Spotter planes and Artillery

[Duckwing6]

Hyas !

I've just read an article about the Westland Lysander .. what a marvelous plane .. also the Fiseler Storch .. Why not modell them?

You will say "what the heck should we do with an un armed, slow, low spotter plane ?"

How about this:

HT said there were plans to put artillery into the game .. so what they need is a SPOTTER plane  
Have fixed based artillery sites that shoot at the spotter's command for example with .ari 11.9.9.2 therefore shooting in the upper most grid of 11.9 and there into the lower part of the sub grid... it would take then about 1 minute till a full salvo arives (ari salvo to be set like normal salvo and each spotter given a mximum number of ari rounds he can expend).. the lower the salvo setting the faster would the salvo arrive (due to faster battrey response time)..
So for example a single gun would respond in 10-15 seconds (use that to range in) and then you call for a full barrage .salvo 16 (?) and the result should then arrive 1 minute later.

Of course the survivability of one of these spotter planes is in question .. but well they had pretty good camouflage and flew very close to the ground so with a somewhat reduced DOT visibility and icon visibility they should have a sufficiently high survivability (max dot range at 6k? and ID at 2.5k?).. also you could add the possibility of landing and shutting down which would substitute for a crew that lands, shuts down and throws camo-netting over the plane which should make spotting VERY hard (1.5k? from planes and 2k-2.5k from vehicles) .. of course in this configuration the availability of the artillery function is questionable..

what would they add:

Additional targets for M16's .. the capability to deliver artilery to ground targets from airfields at a travel time of aprox. 10 minutes (if you survive)
They'd drag the some of the fighters out of the stratosphere, and would add an elemt that's never been in a WW2 sim... SPOTTER Planes!

The Planes of choice would be:

Westland Lysander
Fiseler Storch
L5 Grass Hopper , J3 Cub

Thoughts ??

------------------

Phillip "Duckwing6" Artweger
Flight Officer "E" Flight
Skeleton Crew

[Ripsnort]

 

Originally posted by Duckwing6:
Hyas !

I've just read an article about the Westland Lysander .. what a marvelous plane .. also the Fiseler Storch .. Why not modell them?

Thoughts ??

Flight Journal is one publication that I read from cover to cover.  Great Mag.

BTW, I don't know if spotters will work, currently, when your tank wingman is firing and hitting buildings with HE, your FE will show him missing, or , shots going through the building.



[This message has been edited by Ripsnort (edited 05-05-2000).]

[miko2d]

 Spotter planes, as well as spotter baloons, etc. will not work well in AH. In real life they were covered by friendly fighters and did not have to worry about their safety.
 Here even if they find someone willing to fly cover for them, there will be enough dweebs to make a kamikaze attack on them ignoring the cover, only to be shot down seconds later. Same as transport plane, except that spotter plane has to fly withing a view from the enemy.

 Too many things in RL relied on fear of death. Until we have it here, better not gett too fancy with realism.

miko--

[Duckwing6]

Rip:  The Spotter wouldn't Spot for a human controlled ari but rather would direct the fire of an AI battery.. it would be like seeing your own Bombs/rockets/shells falling/exploding.

Miko: well that's an issue with the current visibility ranges. If you make visible range small enough he can still fly around with a pretty high survivability as long as he seeks some terrain masking him. If you give them the same "Dot" range as all the other planes then you're right.

Another thing would be that the .ari command would only allow targets within a certain range e.g. so nobody can up from a far away field and then bombard a field on the other side of the map. Also considered should be the ARI range (maybe shown as a circle on the map?)

There is enough people wo fly GOONS or fly low level B26 raids which are pretty suicidal considered the amountof cannon armed 1 pass killers in the game .. i'd fly a Storch when i would know that keeping it low and slow i can't be seen at under 2.5k-3k range and i could devastate an airfield or any other ground target with my directed fire.

Also another addition to gameplay would be that more JABO's would be searching for the ARI batteries.

[Mighty1]

Arty worked just fine in DOA.

------------------
Mighty1
The New Baby Harp Seals

"Come try to club THIS Seal"

[Duckwing6]

C'mmon guys sorry that i bring it up on-top aiagn but i wanna hear MORE oppinions!

[Koed]

How about having those spotter planes actualy control the artillery? I know it doesnt sound very realistic but it might be a good option. So you'd spot yer target, get it into your marking sights and give the fire command. This would trigger the artie at the base you took of from to fire in the somewhat general direction of the target you marked.
How does that sound?

