Battlefield Support Missiles and Rockets?

[Suhiir]

Unorthodox?

I've made a Daisy Cutter delivered via C-130.

That count?

[thatguy96]

Heh, yeah, I did that. Did you create a weapon for it? I created an ammo carrier unit with crew set to zero so you could use it as intended (kinda maybe hehe).

I've created psyops loudspeakers, CS grenades, I tried leaflet bombs (ends up being the same as CS cluster bombs, so I just stuck with those, I could add them in later if I wanted heh), and other things I'll likely think of. Its fun to see what you can get away with if you accept certain game realities. Oh yeah, WP marking rockets, manually emplaced booby traps, and air dropped sensors.

[PlasmaKrab]

Sorry for jumping the thread late, not much online access these days...
But plenty of time to sort out OOBs, so I tried this one out not long ago.
I modded FROG-7 and SS-21 offmap batteries into the Algerian OOB for testing both end of the accuracy range.
Values were as follows: range according to formula for potential further use, HEK=HEP=255, WHS according to aircraft bomb ratings, accuracy 1 and 255 respectively.

Debriefing:
-Accuracy has really NO influence. None. Same CEP for both models. I reasoned that systems of that ilk had quite short unsupported service lifes so were phased out quickly, so one could pretty much time the ingame service dates with that of FO units of suitable technology level.
Even then, I haven't found the change in accuracy caused by top-notch FOs (including allied para OPs from OOB 13...) to be worth the bother and reflective of the accuracy of modern missiles.
In both cases, FROGs are basically in the ballpark (or out of it, if you prefer), but the 50m CEP of the Russian SSMs of the last 20+ years are nowhere to be found.

-HE effects are unimpressive at best. I tested the weapons first against assorted clusters of entrenched troops, and the lethatlity was close to zero. Effects on morale were better, routing a wide zone of good troops where it would have been taken several batteries of medium arty for the same effect.
Against softer opponents, it has to be mentioned that I happened to wipe out whole squads of moving troops regulary, but I still don't consider that worth the overall bother and potential tactical incoherences.

-I included them also as teh ultimate CB units, but haven't manageed to test that yet. In the case of backwater FROG/Scud users, the experience levels won't even raise the question in any case.
I have kept the ATACMS in the Cold War Mod in any case, and it turns out to be of less use as a regular MLRS latoon at game levels.

-I have kept them as 93-code offmap MRL batteries (can't remember the class right now), with 2 launchers/weapon slots per unit (that's for Soviet stuff with doctrinal 4-launcher battalions), ROF=1 and 1 or 2 TEL loadout depending on the estimated reload-refire time (anything over 2-3 minutes gets zilch available reloads, same for regular MRLs as far as I'm concerned).
Which means that you end with 2 to 4 missiles per battery, tops.

To sum it up, the exercise is rather pointless in usual combat terms, but you can include thm in custom OOBs where room allows, being understood they are for scenario use only. A specific text file could be interesting to have in that case.

[Suhiir]

My Daisy Cutter is aircraft delivered, has basically no accuracy, has rather limited effects on anything but soft targets in the open.
But it's fun !

WC=11, Acc=1, WepS=2, WarS=255, HEP=20, HEK=255

[thatguy96]

Suhiir said:
My Daisy Cutter is aircraft delivered, has basically no accuracy, has rather limited effects on anything but soft targets in the open.
But it's fun !

WC=11, Acc=1, WepS=2, WarS=255, HEP=20, HEK=255

Yeah, I thought about the "big bomb" weapon option, but with the seperation of OOBs for my pack, I had more free unit classes again to fool around with such things. So I went with an option that would allow the use of the game's paradrop mechanic.

[Suhiir]

thatguy96 said:

Yeah, I thought about the "big bomb" weapon option, but with the seperation of OOBs for my pack, I had more free unit classes again to fool around with such things. So I went with an option that would allow the use of the game's paradrop mechanic.

Oh???
You're what, paradropping your vehicle/bomb?
How do you get it to go off?

Love the idea, as paradrops are usually more accurate then bombers seem to be.

[PlasmaKrab]

thatguy96 said:
Yeah, I thought about the "big bomb" weapon option, but with the seperation of OOBs for my pack, I had more free unit classes again to fool around with such things. So I went with an option that would allow the use of the game's paradrop mechanic.

Remids me of something...
Is that the one where you stuff a weakling ammo carrier into a transport plane and drop it to die, therefore exploding?
Best I can remember (Listy's experiments waaay back) it turned out to be not that reliable, but maybe you can tweak that somehow.

[thatguy96]

I found that you can get a reliable explosion if you set the crew to 0. Otherwise the explosion is extremely unreliable. However, the process by which you use it in game gets a little more complicated. Since a 0 crew unit is technically destroyed at game start, you need to use the "next unit" function during deploy to find it, then load it into the cargo plane. After that its okay because the game doesn't register it as in play until it lands, at which point it registers it as destroyed and you get the ammo explosion.

Listy was like the godfather of all these kinds of things heh. I drew a lot of inspiration from his UK OOB updates, and liberally "borrowed" concepts like his CS gas grenades and assorted rifles weapon, though I tuned my own versions. I did not, however, look into investigating his tracked minelayer or multi part ship concepts (One section LCS, one section area SAM, etc).

Suhiir said:
Oh???
You're what, paradropping your vehicle/bomb?
How do you get it to go off?

Love the idea, as paradrops are usually more accurate then bombers seem to be.

I have two "weapon" units in my USAF OOB. Both the M121 and BLU-82/B are ammo carrier class units (Class 56). Ammo carrier units when destroyed have a major explosion (with serious splash damage). So following the steps above I created these "bomb" units (X3ed out in the OOB, though you will seem them in the ammo carrier formation) that can be paradropped in game.

The process is pretty inaccurate, as you still have to assume the plane will go where you tell it too, and its really more a flavor thing than a serious game mechanic. It could be a cool start a scenario right. I was actually thinking of playing a game with one or two and seeing whether or not you got a serious benefit from the whole thing. Also note that the destroyed unit would count against you in the final tally.

[Marcello]

PlasmaKrab said:

Debriefing:
-Accuracy has really NO influence.

No surprise.

PlasmaKrab said:

Even then, I haven't found the change in accuracy caused by top-notch FOs (including allied para OPs from OOB 13...) to be worth the bother and reflective of the accuracy of modern missiles.

That's interesting. But then again in reality for everybody
save maybe the US several years down the road guided artillery rounds and such are going to be a limited availability weapon, while the FOs give accuracy boost to any weapon with any ammo supply available. So maybe accuracy in the game was not fully jacked up to "realistic" levels to compensate for that.

PlasmaKrab said:
In both cases, FROGs are basically in the ballpark (or out of it, if you prefer), but the 50m CEP of the Russian SSMs of the last 20+ years are nowhere to be found.

I always thought that FROG and similar weapons were about the max you could milk from this game engine that were still somewhat realistic.

[Suhiir]

Yeah, that's what I wanted my Daisy Cutter for - a scenario start weapon - ye olde instant LZ thing.