IronMikeGolf
Posts: 899
Joined: 3/19/2010 Status: offline
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Disclaimer: what follows is based upon my knowledge and experience of US Army doctrine from the early 80's through mid 90's. Since we wear hats at different levels of command simultaneously when playing FPRS, it can be challenging to tell where the combined knowledge of the fight at all those levels ends and where gimmicks of the game engine begin. Here's an example: I have a PACT tank company or MRC halted while breaching an obstacle. The obstacle/minefield is covered by direct fire and the breaching unit is being attritted. If I can finish it off, the obstacle/minefield will remain unbreached. This is a good opportunity to use ICM. I've already fired some ICM missions, so I page through my firing batteries to see who has ammo, select that battery and order the barrage. At first blush, all seems fine. I am just wearing some more hats: Company Fire Support Team, maneuver Bn Fire Support Officer (maybe), direct support Arty Bn command post (on the DS Bn FO net and that's a maybe), and Firing Battery FDC. Just another mission. Except, the relationships between maneuver units and fire support is, I think, over simplified and results in missions being fired too quickly, in some cases. Direct Support: maneuver commander controls the supporting fires. Arty Bns support Brigades. Batteries support maneuver (armor and infantry) battalions. General Support: fire support commander controls the arty fires. This could be the art bn that supports a maneuver brigade that is currently in reserve or could be a corps level asset parceled out to a division. General Support Reinforcing: fire support commander controls the reinforcing fires. These are tubes added to another fire mission. Dedicated Battery: this is what is called "Direct Support" in the game (once it gets fixed). The point I am making is that the response time for a fire mission depends a lot on the relationship between who's calling the mission and who's firing it. For this time period (mid to late 80's), a mission being fired by a battery in direct support of another maneuver battalion takes longer than the battery in direct support. And that takes longer than the maneuver bn's mortar plt. To model this more accurately, we'd need to be able to tag a battery as supporting a specific line battalion and then adjust response times. Also, each battery has an FDC. It's not at the Arty Bn CP. What does the sim do when the FDC tracks are destroyed? Does it take longer for a battery to fire a mission?
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Jeff Sua Sponte
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