byron13
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Joined: 7/27/2001
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"On the way" is yelled by a U.S. tank gunner before squeezing off a round. This lets the TC and loader know that they shouldn't be trying to read the serial number off the breech block at that time. As such, don't see it being used in the game.
With respect to U.S. arty fire missions - at least for spotting rounds - the battery would announce "Shot, over" on the radio when the round was fired, and the FIST or other spotter would reply with "Shot, out." Just before the round was timed to land, the battery would announce "Splash, over," to which the FIST would reply "Splash, out." Thus, the FIST knew when to look for the round. Don't recall if there was any special lingo when you requested fire for effect. So this probably isn't of much use, either.
As for contact reports, I guess Golf 33 is right that it depends what level of command you want the player to consider himself at. At the brigade level, you're obviously only going to hear what battalion pushes up, and it won't be dramatic. I like the idea of getting the gut-wrenching "Contact!" with little else; kind of adds to the tension and immersion. Anyway, "Contact," "Contact north" or "Contact left" is probably going to be yelled by a platoon leader over the company net. My guess is that, despite SOP, you're not going to get a call sign, detailed location, or strength report because he will be too busy commanding his own tank as well as the platoon - not to mention dodging rounds. SOP had the company commander likewise commanding the company; it was the XO's responsibility to radio this kind of traffic back to battalion. This would probably happen if the XO was properly trailing the company and could see the action. But if he was hotly engaged or was in a position where he could not see the battle, he wouldn't know any more about the battle than what was blathered by the platoon leader. He might be able to send an estimated location within a grid square or two, but nothing about the opposition.
In any event, if you use much more than "Contact," it will be difficult to create all the possible variables in a voice message, unless you just say "enemy tanks/infanty/etc." or "estimated platoon/company/battalion strength." And forget trying to record sound bytes for all the possible locations. I'm thinking it's best to just use "Contact!" in a really frantic voice for chilling effect and to prompt the player to action, and then leave the rest for text messaging.
In the end, I think the sound bytes are better used to prompt the player ala the Close Combat series. It's a way to (i) prompt the player to action, e.g., "awaiting orders," or "we're at waypoint/objective," prompt the player to watch for something, e.g., "______ ingressing," or "incoming," and (iii) apprise the player of the situation/morale of his troops, e.g., "we need to fall back" or "we need more ammo!" Providing usable information will be difficult given the variability of the information, and it may be easier/more appropriate to use text messages.
Possibly one use of contact reports, spot reps, and the like would be to have something like an audio "Red Lion 6, this is Dawg 5, spot report, over" which would announce a text-messaged spot report that could be fairly detailed. It would let the player know to look for the message and what kind of a message it was. Just an idea.
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