Question about indirect

[JudgeDredd]

Just came across a wee issue that has been winding me up in the past (you know about it and something is in the pipeline hopefully...not knowing where your indirect fire is going to land)...however, this has been exacerbated in my recent outing in the game.

I gave a unit an order to cal in indirect fire in the form of Open Sheaf CBE. Now I'm heading towards a broad treeline...so I wanted the smoke to go east-west...but instead it went north south along my axis of advance.

Is this going to be changed? Will I be able to, in the future, speficy where the bombardment start and finish?...or at least the axis it should be laid?

tbch, the smoke I've just laid will be pretty usless with the broad front advance I'm looking at.

[RocketMan]

I noticed something similar in a game I was playing. I wanted my artillery fire to go North-South but where the original spotting location was to close to my troops, so I reloaded the game (this issue really has to be worked on) and moved the spot point a little North, but then the fire was going East-West.

After reloading the game numerous times (which prompted my Load Game Screen post) and trying to position the strike to go at least somewhere close to where I wanted it to go, I finally gave up and just used a closed sheaf somewhere else.

[Mobius]

I hope it gets changed. One good idea right now. Himmelstoss said he saves the game right before he lays his artillery then sees which way the open sheaf goes.  If it does something like you describe then I guess he would reload and try a different spot.

[Redleg]

I haven't proved it yet, but it seems to me that the deployment position of the artillery units in the margin affect whether the sheath is N-S or E-W.
 
Since I play generated battles most all of the time, I have taken to deploying assets on the corners.... but the jury is still out.
 
I agree that this is a major problem.  It is high on my want-list.
 
 

[Erik Rutins]

That's correct - right now the artillery orientation depends on their off-map placement.

[Mraah]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

That's correct - right now the artillery orientation depends on their off-map placement.

Erik,

How easy would it be to "tie-in" the offboard unit's so that the rubber band for each artillery piece can be shown stretched out with the calling unit's LOS band ???

That's the only way I can think of displaying it's relative position, although fixed for the moment. The artillery HQ unit can be the "reference" director (say a green color rubber band) and it's children (blue bands) can show you where the remaining target locations would be.

Thanks,

Rob

[himmelstoss]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

Erik,

How easy would it be to "tie-in" the off board unit's so that the rubber band for each artillery piece can be shown stretched out with the calling unit's LOS band ???....

oh, yes, i really like this idea! hope that would work.

yes i am still reloading my game to make sure i have arti placement options, but its getting frustrating after a while.

but like its been said in another post and i quot loosely: if it is fixable surely Eric is on it like a bad "into" hell! [&o]

still my most favorite start game ever,

himmel

[Mraah]

I'm hoping it would work too !! ... but perhaps not a final solution.
I figured the game knows where the arty is located so having a "dummy" rubber band for display purposes might help.
I'm hoping the programmer can turn on the rubber band switch, if that's all it takes.

Rob

[Redleg]

Well since the orientation of the sheaths is determined by off map location which is editable, the onus is on scenario designers to play-test it seems to me.
 
For generated battles, experimentation is in order.  From some testing, it should be possible to document results of experiments involving off-map locations.  I'll continue my testing because I'd really like to know this.
 
One problem I see is the player of a prepared scenario really has no idea where the off-board artillery is located unless the scenario is opened up.
 
More later as I test some of this.  I have some ideas about how to pin it down and document.

[boulou]

ORIGINAL: Mraah

How easy would it be to "tie-in" the offboard unit's so that the rubber band for each artillery piece can be shown stretched out with the calling unit's LOS band ???

That's the only way I can think of displaying it's relative position, although fixed for the moment. The artillery HQ unit can be the "reference" director (say a green color rubber band) and it's children (blue bands) can show you where the remaining target locations would be.

Thanks,

Rob

do we really need all the rubber bands ? To me the ideal solution would be to visualize the red marks on the map as soon as the sheaf type is chosen and have them rotate by moving the mouse while holding an extra key until you're satisfied with the orientation... and then boom you go! [:D]
Wouldn't that be a reasonable approach ?

[Redleg]

After testing scenarios using German 81mm mortars and 105mm howitzers, it appears to me that the orientation of the sheath of targets is produced by a line between the spotter and the target.  All testing used 4 gun batteries so the sheath would be readily seen.
 
Moving the gun batteries to different positions did not affect the sheath orientation.  But the position of the spotter affected it very much..... sort of.  In all cases when the line from guns-spotter-target was diagonal to the map, a complimenary sheath much better than the problem sheaths that run parallel with the target line.
 
Examples:
81mm Mortar location:  Off Board at upper left corner of map
Spotter location:  On board at upper left corner.
 
Result 1:  Target is directly to the right of the spotter so    Battery ---> Spotter ---> Target ---> are in line with the East - West Orientation of map.  This produced a highly desirable N-S oriented sheath.  Good Outcome
 
Result 2:  Target is diagonally toward to the South corner of spotter and battery.  This produced a good sheath orientated NW to SE.  Again this would be desirable in most instances that the target was being approached in approximately the same line as the guns-spotter-target.
 
Result 3:  Target is due South of spotter and 81mm battery.  This produced a sheath oriented N-S in line with the  guns -> spotter -> target.  If the target was to be approached from the North, this would be undesirable.  If the target were to be approached from due West, this would produce a good sheath of smoke.
 
Result 4:  105mm howiter.  Positioned midway up the West edge of map.  Guns ---> Spotter ---> produced a nice vertical sheath that would screen any target being approached from the West.
Guns ---> Spotter ---> Target.  Produced a vertical sheath.  Good one.
 
