Artillery vs Tanks

[sergio]

Here you can read a very interesting article about artillery indirect fire against tanks. It's mainly focused on Modern Warfare, but there are also some references about WWII.

Enjoy.

http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/2002/NOV_...S_8_11.pdf

[Volcano Man]

Hmm, the effects of field artillery on armor written by the field artillery. Not very unbiased to say the least. ;) The myths at the end are particularly... silly. If the question is what is *likely* to happen and what *CAN* happen then these are no myths. No offense to anyone here, but FA guys are seemingly brainwashed that artillery is the end all force on the battlefield and that does seem to carry over into the article (armor types are always humbled by infantry when they think they are the end all force on the battlefield). It is undeniable though that FA is indeed effective at breaking up and disrupting an attacking force through immediate suppression and DPICM is undeniably effective against modern armor.

Still, it is a good read. :)

[Glenn Saunders]

I confess I haven't read the article in detail - but it was\is the title "Who Says DumbArtillery Rounds Can’t Kill Armor?" and the picture of the destoyed tank I want to comment on.

In PzC\MC a tank kill by arty is notnecessarily represented by the picture. A kill in the game could be what we term a SOFT KILL, where something as simple as Antenna could be knock off, the optics in the turret could have been knocked out of alignment. Anything really which takes a tank out of the line and back to the second echelon for some sort of repair which could take a few hours or the better part of a day to have corrected.

Or it could be wounds caused to one or more of the crew members had the tank not been buttoned up.

So please don't think a tank kill in the game to be represented picture on the front page of the article.

Glenn

[HirooOnoda]

Excellent article! Many thanks for this posting.


Perhaps we should enhance the lethality of arty?

[Volcano Man]

Sure, you could rework the lethality of artillery if thats what you want, but I was stating that I think this is quite a stretch.

I guess it is better if I explained. The images (or at least most of them) are of tanks sitting on an artillery range to observe the effects of hits in controlled tests. The reality is, when the hard target is crewed by personnel, it will seldom sit in place and allow itself to the caught in an artillery strike.

When armor is attacking, it is particularly hard (almost impossible) to catch said moving tanks in an artillery strike. The only time to do it is when they conduct short halts through bounding overwatch, or through immediate suppression from a lucky strike or from a preplotted artillery strike on a known Target Reference Point (TRP) that might be placed on a road intersection. Artillery that falls in front of an advancing armored force will indeed disrupt it as they will either slow their advance (which will disrupt the larger formation), they will bypass it or blow right through it (which also has a disrupting effect) and of course button up. I can't think of anyone that would sit in a Fire For Effect and allow themselves to be shot up, and most of the time several spotting rounds are required to get the FFE strike "on target" at which time the advancing armor will know "something is up". A preplot on a TRP is something different though, you can indeed catch an advancing force in a preplotted fire mission because no spotting rounds are required. But the time of execution would have to be something of a miracle. Despite what some war movies might lead people to think, the "beaten zone" of an artillery strike is not that large. A battery might have a 200x200m area, and a battalion might have 400x400 (it all depends), but it not as if they are saturating a 1 km square area either so, as mentioned, indirect fire is relativelyl easily avoided by a mobile force of hard targets.

On the defense, it is a different matter. In most cases armored vehicles would be kept in a mobile reserve. In PzC and MC, a hard target unit that is sitting in place in a hex on the defense could very well be performing a mobile tactical defense within that and the surrounding hexes, not just sitting in place. In this regard it can be just as difficult to hit said targets. In a "true" defense, the tanks themselves would be dug into fighting positions. In this day and age this usually means that a two tier battle positiono will be dug into the ground where, in the lower tier, the tank is completely exposed (in a turret down position). When an enemy makes an appearance, the tank pulls up to the upper tier (hull down position) and opens fire. It then backs up to the "hide" position to reload between shots, or when direct and indirect fire starts coming in. In the case of artillery, you WOULD have to get a direct hit on a vehicle in this case to cause damage on a hard target that is sitting in a dug in position (unless VT fuzes are used, in which case you are mostly causing superficial damage and the image of the M2 Bradley maingun being damaged is probably the extreme case).

I think everyone tends to view artillery as a force that impacts all over the 1km hex in PzC, in random dispersion so that it MUST cause some sort or damage. The reality is, most artillery calls on a moving threat will likely be a waste of time other than using it for immediate suppression effects. So, needless to say, I don't subscribe to the view that HE artillery is an effective anti-armor force. If anything, I can say without a doubt that the better approach is that hard targets should have a higher chance of being disrupted by artillery, but I thought this was already represented in the game.

Of course the disclaimer here is that I have never spent time as an artilleryman; I spent 10 years in both armor and as an infantryman and made plenty of artillery calls (in simulators and on ranges). The irony is that an artillery man hardly ever sees the effect of artillery fire -- it is always the ones who call the artillery which see the effects (obviously). 99% of the time this individual who "calls for fire" is usually a grunt or a tanker, although there are FOs on the battlefield of course.

Well, I ended up typing more than I intended but maybe all this bloviating will provide some useful insight. Yes, artillery can kill hard targets but it is something different to say that artillery CAN be effective on hard targets than to say that HE is highly effective against hard targets. It is stretch to say the least. It is undeniable though that DPICM on the modern battle field *is* indeed a hard target killer but again, this involves the extremely hard task of actually catching the enemy vehicles in the impact area.

[Glenn Saunders]

Sure, you could rework the lethality of artillery if thats what you want, ....

I'm with Ed on this one - emphasis on "YOU".
I'm pretty happy with the Arty effects myself and an the article doesn't change my impression of how we have it in the game now.

...funny - it is about the only values that Sturmer Smith - one of the founding PzC Designers agreed upon with Wig Graves, the guy behind the N44 game.

Glenn

[timshin42]

In the FA Officer Advanced Course at Ft. Sill in the late sixties we were taught that Artillery fires are NOT effective against massed Warsaw Pact Armor. That principle was echoed in the C&GS Course at Ft. Leavenworth in the mid seventies. That's why the Artillery developed the "Copperhead" laser guided projectile. Also why the groundpounder got so many TOWs.

My point is that Redlegs are fully aware of the limitations of field artillery as well as its capabilities, contrary to the suggestion of an earlier post on this string.

"Steel Behind the Rock!"

[Volcano Man]

My point is that Redlegs are fully aware of the limitations of field artillery as well as its capabilities, contrary to the suggestion of an earlier post on this string.

Ok, maybe it was just an unfair stereotype... I take it back. :P

[timshin42]

Thank you, Sir, from all us proud Redlegs out here. May St. Barbara bless your many great MODS, and may your days be filled with "Artillery Punch"!.

[Volcano Man]

And may St. George bless you and protect you with his armored shield. :)