Artillery patterns

[Alastair Anderson]

Hello all fellow gamers,

A question for you, especially for those with more knowledge of the in depth programming of the game than me. When a mortar, for example, is given a target I am happy to see it miss most of the time, especially without LOS to the target by the spotter.

However I have noticed that if I give the same target hex to the same mortar the following turn, no matter who the spotter is, that the fire hits the same hex. In other words it missed the first turn and also the second, but in both instances the hex the fire does fall in is the same.

Third turn - pretty well same again. The fire is falling off target consistently in the same area.

Is this deliberate?? Is it necessary to move the actual target hex to get a different "miss"? Is this a feature of the game - does the team not change it's aim unless it is told to move??

I'm just interested...

Cheers
Al

[victorhauser]

Artillery Scatter...

When you target a hex, it doesn't stay "stable". By this I mean that if the artillery "scatters", then a new hex will be established as the target hex based on where the first scatter round went. Thus, you have to shift your fire back to the hex you originally wanted as your target hex if the fire scattered.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by victorhauser:
Artillery Scatter...

When you target a hex, it doesn't stay "stable". By this I mean that if the artillery "scatters", then a new hex will be established as the target hex based on where the first scatter round went. Thus, you have to shift your fire back to the hex you originally wanted as your target hex if the fire scattered.

This does not happen in SPWAW. From what I have seen, the target hex does not shift, only the fire does. I belive this works in SPWW2, but it does not happen correctly in this game. If you get a fire mission that misses, you cannot shift fire back to the original hex because the target is still listed as the original hex. So the end result is highly inaccurate artillery with no real way to get them on target, even if you have a spotter.
What is even more horrendous to me is that the preplotted hexes suffer from this too. I can't begin to count the number of times I got real excited that some unit actually was sitting on the gold coin, plotted my artillery, then watch it miss the preplotted point. I have even seen it happen when I used a spotter to call in artillery on the preplotted points. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of preplotted artillery?
My thinking is BUG.

[Alastair at Work]

Yup - I agree, the target hex stays the same. In spww2 the target hex shifts with the miss - different therefore in waw.

However my quetion really centred on the "miss". It seems to be missing in the same direction every turn. ie if I ploy fire on a target on turn one and the miss falls at around 2 o clock on the next turn if I do the same the fire also falls at around 2 o clock. It doesn't seem to vary at all. I wondered whether this was deliberate.

Agreed with you though Fox on spotted fire - I have been directing mortar fire for three turns now on a German 75mm AT gun which my spotter has perfect LOS to and the fire is missing. And, as I indicated above, each turn it's the same clump of trees getting the miss and sending lumps of bark skyward. Surely each turn the programme should be recalculating and eventually giving me a "hit"? At this rate it seems to me that I will be hitting that same clump of trees every turn throughout the game.

This data is only from an isolated single pbem game. If I get time I might try a bit of testing, but time at the moment is not in great supply.

Cheers
Al

[Paul Vebber]

There are two completely "Different" types of artillery in the game. Offboard covers an area in the 4 hex "s" pattern some like and some don't.

Onboard artillery concentrates on a particular hex and will tend to scatter form it, but it looks like the scatter hexes nmay be "stuck" to match the "s" pattern.

We will look at the onboard scatter for a possible bug, it does seem to always miss in the same relative positions...

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by Alastair Anderson:
[B...
However I have noticed that if I give the same target hex to the same mortar the following turn, no matter who the spotter is, that the fire hits the same hex. In other words it missed the first turn and also the second, but in both instances the hex the fire does fall in is the same.
Al[/B]

If I understand this question correctly, this is not a bug but the way that arty acts in real life. A firing unit receives a target grid (which may be accurate or not), calculates its firing data, then fires. The fires are going to all go to a small target area as all tubes are using the same plotting data. There is some varience in where all the shells fall due to varying wind, different tube temperatures, different firing charge lots, etc. (which are attempted to be accounted for when calculating the data). Now if there is an observer, he can adjust fire onto the target but the dispersion of fires is not greater for unobserved than observed, its just off from where it was intended to go.

