Artillery Scatter

[mosborne]

Hi:
I would be curious to know if artillery is treated in terms of accuracy on target and precision of fire.

My thinking is that accuracy is going to be a feedback from the observer and the artillery piece. The more accurate or high tech the observer the more accurate. This would also include adjustments for wind (assuming a steady wind).

Precision on the other hand is going to be a function of the weapon I think. High quality weapons will have very good precision. High quality ammo, likewise. Worn weapons or weapons not kept in good repair will have poor precision. As well, poor quality control in ammo shells will lead to poor precsion.

This all would mean that with no observer and good quality weapons, accuracy could be poor, but precision will still be good resulting in all shells falling pretty close to where the first one falls, but not necessarily on target.

With no observer and poor quality weapons, artillery shots would be expected to fall at a pretty wide spread whether on target or not.

This question arises, because the artillery spread from a single tube firing with an observer and without an observer differ quite a bit. If firing from the same tube, the observer can do nothing with reqard to precision. So the precision spread should be the same with or without the observer. I am guessing that once an artillery tube gets a fire order, they don't adjust the fire after each shot when they don't have an observer (there is no one to tell them what to adjust it to), and the time between shots is fairly short, so the each tube remains in the same position and the difference in shot landing would be due to precision effects.

If the shot landings are far off target, then the observer sends in adjustments, but once its on target, the precision still exists, meaning you still get scatter, but now the scatter is around the target instead of around something that isn't the target.

I think the way it should work is that the first shot from an artillery piece falls where it may. If an observer is present, all subsequent shots from that same piece lands on target but adjusted for any precision effects. If an observer is not present, then all subsequent shots land within the precision of the first shot.

Precision could be tied to quality of troops, so that low quality troops could mean that weapon upkeep is poor and thus precision is bad.

Any thoughts welcome.
Thanks