[SG] Artillery

I'm thinking about IF doctrine, and the IF loves artillery. So I want to be
able to channel enemy units into a fire sack, and have artillery
which I can be confident will land in the fire sack--not deviate over to
my platoon strongpoint. Should I just put a few chits on the table and then
*not* roll deviation for the first round on that predesignated point? Other
suggestions?

If you have possession of the area prior to battle you can do a fire
registration that will give you a precise fire plan. Then you designate
the targets to your gunners by numeric/color code. Then you over
command net call back "Fire PFP Blue" knowing that means that the road
junction will be hit.Then I would use your *not* roll deviation rule.

Don

[quoted original message omitted]

--- "laserlight@quixnet.net" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
wrote:
> I'm thinking about IF doctrine,

This will be a first for IFed...

> and the IF loves artillery.

Yeah. They may be pretty bad at it, but they do love it.

So I want to be able to channel enemy
> units into a fire sack, and have artillery which I

Well, once you've got your artillery pre-registered on
a point, then you can be pretty sure it will land there when you input that
TRP's data into the gun's computer.

Of course, TRPs might be a bit obvious, especially if you've had bad quality
gunners targeting in on them. Perhaps putting a few crater markers out to mark
them?

Also, make heavy use of preplotted fire. For instance,

Turn 1: No fire. Turn 2: Mortars on TRP 3 Turn 3: 23rd Howitzer Battery FFE on
TRP 2 Turn 4: Whatever.

The artillery automatically comes in, automatically hits, but it may not be
anywhere CLOSE to where the enemy actually is.

Of course, IFed artillery doctrine also centralizes fireplans and holds
authority to call for fire somewhat above the platoon level. This also makes
for lack of flexibility.

> Yeah. They may be pretty bad at it, but they do love

Well, they can't be *that* bad. A coalition of Egypt and Saudi took over the
entire Middle East and North Africa, including Iran and Iraq, neither of which
you'd expect to roll over without a fight. Given that we're talking about 150
years in the future, they could be pretty tough.

> Of course, IFed artillery doctrine also centralizes

> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

Actually, given the depths of incompetence demonstrated by Iran and Iraq in
the past few decades,
tougher than _them_ doesn't mean much.

I've got some ideas for how this comes about that I'm trying to get into
coherent form. I'll bounce them off you when I'm done.

> > Of course, IFed artillery doctrine also

You're assuming a sudden ability to produce junior officers worth something?
It's dubious to me, but your universe is your univere.

G'day,

> You're assuming a sudden ability to produce junior

I know very little military history, but given the overhauls you can see
within other branches of society in very short periods of time I would've
though 150yrs was more than an enough time to pull it off. Military wise
wasn't there some mammoth re-jig around about the same as Napoleon that
saw some armies being much more efficient than others?

Cheers

> > Well, they can't be *that* bad. A coalition of

John said:
> Actually, given the depths of incompetence

But they both have a fairly large population. Iraq in particular would put up
an enthusiastic fight at being taken over by Sunni. And
the kicker--not only does the Saudi-Egypt alliance have to take them
over, they have to do it fast enough and forcefully enough to make the rest of
the world acquiesce.

> You're assuming a sudden ability to produce junior

I wouldn't have thought of 150 years as sudden. If you import eg
US/UK cadre, I'd imagine you could have pretty fair troops a lot

Excellent parallels in fact.

Gracias,
Glenn/Triphibious@juno.com
This is my Science Fiction Alter Ego E-mail address.
Historical - Warbeads@juno.com
Fantasy and 6mm - dwarf_warrior@juno.com

> On Mon, 27 May 2002 09:54:45 +1000 Beth.Fulton@csiro.au writes:

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> I know very little military history, but given the

There were a couple.

However if the reasons for military incompetence are part of the culture then
there's no hope.

Otherwise the French would have learned something in the time period between
1870 and 1940 (a mere 70 years, I'll admit) that would prevent their getting
beat twice (and within 2 Brit Corps of getting beat a third time in between
them). Learning lessons from
military actions is easy.  Learning the _right_
lessons and incorporating them into your military
institutions is a cast-iron bitch.