Fires can be requested to be more or less concentrated. IIRC, these are called closed and open sheaf fires. The tubes can be directed to fire on converging or diverging azmiuths. Fires on troops in the open would be an example of a soft target, spread out that open sheaf fires would be used for. Closed sheaf would be used for point targets such as bunkers.

I do not know how things were with various armies in WWII but presently, the US Army teaches everyone to adjust fires. If the person orginating the call for fire can't figure out how to do it, the firing unit can coach them through the procedure.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

[Alastair at Work]

Thanks Larry - your expertise is appreciated.

However I think Paul may be right - each time a spotter calls in fire onto a target hex surely he will adjust it according to the fall of the first group of shells. Even if spwaw does not account for this zeroing in on the target it surely therefore should allow the fire to fall somewhere else in relation to the original target hex. Currently my experience shows me that it just keeps hitting the same off-target hex.

Come to think of it is there any scope for increasing the accuracy of fire if the same spotter is directing fire to the same hex over a number of turns?? I am thinking perhaps of how to deal effectively with weapons such as the 88 or any AT guns for that matter. If a trained spotter is given time would he not be able to make the fire that bit more accurate the longer he spots?? Obviously this would depend a lot on the quality of the gunners themselves, but this would make artillery a useful weapon when targetted on specific defensive positions over several turns while avoiding the old sp3 problem of "turn 1 - hit 1 - killed 1" situation that irritated so many sp3 fans like myself.

Just a thought - could it be put in there?? Is it already in there!!!?

Cheers
Al

[Dean Robb]

As an ex-artilleryman myself, I'm not completely thrilled with SP's handling of arty. Then again, I have yet to find a game (aside from TacOps or BCT) that do handle it well. SP:WW2 had a pretty good take on it, IMO...the accuracy wasn't great, but the dispersal wasn't bad either. In SP:WAW, I'm seeing (IMO) too much dispersal and not great accuracy. Nor, for that matter, all that much damage. A 155mm shell has a pretty big kill radius, 3-4 of them landing in a 50-yard hex should kill a few people...the most I've ever seen killed is 3 (out of 15). Usually, no one dies (*sigh*).

And I've noticed that tendency for the scattered shots to land in the same place (usually 2 hexes SE of the target) time and time again. It's especially noticable with fast arty on; was wondering if it was a bug with the fast arty itself . I've also seen misses tend to miss in the same place, and no improvement in accuracy for successive fires on the same target.

[Pack Rat]

The bug is there with fast arty off as well. I was trying to take out a key bridge and was so frustrated to see every one of, I don't remember how many barrages, fall on exactly the same hexes. If memory serves me it was with on board guns and my spotter didn't have direct vision.

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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

[Lars Remmen]

While I agree that off-board arty is way to inaccurate and weak I do think that mortars are truly awesome and pretty well modelled in the game.

My experience is with mortars that the first few rounds may scatter but the next many rounds hit the same hex. It may not be the target hex, but the mortar crew thinks it is... I then adjust the fire with the FO. The next group is usually on target.

Off-board arty is 1) Too inaccurate and 2) Not very lethal at all.

I once saw a video one of my friends (a FO in our army) had made. The 155mm rounds hit within the same 50m (for each tube - not all of them in one 50m radius) radius fireing something like 30 rounds. One of the tubes however continually hit the wrong place. The other five was right on target.

So, my opinion is that off-board arty should keep the groups tighter and be upped in HE value. And naturally, be made more expensive and harder to reach ('We are conducting a fire mission for another battalion please wait).

Lars

[Paul Vebber]

I am experimenting with giving the player two types of offboard artilly, the current one that fires over an area, and an "*" formation that always fires a "concentration" that all lands in a single hex (but that single hex scatters).

Modern artillery is far more accurate than WW2 artillery. (improvements in powder consistency is a big thing, the UK War Office Documents I have excerpts of bemoan the fact that poor quality of poweders made consistency in shot groupings impossible.

