New Artillery Area Attack

[SShadowFox]

I don't know if this is possible, but, could the player be able to select the kind of artillery shell that will be fired on the Area Attack?

Something like, you press "Page Up" to accept the displayed kind of shell and "Page Down" to change the displayed shell:

Examples:

I request area attack on a map with artillery and the commander accepts:

"Do you want HE shell? press "Page Up" for yes or "Page Down" to try other shell"

And the same to: AP, WP, Smoke, maybe laser guided (or it hit accurately at the middle of the maker on map).

[Arnoldio]

I believe area attack is "a mix" of HE and AT, all in all, powerful shells.

Smoke is valiable on mortars even faster, so i dont see any point in this.

[spawncaptain]

AT shells? I haven't seen a single DPICM round in PR.
Edit: DPICM sounds like a good idea though. If any community modder is up for it...

[Thermis]

DPICM isn't used anymore. Also is a cluster bomb not AP.

In the real world the guy requesting the fire mission doesn't ask for a specific round type unless is Illumination or Smoke. You describe the target to your FO and he'll figure out what's best to kill it with.

[spawncaptain]

Thanks Thermis. How does the US military destroy armored targets with arty now? OT, I know.

[SShadowFox]

Far as I know they have SADARM now...

[40mmrain]

Armour vs arty wouldnt be useful in PR, maps are too small, really.

Just some big old HE rounds are all that's going to be useful

[Thermis]

We have SADARM rounds but they are expensive and not widely used, we also have more traditional armor piercing rounds that can be employed against tanks, but Arty is not really a anti tank weapon system its role on the battle field is to suppress the enemy or reduce enemy defensive positions. Tanks are normally to mobile of a target for Arty to be effective, however, while tanks are in defensive positions or stopped for any reason Cavalry FOs have essentially giant soflams ontop of their vehicles that can calculate all the info needed for a fire mission and send it to a Battery and then drop AP rounds right ontop of the enemy. However a HE round for a M777 will fuck up almost anything it hits tank or not.

[SShadowFox]

Better the arty being operated by player =D

Like the mortars but maybe having a "computer" to help when calculating...

IIRC the mortars were an Area Attack, the same could be done with the artillery.

[Stealthgato]

God no. Mortar spam is already more than enough.

[Thermis]

Better the arty being operated by player =D

Like the mortars but maybe having a "computer" to help when calculating...

IIRC the mortars were an Area Attack, the same could be done with the artillery.

Mortars were an Area Attack, but the scale of PR maps makes it very very unrealistic to have an arty battery on the map as their max range is around 20 miles. It also takes something like 10 people to crew one M777 Howitzer in the real world not accounting for FOs and Fire Control personnel. On map mortars are realistic as their range is withing the maps parameters, and they can be crewed semi realistically by a 32 player team.

[40mmrain]

what about rocket artillery? Bigger faster booms, but a longer wait time between strikes?

also, what about lowering area attack times for AAS? PResently arty is very under-utilized. In fact, a replacement of the JDAM on AAS for rocket artillery would be good for balance if time between strikes is reduced. With the JDAM, its single blast makes running for cover impossible, really, unlike artillery where a strike every 20 minutes wouldn't be nearly as bad, as opposed to a JDAM where it would just be an instant defusing of defenses.

[spawncaptain]

You guys are talkin about high (at least bataillon) level artillery while in PR we don't even have a single platoon of infantry (on 64p). Come on.

[Eddie Baker]

You guys are talkin about high (at least bataillon) level artillery while in PR we don't even have a single platoon of infantry (on 64p). Come on.

Not sure how it works in foreign forces, but in US forces, unless it's a battalion task force (Army) / battalion landing team (Marines) with additional reinforcements, it would more likely be brigade level minimum, and even then those would be attachments from the divisional artillery unit (MLRS or HIMARS).

Otherwise, there's only the heavy mortars (120mm) organic to US Army infantry battalions and the 155mm howitzers and 120mm mortars (in this case operated by artillery rather than infantry units) attached to Marine battalion landing teams.

We already have aircraft being based forward of the off-map artillery; too much of a stretch as it is.

[Thermis]

With the new army structure, all Brigade Combat Teams have an organic Arty unit. Either 105s or 155s. But that's the lowest command level I've ever seen them on. I think some of the Heavy BCTs have HIMARS batteries instead of Paladins, but rocket arty is at the Division level.

[Hunt3r]

To be the devil's advocate, I think arty should be much more common than it is now.

If somehow in PR we have the possibility of two attack helicopters or two jets on something like Kashan, why not have faster artillery? Yes, artillery is incredibly powerful and one strike can be gamechanging, but 95% of the time I never see area attacks. Even a map like Silent Eagle, which is basically a Fulda Gap scenario, the Russians basically never get artillery when IRL their battle plans dictate having enough artillery to basically level entire grids.

Honestly, I think that PR needs to keep scaling consistent. If we scale the maps for what jets and helicopters really cover, and try to scale up the infantry through rally points and FOBs, then why not scale artillery to give more attack available than before? Even if it was just every 10-15 minutes, that would be a massive gamechanger.

[40mmrain]

To be the devil's advocate, I think arty should be much more common than it is now.

If somehow in PR we have the possibility of two attack helicopters or two jets on something like Kashan, why not have faster artillery? Yes, artillery is incredibly powerful and one strike can be gamechanging, but 95% of the time I never see area attacks. Even a map like Silent Eagle, which is basically a Fulda Gap scenario, the Russians basically never get artillery when IRL their battle plans dictate having enough artillery to basically level entire grids.

Honestly, I think that PR needs to keep scaling consistent. If we scale the maps for what jets and helicopters really cover, and try to scale up the infantry through rally points and FOBs, then why not scale artillery to give more attack available than before? Even if it was just every 10-15 minutes, that would be a massive gamechanger.

I agree. Also, I still like my rocket artillery idea. It would be utterly boring to crew artillery in pr, and because of small server counts it gets around issues of not enough inf. I think a large 4Km map, with a coupkleICVs (lightly armed APCs), trans helos, and ~10 minute arty attacks, instead of tons of heavy air and armour would be brilliantly fresh, and fun to play. Even taking older maps like kashan and doing that to them would breathe new life into the game. Wouldnt take much work either.

[MaSSive]

No player controlled artillery ever. Therefore no rocket arty. This is just bad idea, and wont improve anything. Theres lots of things which are ''cool'' but are not in PR for a reason.

Mortars are enough, some might say even too much, when properly crewed.

[40mmrain]

I wasnt suggesting controllable stuff, I meant just a new area attack. JDAM, arty shells, or rockets, each have differences.

[=HCM= Shwedor]

It would be neat to have a rocket launched cluster munition. Makes for cool effects and sounds on a scale not much different from the current artillery. Not to mention that most of the real factions in PR have such weapons systems. (MLRS M270, BM-30 Smerch, BM-21 Grad, etc.)