Realistic Artillery Management by a FOO

[Marek_Tucan]

Some more lazy thoughts about arty...
What about "house rules" allowing just offboard arty and mortars to attack reverse slopes, limiting onboard guns to "direct LOS" only fire? Would be of course complicated, you'd have (prior to setting target) to check manually (Z key) whether the target is in LOS, but OTOH you'd have then to use field and infantry guns in the way they were designed to, ie place them on a place with good field of fire and then blast away... Would apply to rockets most likely as well, in fact (atleast modern) rocket artillery has usually huge dead ground (min. range of MLRS is about 10 km, ie 200 hexes, minimal range of BM-21 less - 1500 m (30 hexes) and 500m for direct fire).
Opinions?

[Cross]

Originally Posted by Marek_Tucan

Some more lazy thoughts about arty...
What about "house rules" allowing just offboard arty and mortars to attack reverse slopes, limiting onboard guns to "direct LOS" only fire? Would be of course complicated, you'd have (prior to setting target) to check manually (Z key) whether the target is in LOS, but OTOH you'd have then to use field and infantry guns in the way they were designed to, ie place them on a place with good field of fire and then blast away... Would apply to rockets most likely as well, in fact (atleast modern) rocket artillery has usually huge dead ground (min. range of MLRS is about 10 km, ie 200 hexes, minimal range of BM-21 less - 1500 m (30 hexes) and 500m for direct fire).
Opinions?

This will force players to use off-board artillery for indirect fire; the good thing about this is that it forces players to target by the troop (instead of individual guns) which is more realistic.

Apart from that, you will be introducing - to many - the joyous art of direct fire howitzers
which I love to use, but prefer to use when there's decent visibility and hills.

It's actually not a bad idea; and it's simple, and will no doubt address some of the concerns of those who want to limit artillery.

But why shouldn't I be able to use light artillery for indirect fire on a 7KM by 7KM map?

It's good to have on map artillery, because it forces players to think about a front line and take break-throughs seriously. It helps model the real concern that Battalions usually had about protecting their rear echelon units.

One of my opponents suggested that you shouldn't be able to use on map arty for indirect fire if you move it. I understand that guns have to be sighted in, but guns in the RA always had a second site ready to move to, when needed. Tough to model these details.

cheers,
Cross

[Marek_Tucan]

Sorry for delay, got a bit of webus interruptus here over the weekend, seems that my ratties have tried whether the ADSL cable is edible

Originally Posted by Cross

This will force players to use off-board artillery for indirect fire; the good thing about this is that it forces players to target by the troop (instead of individual guns) which is more realistic.

Apart from that, you will be introducing - to many - the joyous art of direct fire howitzers
which I love to use, but prefer to use when there's decent visibility and hills.

Was not thinking as much about restricting the guns to "gun shoots where it sees only" but "where flat trajectory allows", ie they may be called by another unit (or may fire beyond their visibility), but only to places with direct LOS.

It's actually not a bad idea; and it's simple, and will no doubt address some of the concerns of those who want to limit artillery.

It requires manual checking with the guns, that is a bother, but needed forit to work...

But why shouldn't I be able to use light artillery for indirect fire on a 7KM by 7KM map?

That's of course the "grey area" But as most onboard light guns (atleast in WW2) are fixed charge guns (even if capable of high elevations), they'd have quite a problem getting at the reverse slopes even if they were low-velocity and high-elevation (as leIG-18) - I always got the impression that the high elev was intended to be used rather for direct fire in mountains etc. than to allow wildly inaccurate indirect fire. Would require further research and won't concern too many weapons I think. Or the rule might be altered to "whatever has "howitzer" in its spec may dire reverse slope missions, whatever is gun has to fire only where the direct trajectory allows".

It's good to have on map artillery, because it forces players to think about a front line and take break-throughs seriously. It helps model the real concern that Battalions usually had about protecting their rear echelon units.

This would also force player to think about another historical matter - that "infantry escort" field guns (like French 75 or leIG or Russian 76mm shorties) had to be moved relatively close behind the infantry and hunt for places with good fields of fire rather than be sitting in a battery in a wood back behind the lines and shelling whatever spot the commander wants them to...
And it would also show why the mortars became so darn popular - because they do not need to be in the line of fire (old truism that if the enemy is in range, so are you).

One of my opponents suggested that you shouldn't be able to use on map arty for indirect fire if you move it. I understand that guns have to be sighted in, but guns in the RA always had a second site ready to move to, when needed. Tough to model these details.

cheers,
Cross

Possible via house rules (of course, depending on player honesty) For example re. the second site an agreement might be made that each player chooses alternative site for each of his indirect arty units and may fire indirect missions only from these two, or direct from anywhere else.

Thanks for your reply, at the very least now I know the idea is not entirely insane. Just mildly so

[PanzerBob]

IMHO these ideas have merit, implementation either by rules, or hardwiring (Not sure if that would feasible) is the problem. The other thing that comes to mind is what kind of slope does it have to be before the reverse slope is a problem?

As far as the "shorties" go, with the new arty routines getting those guns more forward maybe a more effective way to utilize them, especially against mobile forces. If I'm not mistaken this was how they used at certain times anyway.

Bob out

[Marek_Tucan]

[quote=PanzerBob;664021]IMHO these ideas have merit, implementation either by rules, or hardwiring (Not sure if that would feasible) is the problem.
[quote]
Not even thinking about hardwiring

The other thing that comes to mind is what kind of slope does it have to be before the reverse slope is a problem?

Here I have to frankly admit that I do not know One of the reasons why I posted the idea here in fact

[Marek_Tucan]

Okay, a bit o' good ole' thread necromancy.

The thoughts were still nibbling at me and having too little imagination, I called in the physics to my aid. What did I end up with is kinda Excel-based ballistic calculator. You put in a gun you want, set up the gun at its max range settings (45°or so elevation) and tweak ballistic coefficient until your and theroretical max range agree. Then you can play with angles.

The recults are shown in three graphs. One for "long range arty", reaching up to 80 km, and two "SP-scale" reaching to 10 km (200 hexes). You can even set up terrain of your choice there

Tried to factor in even changing air density, but the formulae are still rather "approximate", not least because not only air density changes with altitude, but also the aerodynamic coefficient changes with speed. But what the hell, it is "accurate enough" for my purposes. If you want to play a bit with it, you have it here

[Marek_Tucan]

Help! Where did the "Edit" button go?

Anyway found out I should not post such things when I'm already half asleep - the columns got messed up a bit. Should be OK now.