Question on Rockets & on Mortars

bigtroutz · Post by **bigtroutz** » Fri Sep 20, 2002 6:31 pm

Yes, I agree with you entirely in your last statement. I emphasized the COULD use because of your exact point. Just because the arty is there, doesnt necessarily mean it will be used to support "couple platoons of tanks and a company or two of infantry". But if it was available and instructed to support those units, it WOULD fire the 'standard' amount of rounds. If that unit got into real trouble, it seems quite likely that the 'standard' number would be increased, obviously a decision made in consultation with those authorized to waive 'standards'.

RE ammo quantities on hand, this obviously varies with the supply situation and army involved and the mission of the arty unit. However, all these arty and divisional organizations had internal and external mechanisms ensuring that to&e supply levels of ammo were kept 'current', when possible. When an offensive was planned with a preparatory arty barrage (as was usually the case) the ammo on hand was massive in quantity. Certainly the Soviets and Americans placed great emphasis and successful logistical emphasis on arty supply. While American leg infantry divisions were generally significantly under-manned this was not the case with arty.

Anyway, with a hundred or several hundred rounds or more per tube at its disposal, an arty tube could fire every turn for 10+ turns in SPWAW. It would be interesting to find out exactly how much fire support (total rounds) was GENERALLY provided to a unit the size deployed in SPWAW and the kind of range of ammo expediture involved. One thing I am certain of is that arty fire IRL was much heavier than that modeled in a typical SPWAW scenario AND that provided by limited ammo ON. True, it would not be much 'FUN' but we have different objectives in our game play than those folks fighting a war did.

As I have indicated, limited ammo OFF is one way to more accurately model the situation with arty like rocket units, but an alternate choice would be to provide a more accurate number of rounds available in the unit's OOB. Perhaps adjusting these based on the country and month/year automatically would be the ideal, but spwaw has no such capability. Thus my case for limited ammo OFF.

Voriax · Post by **Voriax** » Fri Sep 20, 2002 6:44 pm

Bigtroutz, a good post

Fyi, I know for certain that during Winter War arty preparation before an assault may have been 20 rounds, sometimes not even that. And that ammo supplies for some types of gun may have been no more than 150 rounds/gun when the war begun.

So, you fire what you are allowed to..luckily Finnish artillery practically always delivered those few rounds precisely on target.

Voriax
(ammo limited)

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 4:34 am

That was something I was going to bring up: In the "Great War," there were plenty of offensives which were predicated by over 4 hours of constant shelling. I'm sure this is the case in WWII. SP:WAW probably assumes that to be taking place prior to the player's engagement. Arty fire during the engagement could be considered fire used to support specific objectives (face it, the size of most game battles is really pretty specific compared to the entire front).

Jacc · Post by **Jacc** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 12:42 pm

In WWI they had artillery barrages of over 4 weeks..! Russians used quite obscene numbers of artillery, like 3000 guns supporting attack on a front approximately 50km wide...

Usually Russians just poured grenades all over enemy positions for a few hours, then assaulted the positions. Being perhaps more effective than a normal artillery barrage of a few rounds, aften which the infantry and tanks attack quickly, the Russian method stripped them the element of suprise. However, troops in the front positions had often no chance to survive the barrage.

john g · Post by **john g** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 5:02 pm

Originally posted by bigtroutz

As I have indicated, limited ammo OFF is one way to more accurately model the situation with arty like rocket units, but an alternate choice would be to provide a more accurate number of rounds available in the unit's OOB. Perhaps adjusting these based on the country and month/year automatically would be the ideal, but spwaw has no such capability. Thus my case for limited ammo OFF.

Since the point cost of the unit (esp for arty) is based on how much ammo it has, would you still be willing to buy those rocket batteries if they cost 8-10 times as much to reflect all that extra ammo?

I don't like using any off board arty, so any limitation on them is fine by me. Leaving them as a 1 shot weapon leaves them in the same class as heavy bombers, a nice heavy impact that you can call upon once. You get the benefit of being able to use the rocket battery any turn instead of having to preplan the bombardment like heavy bombers.

