Effectiveness of Artillery on Armor

[Aacooper]

I've only briefly played with the demo, but in the Gallagher scenario, the OPFOR artillery has been able to kill M1A2's through continued bombardment.

How is this possible? I'm not an expert on modern artillery, and maybe I'm overestimating the M1 tank.

TOAW2, by the way, does not allow artillery to hurt armor. I think that approach is wrong, because of the effect of artillery on armor in WW2, but I'm curious about TacOp's way of thinking.

[MajorH]

A salvo of 155mm HE has a slight chance of killing tanks.

A salvo of 155mm ICM has a moderate chance of killing tanks.

Arty ammo has changed a lot since WWII.


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Best regards, Major H
majorh1@aol.com

[ltcmayer]

The way Maj H designed artillery effectiveness may not be precise, but it is generally right (that is, about as good as can be expected -- if not better -- for a desktop computer game.) More importantly, it gets you to react to artillery in a doctrinally correct manner. (e.g., don't occupy terrain that is so obviously good that the enemy will prep it, don't stay anywhere after receiving effective fire.) No tank is designed to take a direct hit from a 152/155mm of ANYTHING. Especially since it is hitting the TOP (weak armor) of a tank. ICM, which disperses many, many small HEAT charges means that (in many cases) the arty shell can have good effect against armor over a larger area. It may not totally destroy the tank, but it can be good enough to put the tank out of action for the period covered in the scenario.

LTC Chris Mayer

[Stoffel]

I have another question regarding artillery.
In the game you can only fire HE rounds with the 120mm mortar.
But I believe very capable icm munitions exist for heavy mortars,i.e. Stryx and others.Why are they not in use with TacOps?

[MajorH]

I am not aware of any ICM rounds for mortars that have actually been placed into active service.


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Best regards, Major H
majorh1@aol.com

[Embar]

Originally posted by Stoffel:

>I have another question regarding artillery.
>In the game you can only fire HE rounds
>with the 120mm mortar.
>But I believe very capable icm munitions >exist for heavy mortars,i.e. Stryx and >others.Why are they not in use with TacOps?

If you mean the Swedish "Strix" 120mm mortar round, it is a) not an ICM round (which scatters numberous small sub-munitions over a large area) but a PGM (think "indirect-fire mortar-launched ATGM" or "mortar-launched Copperhead which doesn't need laser pointers to hit the target"), and b) not in service with either the US/CA/NZ armed forces nor any of the former WarPac countries.

I suspect that b) is the main reason why Strix is not included in the game :)

Kind regards,

Embar

[Coyote]

Two things:
One: The third way to avoid artillery damage, KEEP MOVING! Everytime I forget that I take casualties (as I did around 0130 hrs this morning!)

Two: I've begun to wonder, does TacOps (or any other sim for that matter) reflect the right mix firepower vs. mobility kills for current equipment? Most modern tanks are not just better armored but actually heavier than their historical counterparts. That means heavier running gear that is less suceptible to blast or fragment damage. At the same time, fire control systems have become much more complex and, I would suspect, vulnerable to shock damage. In particular, ICM should produce a mobility kill only if the engine compartment is penetrated. Any comments on this idea?

Gary Chilcote
See you at Fiddler's Green