Indirect fire accuracy question

[Mobhack]

Marcello said:
Question:what are the main factors influencing indirect fire accuracy in the game? I ask this because my attempts to model Smel'chak and Krasnopol rounds in the older versions by substantially increasing gun accuracy did not appear to achieve anything.For example, it is gun accuracy + experience? Does morale count?

Weapon accuracy is only relvant to direct fire (A/T fires or direct fire HE rounds at a point target). It is entirely irrelevant in indirect fires.

Indirect fire may be helped slightly by firer experience and observer experience, but the main thing affecting it is an observer controlling that fire mission with "eyes on" the impact area (LOS to the initial target hex, before any drift is calculated).

Real arty observers will be better at controlling the fire than any "ordinary Joe". But an ordinary Joe with "eyes on" is much better at getting rounds on target than a real observer hidden on the base line plotting for "map fire" - even if the ordinary Joe has a longer delay calling the fire mission.

When the spotting unit has "eyes on" then the initial drift of the mean point of impact (MPI) off the initially plotted MPI hex will be less and then the individual rounds will scatter less around the MPI hex.

Blind map fire is not very accurate, since both the MPI and the individual rounds will have more scatter, though any plotted in turn 0 as pre-game bombardment will have less scatter (MPI and individual rounds). Indirect fire on a registered target (gold spot) will arrive faster, and MPI will drift slightly less even if fired "blind".

Best indirect accuracy would therefore be a skilled FOO unit with eyes on (LOS to) the target hex and the target hex being a pre-registered target (gold spot).

A firer unit with high skill would assist slightly as well, but the FOO situation is far more important than the firing battery's skill level, which in the main affects call-for-fire response time, as does the observer's skill level and his FOO training (if any).


Cheers
Andy

[PlasmaKrab]

Andy,

First, thanks for the explanation!

Then, things being so, how do you represent smart artillery rounds?

Would offmap arty units accept missile weapons, the rounds being then treated as TA missiles? Would the fire mission call process allow for this?
What about the STRIX mortar rounds f.e.? In the game OOBs it is dealt with as a high-acc gun weapon with AP ammo. Does it indicate that this method has some points for itself, or is it only useful for direct fire?

[Mobhack]

PlasmaKrab said:
Andy,

First, thanks for the explanation!

Then, things being so, how do you represent smart artillery rounds?

Would offmap arty units accept missile weapons, the rounds being then treated as TA missiles? Would the fire mission call process allow for this?
What about the STRIX mortar rounds f.e.? In the game OOBs it is dealt with as a high-acc gun weapon with AP ammo. Does it indicate that this method has some points for itself, or is it only useful for direct fire?

There are no guided off map missile rounds, no COPPERHEAD etc.

Yhere is no way to do third-party designated guidance (like lasing for a Hellfire fired from behind a ridge), and no way in the game code base to do this whatsoever. It would need a complete new game engine to do this.


Cheers
Andy

[PlasmaKrab]

Mobhack said:
Yhere is no way to do third-party designated guidance (like lasing for a Hellfire fired from behind a ridge), and no way in the game code base to do this whatsoever. It would need a complete new game engine to do this.

I had guessed so far, otherwise I reckon there would have already been plenty and not me asking silly questions!

I agree that there can be no third-party targetting (alas, this is a big part of modern warfare, but I must acknowledge what you said about the game engine, you know best).
But cannot some such weapons be modelled as autonomous? Some are F&F indeed. And anyway the need for a good FO (blind shooting rare and expensive smart rounds? ) could do for the "guy with a laser pointer" third-party thing.
Maybe AP (cluster) ammo can be tweaked so as to be closer from a single-round, high-kill-rate anti-armour seeker?

[Mobhack]

I think that was the way the WRG tabletop modern rules handled SADARM - as extra-effective cluster arty ammo.

SADARM seems to have been one of those 70's projects that dropped by the roadside - I have not heard of it any more anyway. probably on cost-effectiveness (why use this round that costs 10 or 20 times a regular DPICM round, for maybe 3 times the individual effect, and which needs separate storage in the supply chain, training, procurement etc, when we can just fire 3 salvos of the DPICM we have sitting in the ammo bins for the same effectiveness (and it hurts any acompanying infantry as well so is a general-purpose round, which SADARM is not)!

Hmm - SADARM as a cluster munition with next to no HE value (heK 1-2 say), but 3x the AP value??

