The Commander Series Forum

Heavy guns are fearful, but rocket artillery is almost pure horror as the German soldiers found out during the campaign in the USSR.

I was looking for miniatures when i found some heavy missile tanks/artillery units and I tough that they would be perfect for my (soon to begin) army. Problem is that there are no "real" rules for heavy missile artillery, so I began making my own rules. I just need some help with them as I haven't made any advanced rules yet. So here are the main functions and drawbacks of a missile unit like the M270 MLRS(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M270_MLRS):

1.The missiles/rockets are guided and can be one of two types; air burst cluster bombs or conventional missiles.

2. They are fast firing, but it takes a long time to reload and they need a special truck (large armored truck) to do so.

3. They move after firing because the missiles smoke trail makes the heavy missile unit a nice big target for enemy artillery.

4.They can't fire at a target close to them because of the missiles flight path.

5. They are able to do a LOT of damage in little time.

So here are the stats that I'm thinking of:

It has a range of 50 to 100 cm.
12 in attack. There are two different missiles: air burst missiles against soft skins and conventional against armor.
The unit can only hold one kind of missile at a time.

It takes two actions to reload and it needs a special transport to reload (holds missiles for two full bursts).
The truck can be loaded at a supply drop or at the players baseline, but it takes one action to do so. Also the truck can only carry one kind of missile.

They have to move after firing, if they do NOT move the enemy's artillery units may ALL fire at the unit.


I'm thinking that the missile unit may fire several bursts (2-4) before it should reload.

let me know what you think!

Ups! Made some grammar mistakes, I did this a bit too fast. I hope that it isn't a problem.

100cm is barely 2 kilometers. You might want to increase that.

Yeah, the real ones have a range of a least 50 kilometers.
Thanks for pointing that out!

Hi,
Is this 1942 or 2200AD?

WW2 these are very much "Area" weapons, pre assault saturation

Imagine the spread of unguided missiles over a 50km flight?

Or by rocket artillery do you mean Scud missiles?

My 2p

Huey

This is for future war commander. Also all the weapons are guided. They are either missiles or guided rockets (a future version of today's guided rocket prototypes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Attack_Guid...

You're probably better off treating them as off-board artillery, and limit them to firing every other turn (or at least have a turn for reload/swap loads).

Yeah. That might be a good idea. I want them do do a lot of damage so I should probably raise their attack, but I don't want them to kill every unit with one burst, and ideas?

12 attacks is already quite a lot! You could limit their area of effect to 20cm for barrage and 10 or 15cm for concentration.

Surely the MLRS stats used in CWC would be sufficient?

MLRS - AKA the Grid Square Reducer

In the Berkley Vale Galaxy campaign - we Neo-Soviets have invested significant technological and scientific resources to upgrade our artillery - on table SPGs and off table artillery - to Plasma ... smoking

Although how the plasma effect will work in counter-battery actions is unclear (Pete)?

I was also given a very nice rocket launcher transporter for Xmas - from the Reaper CAV range - 10mm I know but then it's a big beast.

I applied for permission to the United Federation of Planets to have this as a 16 hit, plasma upgraded, single shot weapon - as a sort of ICBM ... but sadly the UFP ruled that it was far too unstable ... but I'm painting it plus it's support troops up anyway ... in hope
I felt that as a 1 shot weapon the standard concentration was appropriate, although I'm still not sure how the 1-shot weapon works out points wise???

The standard plasma upgraded artillery was used with significant effect (over-kill) in the Liberation for Abertawe battle.

Hi

I think th MLRS is an excellent idea - after al, it's the modern equivelant of the WWII rocket weapons.

And why reinvent the wheel?

Thanks
Paul H
PS Modified weapon loads can be sorted out in home games. Eg top attack weapons vs armoured vehicles, etc.