Quote:
Originally Posted by RERomine
Well, that all pretty much makes sense to me except the part about quick set-up. The artillery "hipshoot" has been around for some time. I dug up some information on it published in 1978, which was before GPS I think. Never can tell what the military had when and didn't bother to tell anyone. The intent was to get rounds out pretty quickly. I'm sure accuracy had to suffer some because all the quick set-up couldn't have done all the stuff you described. They basically kicked out a spotting round and adjusted to target from that, assuming the round wasn't lost.
One other thing that was mentioned was the "hipshoot" wasn't a universal concept. The US Army used it in 1978, but I'm not sure who else used it. Information on it can be found in FM 3-09.70 "Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for M109A6 Howitzer (Paladin) Operations". The time standards are in an ARTEP doc I can't get to. I would have to believe with GPS, the concept has to be more universal now, however I doubt everyone calls it a "hipshoot"  |
That was called a "Crash Action" in commonwealth artillery units early on in WW2 and if you want to know just about everything there is to know about that and FOOing I would suggest the three book series by George G Blackburn.
This quote from "The Guns of Normandy"........"as early as the summer of 1942..." Every Troop in the regiment can routinely bring it's guns into action and get off the first round within 3 to 5 minutes of receiving such a target while travelling along a road ( Three minutes if there is no unusual delay because of terrain )"
That's one to two turns tops
Try that with the game. Set up 25 pounders "towed" by gun quads and run them down a road then deploy in a field. On the turn you do it you will not be able to call for indirect targets that turn but will have to wait for the next to call it then typically wait 2.2 turns before you will get the rounds on target so in that respect the game is a bit slow.
The problem is there is ONE and only one "procedure" for arty in the game. There is no real attempt made to model how each nations artillery handled things like this and there were huge strides forward made in some nations between 1930 and 1946 in that regard and other nations didn't change much at all so every nation is treated the same which greatly handicaps the nations like Britian, and the commonwealth nation who had vastly superior methods of handling artillery. So in this game everyone is treated the same when everyone who's ever cracked open a book on the war knows there is no way The USA, Commonwealth, Germany, Russia and Japan had equal methods of handling arty.
But it's a game folks. Generally what we have works pretty well and we ARE aware of it's limitations
Don