Artillery delay and registration of the target

[Wiggum]

Hi !

I always wondered why there is no orders delay for artillery units unter my direct command.
I can order them to bombard and one or two minutes later they do it.
In the manual (COTA) i cant find any reference about the orders delay for artillery.
I would suspect that it takes some time to prepare for a bombardment and registration of the target before all guns can fire for effect.

Also, the manual says:

Before an artillery unit can bombard with all its guns, it must first register the target. This involves one
gun firing a series of single rounds with an observer adjusting the fall of shot until it is on target. This
is not displayed on the map. Then the unit is ordered to fire for effect with all its guns/tubes. This is
displayed on the map. This process takes time. It’s longer the further the distance from the observer (
the requesting unit ) to the target. Typically it can take between 1 and 10 minutes.

So if i order a bombard duration from 10 minutes i will only fire for effect for ~ 5 minutes or less ?

It would be nice if someone could explain how artillery is effected by orders delay or why not.

Thanks !

[Lieste]

Depends on the quality of the troops calling for and firing the IDF.

Longer delays can be made with inefficient commanders, or poorly trained troops, and brisker responses with better troops. Not exactly sure how much difference there is for the various soft factors, but there is a difference between lowest and highest quality.

The 'call for fire' marker is placed onto the current/last target, and will be fired on with minimal delay if re-targetted. New targets/shifting the target marker will cause an additional delay as the new call for fire  is registered.

It is probably worth mentioning that small/short barrages are the exception rather than the rule - "weight of fire" gives the British 25 pdr (long term morale loss) neutralisation fires as nominally 40 rounds per hour per hectare for a duration of 4 hours. To accomplish the same sort of effect with brief firing took a lot more ammunition to be reliable... the only data I've seen suggests that neutralisation effect was obtained in a 15 minute bombardment of 100 rounds per minute per hectare... but this was probably a bit more than absolutely essential.

That there is a delay in calls for fire can be seen trying to hit moving troops on a road - even after much experience I still can't reliably hit the lead unit - and now I just interdict fixed points that I know the column must pass through (junctions, defiles etc) or wait till he deploys off road and slows down.

[Wiggum]

But the delay is so minimal, most of the time between 1 and 5 minutes before they fire for effect.
If you order a company to move to another spot on the map it can take 60min for them to start moving...

Any idea why the delay for artillery is that low ?

[Wiggum]

-Sorry-

[Lieste]

Because the 'delay' associated with going into battery is already 'spent' with the deployment time of the firing units when they go on-call - this can be upwards of 40 minutes for some long-range heavy batteries.

The plotting of an uncoordinated, impromptu direct support fire mission is only that required to obtain the approximate current location (doen during the deploy time, I assume), receive the target location from the spotter (or by direct observation) and to work the calculation through the firing computer (a slide rule during WW2, and presumably earlier). With a good organic computer, this could be faster, but probably less precise than with a 1970s electronic system. The rest of the delay comes from the shell time of flight and the need to adjust to ensure that the shoot is on target before the fire for effect is called...

IRL there might be unavailability (due to the artillery already in use, or displacing when the call for fire is made - this 'unavailability' also occurs in game if you opt not to kill on-going fire missions), or delays due to friction within the command or communications networks - these aren't really covered as comms are universally available and have no limits - although command range/distance might have some effect.

The really long lead-times for real world barrages are a lot to do with sequentially planning the entire barrage, including recce and coordination with the assault troops, and stockpiling many units of fire with the firing batteries and their immediate supply chain.

[Wiggum]

Thanks for the answer Lieste, no i understand this better.