Artillery in Rifts

[Shades of Eternity]

Ever since I got Merc ops, I've been grumbling over the comments about artillery.

On page 125, it says "artillery seems antiquated and much less effective."

I disagree for a number of reasons.

1. Difficult to track: Even if the big guns are slow, the mortar if anything has been bred new life in the battlefield. In WWII, the allies hated dealing with the german 50-mm light mortar. The main reason for this is that the mortar literally could come from anywhere and were difficult to track.

Now wouldn't you like that tactical advantage if you were dealing with a demon/monster that has been terrorizing the country side. You pick up 2 to 3 3-man mortar teams, and shell it from multiple angles, and the demon/monster will either flee the area or get trashed, for it has literally no idea where it's attackers are.

Even if the enemy has modern sensors, the attackers are literally under the tree line, making radar useless, and they can use range to stay out of nightvision and infrared range, provided they know where their target is. And if they are driving a 20 foot to 30 foot robot, it becomes fairly easy to spot.

2. Targeting an area rather then a person: It is always easier to fire at a land mass then at an actual character, and it takes less training. Even if you miss, you can still get them in the blast radius, as what it was designed for.

3. Cost: A mortar costs 2000 Credits in rifts, and it's ammo is roughly the same cost as a CS grenades. Comparing that with prices of a simple wlk's 320 laser pistol which is 11,000 credits, and the very expensive cost of recharging e-clips makes the mortar very cheap indeed. You can train 3 man teams with it and the cost goes down even further.

Even the big guns are much less expensive then other weapons of note: the 105 mm howitzer costs 150,000 credits, the 155mm costs 350,000 credits, and the GAW-155 Electromagnetic Howitzers costs a whopping million credits.

In contrast, the Samas costs 1.6 million credits, a NG samson costs 850,000 Credits and when you get to giant robots, it starts getting into the multiple millions of credits. For the cost of one samson, you can purchase 5 105 mm guns and still have money over for ammo.

4. Technology and Tricks: There are a number of tricks and traps that have been developed using modern artillery. For starters, if the defenders have a chance to survey the area, they will have a good idea which way attackers will assault the position. Plus with scouts with maps and secure radios on hovercycles, one can fire on a particular area, long before an enemy comes in threat range.

Another trick for a slower, yet still mobile artilery is to take either a mountaineer or rolling thunder and have it pull a 105 mm with a solid connection that allows the heavy vehicle to fire it from the cab. Build 4 or five of these and give them good radios, and they can act as each other's forward observer, and rain firey death on their targets. Plus can move fairly quickly out of position, while the other vehicles drop artillery to provide cover. Plus with a good targeting system, can compensate somewhat for fast opponents. Also sensors of all sorts can help identify a target for shelling. It is still cheaper then most power armor to boot.

Artillery can be used to fire a wide range of ammo, from poison gas, to incendiary (to start fires), to anti-personal and anti-armor rounds. There are also Air burst rounds for those flying targets that probably wouldn't be hit by normal artillery.

Finally, if your worried that your neighbours know about your artillery, just pull an old trick learned from mash. Put it in a tent, and/or thatch house, and have it built to be pulled down quickly when needed.

In short, I believe that artillery is still dang useful in post -apocalyptic rifts.

[Guest]

The mortars were the worst.

[Trencher]

Do you not have to be able to read, write and do some math to use a mortar efficiently?

[Mech-Viper Prime]

On page 125, it says "artillery seems antiquated and much less effective."

Whoever wrote this has no clue about military theory and applications. Shades, you are dead on here. And let's not forget how goot artillery is against massed troops and large vehicles.

msaybe they should hired a retired military person i vote for Colonel David Hunt
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,37309,00.html

[Mech-Viper Prime]

On page 125, it says "artillery seems antiquated and much less effective."

Whoever wrote this has no clue about military theory and applications. Shades, you are dead on here. And let's not forget how goot artillery is against massed troops and large vehicles.

msaybe they should hired a retired military person i vote for Colonel David Hunt
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,37309,00.html

Not for artillery questions.

for deatai s of artillery but for a more general view yes

[Killer Cyborg]

On page 125, it says "artillery seems antiquated and much less effective."

Whoever wrote this has no clue about military theory and applications. Shades, you are dead on here. And let's not forget how goot artillery is against massed troops and large vehicles.

Agreed.

If anybody has any doubts about the effectiveness of artillery, watch the movie "We Were Soldiers."

[Shawn Merrow]

1. Difficult to track: Even if the big guns are slow, the mortar if anything has been bred new life in the battlefield. In WWII, the allies hated dealing with the german 50-mm light mortar. The main reason for this is that the mortar literally could come from anywhere and were difficult to track.