COPPERHEAD - the problems with this one were the length (it had to be assembled on the gun feed with the rear doors open (not good for NBC!) and indiividually rammed, and as a single round shoot, left the other guns in the battery twiddling thier thumbs (or preparing thier own COPPERHEADS, they took time to assemble). It was not a round with the same envelope as a regular 155mmm to "wham bam" into the breach (unlike the soviet tube launched tank rounds). Additionally, the round had to be fired into the correct "aquisition basket" above the target - a cone in which the seeker could a) aquire the laser and b) correct the trajectory to hit which proved a finnicky process, the round had to be falling steeply, so it was not useful at short ranges unless fired into a very steep up and over trajectory - so howitzers rather than guns, or at the longer range of the piece's range bracket, not too close in. Another problem was the cone's basket needed a rather high altitude for initial aquisition - which could be a problem in northern europe, if the cloud cover was low...

Again - rather than go through the bother of breaking out and assembling COPPERHEADS (they would be unlikely to leave dedicated guns with one up the spout sitting idly by and waiting for the specialist mission) from the ammo vbehicles (and the rounds were a handling problem on the ammo carriers too as they had thier own package size, different from crated 155mm shells and propellant) - just spray the target with the DPICM rounds you have already in the ammo bins of your SPA, as and until the threat is dealt with. Plus - no need for some Joe to actually be in LOS of the target with a laser designator then either.

Yet another reason to can the "specials", most likely, is that DPICM ammo has improved over time. (cluster ammo in our game is generally static, but enough to deal with all modern MBT still, as roof armour is not greatly increased over time, and still remains the weak spot (along with the belly) of modern MBT). DPICM does not need to "aquire" anything, so cares not a fig for weather, cloud base, whether the IR signature is being masked by the fact it is desert at high noon, or what have you. It has a nice simple point contact fuse at the sharp end and that's that. It is treated as a bog-standard shell in the ammo supply chain, no special treatment or molly-coddling required. No laser designator needed either, and cheap enough to fire "blind".

Sure - I could give you COPPERHEAD in some future (non SP) game engine. Kewl! - but most users would likely not use them once they realised the delay required till the gun was ready to shoot.
- Hello Charlie, this is Alpha, fire mission COPPER over..
- Alpha, this is Charlie, preparing COPPER, wait figures two zero, over..
!



Cheers
Andy

[Listy]

Hate to contradict you MOBhack... But:
You can do it in this game, but it gets exensive fast. One of the First experiments I did along with chemical weapons, was a Smart artillery round.

This ONLY works on turn 0.
A no Icon plane carrying CLass 17, Range 255 weapons of the right stats (Vis 40 on the plane and a good FAO will help alot). If you want a troop of guns fireing 2, 3 or 4 rounds at one hex, then you just add another weapon to the plane until you get the right number.
If the plane has crew 0. It arrives before almost all AA fire (A few LR area SAMs are the exeption), lobs the smart shells into the battlefeild, then crashes, and wastes no AA fire.

Not the best way of modding the weapons, but the one that works for the start of a senario. As MOBhack say's not realy pratical for the game as a whole.

EDIT: Just had a thought, maybe make it a bomber class instead that might work better than an attack plane class.

[Marcello]

Note that what I was looking for while attempting to simulate these laser guided rounds was not really a tank killer round but rather substantially more accurate indirect HE fire to be used against bridges, in urban combat scenarios etc.

[PlasmaKrab]

I got your point, Andy!

Now saying that you won't do the Copperhead because it is too unpractical to be used while adding that some better similar rounds are available is no coherent excuse!

Anyway, as you said, the auto-guided rounds (I had the BoNuS particularly in mind) are more easily reproductible as "high-concentration", low-HEK DPICM-like (game's AP) rounds. Actually they tend to have a precise scanning zone (which size? no idea) and some dud rate, which will account for the odd shot falling in the wrong hex and killing no one.

Now that is well done in the game (as in the STRIX-firing AMOS) and can be exploited, though if you have time for some OOB upgrade, seeing such things in more countries would be a nice plus!

Cheers,
Plasma

[JaM]

How many Copperheads have one arty battery? I heard that every M109A6 has one, so FIST will have only 4 those projectiles. FISTs are capable lase lase targets same way as Apaches, one helo fires a missile other lase it, if you fire those rounds with enough interval between them, then you will be able lase target after target and make 4 kills during (in game terms) one turn.The only problem is reaction time,but it is much better representation as invisible aircraft.(what about SAM? they will intercept it...)

[Marcello]

"May I ask you how you tried to model these "smart" rounds and what were the results?"

By setting up copies of the guns in questions (I used G5 and 240mm mortars) and increasing gun accuracy to values of 90 and such and then using them for indirect fire missions, using FOs (after all you need someone to designate the target, they are not GPS) or else.I did not notice any significant improvement over the normal versions, all else being equal.