AmmoSgt
Posts: 1002
Joined: 10/21/2000
From: Redstone Arsenal Al
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Dedicated Arty in RL terms depends on the nation and the national doctrine .. in most Armies it is the arty assigned to the unit .at what ever level you are talking about .. (ie organic Bn arty is dedicated to that Bn) and will fire in support of that Bn's maneuver or mission .. In the US Army and to some lesser degree in the British Army it is arty that is prioritized to support the mission ... however in the US Army WW2 any unengaged Arty could and would directly respond to any request for a fire mission without having to check with anybody, being basically free from having to obtain permission from it's regular chain of command.. unengaged would be interpetted in this case, as having more ammo on hand than required for any dedicated preplanned assigned shoot that was required to happen at an assigned time .. this held true at Batallion , Regimental/Brigade, Divisional, and even at Corp levels...
Nations with strong local command propriatory doctrines tended not to use one regiments arty to fire in support of another regiments maneuver ..This was about the best most nations could do considering supply and comunications resrictions .. so in those cases dedicated would be just the organic unit arty and possibily any assigned independant arty formations ..
For the Brits more flexibility with some cross assignmennts from arty within the next higher echelon would be the norm and with some possibility of two echelons up .. with the Russians strict control , with everything preassigned and pretty much preploted ..
With the US, a platoon from Easy company 506th Regt 101 Div could have 240mm on call from V Corp and 155 from 3rd Armor on call and end up getting all the regimental 105's from 84th Div if needed as well as having access to a Cab Rank ( aircraft in the air waiting to be called for support) of 8 P-47s and 4 B-26 Invaders, or whatever was up that day , numbers and type varying depending , on call.. the Platoon leader would be given a list of call signs as part of his mission briefing and if any units got diverted, additional units would be assigned to replace them on the fly .. bear in mind all US divisions had 8 to 10 airborne FO's in O-1's assigned as organic , so each BN usually had one on call( and farmed out the lead maneuver element) to assist in calling arty and airstrikes if the weather and time of day permited. All of the above could and was considered dedicated by US doctrine. US communications and doctrine usually allowed Corp 240mm and 8 inch to respond faster in support of a company, than say, German 120mm mortars at Battalion could respond to a German Company assigned to that Batallion. US time being 2-3 minutes on an average day and German times being 4-5 minutes on a good day for the Bn's 120mm , and about 12 minutes for Div Arty. Add to all this that the US was the only Army with a Time on Target concept .. and when arty support was called, as much arty as could be called would coordinate their firing times so the shells all fall at about the same time reducing any warning or reaction time .. couple that with the US's monoploy on VT (proximity fuses )from about sept 44 till the end of WW2 giving typical Arty about a 3-10 fold effectiveness against soft targets .
[ December 01, 2001: Message edited by: AmmoSgt ]
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"For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary periods, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which
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Define "dedicated artillery" - 
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