BM-21 122mm Rocket Barrage: Combat Mission Cold War

First turn barrage with 6 BM-21 MRLS firing 122mm HE at an unfortunate US Mechanised platoon in foxholes.

[Temeluchas]

Well, it isn't that far off from the soviet calculations in artillery manuals ("Rules for Firing and Fire Control", the latest publicly available edition is from 1996)

Unsurprisingly, dug-in infantry is one of the standard targets. To achieve 30% expected casualties, 300 Grad HE rockets were required per hectare. The target area in this example is roughly 1 hectare, the number of rockets fired is a bit lower, and the sample size isn't exactly huge, so the casualty figures check out.

For comparison, 180 122-mm or 120 152-mm howitzer shells per hectare were required to achieve the same 30% casualties against dug-in infantry. Against the infantry in the open, 60 Grad rockets\40 122-mm HE\25 152-mm HE were expected to produce 80% casualties.

So while CM is very bad at modelling the effect of field fortifications in direct firefights, they got the effect against artillery fire more or less right.

[zanaduz]

In accordance with Soviet artillery doctrine, rocket barrages like these Grads would be primarily used to achieve initial casualties upon targets preferably in the open, as rocket artillery is great at mass volleys to maximize casualties before the target can reach cover. The scenario presented is arguably worst-case for Grad usage, as these infantry are already dug-in, though due to how quickly the salvo ends, it might be useful in a “just-prior-to-assault” use case.

[icy-]

Saturation and volume of fire over precision. Being a Wargame Red Dragon player, my infantry units know this way too well xD

[hartzaden]

NOT GOING TO LIE. i would keep my head down if i was subject to that, my head would be roughly 1-2 feet below the dirt if i could help it.

[larsdejong]

Clearly something meant to give the enemy a quick hammering right before an attack, as opposed to the more multi-purpose mortars and howitzers. I am a bit uncertain how good annihilation fire would work, given their somewhat limited accuracy.

(I take it that rocket launchers don't overheat when given a heavy maximum mission?)

[dododostenfiftyseven]

Rocket and arty is one of the scariest things

[Trve_Kvlt]

There are so many things on other CM games that I just want in Black Sea. Black Sea having rocket artillery for Ukraine and Russia, cluster munitions for artillery and aicraft. Among many others. I wish CM games were able to be more extensively modded, like adding new units and equipment. But I'll just winge about it until that happens (it won't).

[Marlon]

I wouldn't want to be hit with one of those death sticks.

[shelovevanilla]

RIP to all the pixletruppen who’ve got shredded in the editor for our enjoyment. 😔

[robinschingen]

Can you make a video about the effects of electronic warfare in CM?

[decimated]

Dear usually hapless, I have a bug to report on this game. It's not so much a bug as it is something not modeled. And I think we already know what it is. I've clustered three platoons of tanks together and put point fire point Target 155 mm general purpose shells on it. And only one tank was destroyed or maybe a second one was in a test I ran, And the only damage was that a track went slightly yellow instead of green. There was no subsystem damage like you'd expect to engine or optics or gun or radio. Is there any way we can ask the creator of the game to fix this? Heavy vehicles and apcs should suffer severe damage when shells land in their same grid, but I'll have craters around a vehicle and minimal or no damage on airburst right on top of the vehicle and.... No damage. Is there any way the community can get this problem fixed?