Artillery

[sir_pudding]

Something I've been wondering for a while (and was hoping that High Tech would clear up as it did in 3e) is how does Artillery work in GURPS.

Let's look at the situation that I'm most familiar with: a section of medium mortars.

1. The FO issues the call for fire to the FDC; he rolls Forward Observer.
2. The FDC converts the call for fire into a fire command; they roll what skill? Who rolls? The Plotter?
3. The FDC Chief issues the Fire Command; Leadership?
4. The Gunline puts the fire data on their weapons and fires. Someone rolls Artillery (Cannon) but who? Gunner? A-Gunner? Squad Leader? Section Leader? It is a crew served weapon, so everybody needs to do their part.
5. Is it one roll per gun? Or is the section treated as single weapon with automatic fire?

[Ragitsu]

Who or what is the FDC?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ragitsu

Who or what is the FDC?

Sorry:

Fire Direction Center

In Artillery, Mortars and Naval Guns these are the guys that turn the call for fire into a Fire Command.

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Something I've been wondering for a while (and was hoping that High Tech would clear up as it did in 3e) is how does Artillery work in GURPS.

Let's look at the situation that I'm most familiar with: a section of medium mortars.

1. The FO issues the call for fire to the FDC; he rolls Forward Observer.
2. The FDC converts the call for fire into a fire command; they roll what skill? Who rolls? The Plotter?
3. The FDC Chief issues the Fire Command; Leadership?
4. The Gunline puts the fire data on their weapons and fires. Someone rolls Artillery (Cannon) but who? Gunner? A-Gunner? Squad Leader? Section Leader? It is a crew served weapon, so everybody needs to do their part.
5. Is it one roll per gun? Or is the section treated as single weapon with automatic fire?

The Using Artillery box on HT pg.139 isn't helpful? That limits the rolls for the FO to navigation and the FO skill roll and the Artillery attack roll, the rest is subsumed into a random length of time (on average 12 seconds). The impression it gives is one Forward Observer roll per target.

[Phantasm]

FDC, I believe, stands for Fire Direction Center. That could either be a command APC or an AWACS plane overhead.

Personally, I'd call it two rolls: Forward Observer for accurately stating where the shell should land; and an Artillery roll at the lowest skill rating of the crew manning the weapon, with a bonus equal to half the success margin of the forward observer.

Not sure how RAW that answer is, but it's designed to be a compromise between accuracy and speed.


Edit: ninja'd!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

The Using Artillery box on HT pg.139 isn't helpful? That limits the rolls for the FO to navigation and the FO skill roll and the Artillery attack roll, the rest is subsumed into a random length of time (on average 12 seconds). The impression it gives is one Forward Observer roll per target.

Right, so the FDC doesn't have any effect at all? If I were to make an FDC chief in GURPS what skills does he use?

[Agramer]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Something I've been wondering for a while (and was hoping that High Tech would clear up as it did in 3e) is how does Artillery work in GURPS.

Let's look at the situation that I'm most familiar with: a section of medium mortars.

1. The FO issues the call for fire to the FDC; he rolls Forward Observer.
2. The FDC converts the call for fire into a fire command; they roll what skill? Who rolls? The Plotter?
3. The FDC Chief issues the Fire Command; Leadership?
4. The Gunline puts the fire data on their weapons and fires. Someone rolls Artillery (Cannon) but who? Gunner? A-Gunner? Squad Leader? Section Leader? It is a crew served weapon, so everybody needs to do their part.
5. Is it one roll per gun? Or is the section treated as single weapon with automatic fire?

Plotters gunner skill is rolled ,based on forward observers data(IF F observer missed his roll,plotter cant make correct calculation).

Rest of mortar crew just setups mortar,elevation,direction based on plotters data and "throw" mine inside tube.

Commanders leadership could be used to keep crew operating "normally"(as intended),keep em steady under fire,or if infantry is closing in and they start to panic or to speed up rate of fire,speed up changing of position...etc.

