Indirect fire accuracy question

[Marcello]

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?

[PlasmaKrab]

Accuracy is much influenced by experience and morale, yes. I don't know what would happen with high-acc "classical" artillery exactly.

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

[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?

[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.

[JaM]

Easiest way is make ATGM or better PGM class weapon and add it to FO unit.

[Marcello]

"Would offmap arty units accept missile weapons, the rounds being then treated as TA missiles? Would the fire mission call process allow for this?"

I doubt that missiles would work, although it may be worth to do the experiment to see what happens.IIRC you cannot fire HEAT rounds with a Vasilek in indirect fire mode.It seems that indirect fire is limited to HE,CM and smoke.

[Marcello]

"Easiest way is make ATGM or better PGM class weapon and add it to FO unit."

Can you put a class 17 weapon in a ground unit?

[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

[JaM]

Why not?