Realistic Artillery Management - FOO Rule

[RERomine]

Assuming all guns are set up properly, have similar tube wear, firing rounds from the same lot, fire from reasonable proximity to each other, under the same weather conditions, etc., they should be able to all put their rounds in the same hex if that is the intent. They might all be in the WRONG hex, but they should be together.

I've fired plenty of WW2 era guns and even if they have individual corrections you will not get them to land in a 50 by 50 meter area, they spread to an oval over the axis of direction you are firing at (from 150 to 300 meters being a norm). And Cross opened this discussion about WW2 era arty management. SPWW2 has a bit extreme spread and often to the wrong direction but it does a good job at it otherwise, when you don't have LOS the spread is wider.

Agreed that there is a certain degree of dispersion of rounds, but would 150-300m be typical on maps the size we play on? For the US 155mm M1 gun, the dispersion area is roughly 70m x 325m at a range of roughly 18km. I suspect most ranges we engage targets at in the game are no more than a quarter of that. It will obviously vary from weapon to weapon. As you point out, most dispersal variations result in rounds being long or short. Lateral dispersion is much less significant.