It has been mentioned in the past, that the effect that arty has on units is downplayed so that the game doesn't become WWI all over again (despite players attempts to make it that) because of the ability to micromanage arty in a way that no unit in WWII could. If you want something more realistic go ahead and up the arty effectiveness to 250% and infantry and armor vulnerabilities up to 110-120%.

Most players won't like the sort of battle that provides, but if your battle plan involves saturation bombing every battle then perhaps you might.
thanks, John.

Vetkin · Post by **Vetkin** » Sat Sep 21, 2002 8:57 pm

I don't know with the argument "too much arty for a company etc."

How many Katyushas were lined up per kilometer in the late battles of the Russians. Their concentration was literally around 3,000 (I forgot the number) PER KILOMETER. And fired accordingly. How many men can occupy a kilometer, that's 20 hexes, that's around 2 companies or so in SP:WAW terms. And the infantry/armor weren't shoulder to shoulder, but the rocket launchers were literally crammed side by side.

I don't know about the concentration of the other countries though. I think this was a unique thing with the Russian army which really demoralized the Germans late in the war.

bigtroutz · Post by **bigtroutz** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 11:17 am

Yep, this thread has boiled down to "arty in SPWAW is sometimes NOT accurately modeled when limited ammo is ON but we can't have it accurately modeled because it makes for unbalanced gameplay = no fun".

I think that about sums it up.

Now I wonder what-all those 10 divisional light aircraft were doing and why I cant buy any. Maybe the limited intel on/off will be my next target.

Vetkin · Post by **Vetkin** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 2:11 pm

Personally I don't like the Russian army much, but I think they should be the only ones who can be assigned as much Katyushas as they want, especially from early-mid 1943 and onwards.

Well... I don't like the Russian army but I gotta admit I love the screaming sound & chaos of the Katyushas hehe

3/2 ACR · Post by **3/2 ACR** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 6:35 pm

All these Ideas are good, as far wanting fuel and food simulations. but one has to remember that SPWAW is built on the foundation that each turn is only a few minutes of simulated time, most games are based upon about 1 hour of combat in actual time, so the question of long term supply problems do not come into play with SPWAW, I think I am right about this , some one please correct me if I'm not
now ammo should be limited I know haveing been invovled with tanks my time in the service YOU CAN expend all of your ammo in less then an hour

Rick 3/2 ACR

bigtroutz · Post by **bigtroutz** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 9:36 pm

I never wanted sim of food and water, I wanted limited ammo off as a viable default setting. Or at least more accurate ammo loadouts for arty like katyusha rockets. food and water was just part of the list of logistics that dont have "units" to purchase to perform the logistical action.

I would hate for MY troops to have to wait hours for medivac. How many wounded troops do you get in spwaw? How many ambulances do you purchase? Get it? My point was that lots of logistics which we expect to happen in the background are ignored while "limited ammo" is the exception. How do you know that the truck with the armor ammo didn't show up after they fired the 12th APC round ? Each Regiment/battallion has its ammo supply companies. Why shouldn't they work in the background too?

That was the point of the thread.

By the way, water is used by more things in war than slaking the infantryman's thirst and lack of water was far more significant IRL than you indicate. Hmmm, I need to buy some water tanker trucks

3/2 ACR · Post by **3/2 ACR** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 9:54 pm

I understand your point of the thread but that this is a game that is/was DOS stupid not much of the basic programming changed other then converting to a windows game. Yes I know all about the supplly problem and it would be difficult to simulate, but some thing like not having a clear line of supply should a trigger a moral/effectiveness penality factor. but alas dont think anything will come from matrix unless thay open the code source.
Rick 3/2 ACR

bigtroutz · Post by **bigtroutz** » Sun Sep 22, 2002 9:59 pm

yep, couldn't agree more. I mentioned how I would model it in SPWAW, being a programmer, I know it's possible, and agree its not going to happen.

who knows what kind of spagetti code it is now, considering it's history.