Now wouldn't you like that tactical advantage if you were dealing with a demon/monster that has been terrorizing the country side. You pick up 2 to 3 3-man mortar teams, and shell it from multiple angles, and the demon/monster will either flee the area or get trashed, for it has literally no idea where it's attackers are.

Even if the enemy has modern sensors, the attackers are literally under the tree line, making radar useless, and they can use range to stay out of nightvision and infrared range, provided they know where their target is. And if they are driving a 20 foot to 30 foot robot, it becomes fairly easy to spot.

Actually they currently can track mortar shells in the air and even give warning before impact plus the location it was fired from. In almost a 100 years of improvement on the system it should be able to give almost instant information on where it was fired from and where its going to hit.

Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar (LCMR)

[RainOfSteel]

Actually they currently can track mortar shells in the air and even give warning before impact plus the location it was fired from. In almost a 100 years of improvement on the system it should be able to give almost instant information on where it was fired from and where its going to hit.

Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar (LCMR)

Gnarr! Beat me to it.

[R Ditto]

Since it seems possible to cram a guidance system in what used to be dumb fire mini-missiles, it should be simple to put in a laser guided or heat seeking guidance into a mortar or artillery round, or even some sort of image recognition.

Perhaps even some sort of passive radar or anti-radiation guidance, so it can go after things 'painted' with or otherwise giving off radar energy.
Also can think of variable or proximity fuses. To heck with air bursting the rounds, have them explode the moment they get near something bigger than a small bird. Then you get "close is good enough".

Mortars and Artillery are definitely useful for defense. Just get a map with a grid and coordinates of each grid, plus a few spotters with laser range finders.
I guess it's more or less very similar to what was already mentioned.
When enemies get in range, give off a grid number, and each mortar/artillery site adjusts aim based on where they are on the map and the grid the enemy is in, adjust for wind/weather, and let the rounds fly.

Combine with solid state weapons tech (a.k.a., Metal Storm) and you can apply a force multiplier to the hole artillery equation.

Or perhaps even just make an auto-loading or even a rotary multi-barrel mortar/artillery weapon. Fire off rounds slowly, and when they are close enough, let rip with max possible rate of fire and really start to rain death down on the target area.

I like the ideas of "counter-battery" sensor systems that can track the ballistic path of incoming shells and assign the data to friendly artillery batteries..
Reminds me of an old RTS game... enemy mobile artillery opened fire on my base, and every freaking available artillery cannon and rocket battery in range of the target and counter-battery sensors proceeded to light up the poor enemy's location like the 4th of July.

[Drakenred®™©]

1. Difficult to track: Even if the big guns are slow, the mortar if anything has been bred new life in the battlefield. In WWII, the allies hated dealing with the german 50-mm light mortar. The main reason for this is that the mortar literally could come from anywhere and were difficult to track.

Now wouldn't you like that tactical advantage if you were dealing with a demon/monster that has been terrorizing the country side. You pick up 2 to 3 3-man mortar teams, and shell it from multiple angles, and the demon/monster will either flee the area or get trashed, for it has literally no idea where it's attackers are.

Even if the enemy has modern sensors, the attackers are literally under the tree line, making radar useless, and they can use range to stay out of nightvision and infrared range, provided they know where their target is. And if they are driving a 20 foot to 30 foot robot, it becomes fairly easy to spot.

Actually they currently can track mortar shells in the air and even give warning before impact plus the location it was fired from. In almost a 100 years of improvement on the system it should be able to give almost instant information on where it was fired from and where its going to hit.

Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar (LCMR)

and shoot them down

http://www.strategypage.com/hotstuff/ar ... 791140.asp

[Prince Artemis]

let me ask you this, is there any type of flame involved in artilery. as far as i know they are fired by explosive force correct?

[Killer Cyborg]

let me ask you this, is there any type of flame involved in artilery. as far as i know they are fired by explosive force correct?

Generally speaking, that is how modern artillery is fired.
In Rifts, they could have other types... like railgun versions.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Artillery is considered "outdated" in rifts because blowing the enemies away from a safe distance that they can't retaliate from dosn't make for good, heroic gameplay.

they arn't trying to be realistic - and honestly I have no problem with that except for the fact that they're trying to come up with a BS excuse for not having them than simply saying "we don't want them in Rifts"

[Prince Artemis]

could a burster then just point out where they are and how far away they are?

[Nekira Sudacne]

could a burster then just point out where they are and how far away they are?

assuming they were in the range of his sense fire power. considering it's a meager 800 feet +100 feet per level, and the range of artillery, I consider it rather doubtful.

[Vrykolas2k]

I use arty in my games.
Took a little "shoe-hornin'", but I manage. After all you don't really use major artillery on a group of 6. Of course, my players number 13, so it's more feasable to lob something at them... if you decide a group of 13 is an enemy/ threat.
I don't buy into the whole "we don't have this because of heroic adventure" angle. The game uses {weak} missiles, so it can support the queen of the battle-field as well.

