View Single Post
  #10  
Old February 3rd, 2006, 12:53 PM

Cameronius Cameronius is offline
Corporal
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: London, Canada
Posts: 194
Thanks: 13
Thanked 5 Times in 5 Posts
Cameronius is on a distinguished road
Default Re: Improvement proposal I - OP fire draining

Artur,
Your efforts and persuasiveness are admirable, however I think that the kind of control over opfire you are advocating simply does not exsist in a real battlefeild situation. Even a tank platoon commander has a limited number of decisions that he can make in the span of two minutes. He most likely cannot use the company radio net freely because of radio discipline proceedures. If he can, he still has his tank to command and a different line of sight from the rest of the platoon. If a tank platoon commander has some chance of exercising this control, the company commander and the combat team commander have none. What about units that are out of contact? And MG teams and AT teams that don't even have a radio? How can they get orders to change target priority? How can the combat team commander know that the AT teams are smoke blind when all he is hearing on the net is contacts from tanks. From my experience a typical combat team only has two radio nets. One for the artillery and one for everyone else. In a Canadian combat team under contact the armour units dominate the net and other units can't get a word in edgewise. I assume other countries are the same. Modern burst transmitters can send more messages across the same net in less time but must still be received and understood. Two minutes is not enough time for the CO to make all of these decisions. In reality any commander trains his troops as best he can, lays down standard operating proceedures and goes into battle relying on his troops training and common sense, making only crucial decisions at key times hoping that they filter down in time to make a difference.
Another interesting aspect of this topic is how training and experience will effect a units opfiring. An inexperienced unit can be likely to fire at anything that moves or not fire at anything at all. A more experienced unit will be more selective about their targets but may opt to ignore an order from over the radio bc they know their CO does not have eyes on target and they believe the order to be wrong. I'd rather be alive and court marshalled than buried with the VC.
I for one think that only a small change is required or even none at all.
__________________
Double tap, Dash, Down, Crawl, Observe, Locate the Enemy and Return Fire.
Reply With Quote