Home Forums General Game Design WWII Indirect Arty/Mortar Versus Troops On Reverse Slope "Invisible" to Observer

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  • #10256
    Avatar photoAdmin Test Account
    Participant

    The author of this topic requested their account be deleted.

    This topic has been kept by attributing the original post to an admin account, and replacing the initial wording by the now deleted user with this.
    To have deleted the topic in its entirety would also have deleted the replies of others, and it is not fair that their postings be effected.

    – Mike.

    #10284
    Avatar photoshelldrake
    Participant

    As a former signaller in an FO party, the target would not be engaged if you can not see it, as not only is there the chance it is friendly troops there, but you would not be able to adjust the rounds on to the target.

    Yes, you could fire rounds via a map, but you have no idea if they are landing close to the target if you can’t see it.

    Instead the FO party (or elements of it) would move to a position where it could see, or pass a sitrep up the chain for someone else to engage.

     

     

    #10345
    Avatar photoBandit
    Participant

    you would not be able to adjust the rounds on to the target.
    Yes, you could fire rounds via a map, but you have no idea if they are landing close to the target if you can’t see it.

    My expectation of WW2 is entirely this, that you don’t necessarily need to spot the target to fire on it but to adjust your fire and that doing so is considered a vital part of the method.

    I am far, far less knowledgeable about post-WW2 so while I’ve read and watched the movie where artillery and air support is called in against mammoth swaths of terrain without any real spotting, verification or adjustment regarding target status I have no idea as to real practices.

    #10347
    Avatar photoSondergaard
    Participant

    Just a waste of ammunition. If you allowed it the chance to hit should be infinitesimally small.
    A dust cloud would indicate a moving vehicle. Hitting a moving vehicle you can see with indirect fire should be extremely difficult, never mind one hidden by a hill. And where in the dust cloud is it? The only blind firing I know of is pre-planned against a known target, crossroads, trenches etc.
    TFL’s use of blinds covers this very well. Vehicles on a blind as they are out of sight. You know something’s there but not what or it’s exact position.

    Not in the face!

    #10350
    Avatar photoAndy hutchinson
    Participant

    One reason I remember this was because it was the first time I got to live fire. Doing the one live fire mission on my OP assistant course, The target was in a valley. A lot of the practice missions on what they called the invertron could throw any kind of target at you.

     

    Adjusting meant, shooting under, then over (even with fire control computers we still had to adjust)and using High angle fire, normally a no no as it was easier for the baddies to use radar DF to backtrack. Not really a prob in ww2.

     

    You’re not necessarily shooting to kill. You could be shooting to break up a formation or suppress a formation prior to them attacking or you attacking it.

     

    This was mid 80’s btw. And a lot of the practice missions on what they called the invertron could throw any kind of target at you.  Might not apply to ww2, but people seem to think it was never done and it was.

     

     

     

     

    #10370
    Avatar photogrizzlymc
    Participant

    I have seen photos of road signs in Normandy telling people to drive slowly because the dust attracts artillery.  Maytbe, the foo snuck out one day, registered a few rounds and then snuck back.

    #10900
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    Apologies for coming to this discussion late, but I’ll just sweep up a couple of odd points, as mostly people seems to have come up with generally sensible answers.

    One point about being able to observe corrections is that the splash might be observable where the ground iself is not, quite. As an example, I understand that ranging was often done using WP in Viet Nam, as the smoke was visible above jungle canopy in a way that HE was not (though it musy have been fun applying corrections for the different ballistics of WP and HE when goimg to fire for effect).

    Even if it were permitted to shoot a target on a reverse slope without identifying it, a gun might not be able t reach it because of crest restrictions. I think here of the British addition of intermediate charges to the 25-pdr charge system (originally just three charges plus supercharge) as a result of experience in Italy. And shells arriving at other than very high angles will be spread further along the reverse slope for any given amount of dispersion than they would be on the flat — on the same geometric principle as south-facing slopes getting more sunlight than north.

    As a final remark, “impromptu” targets are (or were, I’m sure we all speak American now) those made on unregistered targets — the FOO or MFC would fire ranging rounds before going to fire for effect (before the days of digital FC computers anyway).

    In general, it seems to me eminently sensible to restrict fire to targets visible to observers unless they are part of a fire programme. Counter-battery fire of course was often fired withoout correction being possible, but it would be based on other sources of information such as sound-ranging or flash-spotting, and in any case during WW2 would have been planned at division level or above.

    All the best,

    John.

     

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