Area Attack for Russians and (maybe) MEC

[aperson444]

I'm not sure if it really matters if we change the area attack for Russia or MEC. This is just something I thought up. I was thinking that instead of a JDAM or Aritllery for medium (2 km) -big (4 km and above) MEC or Russia maps, we could use BM-30 rocket strikes instead. I did some research, and dug up this video abotut he different rockets it fires

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2zhgi7j2s[/youtube]

The rocket at 1:45 seems to be the HE rocket (weights at around 815 kg). The first one is a cluster rocket. Each launcher system fires 12 rockets. So maybe a strike of 12-24 rockets should suffice. These are actually quite large and powerful rockets, but I'm guessing that the bulk of the rocket's 815 lbs is made up of propellant (these have a range of 90 km!).

To indicate the differences between a BM30 Smerch strike and a Normal PR Arty Strike I drew some pictures with my amazing Paint skills.

Here's a standard artillery strike:



Here's a BM-30 Smerch (Hypothesized) strike:




(Note that I did NOT count out how many explosions there were relative to shells/rockets fired, this is just a scatter plot).

Notice that the BM30 strike is more linear and forms a more rectangular area than the artillery strike. This is because the rockets are fired in a row, along the same vector from a single source. Artillery is just distributed around the place. The BM30 also has a very large size, so the explosion is a bit larger.

[rampo]

All coventional factions have normal artillery for gameplay reasons. No need to go and change that.

[gazzthompson]

.

only need code after the = sign in youtube tags :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si2zhgi7j2s

[DankE_SPB]

well MLRS were suggested pretty often before

so the explosion is a bit larger.

HE shell pack 95kg of expolsives with overall weight of warhead 215kg, so its faaaar more powerful than 122 and even 152mm arty shells(i think exposion in that video is not the explosion of HE shell of smerch )

Notice that the BM30 strike is more linear and forms a more rectangular area than the artillery strike

MLRS are area attack weapons, taking into account the amount of power packed into one thing, there is no point in putting them into 1 small spot

[Ninja2dan]

The 9A52 (aka BM-30) is similar to the US/NATO M270 MLRS. These types of artillery systems are in use by many factions, and are used to compliment (not replace) the use of howitzers or mortars.

Like the M26 270mm rocket fired from the M270 MLRS, the 9M55/528 series 300mm rockets are unguided but their impact can be modified by the firing software by slightly adjusting the launcher prior to each rocket firing. This allows the crew to simulate sheaf patterns similar to howitzer crews.

One thing to remember is that conventional artillery, both howitzer and rocket support, can have the impact pattern and dispersion (called Sheaf) changed depending on the situation. There is no single sheaf pattern, and the impact zone can change even from various weather situations. In general, rocket artillery actually has a much wider sheaf than howitzer artillery, the opposite of your suggestion.

The artillery strikes are being adjusted, as stated in the highlights topic. I think the changes will have a greater effect on how artillery support is used.


As for using rocket artillery over the light howitzers, I should note that the use of rocket artillery is usually for the employment of non-standard munitions at ranges unavailable to most howitzers. Munitions such as ICM/DPICM, SADARM, BATS, etc are the most commonly-used MLRS munitions. As of right now, such munitions are unavailable in PR, so the MLRS is not likely to be added yet.

Basically, where PR would need artillery support, all conventional factions would have some manner of howitzer artillery more often than rocket artillery. This is why I recommend only light howitzers be used for generic artillery support, with JDAM and similar munitions being used on certain maps for specific roles. Mortar support will also be made available in the future as a player-operated weapon system, but that's another story.

[Bob_Marley]

Locked for resuggestion.