FO's and smoke (Full Version)

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mjpatterson -> FO's and smoke (6/12/2003 7:34:03 AM)

If my FO's have LOS when I "plot" the aty but then before my barrage begins the AI uses smoke and it makes me lose my LOS, are my aty still firing with accuracy or is the smoke "after the fact" affecting my aty? I would guess that since I had LOS when plotting that the smoke wouldn't matter, but I'm still learning, so please post some helpful thoughts!!



Capt. Pixel -> Consistent LOS (6/16/2003 2:13:57 AM)

I'm not really sure, mj. I personally don't tend to use FOs in forward positions, so I don't have any experience with lost LOS, as I never really have it in the first place. ;)

I have noticed that if I use a forward unit, like a scout or platoon leader to call in a [I]continuation[/I] of an existing barrage, that the incoming rounds tend to arrive in a tighter pattern if my calling unit has LOS to the barrage point.

I've never noticed that this affects rockets, though. It seems to me that they still scatter all about, regardless of who calls the plot. :rolleyes:



Vathailos -> Possible means to obtain answer... (6/18/2003 9:19:57 PM)

I've noticed the same circumstances from time to time, you're not alone.

Ideally, we want the FO to be observing the fire they're calling in, as it increases the damage and decreases the diameter of distribution of rounds when they strike (focusing the incoming rounds on target, decreasing the chance of an errant shot hitting friendly troops "danger close").

But often, when I’m calling in arty, if it’s not coming in on a 0.1-0.2 delay, the target moves out of sight, or is obscured by smoke/fog of war.

All’s not lost though, because I think this is how you’ll obtain your answer. Watch the message text. When your rounds finally do start falling, they’ll be preceded by a message about the “spotter”. If the spotter no longer has a Line Of Sight, you’ll read “Spotter has no LOS” in the combat log text. That should let you know if the LOS is still intact (and you’re therefore getting the bonus) or whether you’ve lost it.

Hope that helps.

Forgot an aside for CPT Pixel:

I actually think direct observation by the Spotter (and mine was an F.O. last night) will make even rockets "group" tighter. Out of a salvo of five 21cm rockets, three hit the exact same target hex. This may be a combination of direct observation and the fact that it was a Veteran F.O. Not sure about that yet. But it's the second time I've noticed tight grouping with the aforementioned conditions. Because of your posts about arty, CPT I've rerolled a WWII campaign core force to include F.O.s.

I rush them up with an Infantry AT team on PZ-II b's ASAP in a meeting engagement. I drop the riders off, hide them, and usually reverse-slope the tank nearby.

Using your T-O-T advice, I've at least doubled my artillery effectiveness. Thanks!! :D


~Vath



Belisarius -> Re: Consistent LOS (6/18/2003 9:40:48 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Capt. Pixel
[B]I've never noticed that this affects rockets, though. It seems to me that they still scatter all about, regardless of who calls the plot. :rolleyes: [/B][/QUOTE]

That's in the nature of rockets. A Nebelwerfer or katyusha is not a Tomahawk. ;) The fins are there to make sure that they at least fly in the direction your pointing at, not to ensure accuracy. They scatter, and they scatter a lot.

IME, mortars quickly zeroes in on target in continuing attacks. First rounds may scatter, but the next turns sees most in the target hex. Which may not always be desired, at least not for me. That's why I've started to always have at least on battery of 75mm+ artillery, for that area effect.



K62 -> (6/21/2003 11:07:02 AM)

Why are 50 mm mortars better than 60 mm? The Soviet 50 mm almost always kills half a squad in a single turn. The US 60 mm hardly gets any kills at all.

:confused:



Capt. Pixel -> (6/22/2003 1:23:57 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by K62
[B]Why are 50 mm mortars better than 60 mm? The Soviet 50 mm almost always kills half a squad in a single turn. The US 60 mm hardly gets any kills at all.

:confused: [/B][/QUOTE]

This hasn't been my experience, but then I don't use the 50mm mortars much.

The only reason I could see might be the higher ROF on the 50mm (14 vs 11 for the M19 60mm). The 60mm actually has higher values for Kill/Pen than the 50mm (5 vs 4).

One thing to consider is that you are going to get much more damage barraging a unit that is in Ready stance and Moving than if it's been pinned down. This might explain why, in [I]your[/I] experience, the 50mm is being more effective than the 60mm. Just happenstance and convenient targets of opportunity. :cool:



Vathailos -> (6/23/2003 8:52:15 PM)

Here’s one thing I’ve noticed. Those little mortars tend to wipe out my squads, regardless of stance, at distances of 4 hexes or less. With smaller mortars, and I’ve only noticed because these are the only ones that regularly fire at me from such close ranges (low vis, fog of war, reverse slope, etc.), they will eliminate 5-6 soldiers in a squad regularly from close ranges. Specifically, one section, firing close, does that type of damage to their soft target (typically my dug-in or pinned down squads).

