... it takes anywhere from two to four hours to prepare a firing chart to concentrate fires from battalion and larger formations in a combat zone. This has implications on artillery movement, as each time a battery is moved and emplaced, it's location has to be accounted for on the battalion and above firing chart to accurately concentrate barrage (non-line of sight) fires on a target in the battalion's coverage zone.
Yes, and there was even more to it:
The Recon elements of the Artillery regiments had to find usable artillery positions and then
explore the site and the surrounding area. They also had to identify potential weak spots (eg. where unexpected enemy recon elements or partisans could infiltrate) and relay the findings to the security detachment. Once a location was deemed to be usable the exploration/measuring unit had to measure the future gun positions (elevation, alignment, geographical position). These troops would then put flags on the ground to mark the position and (basic) alignment of the guns (which were still in transit).
The Hauptwachtmeister explored the parking positions for the ammunition trains and the field kitchen(s).
Right after the site exploration, the unit's signal detachment then installed all necessary telephone lines and devices (including switch boards) and started to lay phone lines to the several B-posts (B = "Beobachtung" means Observation posts, which were then used by the FOBs), the infantry frontline command posts and the different HQs. At least in the German Army, strict radio silence was ordered until the artillery unit reported "readiness for firing", so only phone lines were supposed to be used during this setup process, to prevent premature triangulation.
When the guns arrived, the "collectors" of the Exploration team (see above) received the guns and unlimbered the guns platoon-wise at the marked positions where then the gun crews roughly aligned them in the predefined base direction. Each gun's gun layers (usually 2 soldiers, called "K1" and "K2") then leveled the gun (using a bubble level) and the K1 then aligned the gun's panorama scope to the established aiming circle, the K3 wrote down the aiming circle numbers, while the loader K3 removed the flags. K4 and K5 started to pile up powder bags and grenades around 10-20 meters away from the gun. The tow vehicles then left the gun emplacements and moved to their parking positions.
A so-called "working gun" was set aside (with a relatively large distance to all the other guns) as it was used for ranging and the creation of the firing tables. The gathered values were then computed for (ported to) the other guns in the unit. The idea behind this: when the enemy detected/triangulated the working gun, the enemy would only target the particular gun and the immediate perimeter, but the other guns would not be affected. That procedure is still used today. Downside back then: The values had to be ported to each gun manually, using pen/paper (and maybe a slipstick), so it was a time-consuming process.
When the first gun was ready to fire, and when the phone lines were installed/working, the battery/unit commander reported "readiness for firing". The unit then still had to create or complete the firing tables by using the working gun. The weather platoon contributed infos about wind speeds and barometric pressure and the map platoon (which usually employed a map printing unit) provided or even created maps (the latter often involved recon of the surrounding terrain).
Also, a fire plan, the operational plan of the Artillery, had to be developed. Such plan listed typical combat missions, which could range from observation/fire to (blindly) harrassing known enemy supply or transport lines, battlefield illumination, recon of enemy B-posts, laying of fog screens and combating single high priority targets, just to name a few.
Time on site:
If I am not mistaken, the next patch will reduce the AI's tendency to shuffle around arty units (means: it relocates arty units frequently).
The extensive shuffling is historical, though.
More than often, the Germans employed and broke apart arty units below the regiment level, means they often employed or reassigned Abteilungen (Bns) and then even combined these (in the fire plan) if needed. For these units, the chain of command (thus the superior unit) changed often. Positive side-effect: this reduced the amount of equipment to be moved on each relocation.
It was the German doctrine to relocate a given arty unit after an X number of fire missions (not sure about the exact rules).
Example: During the Battle for Schmidt (28th US inf division, Battle of Hürtgen Forest, 1944), the German arty units aiming at the elements of the 28th Inf Division fired from 3 major positions (in this case: also at least 3 different arty units), but they kept relocating, in order to avoid detection. Many of the combat missions involved short-distance fire, means some of the arty units were damn close, on the slopes of the Burgberg, for instance, which were just 4.6 km away from Schmidt. These units would sometimes even relocate after every major fire mission, where then the other units could cover the time frame needed for the relocation process, so the sector was covered at all times.
