Weapons accuracy

[Imp]

One I get caught on reasonably often is using to few units to herd & shoot up routing units as they are an easy kill. 2 squads & a MG can comfortably keep the suppression on a dozen routed units.
However if one suddenly decides its had enough and rallies things can get interesting, my squads are often close & fast moving to keep up so they might kill one of my men & suddenly there is a domino effect as more go enough & now I am in trouble.
When doing this I have learned do not let a nearby high value unit go bang that seems to restore their fighting spirit.

[zovs66]

So I am building a 1987 Polish CG. In the first scenario both sides of air power (its a battalion sized CG). A few turns in much to my surprise (as the scenario designer/editor, I gave the AI a flight of WG fighters, but did not plot any moves, I set them to reinforce and gave them a reaction turn and wanted to see how the AI handled them), well they AI handled them pretty well. In fact in both my turn and the AI turn we both had mistaken air attacks.

The good news is that the AI correctly assessed the 'threat' and put his Fighters to good use, well at least one caused some havoc on my closing in Poles. The AI's other fighter bombed and strafed one of his own. I thought so gleefully, until my Polish pilot attacked my Polish FO Vehicle, lol.

Good great fun!

Here is turn screenshots.

This is the area where the AI sent his two fighters. Note that the VH is where one of the AI's fighter strafed and the section where the D0-PL is where the other AI's fighter bombed.


This is where I did not want my Polish fighter to attack (was suppose to go after some Milan puffs of smoke).

[Suhiir]

Generally speaking I've found that if there's a friendly unit within about 1000m (20 hexes) of an enemy one the friendly target will get hit about as often as the enemy.

I ASSUME this has to do with visibility. Since an aircraft may not "see" the enemy unit and just attacks the one closest to it's designated target that it can "see".

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Generally speaking I've found that if there's a friendly unit within about 1000m (20 hexes) of an enemy one the friendly target will get hit about as often as the enemy.

I ASSUME this has to do with visibility. Since an aircraft may not "see" the enemy unit and just attacks the one closest to it's designated target that it can "see".

DANGER CLOSE is included in the method of engagement when the target is (rounds will impact) within 600 meters of friendly troops for mortar and artillery, 750 meters for naval guns 5-inch and smaller, and 1,000 meters for naval guns larger than 5-inch. For naval 16-inch ICM, danger close is 2,000 meters.

I have not ( yet ) found a definition for Danger Close ( air ) but how much ya wanna bet it's 1000m ?


We have had brief discussions in the past regarding penalties for blue on blue but it would be a PITA to code

[Mobhack]

The search radius for planes is 20 hexes - 1000 metres in other words.

Pilots are not that good at Identification Friend or Foe.

(The Operational Research guys found one halftrack positioned on a hill in the post falaise investigation, so it stood out somewhat. It had been strafed from multiple different directions with strikes from rockets, bombs, 20mm, 50 cal etc found all around it. The OR guys determined that one knocked out halftrack had probably been claimed as a "kill" by at least a dozen pilots, if not more)

They do tend to attack an identified enemy if there is an observer with eyes on to an enemy in that zone, but if they have to search for themselves, everything is fair game to the Air Farce...

Hence, not a good idea to have planes overfly your side on the way to the intended target as then it may pick one of your units as its target for tonight.

So planes should only be vectored onto targets well away from friends, unless you have a dedicated observer with eyes on the target at arrival. And they should not overfly friendlies near the target on approach if you can avoid that.

"Close" air support is relative - it means attacks on things at least a click away from friendlies, preferably more.

In Normandy the UK used "pink" strikes as one way to deconflict air from friends - artillery fired red smoke in a belt 2-3 km deep, planes were allowed to kill any vehicle in one direction and not to attempt strikes whatsovever on the friendly side of the pink line...

[Suhiir]

During Gulf I there were many tanks with multiple hits from coalition air, and undoubtedly reported as a confirmed kill each and every time.

I don't really blame the pilots for this, as Mobhack said, it's hard to be sure of anything from 20,000 ft at 600 MPH.

The USMC relies HEAVILY on air strikes and with an observer the "rule of thumb" is 1 yd per lb. So a 500# bomb within 500yds, a 2000# no closer 2000yds. But unlike the vast majority of pilots those of the USMC do little but ground support. I'm sure USAF A-10 pilots are just as accurate.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

The USMC relies HEAVILY on air strikes and with an observer the "rule of thumb" is 1 yd per lb. So a 500# bomb within 500yds, a 2000# no closer 2000yds.

1 yd per lb.is a good rule of thumb to remember in situations like that though taken to extremes it does not apply. Standing a yard away from an M67 will not brighten your day in a good way

[Imp]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

During Gulf I there were many tanks with multiple hits from coalition air, and undoubtedly reported as a confirmed kill each and every time.

I don't really blame the pilots for this, as Mobhack said, it's hard to be sure of anything from 20,000 ft at 600 MPH.

The USMC relies HEAVILY on air strikes and with an observer the "rule of thumb" is 1 yd per lb. So a 500# bomb within 500yds, a 2000# no closer 2000yds. But unlike the vast majority of pilots those of the USMC do little but ground support. I'm sure USAF A-10 pilots are just as accurate.

The Gulf War actually demonstrated modern guided weapons work brilliantly versus known targets but are not much use if you cannot find your target.
We all saw targeting a window on a building is easy however spotting a dug in camouflaged tank is still very hard hence the one that is poorly concealed gets hit several times.
Translates in game do not move your vehicles if an attack is incoming seek cover the turn before.

[Mobhack]

Or if you suspect air is coming, run some sacrificial trucks around in high speed circles as bait. Might work, if you are into gamey tactics..

[zovs66]

In reality (I don't know about crunchies, i.e. grunts or the infantryman), but us tankers hated and feared jets, we could not shoot at them, and if they came over our ao we would go like mad into trees to hide from them (this was versus our own air in exercises in Germany with MILES equipment on).

Once in the desert we were doing maintenance ('cat napping') on our tank and an Warthog buzzed over the top of us (about 10 feet about us) and I think we all had to change our under garments, you can't hear those things until they are right on top of you, thank God they were on our side, I still can hear the Bbbbburrrpp and know that is 1k or so rounds ripping something to shreds.

Once our Earth Pig (FOO in a modified M113) called in a 'Shake and Bake' and they dropped 2k iron bombs on some Iraqi bunkers and followed that up with gas bombs (we could not use napalm).

Choppers you can shoot, with your 50 cal, but when they are hovering over your tank about 15 to 20 feet up your sure glad they are on your side as they are sending out their rockets of death.

Pretty crazy stuff.