The new Cold War turned hot wargame from On Target Simulations, now expanded with the Player's Edition! Choose the NATO or Soviet forces in one of many scenarios or two linked campaigns. No effort was spared to model modern warfare realistically, including armor, infantry, helicopters, air support, artillery, electronic warfare, chemical and nuclear weapons. An innovative new asynchronous turn order means that OODA loops and various effects on C3 are accurately modeled as never before.
1)Auto correction on artillery placement is not very fun for the receiving side. If we have FSCC enabled then the nato guns shoot with 100% accuracy at any moment and at any time when anything is spotted.
2)If we dont have FSCC then the amount of missions available is time to command interval. Since nato player always has a very short interval that means that nato guns shoot non stop. Soviet guns take a coffee break here and there
The Soviet queues are slower and old missions hang in there a bit longer too. NATO can respond much quicker and can shift fire if it is on a spotted target most of the time. That said, the Soviets usually bring more tubes and rockets to the table in any fight.
The entire indirect fire system is getting a ground-up overhaul with a deeper fidelity courtesy of Jeff and the support fires in Southern Storm will be following much tighter and realistic command and control in the new engine. Along with that will be major changes to FSCC, target selection and priority, and proper channels of communication and asset use. Many of these issues should go away in the new game engine.
OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!
Cap'n Darwin aka Jim Snyder
On Target Simulations LTD
I look very forward to seeing these new improvements. If there are any artillery questions that you need help with, please let me know. I spent 25 years in the Canadian Artillery and was an Instructor in Gunnery, teaching artillery tactics and planning.
I would love to see more Arty mission types. Such as time on target mission where all rounds land at same moment. Or shoot and scoot options. Also would love to see different modes of accuracy. For example, scouts would likely have TRP's dialed in for immediate and devastating effect. Or FIST units ability to coordinate should be modeled too?
Or even different settings for HE to include air burst options (deadly to troops in the open).
Southern Storm's (SS) fire support changes address two major fidelity issues in Red Storm (RS).
1. Responsiveness of fires with respect to the relationship of the firing unit and the requesting unit
2. Availability of fires with respect to the relationship of the firing unit and the requesting unit
In RS, any unit can observe/request fire for any firing unit. This includes things like 1st Bn calling for fire from the organic mortars in 3d Bn. SS will put constraints on organic fire support assets so that only subordinate units may use those fires.
RS's Direct Support setting does not propagate down to subordinate units. That will happen in SS.
In RS, the amount of delay between a fire support request and the mission firing is set as a common delay time for a nation. Is SS, we are modeling fire support systems such that level of command a fire support unit is supporting affects the amount of time to fire a mission. A mission called for by a platoon and fired by a battery supporting a regiment (Plt->Co->Bn->Bde->Arty Bn->Bty) will take longer than a Bn Scout Plt calling fires from a Bty in Direct Support of the Bn (Plt->Bn->Bty).
With this model change, fire support organization for combat becomes more important and things like a Soviet RAG/DAG matter in the game.
I've been thinking about this and there are big differences between how the Americans and some of the other NATO countries call for artillery support. The Brits and Canadians have forward observers who can call down artillery fire very quickly from a battery to all guns that are available. It would be interesting to add Forward Observer counters to the game. If the fire being called for was in their area, then it could be quicker and more accurate - maybe.
Probably too late in the design for that to be added...
The time period in RS and SS marks the beginning of digital links between FOs and firing batteries. And even before that, observers would most often communicate directly to the firing battery's FDC. The digital aspect (like having TACFIRE) along with FO specific sensors can definitely reduce the time to adjust fires. What they don't do is materially affect the amount of time it takes to approve a requested mission.
Another thing FOs are trained for is to request ammo type, fuse type, and sheaf that is appropriate to the desired target effect. In game, this would equate to a reduction in ammo expended to get the requested target effect (Suppression, Neutralization).
We expect to have FO units in SS and they will may some difference from other units when it comes to observing fires. It would not be a huge difference.
There are other interesting aspects of both arty logistics and digitization that we are looking at. During Desert Storm, the US deployed non-Divisional arty units. Some were Corps level regular formations and other were reserve units. The reserve units did not have TACFIRE and their usefulness in providing fires during maneuver was very limited. Basically, there was no way to get missions to them in time.
Corps level artillery units had a devil of a time with respect to ammo resupply. The unit TOEs did not have sufficient transport to move ammo from the theater port to the Brigade Support Area. There were instances of reserve arty bns going the entire campaign (including the prep arty raids just before crossing the LD) with just their initial basic load.
