Quick (and dumb) arty question

[Jester_UK]

Could someone tell me whether the Soviet and Russian armed forces have (or had) FASCAM type ordinance in their arsenal? And if so how effective are they when compared to the NATO type?

[Ssnake]

I think that from the mid 1980s on, they did.

[GH_Lieste]

They have KMGU area denial munitions deployable by both fixed and rotary wing assets.
I don't know about anti-tank minefields though... I thought the munitions in KMGU are fragmentation or concrete piercing/cratering.

Not strictly FASCM, but I understand that the failure rate of bomblets from ICM/DPICM is sufficiently high to make dismounted operations in the beaten zone somewhat hazardous until cleared.

[Jester_UK]

Thanks gents.

[stalintc]

Hiya this is also a dumb question

Ive been scratching my head for a while, but are there any graphical representations of attitude (mils) for arty? I cant for the life of me work out what it all means and how to use it properly :confused:

[Ssnake]

Argh!
Bomblets yes, FASCAM no.

Sorry for the confusion. :(

[GH_Lieste]

I want to clarify that KMGU can be an area denial weapon - i.e. a minefield, but the munitions are the "butterfly" mine and pose no threat to vehicles other than softskins. AFAIK the heavier munition it can use is a concrete piercing bomblet, which is intended to break-up concrete aprons/taxiways/runways.

BTW would it be useful to have different types of minefield - At the moment (well per SB1 actually) infantry can operate with impunity in the available AT minefields, and FASCAM is AT as well.
There should also be AP minefields, AP FASCAM (I think), and all ICM/DPICM should leave a 'thin' AP minefield as a secondary effect.

Some of this could well be in SB Pro already of course :)

I should be able to find out soon :)

[Jester_UK]

Hiya this is also a dumb question

Ive been scratching my head for a while, but are there any graphical representations of attitude (mils) for arty? I cant for the life of me work out what it all means and how to use it properly :confused:


Good question. I could use some clarification on this one as well

[GH_Lieste]

Due north (up on the map ;) ) is 0 or 6400, Due south is 3200, East is 1600, West is 4800.

There are two possibilities with a linear sheaf in terms of which alignment it takes, and three possibilities for location:

Shells aligned along the attitude, i.e. 0 mils gives a long thin line stretching north/south on the map. (this sounds most likely, but you never know till you test it - or ask a serving artillery-man... The other possibility is across the attitude, so an east/west line)

The location possibilities are:
Centred on the aimpoint (eg from above example, half shells land south of the tgt, half to the north).
Running up to the aimpoint (north most shell is at the tgt, the pattern is south of the aimpoint).
Running on from the aimpoint (pattern starts at the aimpoint and runs on in the direction specified - eg 0000, North).

I think that the correct option is the third one, but someone could easily test it..

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Ref the Mils system and it's effect on calling Arty.

Keep in mind that all directions will be taken from the "Observers" location toward the target. And any corrections will be from the same observers original location, so if you move for a better view the original direction will be used by the Foward Observing Officer (FOO) [guy talking directly to the guns, not you] for the main impact point shift.

This also effects the "add / drop / left /right" movement of the center splash point.
ie: you call a firemission with the Co"A" vehicle and after the splash you have shifted to a closer vehicle to better see the effects, now you send a "correction" for that firemission of "say" [drop 200 /right 100], the corrections will be calculated from the original sending vehicles location. So a left to you now may actually be a add from the Co"A"s direction. (depending on where, what direction you moved to)

Here is a "bmp image" of the Mils scale with the standard directions also indicated. I would reccommend copying it and printing out a small transparency that you can attach to the front edge of your monitor till your more familiar with the directions. (even the pro's sometimes stick a small scale on the corner of their map board because when the sh"t hits the fan it's sometimes difficult to recall the correct direction) Although most of times you'll use a compass to give the direction to the tgt and confirm it on the map(if there's time).. AND INCOMING ARTY ALWAYS HAS THE RIGHT OF WAY! lol

Ref GH's reply, the linear pattern fall is from the Grid point out in the direction you have indicated.

Hope that helps some ..... 9erRed

[stalintc]

GH_Lieste and 9erRed excellent answers! I now understand what im doing lol

Special thanks and brownie points to 9erRed to providing that mil scale, im going to print that off and leave it just below my monitor, that is an invaluable thing to have :)

[Jester_UK]

Fully agree. Great info. Many thanks guys.

[GH_Lieste]

I'm currently attempting to implement artillery coordination flights in a WW1 sim... that is ...different.

A typical RFC call for adjustment would be:

O.L.O.22.a.M.A.3.

Translation to follow... but any takers?

[Jester_UK]

I'm currently attempting to implement artillery coordination flights in a WW1 sim... that is ...different.