Show me the data!. We are talking WW2 here, not modern and there is a BIG difference. The best I have found says 2/3 of a Regiment/Btn shot pattern was fairly uniformly distributed over a 200yrd by 200yard area. Most off board artillery missions were fired against an area, not at a particular enemy unit, the time delays were just too long.

I'm always on the lookout off better data! But this is an area where you can't relate anything from the last 20 years to the technology and quality control of almost 60 years ago.

[Larry Holt]

Originally posted by Alastair at Work:
Thanks Larry - your expertise is appreciated.

However I think Paul may be right - each time a spotter calls in fire onto a target hex surely he will adjust it according to the fall of the first group of shells. Even if spwaw does not account for this zeroing in on the target it surely therefore should allow the fire to fall somewhere else in relation to the original target hex....Cheers
Al

You are welcome. After reading the later posts here too, I understand that this is a bug where arty does not adjust. Hmmm, I've not seen this at all, mine does adjust. However, I've also seen some battles where wrecks never appeared but that bug went away when I restarted my campaign. Perhaps these both are transient bugs, effecting some campaigns but not others.

[Pack Rat]

The instance I mentioned about on board arty occrured near the *north* edge of the map. I wonder if the map edge is playing a roll?

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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

[Desert Fox]

Staying on the artillery topic, does anyone else feel like rocket artillery is completely useless? I understand it is supposed to be highly inaccurate, and also to be bought in large numbers to try and make them useful. However, in my experience, they are way too accurate (I'll get to that) to be useful. You really need too many (typically >10) rocket batteries to get a useful dispersal pattern. I just don't bother buying them anymore.
On accuracy, the rocket unit itself may be hit far from the target hex, but then every single rocket from that unit hits in exactly the same hex. This absolutly destroys their usefulness and is also very historically inaccurate. Each rocket should be calculated independently. You should never get 15 rockets landing in the same 50 yard hex while the battery itself was 300 yards off target.
And why do you only get one salvo? You end up being much better off with a few big guns instead of a few rocket batteries for the same cost.
And on the subject of artillery being out of contact, this is especially weird with rocket batteries. It is really kind of ridiculous to not be able to fire off every battery at once when you are in position waiting to assault.
Ok, so basically, I don't like rockets in this game.

[Dean Robb]

Must agree about the rockets. Too small an ammo load, too little damage to be worth it. Nebelwerfers get 12 rounds...seems to be 1 1/2 barrages. Nobody seems to be bothered by being under attack from the rockets either.

I know nothing about rocket employment (gimme tube arty any time!), except that they were used heavily by the Russians and by the USN. However, I assume that they served a good purpose that doesn't seem to be reflected in the SP series. Anyone wanna play historian for me?

Paul, kudos on your work on artillery. You might look at lethality, too. I wouldn't have a problem with the S-pattern if it actually did some damage AND if at least some of the rounds fell in the target hex. I've gotten a FEW kills from some powerful offboard artillery - not nearly what I think I should have; and rounds seem to miss the target hex religiously.

Kinda negates the usefulness of the offboard stuff, IMO.



[This message has been edited by Dean Robb (edited 06-06-2000).]

[Alastair at Work]

Lethality has always been a point of great debate. In the old days of sp1 artillery was nigh on useless. By the time sp3 was out it was a waste of time ever buying expensive equipment because even an 81mm mortar could knock out a tiger. Even say 60mm US rounds destroy German armour from time to time. Seriously irritating. Artillery never missed [hardly] and dominated the game.

Damage vs hard targets in my view has now been sorted out - I think spww2 models it pretty well too. However the points made on this thread might well still be the case - namely that infantry seem to escape mighty lightly when hit by heavy artillery. Curiously it seems to me that this is not the case for mortar rounds. My on board mortars, if they hit a hex with enemy infantry in, almost always cause damage. I watched one of my ow cossack squads reduced to a one man and dispersal result by a single German 120mm mortar section that hit the hex 10 times in a row. I have no problem with this, because the artillery routines in the game now make targetting and delay realistic and it is possible to "dodge" the fire if you are on your game. However the bigger tubes - rockets, 155s, even 105s do not seem to do the same damage at all when they hit. Have mortar and heavy artillery been programmed to cause casualties according to similar calculation methods?? It doesn't appear so....

