Who's the spotter?

[Windo von Paene]

Having trouble with offboard bombardment.

Click on my SO HQ, then on the Bombard icon.
Up pops the Bombard screen. Most of the time clicking on the "go to spotter" button appears to do nothing, or takes me back to my main HQ unit. Now for example I have a

B0> 155 how and I would think that it would want to use the Fwd Observer that came with it, but again, the spotter will take me to the SO HQ. It's driving me nuts. Any good explanation of how this is supposed to work? I've read the SPWAW manual and the SP3 manual, but I'm still very unclear about all this.

And, I really need that artillery!!!

[Pack Rat]

The unit that allows you to go to the bombard screen is the spotter. Clicking on the goto spotter button is doing exactly what it's suppose to. Your artillery doesn't care what outfit your spotter is with, but you should. You want to pick usally the one with the best art. rating, that will give you the best fire time. An exception to this will be, does the spotter have line of sight to the planned fire hex, this may be and appears to be more important than previous SP games. You can use more than one spotter also I believe.

I did a very large artillery fire mission last night useing the Americans in 44, I believe. Used Wizbangs, 8inch, 155's, 155 gmc's and Mitchels. Out of the 4 Mitchels they killed 3 tanks and shot up some infantry and didn't loose any. The off map art. took out 2 tanks and caused damage to many others as well as a fair amount of damage to infantry. Off map stuff performed well, but the 155 GMC's got *stuck* on a firing mission on a bridge hex. The bridge hex was close to the top map boarder. I put 4 units on the hex and they missed, which is ok, but all shots hit exactly the same hexes every time and I repeated the fire mission at least 3 times. The off map art. didn't seem to have that problem although they missed the bridge as well )-: and the King Tigers got across faster than I wanted. The GMC's were very disappointing in the randomness department overall.

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Hell On Wheels

[Windo von Paene]

Originally posted by Pack Rat:
The unit that allows you to go to the bombard screen is the spotter. Clicking on the goto spotter button is doing exactly what it's suppose to. Your artillery doesn't care what outfit your spotter is with, but you should. You want to pick usally the one with the best art. rating, that will give you the best fire time. An exception to this will be, does the spotter have line of sight to the planned fire hex, this may be and appears to be more important than previous SP games. You can use more than one spotter also I believe.

So I should click on Fwd Observer, then go to Bombard, and then that observer will do the spotting for any of the off boards I call in?

[Pack Rat]

Yep

[Dave R]

On this point, can somebody clarify a point for me please.

When you have several units available for indirect arty fire, and you use a spotter to assign some but not all of the units to a fire mission, then us another spotter to assign other units to a second fire mission in the same turn. Does the program remember which spotter assigned what, or does it just work it as if the last spotter used plotted all artillery fire missions?

[Mike Wood]

Hello...

The program remembers who spotted what and hen.

Originally posted by Dave R:
On this point, can somebody clarify a point for me please. When you have several units available for indirect arty fire, and you use a spotter to assign some but not all of the units to a fire mission, then us another spotter to assign other units to a second fire mission in the same turn. Does the program remember which spotter assigned what, or does it just work it as if the last spotter used plotted all artillery fire missions?

I would recommend spotting with an FO, if possible, and make sure who ever spots can see the target hex. It makes a big difference. Also, make sure the spotter has a high "artillery" rating.

Bye...

Michael Wood

[Kharan]

You can also assign different entry directions for multiple aircraft at the same time... they remember the direction when you assign the bombardment. Then you can change the entry&exit directions and assign another aircraft.

[Dave R]

I would recommend spotting with an FO, if possible, and make sure who ever spots can see the target hex. It makes a big difference. Also, make sure the spotter has a high "artillery" rating.

Thanks Mike. I understand this. What it was that I wanted to know is:-

If, for instance, I buy two batteries of OB artillery, each with their own on bord spotter. Then during the same turn during the battle I use the first spotter to call in a fire mission from his guns on a target that he can see, then do the same with the seconed spotter, but the spotters are unable to see each others target, does the game remember which spotter can see what and what artillery it called in. Or does the game just work on the last spotter used, causing the first fire mission to be against an unspotted target, even though it was originally planned by a spotter who could see the target.