, normal sheaf, or open sheaf. Normal means the guns all fire on the same deflection (angle of fire as you look down from directly above), so the spacing between rounds landing will be the spacing between the gun tubes back at the battery position (subject to scatter etc). Closed means the outermost guns will fire at a slightly "inward" angle to the direction of fire, which may cross their lines of fire over the target, and corresponds (roughly) to "point target" in the game. Open sheaf means the outer guns in the battery fire at slightly diverging angles, to spread the beaten zone wider, for harassment fire at a larger area and the like.

As for linear fire, if the guns at the battery were aligned in line, and a normal sheaf was fired, you'd approximate that. But it was not something you could change on the fly between individual missions, at least not easily. It would require small adjustments to the quadrant (angle of the tube to the horizon) for the guns slightly forward or back of the "center of mass" of the battery.

For rolling barrages, which is when a linear fire pattern was most commonly used, they didn't fiddle with individual gun angles. They just lined the guns up at the spacing they wanted for the shell curtain, and then fired normal sheaf with the same range (quadrant and powder charge). There would still be shot to shot variation in the range, and it could be considerable. Meaning, some rounds landing 50 meters short, and others that long, compared to the intended aim point. Not all the rounds landing right along a hedgerow on the proper side, for instance - that kind of precision was more than the guns themselves were physically capable of. (Each shot involves the powder in the tube burning slightly differently - they are not lasers. With an unchanged point of aim, the shells will emphatically *not* land in the exact same place).

[FkDahl]

In terms of accuracy, I guess those are the numbers the tube is capable of in controlled, gunnery range conditions? All the powder charges are the same temperature ... and the mortar is on firm ground - where it will not dig itself deeper with every round. Maybe that will be modeled in a future Ost Front module, with real Russian Mud ?

[Killkess]

Thanks JasonC for the clarification.

Doenst this show that the current implementation of the off-map support is kinda badly simulated? I also have a bad feeling about the sizes off targeted areas. I cant imagine 2 tubes of Longtoms targeting a 50m² area ordered directly by a squad-leader or Platoon leader. Its feels out of the scope.

Same for air assets. I tend to believe that the more abstracted way of CM1 better reflected tactical reality.

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, it would be nice of the Artillery Support system could prevent players from firing less than full batteries for some Mission types. Harassing Fire, and times when ammo was running low, firing less than a full battery wouldn't be out of the question. But standard missions, it should be all or nothing.

Steve

[JonS]

For rolling barrages, which is when a linear fire pattern was most commonly used, they didn't fiddle with individual gun angles. They just lined the guns up at the spacing they wanted for the shell curtain, and then fired normal sheaf with the same range (quadrant and powder charge).

Maybe those coyboys in the US Field Artillery did it that way, but that isn't even remotely true for the RA.

[Fetchez la Vache]

Well I just had a rather annoying incident with my 105mm off-board arty. Spotter was battalion HQ, Veteran, had been under no fire for entire game, LOS to short linear fire plan. Spotting rounds landed 750m off-target but not in LOS with Spotter (although right on top of some of my men!). FFE then called on the spotting round location. Entire fire plan shot 750m exactly due east of the original plan, in a nice linear pattern mind you. Would have been devastating if they had been on target. :-)

I see the need for some randomness in terms of arty accuracy, but I think a situation such as above is not historically accurate. I was under the impression that spotting rounds were a slow way of bringing artillery onto target, but pretty accurate.

[PLM2]

Anybody had a spotter round land smack dab on top of the spotter? I have

[Fetchez la Vache]

Okay, slight amendment. It appears that at least one tube IS firing on-target! So I think I have a situation where a battery has managed to split it's fire - half on-target and half off-target. I have no idea whether this is a design feature, but it still doesn't seem right.

On the plus side at least my arty is managing to cause some damage amongst the German AT and infantry. :-)