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 3:27 pm

Exactly why a while ago I asked about Matrix' policy on binary mods. Not today, mind you, but down the line (when I have a more solid idea of the "how") if nobody else has, I'm going to look into making that spaghetti code into curly riggotoni and calamari.

Voriax · Post by **Voriax** » Mon Sep 23, 2002 4:06 pm

Irinami, you won't get that code from Matrix Games. Their deal with SSI/SSI's owner doesn't allow for distributing code.

Voriax

Irinami · Post by **Irinami** » Tue Sep 24, 2002 3:16 am

Oh, of that I'd already guessed. I was thinking a more daunting task of hex-editting. ^_^;;

arethusa · Post by **arethusa** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 5:24 am

Originally posted by Voriax
Hello Bigtroutz

....Also there is the amount of ammo the unit should always have on hand, a 'fire ration'. This applies to just about all kinds of ammunition from pistols to artillery. An infantryman might be issued 2 fire rations before attack..this could be 60-120 rounds, depending of the type of weapon he's carrying.
For artillery this could be 40-100 rounds, depending of calibre. Let's say you have a 152mm howitzers...the round weight is around 40 kilos. Thus one fire ration weighs easily couple tons or more...this causes rather considerable logistic problems, especially with horse drawn transports.
So, an arty unit would have only few (2-3) fire rations at hand, and when that company commander calls from front line and yells 'fire everything you have at XX,YY' The arty will fire a certain portion of this fire ration and wait for further orders. If they'd fire all available ammo based on such order then there would be court-martials indeed.

Voriax

You definitely have the right idea here Voriax but there's more to it than that.

I spent 3 years on 105mm howitzers. The warhead was between 30 and 36 pds, depending on the type. I don't remember which was which but as an example, HE might weigh more than smoke, contact fuse less than timer fuse, etc.

Also in the calculation for ammo should be the weight of the cartridge. You don't hurl it at the enemy like the shell, but it still weighs about 30 pds.

105 ammo came in wooden boxes with 2 rounds per box. I don't know how much the box weighed but my guess is about 20 pds since an empty box seemed to weigh about twice as much as a cat.:p

So that means that 2 HE rounds would weigh ((33 + 30)x2) + 20 =146 pds. The usual ammo truck we had was a deuce with a cargo capy. of 5,000 pds. which gives you a total of 64 rounds per truck.

The crew rode in the same truck that hauled the gun and each gun would therefore need two trucks, one for the gun, the other for the ammo. That means that a typical 4-gun battery would have 8 deuces. But wait! You also need a truck to carry the communications and plotters (the people and equipment that direct the guns and talk to the FO.) Another truck for the officers too since they can't travel with the enlisted men.

The FOs usually had some kind of vehicles and so did a scouting unit or 2 attached to the battery. The purpose of the scouting unit BTW was not to look for the enemy but it was to look for appropriate locations to move the guns to when they 'scoot' after shooting. You didn't just set them up wherever you felt like it since there were considerations of obstructing hills, trees, camouflage, etc. Also, hills, streams, rocks, gullies, mud and so on limited where the guns could go.

So now you have at least 12 trucks for this battery and you onlly have 64 rounds. To reload the guns after this you need another 4 trucks. The more trucks you have, the easier it is for the enemy , especially aircraft, to spot the gun battery. And the more effort and time it took to co-ordinate all this.

Taking these factors into consideration, having a limit to ammunition seems quite realistic to me. Even with a rather sedate ROF of say 4 rounds per minute, it would take slightly more than 15 minutes to use up all the ammo that came with the battery. And we could fire a lot faster than that if we got the order.

Vathailos · Post by **Vathailos** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 7:22 pm

Bigtroutz,

Just wanted to reply quickly with a couple of observations.

I think in the big picture, the logistics issue is handled relatively well. Keep in mind, ammunition is also a function of supply trains. “Beans and Bullets” as they say. Considering the turn length, it’s conceivable that soldiers could go sans-food and water for the length of a 40-turn battle, but depending on their ROF, may well deplete their standard ammo loads. Want more? Sure, just purchase a dump or trucks. But that convenience costs points.

