Re: Vector Movement

Popeyesays@aol.com wrote:

>
> If it's so ineffective why is modern artillery doctrine based on the
"shoot
> and scoot" principle?? Talk with some of the artillery school people
at Fort
> Sill - they'll give you an education.

The problem with US  artillery doctrine nowadays is that the branch
practically
feels that good old fashioned fire support, the kind where a platoon
leader or a
company commander can get on the radio and just call for artillery is
practically beneath them. Sure maybe your company or bn is the point of
an
attack and has a direct support battery on call but the vast majority of
fighting units don't have that kind of dedicated support and everyone is
vying
for the few assets there are..

Artillery officers are more interested in fighting "The Deep Battle".
This way
artillery, fighting it's own fight doesn't have to work for anyone else,
they
are their own boss. So they concentrate on deep strikes artillery raids
(we saw
a lot of that in the Gulf) counterbattery and interdiction. This was a
big
grumble for artillery and armor guys in the gulf and remains so today.
Just like
you can't get air force to drop bombs for you anymore. They're always
busying
dropping bombs on their won targets or managing their own kill boxes.
Plus you
have to be some kind of wizard to penetrate the maze of special commo
gear and
frequencies and procedures to get that support, which would have needed
to be
laid on in advance anyway.

Counter battery fire is effective WHEN YOU HAVE THE ASSETS available and
uninterrupted to dedicate to them. That includes both Counter battery
radar and
sufficient artillery laying around unassigned  to put onto counter
battery fire.
Remember as you said it' s standard porcedure to relocate after firing.
This
automatically either drastically reduces how often you have assetts
available to
fire or ensures that ythere is a much higher requirement for lots or
arty
assetts. This is fine and dandy when you're refighting the Normandy
invasion of
the invasion of Klendathu, but what about most of the smaller actions
being
modelled in SG?  The premise that lots of SG games are built on usually
revolve
around smaller operations, battalions landing on planets to do raids, or
small
operations etc etc. Heavy lift outside of all out major invasions will
always
remain at a premium, so artillery assets, while more capable might well
be more
scarce, with al kinds of tasks to do at once.

What a lot of wazoo tech  is accomplishing is add information overload
to a
commander's worries. It's not like our brains are being upgraded at the
same
pace. Also while any given piece of wazoo tech is fine, it's rare to see
it all
being used at the same time at once due to a whole range of assets
including
availability, compatibility, and of course enemy counter-actions.

In fact now that we're on the subject we should have a good discussion
on the
foreseeable future and roll of artillery on some of these planetary
operations
and how it impacts SG.. (Too late for me, gotta sleep!)

Los