I would also add that ALL off board artillery is now of little value because there is no way of rearming. eg an off board battery of 100mms in a Rumanian game I am playing is quite cheap - about 100 points, and I thought "great" - I'll happily pay that and give myself one heavy bombardment. However the shells landed and caused not one bit of damage to the Russian troops and armour crouced behind the hill [at least my opponent didn't report any major calamities] and I was left feeling that it was a one off play that was now gone and was 100 ponts wasted. Could have bought a couple of Stugs for that! Would it be possible to build in some self-rearming into these units perhaps at a much reduced rate so that a major salvo was available every 7 or 8 turns after the first?? I might buy them then.

Finally my major point still stands regarding on board artillery - as Pack Rat has also said the misses are in the same place all the time. In fact now that I have played a few more turns of my current pbem game it seems ALL my mortars, no matter who the spotter is, are missing to the NW. It is almost as if a single calculation is being applied blanket fashion over all my tubes.

Great game - love it. Any chance of a specialist league at TGN or within leadeaters??

Cheers
A

[Charles22]

I have a related question. Has anyone experimented around with SPA's? You know, like the Hummel, do they become 'out of contact', and if you changed one of a regular tank formation's members into a Hummel and it stayed within the command radius of the HQ, would it stay in contact? I know most Gerry stuff has high radio percentage rates, so the SPA they have are likely to be able to stay in contact far from HQ's, though of course I realize a problem with switching a member of a tank platoon to SPA, in that the commander wouldn't be very pro-artillery rated, most likely.

[Voriax]

talking about mortars (I like them) have you noticed that when you fire mortars via the bombard menu it is not unusual for the big mortars to wipe out complete squads when they hit, but if you fire them directly by choosing the unit and using the 'f' button you'll end up shooting plenty of rounds to almost no avail.

I get the feeling that the mortar rounds are considered as 'arty rounds' when they bombard but as big 'rifle' style direct fire rounds when you fire them 'direct' even though the round will arrive same way in both cases.

Could this be possible or is it my imagination?

voriax

[Paul Vebber]

The patch seems to be addressing at least some problems.

"Direct Fire" for mortars seems more deadly in the patch, but its assumed since the crew is "self spotting" the ROF is lower as they are firing a round, correcting, firing a round correcting, especially vs a moving enemy. If you fire using the artillery menu, the mortar is "chucking out rounds" much faster, based on the spotters order to Fire for effect, so you put many rounds out the barrel! Also note the most mortars aaare 2 or 3 tubes (the x2 or x3) so that is why they often seem so much more effective.

The patch is coming along and while we don't have time to overhaul things, I think the adjustments that have been made will be a big improvement in the artillery

[Wild Bill]

I've spent nearly the entire day today testing artillery and its effect on targets.

I've listened to debates for years now on this theme. No setup will satisfy everyone. Its just impossible.

The artilleryman wants more casualties.The infantryman wants less.

We are trying to get it where it more or less pleases everyone, or no one totally. My hair is gray enough already -

I have observed one thing with certainty.
On-map artillery has a tighter pattern than does off map artillery.

Another point. If I don't like where artillery is landing, I can shift it a bit. It may take an additional turn, but it can be changed. That is what observers do anyway, right artymen?

It appears that we may have it now in the patch pretty close to the real thing.

Finally, artillery was the #1 killer in World War II. I don't want it to be that lethal in the game but I think it should produce casualties, depending on a lot of variables.

-Observer status (can he see the target)
-Observer quality (topnotch, mediocre)
-Artillery " same - same
-Artillery size - bigger gun, bigger kill
-target quality - experiences counts-harder to kill. I guess they are better at covering up
-terrain in hex - more or less cover available determines hits too.

So when you consider all of those variables, you are never going to get a black and white guaranteed number of kills or suppression.
And someone will be unhappy with the results.

Wild Bill


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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games