Artillery Adjustment

[xian]

When adjusting artillery I often find myself wishing that I could change some of the other mission parameters. I imagine myself yelling down the radio things like -"speed it up a bit" or "I need a few more minutes of fire on that target."

It seems to be that it should be possible to change the 'Rate of Fire' and 'Duration' of a fire mission as well as its 'Target'.

Perhaps a sub-menu could be added to the GUI with additional options such as:

Increase duration by:

1 min

2 min

5 min

7 min

Decrease duration by;

1 min

2 min

5 min

Followed by 'rate of fire':

harass

light

medium

heavy

smoke

Is this something other people think might be useful in future versions of the game?

[Erwin]

Sometimes after you call in fire, you really want it delayed some more as units are still not in position etc. It would be great to be able to simply add delay. Can't believe that is not done in RL per being realistic(??)

[Broadsword56]

I don't know whether the ability to delay a fire mission already called in is realistic or not, but from what I recall about these things (in WW II books), those off-map artillery units were kept pretty busy with mission requests all over the place. Since there never seemed to be as much artillery support available as ground units wanted, I'm not sure the artillery would be willing to put your mission "on hold" for a few minutes while other units on other battlefields are requesting fire. It seems to me that if you're not ready to go as planned, you'd either have to cancel the mission or lose your place in the queue while the tubes went on to do other things. OTOH, once you were ready for the mission to commence firing, presumably the artillery would already have all your mission data and would not need to start over with spotting rounds, etc., -- so it ought to be able to fire a bit sooner. Maybe a redleg on the forum could enlighten us...

[YankeeDog]

The other thing to keep in mind is we're talking about a WWII-era radio net here. Vacuum tubes and crystals. And because of the relatively short range of many of the units, communications with Regimental and higher assets would passed through several relays to reach the battery.

So especially for anything bigger than the Company & Battalion mortars, it's going to take some time to relay changes and adjustments up the chain.

Was it possible to adjust an artillery fire after the initial call IRL? Sure. Could "on the fly" changes usually be made quickly and reliably? Not necessarily.

Not that I'm necessarily against additions to how and when you can make adjustment to fire requests. Just noting making adjustments shouldn't be too speedy or reliable.

[Blackcat]

Some changes to the way artillery functions in the game could be justified on the grounds of realism, but my worry would be making that arm even more powerful in the game than it is now. There is a gameplay issue that has to be kept in mind.

[YankeeDog]

I don't think its necessarily even a "gameplay" issue. The "player as God" perspective that CM provides gives a tremendous advantage to the player in plotting artillery strikes that a RL commander just wouldn't have.

At least to a degree, I think some artificial restrictions on how and when the player can call in artillery actually enhances realism, even if it doesn't follow what artillery was technically capable of (but often had difficulty executing) IRL.

[Amizaur]

I would ask for arty spotters being able to target something they don't have a direct LOS to - if they DO have a LOS to a place near by. For example, I see a village, I would like to call a fire mission to the center of the village but I can't... a small building or a single tree blocks the spotter's LOS !! I would like to call a fire mission on the center of tree group, unfortunately I can only target the edge of it

He could also just call a fire mission on a target point he DOES SEE. Then, after observing the first rounds and correcting the fire, there should be no problem to ADJUST the fire misssion 200m in any direction to new target point even if he DOES NOT see it, right ? So let me choose a fire mission to the place I have LOS to. Then let me ADJUST the fire mission for at least a 100-200m - it should not matter then, while adjusting, if I have or not the LOS to the new target point - I only ask the battery to shift the fire xxx meters east or north - I imagine the fire should be still quite accurate... Much more accurate than non-corrected fire.

I think that if a real spotter had a LOS to some point of terrain, he WOULD BE able to see/localise arty rounds falling 30-50m from the point he does see. I mean explosions/smoke/flying dirt can be still observed/felt even if they happen behind a building or behind some trees, or just behind top of the hill.