[MarkVZ]

Arty in DOA was excellent.
I used to take F2B's up above the highest con and rain destruction on bases, and it was alot of fun!  I vote to get a Fieseler Storch or L4 Cub in here to spot Arty.  The Lysander  was more of a ground attack and transport plane to drop people off at the shortest of fields.  A Cub or a Storch would be ideal because it could "hover" over the target with ease.  You could probably slow a storch down to thr 40's if you drop flaps, while Lysanders wouldn't get anywhere near that slow while maintaining control.  People would think that a Storch or Cub would be an easy kill, but you have to remember that they can outmaneuver any fighter here by far.
Just some food for thought.

------------------
Mark VanZwoll
33rd Strike Group

[Azrael]

Note: Arty spotting in DoA did work (and was a blast ) since the spotter could fly around at a safe altitude (either in a Zep or grabbing in a F2B).

Using a slow, unarmed plane for spotting worked in WWII because they could always go to the deck rather quick, 'hide' in the area or even land. That's a tactic that is doomed in AH, at least as long as there isn't enough terrain to 'hide' a plane in.

Otoh, a jeep could take the spotting part, if he is able to drive to a location that is higher than the target.

But then, HT mentioned that there will be a self-propelled artillery (M7?) - so they probably are going to try it without AI artillery.

Az

   
II.(K)/JG2

[funked]

Weren't those planes usually operated by armies?  I think they were useful in real life because they allowed the army to operate a plane without an airfield.  

Here we've got airfields with infinite supplies of fuel and airplanes and pilots, very near the front lines.  In our case a fighter can do the job just as well, and have a lot better chance of survival.

[Duckwing6]

Sure funked .. fighters can do the JOB .. also who needs several different fighters when SPITS can do the JOB .. how about eliminating every other fighter than that because teh Spit cando the JOB anyhow .. it's a matter of bringing something NEW into the sim .. add depth and immersion.

Also As from my reading the Lysander wasn't exactly unarmed.. it had 2 cal 303's in it's weel pants and 2 on a flexible mount in the rear cockpit, it could also mount a samll bomb load (up to 2x250 lbs) it had  a cruise speed of 180 Mph (not too bad eh?) max dive speed around 300 and stalls at 55mph at gross weight.

It's a matter of how you implement these types of A/C .. as i've said in the initial post, having them with the current visual range system wouldn't work, when theyy would be implemented with very short ID ranges, and also SHORT dot ranges, they'd be survivable enough!

Also there IS the option of hiding after landing and shutting down, IF you get an even shorter visual range when the plane is on the ground and not moving..

[Ghosth]

Also the option of letting the light spotter planes roll from a V field would help it considerably.

Since they had no problem rolling from grass strip a V field should be no problem.

All in favor of both the L4 & the Storch here.

Both should be manuverable enough to give any single fighter fits trying to catch it.


[This message has been edited by Ghosth (edited 05-06-2000).]

[Torquila]

Just another crazy idea.
This will only work when we get a artillery vehicle and a spotting plane:

The spotter would fly over the target, like in doa using his map zoomed all the way in to target the general area.
Then the coordinates and the trajectory would then be placed in the HUD of all the Artillery units in range of the target and would show up as a dot or a circle.
To combat the cluttering and confusing of targets, the target field and the name of the spotter would be displayed underneath the dot/circle allowing multiple targets to be fired at effectivly.But when the target is, lets say a ground force of panzers, the map coordinates and name would show up.

Just my £.000025 cents

[This message has been edited by Torquila (edited 07-02-2000).]

[MarkVZ]

I've said this in another thread...
The coordinate idea for spotting artillery is bad.  What would prevent a person from taking  off in a Storch and calling in arty attacks on coordinates he's nowhere near?

The system should be like DOA, where you have spotting rounds, and you correct them by heading and distance, then call in a barrage.

I think that spotting planes should be able to operate on "grass" fields on vehicle bases.

The Lysander really isn't ideal for arty spotting.  It was a faster (180 is fast for the type) plane for light ground attack, and to get agents in behind enemy lines.  The Storch or L-4 Cub are slow enough to linger around the target, and can take-off in very short distances.  The Storch would be the best choice because of it's excellent STOl capavilities, and the mg in the rear window.  It would at least give attackers something to think about.

------------------
Mark VanZwoll
33rd Strike Group

[-towd_]

sounds like a wonderfull idea to me all around,meby have real arty and somthing like havin to wait your turn in the que for fire. but the idea is cool as hell i vote yes