This relocation doctrine carried over to the Bundeswehr and was still in practice in the early/mid-90s, at least. Bundeswehr artillery officers used stopwatches and pushed their troops to reach the fastest relocation times possible. In the Wehrmacht and the Bundeswehr this practice was seen as essential procedure to prevent triangulation and destruction of vital assets.
With today's capabilities, relocation and setup has become even easier, as self-propelled arty pieces like say the Panzerhaubitze 2000 have GPS, as the measuring is fully automated and as the SPG-platform allows for quick relocation (60 km/h on streets, 45 km/h on open/rough terrain).
In practice, during a major enemy attack, the artillery also often had to serve as second line (means: last line of defense) during an enemy breakthrough (rather involuntarily, imho), at least in sectors where it was set up just a few kilometers behind the MBL. During such breakthrough, the unit was then often forced to combat a tank unit or a mechanized unit with direct fire, and its troops were expected to switch to the infantry role, using small arms and Panzerfäuste, once the enemy unit would get below the guns' minimum ranges.
In the game, arty regiments can be evil showstoppers, but I am not sure if some of the arty behavior is realistic:
When several fast units corner an enemy arty unit, the arty unit would first defend itself and say maybe knock out a few tanks. Once the player orders additional bombardments (eg. light mortar bombardments), such arty unit would then often start to move after taking some light losses (say 10 troops killed), instead of keeping the guns deployed and being able to combat the vehicles.
In contrast, huge traveling arty units running into enemy tanks halt eventually and immediately hand out losses. If such scene would be rendered in 3D, it would show flying tanks and turrets all over the place.
I am not sure if the game correctly depicts the time needed for the deployment (under fire) of the guns, fetching ammunition (which cannot be stored on the gun carriage and which usually isn't stored on the tow vehicles either), loading the guns and acquiring the targets.
Historically, if a tank unit encountered a traveling artillery column, the outcome was (usually) pretty clear: a complete carnage - especially with horse-drawn columns. Some gun crews may have managed to detach and deploy their guns, but then they still had a very small emergency ammo contingent nearby (if at all), and that could not support defensive actions for more than a few minutes. Meanwhile, the tank unit would have destroyed tow vehicles, killed horses and would have destroyed most of the guns, most likely.
In contrast, an established arty position could be a competent/vital obstacle for a tank unit for a while, if the arty unit had a proper amount of AT-grenades/overcalibre HEAT grenades and if the gun positions offered some protection for the troops.
There are even reports where arty units in North Africa and Russia stalled or even repelled Allied armored attacks. This can be seen in the game and is a realistic depiction/outcome, though.
At least until CommandOps 1, large arty units were able to throw devastating fire against tank units in "halted" mode already, which enables the player to use them as ultimate stopping tool for otherwise unstoppable enemy tank units. Note: in these instances, the arty unit would still be in the "halted" or "taking cover" phase, with the main arty pieces not yet deployed. In reality, neither the few smaller assets in such units, eg. 20 or 40 mm flak guns, nor the troops equipped with Panzerfaust weapons would be able to inflict such losses at medium range (let alone be able to make a tank unit route), especially if pitted against heavy tanks, imho. What's inflicting the losses on such occasions? The red tracers just indicate that such arty units deal AT rounds.
Does the game assume that some (or all) guns can be deployed quickly, even though the main guns are not "officially" deployed yet?
A Flak 88 could be mounted within 2-4 mins (the carriage consisted of 2 parts), in theory. While not optimal, it could even be fired when still mounted on the carriage. So such gun could be used for defense once someone brought a few rounds, basically.
But a column of field guns with 2-piece ammunition and overcalibre AT rounds was a completely different story. If such pieces got caught during travel, then the loss rates were very high, which included the destruction of the pieces.
Does the described behavior still occur and - if so - could this be reviewed?