Result 5:  105mm howitzer.  Position midway up West edge of map as above.  Guns - Spotter - Target in a diagonal line to the SE.  Produced a decent sheath across the azimuth of the line from the spotter to the target.  A good result.
 
Conclusions:
 
1.  The position of the spotter relative to the target is the primary consideration.  The location of the guns didn't seem to make much, if any, difference in the orientation of the sheath.
 
2.  The ability to cancel the fire mission is broken.  I tried over 6 turns to cancel a mission.  This cancel command never appeared even once.  So far, I have never succeeded in cancelling a mission.  According to the manual, any commander in radio contact can cancel a fire mission after (I believe) one volley.
 
4.  Since I almost never play the German side, I can't remember for sure, but I believe all German leaders are supposed to be in contact every turn.  If this is so, it ain't happening.  I encountered several leaders (armored car) that could not call for fire support.  Since this is a recon unit, it would probably have a spotter and a radio so it would seem to be that A/Cs might need to be checked to ensure "radio readiness".
 
5.  Given the state of the art with WW2 radios, it seems to me that having every leader in contact every turn is quite unrealistic.......  That just didn't happen.
 
6.  The results of this testing convinced me to quit worrying about the location of off-board guns.  Rather, I will now concern myself with the line between spotter and target in order to achieve a desirable sheath.
 
7.  It seems that if I am correct in the importance of the line between spotter and target, this is a HUGE German advantage since most all leaders are able to get positioned for a favorable sheath.  OTOH, the Russian is hurting since if he is lucky, he will have a single leader in contact which will most likely NOT be in good position to align for a desirable sheath.  This makes the extra points attached to German guns a very worthwhile investment.  Seems to be very realistic results if the German players can get control over their guns....
 
End of report.  Feedback and further testing results will be most welcome.
 
Redleg out. 

[JudgeDredd]

Thx for the testing, but tbh, I think there are two key issues which make arty a pita.

Well, personally I think the ideal solution (read only) is for the user to be able to suggest where he wants the artillery. I don't mean the sort of control you have in the like of CMSF...but at the very least there needs to be

• ability to call artillery and cancel immediately prior to phase execution
• ability to see where the likely spread will be...if not liked, previous point comes in handy
• the user should at the very least have control of the orientation of the spread...if not the size also

One other thing...in this particular case, I selected the cancel option immediately prior to starting the turn...so I gave the order for smoke, saw the lay and canncelled said bombardment...it continued for 3 turns.

Whilst this may appear realistic...it effectively takes away control and tbh, leaves you feeling as if the game isn't taking any heed to your commands...and being a game, that isn't a good feeling.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: Redleg

4.  Since I almost never play the German side, I can't remember for sure, but I believe all German leaders are supposed to be in contact every turn.  If this is so, it ain't happening.  I encountered several leaders (armored car) that could not call for fire support.  Since this is a recon unit, it would probably have a spotter and a radio so it would seem to be that A/Cs might need to be checked to ensure "radio readiness".

Redleg out. 

Hey - thanks for these test results - I"ll have to read thru them a couple more times to make sure I undertand - but sounds like its manageable.

I play German side most of the time - and commanders are not all in radio contact each turn - I haven't tried to check any statistics, but there are numerous times when I have leaders who are not able to call in OM artillery.

Thanks again -
Rick

[RocketMan]

After playing around with artillery most of the evening, using an open sheaf is a crap shoot, one that you will lose most of the time. And the worst part is that the only way to retarget the barrage is to reload a saved game.

Until something is done to improve open sheaf targeting, I would recommend you use closed sheaf all the time.

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: RocketMan

After playing around with artillery most of the evening, using an open sheaf is a crap shoot, one that you will lose most of the time. And the worst part is that the only way to retarget the barrage is to reload a saved game.

Until something is done to improve open sheaf targeting, I would recommend you use closed sheaf all the time.

RocketMan -

Not sure I agree with this. I'm on the third game of my second campaign, and after the first misuse of artillery in my first game (maybe second), I've been pretty satisified with the layout I've gotten from the open sheaf - don't get me wrong, I'd still like to have the ability to see the open shef before committing, but I use open shef most of the time and I've been satisfied. Maybe I've just been lucky -

Rick

[Grell]

I never use artillery, that must be why I lose so many tanks, sigh.[:(]


Regards,

Greg

[Erik Rutins]

Hi everyone,

We've heard the requests and we'd also like to give better visibility to the player on open sheaf targeting and also allow some adjustment. Canceling fire happens in the phase after placement and works fine as far as I can see. It shouldn't be necessary to try to cancel in the same phase as placement once you can see better where the artillery will drop.

We looked to see how we could do this, with the intention of including it in v1.01. Unfortunately, there's no "easy" way or it would be in there now, so we will have to take another look and see what we can come up with.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mraah]

Erik,

How about a full blown Undo Command like a button with a back arrow (<-) on it?

This way, it returns back to the last command given, effectively removing the artillery request or any command for that matter.

Thanks for your work !

EDIT NOTE : To elaborate more ... when you go back to the last command it will refresh the screen and remove the old arty plot. As far as the game knows, the keystroke never happened ... The only caveat is that once you move along to another command you lost your chance to "adjust" the plot ... life stinks then you get fragged by your own arty!

Rob

[FNG]

If you are using the 'see all' option ('U' twice) you do get a grey rubber band - at least with 81mm mortars. While it does not show the spread, it does give you the orientation of the artillery.

[NefariousKoel]

The wrong axis of Open Sheaf is just killin me on the first scenario in the Soviet campaign.&nbsp; So much artillery to lay smoke with and it gets laid straight down the map.&nbsp;&nbsp; Now I have five rows of smoke & I'm looking at the ends of them whilst being fired upon still. [:@]