In a perfect simulation, I’d agree that off-board dedicated artillery should have a bit more in terms of ammunition. However, you can simulate this by simply purchasing more tubes. I think that having off-board (edit) “less-vulnerable” artillery would vastly unbalance the game as it is. Off-board can’t be (edit) directly counter-batteried, and can’t be overrun by infiltrators/fast scouts and shot up. In an effort to limit it’s power, it has limited ammunition.

If it’s a huge, sustained barrage you’re looking for, you can create it with on-board arty. One section of 21CM rockets (Germany for example) can be sustained indefinitely with 2-4 ammo dumps. You’ll pay 150 per dump, and around 200 for the set of 4 tubes, but you’ll be able to drop salvo after salvo. Now, this will be terribly painful for your opponent, so to balance that out you accept the risk of (edit) directed counter-battery fire or assault of your less mobile (or immobile without prime movers) position and stationary dumps.

Why don’t small mortar sections gain more mobility when their ammo’s used up? All they have to do is snatch up that tube and base plate, grab the sighting stakes/device, and scoot? In a perfect world, maybe. But a lack of realism I’ll be losing sleep over? Hardly.

Here’s one other thing to consider…

You may have initially been “higher’s” key element in mission on paper, but the battlefield is fluid. Consider in the larger scheme of things, that friendly units to your flanks may be experiencing much less success than you, or may discover some incredible targets of opportunity (Rommel’s HQ, a main airfield, etc.), and “higher” may pull your indirect fire priority. Initially, you had the power of Zeus at your fingertips, throwing bolts down from the heavens, calling down the thunder. But 40 minutes into your campaign, as you call DIVARTY for your next withering salvo, the SGT on the other end at Fire Control tells you “sorry Sir, 2nd Corps now has priority of fires from our 155’s. We’ll get your mission in when we can.” Out of ammo? Perhaps not, but no more thunder for you, not today.

I think all things considered, this is one of the most detailed WWII top-down simulation programs I’ve ever seen. It’s a heck of a good product, and with the new OOB due out, I’d be hard-pressed to find a game I enjoy more.

See you on the sim-battlefield.

Gary Tatro · Post by **Gary Tatro** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 7:55 pm

Originally posted by Vathailos
Bigtroutz,

Off-board can’t be counter-batteried, and can’t be overrun by infiltrators/fast scouts and shot up.

Off-board artillary can and is quite often counter-batteried. Your opponent needs there own off-board artillary to do it but it is simulated in the game.

VikingNo2 · Post by **VikingNo2** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 9:18 pm

Gary is correct ( as usual ) when buying off board, look them up and check there ranges, some of the smaller caliber has longer ranges that the larger ones, my adise is if you a having to pick between different off board arty then pick at least one battery with the longest range you can fine, then save it until after you opponent fires, I think you are more likely to conduct counterbattery fire if you do this.

.02

Vathailos · Post by **Vathailos** » Fri Jun 20, 2003 11:20 pm

I'm sure you're serious about this. I've never noticed that however. -10 pts. in observation on my part I guess.

Taking that into consideration, I have the following questions:

What version of the game does this? All? 7.1+ ?

Is there ever a battle-text message indicating it?

Can you select this option for purchased arty? (if so, when? How? Do you determine this at any point? Only in pre-deployment?)

At what phase does it occur (throughout the battle? Only once? Every so often?)?

Are any types particularly better at it than others? (What factors determine the “best”? Size? Longest range?)

Can you counter with other types of OB assets? (if I buy fighters, will they ever attrit enemy arty? In H2H campaigns, can both sides have air assets, and thereby fighters countering enemy fighter/bombers or bombers “off-board”?)

Thanks in advance for clearing this up Gary. I say again, Wow. This would sure help against the Soviets or US in the long run.

Any/all, please elaborate on the off-board “counter-battery” topic.

Thanks in advance, look forward to reading your responses!

Question on Rockets & on Mortars

Time Line

Ah Ahem - I think you are mistaken

Wow! Thanks Gary...