[Blight]

But if you wanted to level a city or town.

[Toc Rat]

Even with the advent of mini-missiles and fusion blocks, artillery would still be used and needed. Granted as has been mentioned artillery does have some drawbacks but what weapon sytem doesn't?

I want my FASCAM rounds!

[Nekira Sudacne]

But if you wanted to level a city or town.

is it just me or dosn't seige on tolkeen even say that there was one CS general who origionally ordered tolkeen bombarded to the ground using...artillery?

pretty sure I read that someplace...

[Drakenred®™©]

The reality is that between the US, Isrial, Great Britan, Japan, France, and Germany we have 15 laser and 11 projectile based counter morter and counter artilery systems that are either in development or currently depoyed(US has 1 the phalanx based system, and another laser based that the developers want to send to Iraq, Isrial has 2, one laser and one microwave whos Detection, targeting and tracking systems have been feild tested and their are a number of reports that indicate that they may have actualy deployed the laser based system, the microwave system is aparently currently in use at their airport to take out MANPADS the same way that Raytheon Corporation's Vigilant Eagle Airport defence system.

[Drakenred®™©]

And as origionally written, few states in Rifts would have that sort of tech. Thus making artillery a damn nice thing to have.

and useless against the CS or anyone else with >2020 US army military hardware

[Shades of Eternity]

The reality is that between the US, Isrial, Great Britan, Japan, France, and Germany we have 15 laser and 11 projectile based counter morter and counter artilery systems that are either in development or currently depoyed(US has 1 the phalanx based system, and another laser based that the developers want to send to Iraq, Isrial has 2, one laser and one microwave whos Detection, targeting and tracking systems have been feild tested and their are a number of reports that indicate that they may have actualy deployed the laser based system, the microwave system is aparently currently in use at their airport to take out MANPADS the same way that Raytheon Corporation's Vigilant Eagle Airport defence system.

Well thanks for the links and info, but I do have a question.

Have any survived the coming of the rifts.

Also would a supernatural creature terrorizing the area have this mortar sense?

[Trencher]

There is nothing wrong with using artillery in rifts, the CS and it's cronies does not use it but there could be a sub-set of soldiers and mercenaries who are artillery experts (I shall call them.. artillerists), They would be hot commodity among the independant nations, think of what they could do if they teamed up with a mage with divining magic. During the dark age in the medieval times artillerist were some of the most important soldiers on the field, espesacly during sieges. They could be just as important in the dark age of rifts earth. Sure hi-tech armies consisting of small quick troops would not be terrible vunerable but bandit gangs and marauding monster hordes would and those things are just as much of a threath for the average dirt-farmer as a megadamage demon.
The artillerist could have their own guild and be their keepers of their almost lost art.

[Drakenred®™©]

The reality is that between the US, Isrial, Great Britan, Japan, France, and Germany we have 15 laser and 11 projectile based counter morter and counter artilery systems that are either in development or currently depoyed(US has 1 the phalanx based system, and another laser based that the developers want to send to Iraq, Isrial has 2, one laser and one microwave whos Detection, targeting and tracking systems have been feild tested and their are a number of reports that indicate that they may have actualy deployed the laser based system, the microwave system is aparently currently in use at their airport to take out MANPADS the same way that Raytheon Corporation's Vigilant Eagle Airport defence system.

Well thanks for the links and info, but I do have a question.

Have any survived the coming of the rifts.

Also would a supernatural creature terrorizing the area have this mortar sense?

Well the GB factorys have survived well enough to maintain an army of thousands, and the they somehow have enough tech to churn out a million+ SAMAS army. And their is that one tank with the disco ball in Rifts SAII. I suspect the real reason why Artilery is just not that common is because the Coalition has all of the Pre-Apocolips military analysis talking about how tube artilery is usefull on the modern battlefeild as the balista.

Also, any critter with any version of "danger sence" will be able to dodge out of the way of an unguided round. Its quite posible that by 2090 their was not a single dumb weapon of any kind to be found anywhere beyond the typical hand/rifle grenaid or mini missle

[RainOfSteel]

Artillery usually only works on ground troops and fixed positions. Yeah your artillery may work great until a Samas flys in then your artillery is as good as a tank.

Then the SAMAS will be blown up on approach. If the artillery is as good as a tank, then there will be a pair of boomguns sitting on top of the self-propelled artillery vehicle's turrent, or a dual/quad boomgun gun AA system sitting in the midst of the other artillery.

I think artillery is pretty useless in a rifts setting

For ordinary gaming, I'd agree only that artillery would be unlikely to appear. Even most Merc conflicts aren't likely to include them.

