Spotting Artillery

[Mobius]

Units that spot artillery can change their orders and so something else and the artillery will still arrive. They do not need to stay spotting until next orders phase.

One unit may spot for any or all available artillery batteries.

[rickier65]

After a unit calls in Artillery, does it need to keep a LOS to the strike, or can they loose LOS and still have the Art come in on target (at least as well as it would have if they kept LOS)?

Thanks
Rick

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Mobius
Units that spot artillery can change their orders and so something else and the artillery will still arrive. They do not need to stay spotting until next orders phase.

Oh ... now you tell me [;)].

I had one platoon of infantry hiding in the woods (HOLD FIRE) ... he spotted for some 105's ... I forgot to switch him back to HOLD FIRE ... argh, they opened fire on some Russian's over 200m away and blew their cover!!!

Excellent tips Mobius ... keep 'em coming [:)].

Rob

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Rick

After a unit calls in Artillery, does it need to keep a LOS to the strike, or can they loose LOS and still have the Art come in on target (at least as well as it would have if they kept LOS)?

Thanks
Rick

EDITED by RICK - Well, I might have answered my own question - my spotting squad got wiped out, and the smoke still arrived on target.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Rick
After a unit calls in Artillery, does it need to keep a LOS to the strike, or can they loose LOS and still have the Art come in on target (at least as well as it would have if they kept LOS)?

No he is free to go about his business once he calls the arty.
He could be in a tank and call artillery then button and then order it to move or shoot something with its gun.

He could mount the church steeple and call artillery and then unmount and safely smoke a cig out back. (One of the Boot Camp Lessons.)

BTw, when you unbutton a tank and want to look around. Click the open ground then click back on the tank and the Relative spotting is recalculated for the TC being unbuttoned. Then once he is done looking around you can button him up again.

[Capitaine]

Hmm... in the Boot Camp mission where you're using artillery to protect the bridge, I had my squad in the church tower doing the spotting.  I kept him on spotting.  It *appeared* that the artillery fire was adjusting slightly to follow the advancing Soviet troops.  I guess this was just an illusion, huh?  (At the time I thought it was pretty cool, though!)

[Erik Rutins]

On the turn that artllery is called in, if the unit that calls the artillery has LOS to the target the artillery strike will be more accurate The way the system works, it assumes that there is an abstracted forward observer in contact with that unit. After the initial turn of calling in the artillery, he handles the rest so that the unit can go about its business. Artillery fire will adjust to be more accurate each phase after the first one.

[Mobius]

ORIGINAL: Capitaine
Hmm... in the Boot Camp mission where you're using artillery to protect the bridge, I had my squad in the church tower doing the spotting.  I kept him on spotting.  It *appeared* that the artillery fire was adjusting slightly to follow the advancing Soviet troops.  I guess this was just an illusion, huh?  (At the time I thought it was pretty cool, though!)

It may scatter more the first turn it arrives. Then move toward the requested TRP in successive turns.

The FO is abstracted to be attached somehow to the observing squad. IF the FO were represented by an actual FO model running about you would know it but so would your opponent. Thus your FO teams could be unrealistically targeted for elimination to put you out of the artillery business.

[JameyCribbs]

I had the same experience as Capitaine in the second boot camp scenario.  My platoon leader in the church called in 105mm on Russian trucks advancing across the open ground, but I realized that I did not "lead" them enough.  I thought that when the artillery hit it would be behind the advancing Russians.  However, it appeared that over the few turns that the fire support mission ran that it actually tracked the Russians as they moved towards the bridge and adjusted itself so that it was still hitting them even at the end of the barrage.

So, did it do that because my platoon leader hat visual contact with the target throughout the whole barrage or did it do it automatically or did it not do it and I just imagined it?