A typical RFC call for adjustment would be:

O.L.O.22.a.M.A.3.

Translation to follow... but any takers?


Would you like me to dig my Grandfather's training manual out on this one or would that be considered cheating since it covers artillery spotting in some detail?

(He joined the RFC in 1917)

[GH_Lieste]

<Starts salivating>

Oooo could you?

[Jester_UK]

I could indeed.

In fact I'm going through the scans if it I had done earlier this year as I type.

So far I've found "L" as being "Ready to engage target." but I'm struggling to find the rest. Going to have to go into the whole grid construction and everything...... Not easy on scans of hand written 90 year old pages!

[GH_Lieste]

Not quite... The O.L. is part of a zonal call..
Oostaavert Line:

[Jester_UK]

Yeah I'm beginning to realise it's a damn sight more complicated system than I thought it was! I'm going cross-eyed from the hand writing and my PC is throwing a fit from loading the images of the pages.... Not to mention that the DVD drive is starting to sound like it's got asthma!

The thing that threw me totally right from the start is that the training notes are obviously generalised to the point where they don't contain specific zonal, squadron or battery identifications. That being the case (on top of the fact I've never been through this part of his manual in detail before) I was looking at everything from the wrong perspective.

Think I'll have to cave on this one for the night.

[GH_Lieste]

If I've understood it correctly myself...

Oostaavert Line: Grid 22a: Mostly falling 50m Due East.

[Jester_UK]

No wonder I was getting nowhere with that last night..... The calls I was looking at were the battery calls not the pilot's calls.

Still wouldn't have worked it out though!

BTW, it appears from what I've got here that from the pilot's side each call was split into three parts:

First identifying the pilot, his squadron and the battery he's talking to.

Second sending the adjustments or instructions to the battery (it appears that in every case this section would be repeated)

A third part (usually a single letter) that I so far can't find an explanation of.

[Jester_UK]

For your referance, here's a a page from his manual

[GH_Lieste]

I understand the Zonal system to be much more like the modern call for fire.

Rather than (or as well as?) attaching a single spotter to specific batteries, it was also possible to have any suitable W/T equipped aircraft to designate targets of opportunity or to adjust pre-planned fires in progress.

The spot-rep or shell-rep was sent, and the artillery officer would decide who would respond or who needed the correction based on the information received.

By 1917 they were acheiving 200 observations or more per sortie, compared to less than 50 with the dedicated system.

The W/T sets would only transmit or receive adequately when flying towards or away from the artillery's ground set, and only 1 set per 2km could transmit without mutual jamming (even with the improvements of the Clapper key).

And of course, all this in Morse, in the back seat (or sometimes front seat - Bloody Be2s) of an open cockpit wire and canvas biplane under constant threat of becoming the next victim of the roving Jastas.

[Jester_UK]

The W/T sets would only transmit or receive adequately when flying towards or away from the artillery's ground set, and only 1 set per 2km could transmit without mutual jamming (even with the improvements of the Clapper key).

And of course, all this in Morse, in the back seat (or sometimes front seat - Bloody Be2s) of an open cockpit wire and canvas biplane under constant threat of becoming the next victim of the roving Jastas.

There is a note in my Grandfather's notes stressing never to trasmit while making a turn. It also mentions flying directly over the battery to tune in the wireless (which seems a bit dangerous to me since by that stage of the war either side would have recognised a spotter aircraft for what it was and it seems to me that doing this would have revealed the battery's position to the enemy so inviting a pre-emptive counter battery barrage).

As it is, in my Grandfather's case he was lucky that since he joined the RFC while he was 17, after his basic training rather than being sent straight to France, he went to 109 Sqn which was an advanced training unit for bomber pilots under 18 (unlike the army, the RFC/RAF rigidly enforced the rule about not sending underage members to France by 1917...... Unlike the previous two years where they sent pilots over almost as soon as they could take off and land!).

He finally went to France in late September 1918, joining 55 Sqn. He flew five operational missions. He was shot down once when an AA gunner very inconsiderately removed the radiator from the front of his DH4. He was able to glide back over allied lines after the engine died and crashlanded in a field.

I know he ended up in a military hospital at some stage, but don't know if he was injured in the crashlanding, or whether that was something else. I'm hoping to get down to the PRO at some stage and find out.


....Oh and one thing you didn't mention.... While they were doing all that, they were doing it without parachutes since High Command in their wisdom felt parachutes would encourage crews of damaged aircraft to bail out unecessarilly...... Or that in most cases the engine magneto was geared directly to the prop shaft, meaning that in the event of a fuel leak, there was no way to stop the magneto sparking with the obvious horrendous results.