I honestly don’t know if it’s intended, mimicking a “greatly increased” accuracy because of the shortened range, or if there’s a mistake in the code. Your observations are on-target though. Try and notice the range when they’re firing. See if it isn’t short also. I can tell you that the 2-inches hurt as well, at very tight ranges. Seems like every second splash kills a troop!

Captain's correct about "more damage based on stance of target" (that's why machine guns eat up troops on that first volley) as well as the higher damage values on the 60mm's. I wonder if the 60mm's also have a "short range super-kill" power?

Is it coding? Is there some historical reason that a section of smaller mortar tubes has such increased lethality at very close ranges (but not direct fire)?



K62 -> Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (7/3/2003 8:23:03 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gary Tatro
[B] I don't play with rockets. Why? they run out of ammo to quickly so you always have to buy ammo depots or ammo trucks.

I almost never pack all of my artillary into a small area around a ammo dump or ammo trucks because this is just asking for a whopping. Most of your onboard artillary comes with a lot of ammo. Usually more than you are going to need.

I will generally be very liberal with spacing my artillary out. This spreads out my artillary and makes it almost imposible to counter batter fire.
[/B][/QUOTE]

Sorry for digging up an old post, but it made me curious :) And this is a Sticky anyway, isn't it? ;)

Gary, do you mean you usually don't buy ammo depots and ammo trucks? :eek: Or, if you do, how do you use them with such spaced out artillery :confused:



VikingNo2 -> (7/3/2003 1:59:59 PM)

What he means is that his ammo dumps is not where he fires from, he only reloads his arty at them. That way his ammo dump does not become a target;)



Capt. Pixel -> Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (7/4/2003 6:19:11 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by K62
[B]Sorry for digging up an old post, but it made me curious :) And this is a Sticky anyway, isn't it? ;)

Gary, do you mean you usually don't buy ammo depots and ammo trucks? :eek: Or, if you do, how do you use them with such spaced out artillery :confused: [/B][/QUOTE]

I've found that spacing out your artillery is almost as effective as letting the enemy counter-battery. If you're not careful about command control (this is not C&C I'm talking about), you can lose contact with various elements of your artillery corp just because they're too far away from each other. The end result is that you lose the ability to fire your artillery anyway. Just as if you'd been bombarded. The only difference is that they [I]might[/I] come back later.

But - if you space your artillery such that each platoon element is within 3 hexes of the artillery platoon leader, and that leader is within 3 hexes of your leader (A0), you can maintain nearly 100% contact every turn.

The real trick is to move this formation often enough to make it pointless for the enemy to try counter-battery while still maintaining your own command cohesiveness. One trick is to fire the artillery that [I]is[/I] in contact and move the artillery where contact has been lost. You might as well, they're not doing anything else for you.

Clustering your artillery around an ammo dump is suicidal against human players. They won't be able to resist the temptation to pound you senseless. If you feel you have no other alternative, then place your artillery/ammo units along the map edge. At least some of his counter barrage will fall off the map ineffectively. (kind of a cheap trick - but it's available to both players, so... :rolleyes: )

If you're using ammo dumps, place them nearby. Fire your arty, then scoot to the dump, reload and scoot away to a new firing location. But this takes time and uses up turns where you might have been able to fire the battery, so I'd only do this in the longer battles (25+ turns) where ammo supply is a must.

This 'fire - scoot - load - scoot - fire' method is pretty good if you're using rockets. The enemy can't tell if you're reloading from one ammo dump or six ammo dumps, and you can fire a full loadout of rockets every 3-4 turns. (With 6, you get eggrolls)

If you've got enough units, you can rotate through several platoons this way and provide a full volley of nebelwerfers every turn. This is kind of expensive, point-wise, though.

My preference is to use ammo trucks (and/or ammo boxes in H2H, depending on the transporter costs) and move them as a unit with the artillery. Fire once or twice, load up, and move out to a new location. If you've got two arty parks like this, one can be firing while the other is repositioning to it's new location.

As mentioned earlier in this thread, smoke dropping units and smoke fired by vehicles or artillery can be fired behind your lines and further obscure and confuse the enemy as to where the artillery park really is. If you do this enough, your backfield can become such a mess, that he probably won't even bother to target the artillery anymore. :cool:



Mangudai -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (6/9/2004 8:23:09 PM)

While rereading this thread I had a new idea. A spotter with LOS gets 50 bonus. Only in special cases will your FO on a distant hilltop be able to take advantage of this bonus. Instead try this. Keep a FO vehicle near the frontline. When you believe all the enemy are adequately supressed, pop up with the FO vehicle, call the strike using him, then fall back to hide.

