Originally posted by garethadr
... because with artillary or mortars, your rounds are adjusted be either the forward observer or your gunner. You change the gun elevation or the charge, you change the distance
1. We don't have the ability to change the charge, and I don't think HT wants to have to model each round / charge package for each piece of artillery. Even if we are limited to just changing elevation, it would be nice to be able to have more precision with dot commands allowing us to elevate and traverse the guns.
2. For ship to shore fire (and vice-versa), we're firing 8" rounds at 18,000 yards and waiting a good number of seconds to be able to see where the shots land to get any sort of correction. Worse yet, firing on shore from a cruiser, your shots land with a little puff of dirt on shore that is easily missed (rather than a nice HE explosion that you might actually see). An optical rangefinder, even if on the bridge, would let someone direct fire and call out range estimates to the gunners and give them a chance to correct.
On shore, your rangefinder gives you the initial estimate of how far out the enemy ships are - which is a bit of an equalizer since you are typically outgunned by 9 8" guns to the 1 or 2 in your shore battery. You still have to actually score hits on a moving, evading target, but as it is now CV groups can steam in right offshore and have a good chance of getting through.
Optical rangefinders were used by forward observers on land as well. You put a jeep with a couple of guys on a hill, who pass the range and bearing from their known position back to the battery a few miles back and call out corrections when the fire comes in. It'd make tank town battles a bit more interesting when the battery of 105s behind the hill starts laying fire on somebody and everybody starts looking for the FO post.
I don't think HT can model the 'dial in until you get a sharp image' optical rangefinder that was used back then. I'm hoping more that we can get a crosshair sight (like the bombsight in a B17) that you hold down a key for x seconds on a target to get a range estimate that gets better the longer you hold the key and keep the crosshair on the target. Once you have your range estimate, you jump into the gunner position and open fire, correcting as necessary. I think this is a reasonable model for rangefinding, and doesn't create a "laser rangefinder" which puts the shells on target instantly all the time.
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In a jeep, your FO with a rangefinder drives to a hill overlooking your target - he ranges it and finds he is 6.0K out. You drive up behind him, deploy your artillery with him 4.0K in front of you, dial your elevation up to 10.0K and open fire. Suddenly, rounds are landing on a town / airfield and your FO is calling out corrections. The enemy is scrambling IL2s to find your FO and kill him. Enemy jeeps head up the hill looking to spot your artillery so that they can call in counter-battery fire...
It'd be interesting.
EagleDNY
$.02
