Artillery

[Mano]

Bring Artillery to the Main War Arena.

GV's could call in the direction and distance with a simple dot command.
The nearest GV bases could fire on enemy positions. The further the distance from the nearest GV base,
the less accurate the strike becomes. A barrage of 15 to 20 shells would do nicely. If your spawn is camped...
......    ..you have another weapon to help break it up, provided you can get behind a berm
to call in the strike. If you are attacking a field you could take down a hangar, ords, or guns calling
in barrages.

It would add another element to main arena we haven't seen yet.

What was that guys name in "Kelly's Heroes" that kept missing the target?
I think it was Sergeant Mulligan.......we don't him calling in barrages. 

 
Mano

[JunkyII]

Bring Artillery to the Main War Arena.

GV's could call in the direction and distance with a simple dot command.
The nearest GV bases could fire on enemy positions. The further the distance from the nearest GV base,
the less accurate the strike becomes. A barrage of 15 to 20 shells would do nicely. If your spawn is camped...
......    ..you have another weapon to help break it up, provided you can get behind a berm
to call in the strike. If you are attacking a field you could take down a hangar, ords, or guns calling
in barrages.

It would add another element to main arena we haven't seen yet.

What was that guys name in "Kelly's Heroes" that kept missing the target?
I think it was Sergeant Mulligan.......we don't him calling in barrages. 

 
Mano

15 to 20 shells? You trying to level the base in a single fire for effect?

If you are going to have arty make it manned, people in Arty will be told via room text where to change left right add or drop.....closer to real life.

[Scherf]

I'm all for it, my guess is the game would be more spread out and fluid if there were more ways to move the frontier.

I dunno, was on last evening, 300 dudes all at six fields.

Variety baby, ya gotta love it.

[Butcher]

Artillery is so incredibly inaccurate, just like high alt bombing even with the norton bombsight.
20 Shells fired at a town you are lucky to have a handful hitting buildings, so trying to barrage a spawn camp is not going to happen you simply will go through hundreds of shells and not likely hit something.
Indirect fire is what you are asking, has a very low accuracy rating, Direct firing is not likely since most tanks are armed with HE Rounds, which require you to be on top of a tank before possibly getting a kill.

better logical ideas that came up with have some sort of way to fire it like a 5 inch gun off a ship - you can dial the range in, but still the chances of actually hitting something are going to be slim.

Not even sure how you can dial indirect fire in either, I can see direct.

[Scherf]

Could you do the same for direct fire as is done from the cruiser currently? I suppose the cruiser stuff is technically speaking direct, but I never really see it connect...

[Butcher]

Could you do the same for direct fire as is done from the cruiser currently? I suppose the cruiser stuff is technically speaking direct, but I never really see it connect...

To not change the tank designs - I think the Commander view for the Artillery Support Guns would be its best option, I am not entirely sure how you can range with these tanks either.

[JVboob]

49MERLIN and myself have used the 88s in this effect using one of us as a paratrooper to help the other range but its rediculiously hard to do and not effective.

if HTC would give is say a 5 gun battery and a way to range like the cv. or be able to have a way to see the range of the general location of the enemy say within 500 meters then it would be easier but not so easy that everyone could rape the tanks. with in 500 you would still need someone to spot to "walk in" the shells. the reason no one succesfully uses 88 or the 17lbers is because they cant get ranged anywhere near the enemy you ofter under shoot 1.5-5k or over shoot and equal distance. if you could get within 500meters the friendlies could help walk you in. and with a gun battery with 3-6 guns you could have a small barrage effect, with both 88 or 17lber batteries manned you have 6-12 guns makeing the arty of the game look feel and affect the battle more realistically. this is a thing that would add greatly to the game.

[Eric19]

+1 to artillery concept I like the idea ya know for breaking up spawn camps and the idea for a pilot on the ground to be the forward observer or replace the pilot with the jeep or something along those lines

[titanic3]

It's gonna be the same as dropping bombs from 15K into a GV spawn. Highly unlikely you'll hit anything.

[Ack-Ack]

Artillery is so incredibly inaccurate, just like high alt bombing even with the norton bombsight.