I have been using my FO in back next to the AO as many other people do. For each artillery platoon commander (B0, etc) put him within 5 hexes of the FO with line of sight, then the platoon almost never goes out of contact. The remaining tubes in the platoon can be spread out further, 5 hexes with LOS from their commander. It's easy to make an irregular pattern and with a little backsmoking your opponent will not be able to guess where you parked your artillery. If your opponent does guess, no big deal, any single artillery barrage will probably hit only one or two of your tubes. Semi open areas are required for this. But, you can often give most of your tubes the advantage of sloped terrain at least.

In some cases 75mm howitzers have AP ammo. They can be used for stationary overwatch. I would not use them as AT guns near the MLR, however.



KandaJE -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (8/15/2005 8:51:19 AM)

Greetings...

I've found that simply having a command post in the artillary park itself is almost proof against counter battery. It doesn't really matter too much if you take incoming fire, as the CP will almost always rally any supression off. This means that you DON'T have to move - your arty remains dug in, and if you placed them well in the first place, it's only VERY lucky hits that actually kill an arty piece. However, of course, air strikes and any kind of fire/napalm shelling will tend to get very "Lucky"...

Naturally this is for fighting the AI - Human opponents won't be as forgiving...




Poopyhead -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (10/4/2006 4:54:23 PM)

I ran a test and the Conventional Wisdom for FO use from CPT Pixel’s guide is wrong (!). The artillery formation leader can call a barrage for his formation’s guns as quick as the FO can. For example, if B is my battery of guns, then B0 can call a barrage as the spotter for all B units and the delay time is the same as if the FO had called it. This is true only for his formation’s guns though, so C0 must spot for his formation’s guns and so forth. I tested this with German, Russian, U.S. Army and USMC units, so if anyone else finds something different, please post. Thus, an FO unit is only needed if you use C&C on and you want the extra orders, or you want him forward for the accuracy bonus for LOS with the shortest delay time, or you have off board assets that cannot spot for themselves like artillery, naval gunfire or air strikes (although any unit could spot the barrage, just not with the shortest delay). Once again, I’ve learned something new!




General Turgidson -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (11/19/2006 6:33:20 AM)

1)When I'm using German SPA rocket artillery, and keep them with an ammo carrier, is there a way one can turn off the limited/reduced ammo setting for just those SPA units with the carrier but limit/reduce the ammo for the rest of the units? 2) At the beginning of a scenario in which one purchases an ammo dump, can part of the dump be considered loaded into some prime movers (the towing tractors-the heavies-7s,11s, heavy trucks) prior to the start of the scenario ? If not, why? What I've been doing is to select an ammo carrier with a section of heavy capacity prime movers, place the ammo carrier within 3 hexes of the retreat hex. Should the loaded prime mover be destroyed your opponent receives the value of the destroyed prime mover plus half the cost of the ammo carrier. I'm at a loss how to work it out with an ammo dump, scince a dump holds so much more. Any suggestions?[&:]



Alby -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (11/20/2006 2:38:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: General Turgidson

1)When I'm using German SPA rocket artillery, and keep them with an ammo carrier, is there a way one can turn off the limited/reduced ammo setting for just those SPA units with the carrier but limit/reduce the ammo for the rest of the units?

in a word...NO

2) At the beginning of a scenario in which one purchases an ammo dump, can part of the dump be considered loaded into some prime movers (the towing tractors-the heavies-7s,11s, heavy trucks) prior to the start of the scenario ? If not, why? What I've been doing is to select an ammo carrier with a section of heavy capacity prime movers, place the ammo carrier within 3 hexes of the retreat hex. Should the loaded prime mover be destroyed your opponent receives the value of the destroyed prime mover plus half the cost of the ammo carrier. I'm at a loss how to work it out with an ammo dump, scince a dump holds so much more. Any suggestions?[&:]

Ammo dumps cannot be loaded...however in the "enhanced" version of spwaw there are "Ammo Crates/Boxes" that can be loaded.


Bye.....



General Turgidson -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (12/9/2006 9:11:35 PM)

Well OK Alby in question to your answer to the first question NO-why? 1) In reply to preferences being tunned on or off for a specific unit (concerning its ammo supply status vis-`a -vis its proximity to an ammo source), is this an intentional design or an oversight in design? 2)In essance are you saying that any commander cannot order any transport available to be loaded for resupply, and is incapable of beginnig a scenario loaded, provided stocks are available? As an ex-marine (and Nam vet) I find this ludicrous to think that when in combat the individual (artillary or otherwise) unit has to run back to the dump to re-load when truck transport is available to bring up stocks to the front(or positions). Usually when our 4.2s(four-duces) or 105s from  batillion were running low they called for resupply and stocks were dispatched by duce 'n halfs or occasionly M-113 APCs from a dump. Why should it have been any different for commanders in WWII with essentially the same type of transport available?



