FO's or On Map Guns?

[Mad Russian]

The main reason the Soviets developed their line of assault guns was because of how poorly their artillery performed in the follow up stages of an assault/breakthrough attack.

Soviet artillery was great at pounding predetermined targets but not at all good at adjusting that fire on the move.

Enter the SU/JSU assault guns. These were specifically designed to provide Soviet infantry with direct fire artillery support during fluid actions when the towed artillery was out of contact or out of it's element.

Battalion mortars would normally be sighted to provide direct fire for the area of operations they were to support. Normally that would mean mortars on the map not a FO.

The comments about the Soviets using all their weapons direct fire if they could is absolutely correct. That's normally a costly tactic but it's accurate and the Soviets could replace the losses. The Germans were more prone to indirect fire where their artillery assets weren't in as dangerous a position.

Good Hunting.

MR