Spotting rounds should be considered as "observed" by spotter if they fall not more than some distance (50m?) from a point he is able to see (has LOS to).

Come on, he does not have to see DIRECTLY the same 1 m^2 of the _dirt_ that the spotting round hits.

What if the spotting round falls behing a wall, a fence ? Is it counted as "observed" or "not observed" currently in the game ?

And about non-observed fire missions. Why can't I call an arty strike just on map coordinates, to the place I can't see ? In CMx1 those missions were possible, just much less accurate.

What I understand is that the spotter has a map. He localises the needed real target point on the map and then calls a mission on that coordinates, right ? So why can't he call a fire mission based purely on map coordinates, when he doesn't see the target ?

I want HE mission 200m just east of that village, that's all. It would be less accurate, than spotted fire, but should be possible...

Hm, to summarise it:

Let me to call fire missions to the place the spotter can see (like now), but if the fire is observed and accurate, then let me to ADJUST the mission even to a places the spotter does NOT see - if they are in proximity, let's say adjust anywhere in 100-200m radius.

Or even only inside 50m radius ! Let me at least put a fire BEHIND a building, not only in front of it !!

Or

Just LET me call a fire mission to a point that the spotter can't see, if the place is not more than (for example) 50m from a point he CAN see. So calling arty mission possible for target points inside 50m radius circle from another observed point (with a LOS).

And

Spotting rounds should be considered as "observed" when they fall in a proximity (50m?) from a point the spotter has LOS to.

[Animal_Mother]

I used to be in an FDC (early 1990s, 155mm mobile howitzers) and the thought that they could make fire adjustments as quickly as they did with no sort of computers actually impresses me quite a bit. That being said adding duration or delay to a mission after the fact would be pretty simple. The higher level the asset the longer it would take for the request to get through though--they would have more to worry about than just your fire mission--and repeated requests would probably add more & more time.

[Blackcat]

"that they could make fire adjustments as quickly as they did with no sort of computers "

But they did have computers; manual, analog ones - you know slide rules, or perhaps you don't. Great bits of kit and for the purposes of calculation in practice not that much slower than the modern electronic stuff, maybe just a bit more prone to human error. There must be a few old 'uns on this site who remember using slide rules.

[Animal_Mother]

Yes I know about slide rules..never used one. I guess what I really meant was "electronic computers". The ones we had in the early 90s were pretty clunky but at least kept us from having to sit there doing all that math. You just plugged in all the variables & there was your firing solution. I don't know the procedure for doing it with a slide rule though so it's a little hard to make a comparison as far as how much faster one method is than the other.

[Rake]

"There must be a few old 'uns on this site who remember using slide rules.

I still have my old K&E trig slide rule in my work truck... still use it occasionally, too.

I ran a quick volume computation for a concrete placement the other day. The contractor's field engineer (recent graduate) had never seen a slide rule before and was amazed that I was able to calculate the volume to within a tenth of a cubic yard in not much more time than it took him to punch the numbers into his calculator.

Now, could I still do the survey calcs that I used it for in the days before pocket calculators? Not a chance!

[Michael Emrys]

I still have my old K&E trig slide rule in my work truck... still use it occasionally, too.

I got one of those for Christmas my senior year in high school. As I recall, that was the last year I actually used it.

Michael

[sburke]

I got one of those for Christmas my senior year in high school. As I recall, that was the last year I actually used it.

Michael

Let me guess, you hit somebody with it?

Actually remember having a couple, was pretty excited about it at first. Then I went to my first Grateful Dead show. I don't remember what happened to the slide rule after that.

[Michael Emrys]

Let me guess, you hit somebody with it?

No, actually I used it in my physics class.

Actually remember having a couple, was pretty excited about it at first. Then I went to my first Grateful Dead show. I don't remember what happened to the slide rule after that.

Do you remember anything after your first Grateful Dead show?

Michael