Since you have 1st hand experience,you can go into more detail and are aware how does it look in reality.Thats a bonus since you know how to describe it.

If running party,Id go with single shoots that dropped in their area.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Right, so the FDC doesn't have any effect at all? If I were to make an FDC chief in GURPS what skills does he use?

The Fire Direction Center clearly does something (which is why using vs. not using one gives a familiarity difference in use of the Artillery skill), but its not clear what the people in the FDC would be doing in GURPS terms, since the rules push everything off on the FO and Gunner. Given that, I think we need to assume that the RAW presume that the FDC succeeds at whatever its task is, which probably involves a roll against the (notional) Fire Direction/TL skill, which probably has the same specialties as Artillery and similar familiarity issues between weapons, and certainly equipment quality modifiers. If the FDC succeeds, everything works as in the RAW; if the FDC fails that should penalize the gunnery roll (or, perhaps more realistically, displace the point that will be struck by a success on the gunnery roll.) Critical failure by the FDC has effects similar to a critical failure by the FO in the rules in High Tech, but, conversely, a success by the FDC will detect a critical failure by the FO before anyone fires -- it won't correct it, it will just let the FO try again before anyone gets killed. (I'm presuming here that one thing the FDC will have is information on the location and disposition of friendly units in their area of responsibility; that seems logical to me, but I don't know enough about real-world artillery operations to know that that is the case.)

[Xplo]

Seems to me that giving everyone involved a significant skill (meaning that at some point they need to roll against it) would bloat the number of rolls needed - no one, or almost no one, wants to make half a dozen rolls to see if they can put a mortar on target - and artificially inflate the chance of failure.

I would want to look at how many of these people perform tasks that both require and benefit from training, experience, and/or natural talent. Is FDC a difficult role, or is it just punching some numbers into a computer? Under what circumstances would the task be intrinsically easier or harder? If you blew a skill roll, what would happen? Why does mortar fire require two different types of gunners? Do they both benefit from high skill, or does one of them just perform routine tasks? Etc.

If I couldn't eliminate most of the skill rolls, I'd probably want to average them somehow so that the crew makes one FO roll and one Artillery roll.

Do all the mortars in a section fire on the same target simultaneously? If so, are they easy to aim, so that they put the shell where you tell them to, or is there a lot of individual variation or inherent inaccuracy? Firing a bunch of shells inaccurately at the same target ought to be treated as automatic fire. Firing a bunch of shells very accurately at the same target ought to be treated as automatic fire with fractional recoil to increase the number of shots on target for a successful hit roll, something GURPS doesn't normally do as Rcl 1 theoretically represents no recoil. Firing at multiple targets should be treated as multiple attacks, or multiple instances of automatic fire if there are more mortars than targets. Firing over multiple seconds ought to be treated as multiple attacks in any case.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Something I've been wondering for a while (and was hoping that High Tech would clear up as it did in 3e) is how does Artillery work in GURPS.

Let's look at the situation that I'm most familiar with: a section of medium mortars.

1. The FO issues the call for fire to the FDC; he rolls Forward Observer.
2. The FDC converts the call for fire into a fire command; they roll what skill? Who rolls? The Plotter?
3. The FDC Chief issues the Fire Command; Leadership?
4. The Gunline puts the fire data on their weapons and fires. Someone rolls Artillery (Cannon) but who? Gunner? A-Gunner? Squad Leader? Section Leader? It is a crew served weapon, so everybody needs to do their part.
5. Is it one roll per gun? Or is the section treated as single weapon with automatic fire?

I'd say the FO makes his roll, whoever does the actual conversion of the FO data to the fire command rolls a IQ based Artillery roll. The gunline rolls against their DX-based Artillery skill, with a +2/+1/-1 for critical success/success/failure by the FDC, and critical failure by the FDC meaning they have no chance of hitting the target. I'd treat a single call for fire as an automatic weapon, regardless of the number of sections involved.

As far as the crew-served aspect on the gunline, who actually inputs the fire command to the gun? How many guys on the mortar? if there was just one, could you fire, just at a slower rate?