Battlefront WWII
Battery Fire Missions
Battery Fire Missions
Artillery Batteries are capable of performing several different fire missions.
For our example we will look at the German Heavy Mortar Platoon (FS-01 p.75).
- The German FS-01 contains 2 120mm mortar sections. The off-board artillery table on p.37 shows that each mortar section will place a large template with a weapon strength of 0 against armored vehicles and +1 against troops. These weapon strengths cannot be modified by discipline class because the artillery units are off-board.
- The German FS-01 is designated as being ORGANIC support. This means that it is attached to a specific on-board organization and can be called by any unit in that organization that is eligible to call artillery. Unlike many off-board batteries, it does not have its own forward observer and relies for spotting on the organization to which it is attached.
In the examples below and throughout the rest of the tutorial, we show the stacking of the various templates and the mission modifiers on the left side, and the shape of the beaten zone and the final attack modifiers on the right, taking into account the type of artillery firing. For example, +1 120mm means that the a +1 modifier is applied to the basic 120mm weapon values. A 0/+1 means that the attack will be resolved with a 0 modifier against V targets and a +1 attack against other targets.
Independent Fire By Section
Almost unique among off-board artillery batteries, the German FS-01 has the option of firing each of its two templates
as an independent fire mission. Each of the missions can either be a smoke or shelling mission (the number of available
smoke missions must be specified in the scenario) and requires a separate observer and call-for-fire roll.
Battery Random Shelling
Random Shelling may only be conducted by battery sized organizations (p. 39), and requires that all of the
templates in the battery participate. It does not require a spotted or
suspected target, but can be called onto the edge of a terrain feature. Random shelling is subject to a -1 modifier,
to indicate that it is not focusing in on an actual target, and is probably more dispersed than is actually indicated
by the template. Place all of the templates from the battery side by side and center them on the terrain feature being
shelled.
Battery Shelling
A Battery Shelling mission requires that all of the templates from the battery participate. Battery shelling requires
a spotted or suspected target. There is no modifier to the basic attack values of the artillery for a shelling
mission.
Battery Concentration
A concentration mission increases the attack values of the battery by 1 but reduces the size of the beaten
zone to a single template. In
essence, all of the templates of the battery are stacked on a single target. The +1 modifier is the same whether the
battery contains two templates (as does the German FS-01) or 3 templates. Concentration missions may be called
on spotted or suspected targets. A 120mm mortar concentration can devastate an exposed soft target, with the +2 modifier
yielding a 30% chance of a knocked-out result.
On-board Batteries
The German FS-01 is an off-board battery, but the rules are similar for on-board batteries such as the Russian FS-01 (p.67)
While on-board units are capable of spotting for themselves and firing by section, to use battery fire they require a qualified forward
observer and must perform a call-for-fire roll. Also, if any one unit that is part of an on-board battery fires by section,
the rest of the units in that battery may NOT combine into a battery fire mission.
This page was last updated on 01/05/2020 at 07:07AM
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