FlashfyreSP -> RE: Re: Re: Artillary the key to combined arms (12/9/2006 10:19:29 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: General Turgidson

Well OK Alby in question to your answer to the first question NO-why? 1) In reply to preferences being tunned on or off for a specific unit (concerning its ammo supply status vis-`a -vis its proximity to an ammo source), is this an intentional design or an oversight in design? 2)In essance are you saying that any commander cannot order any transport available to be loaded for resupply, and is incapable of beginnig a scenario loaded, provided stocks are available? As an ex-marine (and Nam vet) I find this ludicrous to think that when in combat the individual (artillary or otherwise) unit has to run back to the dump to re-load when truck transport is available to bring up stocks to the front(or positions). Usually when our 4.2s(four-duces) or 105s from batillion were running low they called for resupply and stocks were dispatched by duce 'n halfs or occasionly M-113 APCs from a dump. Why should it have been any different for commanders in WWII with essentially the same type of transport available?


RE: Original Question #1 - No, the Reduced/Limited/Unlimited Ammunition Preference setting is an all-or-nothing setting; it applies to all units in the game. There is no provision for setting this by individual units.

RE: Original Question #2 - Ammo Dump units represent large depots of ammunition and ordnance; they are not capable of being moved, because they "weigh" too much for any one unit to carry.

These are game design issues from the early versions over 10 years ago; ammunition resupply has, in the past, been considered "out of scale" with the basic game design. This game was originally designed to represent battalion-level combat over a period of a few hours, not day- or week-long engagements, where resupply becomes an issue. Later, special codes and units were added to represent a certain level of resupply, which is where the Ammo Carriers and Ammunition/Ammo Crate/Ammo Boxes units came from.

So...
RE: the questions raised in your response - resupply is an abstract issue in this game, partially covered by Ammo Dumps and Carriers, and partially covered by the ammunition loads initially given to units, which should be sufficient for most engagements. Consider the 105mm Howitzer; US version is issued 60 HE and 5 HEAT ammunition, which represents the ammo carried by the organic transport (which is usually not depicted in the game as an actual unit) used to shuttle rounds from the resupply point to the gun itself. A lot of this "resupply" is abstracted, because it is "boring" for most players, who don't want to spend a lot of gametime doing the supply work.

Now, in our Enhanced Mod we have included transportable Ammo Boxes/Ammo Crates units that can be put in anything from a Jeep to a heavy truck. These units are smaller than ammo dumps and, while immobile themselves, serve admirably as "ammo stocks" for onboard artillery units.



mate -> Hi. I have a question. (1/25/2008 5:45:50 AM)

Hi all.
I am new to this forum.
I am SPwaw pbem, patched too v8.403.

I have an important question about airstrikes.

The question is:

How do i switch off a bomb or rocket on a airstrike?




JEB Davis -> RE: Hi. I have a question. (1/25/2008 8:02:26 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mate

Hi all.
I am new to this forum.
I am SPwaw pbem, patched too v8.403.

I have an important question about airstrikes.

The question is:

How do i switch off a bomb or rocket on a airstrike?



First off... Welcome to you [:)]

Unfortunately you can't turn airplane weapons/bombs on/off like you can other units.



StephanFH -> RE: Hi. I have a question. (1/27/2008 7:58:20 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mate

Hi all.
I am new to this forum.
I am SPwaw pbem, patched too v8.403.

I have an important question about airstrikes.

The question is:

How do i switch off a bomb or rocket on a airstrike?




Welcome.[:)]



chief -> RE: Hi. I have a question. (1/28/2008 2:09:29 AM)

You can't AFAIK, it will deliver until it runs out of whatever its loadout is.

Welcome aboard StephanFH



Innes -> RE: Assigning target hex's (11/12/2018 4:42:41 PM)

Hi there
I'm having problems assigning hex's for my arty, when i click on the necessary unit's smoke or explosive I have to click that more than 30 times before it will be assigned, I have the same problem when allocating insertion hex's to commando's, am I missing something here? I love the game but loose patients clicking 30 or 40 times before I get an Arty assigned or Cdo assigned, please help me out here.[&:]



Major_Mess -> RE: Assigning target hex's (11/22/2018 12:55:14 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Innes

Hi there
I'm having problems assigning hex's for my arty, when i click on the necessary unit's smoke or explosive I have to click that more than 30 times before it will be assigned, I have the same problem when allocating insertion hex's to commando's, am I missing something here? I love the game but loose patients clicking 30 or 40 times before I get an Arty assigned or Cdo assigned, please help me out here.[&:]


Hello, I have felt your pain!!!

What you need to do is go to THIS page at The SPWaW Depot.
It is a modified mech.exe that eliminates that bug with the artillery, along with a few other things.
That link is for the stock Matrix game - Version 8.403

Hope this Helps

MM



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