Without the features to support artillery, I agree that it would be inaccurate.  However, if features were added to support artillery that would allow ranging and spotting of targets, artillery would not be incredibly inaccurate.  In real life, artillery used in WW2 was not terribly inaccurate and with proper ranging and spotting, was quite accurate.

ack-ack

[JunkyII]

Without the features to support artillery, I agree that it would be inaccurate.  However, if features were added to support artillery that would allow ranging and spotting of targets, artillery would not be incredibly inaccurate.  In real life, artillery used in WW2 was not terribly inaccurate and with proper ranging and spotting, was quite accurate.

ack-ack

Exactly correct, much hasn't changed with normal mortar or Arty rounds these days....forward observers can bracket rounds into 50 meters for a 4-5 round fire for effect mission.

That's why I'm thinking guys on ground or in planes could bracket them in via room chat.

 

[LilMak]

Jeep formations with towed arty guns. 30 second set up time to deploy the guns. Maybe m3s with towed pieces.

[bustr]

First I don't know how you will move your artillery group around or if it will be fixed. You guys can wish for that.

When you spawn or take control of your artillery position you have two postions like in a GV.

1. - Gun adjuster and fire.
2. - Forward Spotter and fire.

The adjuster\spotter has a quarter pie grid that follows the muzzle of the cannons. The radius is the max range of the cannon(s), with a movable spotter's jump spawn arrow. He places the arrow where he wants to jump to and becomes the same as a parachuted pilot walking around. Instead of calling coordinates and fire, he uses his grid to estimate direction, distance and elevation. Presses a fire button and watches the effect. If the effect is off he hops back to the guns and adjusts. He can kill himself with his own fire and the enemy can kill him if spotted. Give him an icon with a "SP" on it.

a. - To keep him from being a free ranging grifer or hiding in maprooms, he isn't equipped with a firearm. Running fast and position change is his defence. He can augment the Storch as a spotter or work with a Storch spotting for him. He can flip the finger to enemy spotters and goons.
b. - He should have more than one spotter life (3 - 5) but, his life is ultimatly tied to the gun(s) destruction.
c. - Include mannable\auto antiair defences with the gun group(???)
d. - If multiple guns in this scenario, a fixed pattern is fired, or the adjuster has a "short" menu of patterns. All guns slaved to a primary used for all adjustments.

Down sides:
1. - Boring and lots of work.
2. - Over used to local spot\spy hidden tanks versus artillery spotting.
3. - Used to spot\spy suspected mission spawning feilds to call in 262 if this battery can spawn like a GV and has no perk cost. Spawn in, spawn spotter to the maximum gun range towards the airfield. Spot planes until jabo kills guns. Repeat or bring back freinds.
4. - Might become a spawn camping nightmare if cannon size HE round is seriously destructive to tanks. Or to CV groups and assult craft too close to shore.
5. - Vulnerable once spotted due to fixed nature.
6. - A really clunky cludgy gamey process if this battery can move as a mobile unit setting up and tearing down. Spotter spying abuses would be mostly tied to a mobile battery being GV spawnable into locations.

[Butcher]

Without the features to support artillery, I agree that it would be inaccurate.  However, if features were added to support artillery that would allow ranging and spotting of targets, artillery would not be incredibly inaccurate.  In real life, artillery used in WW2 was not terribly inaccurate and with proper ranging and spotting, was quite accurate.

ack-ack

Yeah I am assuming it would be without features to support it - being Bombers don't exactly need gunners to operate, neither would artillery in that sense - but I am kinda curious what kind of features would work? I mean 8 inchers need eyes to hit town - artillery I guess would be in the same sense would make it quite nice.

I am assuming this based on the M7 Priest which I think would be the artillery of choice, not sure about Tow'd since we have no way to dismount - remount artillery pieces.

[TDeacon]

Since historically most WWII casualties were caused by artillery, we have the potential here for a whole slew of game-distruptive effects.  These effects might not be "fun" for most players.  For example, I can imagine this ruining the GV game.  Ground attack aircraft are bad enough, such that GVing with any significant number of them up is an exercise in frustration, but at least they have limited ammo.  

-1

MH