However, for more involved conflicts, like the CS battle vs. Tolkeen, artillery would most certainly appear. Players fighting for Tolkeen might even be assigned to commando raids to take some of these units out.

[RainOfSteel]

But if you wanted to level a city or town.

is it just me or dosn't seige on tolkeen even say that there was one CS general who origionally ordered tolkeen bombarded to the ground using...artillery?

pretty sure I read that someplace...

One of the original CS invasion plans called for destroying Tolkeen communities with massive Long Rang Missile bombardments. When the CS forces found out the cities just regrew (from having permanent Metropolis cast on them), they gave up that idea.

[R Ditto]

Here's something to think about.
If you get an artillery cannon (or mortar) that can fire shells at least 280mm diameter, you basically get the option have artillery with nuclear strike capability.

Or better yet, fusion/thermonuclear warheads using a focused laser system as the ignition/compression source for the fusionable material.
Just set the range, fire and put on your sunglasses and SPF 10,000 sunblock and watch the nice big air bursting thermonuclear blast.

Next stop. A big long platform with hydraulic/mechanical legs that lifts it off the ground so it basically has either end fit in place of turrets on a pair of large tank like vehicles. Then toss on a really big cannon on the platform.
Build one big enough to mount a 406mm cannon on, and you can really cause some long range indirect over the horizon havoc...

I wonder how much a 406mm shell packing 1500 pounds explosives... not the the diluted junk in much Rifts stuff, but of Rifts explosives that actually have damage listed per pound (or ounce) like NG 6 explosives... or even just TNT... 1D4x10 SDC per pound... comes out to 150-600 MD...
But still.... 1500 pounds of NG explosives... that comes out to...
"Look ma', a glittering blast crater big enough to swallow a Mountaineer! Hey, Where's Pa's Glitter Boy? And why is he in the crater picking up glittery stuff and crying?"

[R Ditto]

The recoilless rifle looks about the same size (length wise) that a 280mm diameter mortar might be.
Both sites say it's 11in wide at the widest point, which is 280mm, the same diameter as the artillery cannon I was thinking off. I think it was called something like Atomic Annie.

The Davy Crocket looks like a handy weapon if you got a ditch or some other hard cover to help protect the weapon operators from the possible radiation and shockwave effects of even a small nuclear blast.

[Kalinda]

Ahhh, the Davy Crockett. More of that Atomic Era military and the "*** are you thinking?!?" time. I used to do NBC NCO for my old PSYOP battalion. We had some manuals lying around for these things. Problem was, the blast radius was bigger then the range. Soooo...you either fired it over some (hopefully) blocking terrain, or you set the ignition timer and run like Hell.

Not that I'd ever want to see the battlefield "go atomic", but at least we've improved on this with 155mm tac nuke shells.

And speaking of nasty artillery, in GURPS OGRE you have SATNUC rounds. These are shaped nuclear submunitions or directional plasma shots (course the 'secondary' nuke blast to initiate the shot is rather hard on the unprotected).

I love the Davy crocket, it's so insane.

A friend of mine worked on part of his physics post-doc at los alamos. he told me about the stories(legends really) of scientists in the 40s and early fifties handling raw radioactives with no protective gear, taking a block in each hand and moving them toward each other until the pieces started to heat up in their hands.

[R Ditto]

The recoilless rifle looks about the same size (length wise) that a 280mm diameter mortar might be.
Both sites say it's 11in wide at the widest point, which is 280mm, the same diameter as the artillery cannon I was thinking off. I think it was called something like Atomic Annie.

The Davy Crocket looks like a handy weapon if you got a ditch or some other hard cover to help protect the weapon operators from the possible radiation and shockwave effects of even a small nuclear blast.

I thought you where talking about just the warhead of a larger artillery round.

Sorry if I caused any confusion.
I saw a show once (history channel, a show on cold war and the nuclear arms race) saying that the minimal width of an effective nuclear warhead (at least at the time of the Atomic Annie) was 280mm.
They mentioned Atomic Annie as being 280mm cannon.

As far as I knew at the time, 280mm was the minimal width that an effective nuclear warhead could be made, be it an artillery cannon, mortar or other type of thing. To quote what I said in an earlier post.

If you get an artillery cannon (or mortar) that can fire shells at least 280mm diameter, you basically get the option have artillery with nuclear strike capability.

The Davy Crocket is 11in (280mm) diameter, the same diameter as the Atomic Annie shells.

Doing a little digging around, and I discovered that the later nuclear artillery shells were even smaller. This bas based on a page I found about Nuclear Artillery.

Now we need to toss Fusion Block and Micro-Fusion Grenade tech into the equastion... and the one nasty fusion missile from Japan (the missiles on the Japan Hawkeye GB, IIRC, had fusion warheads for its MRMs)

[Shades of Eternity]

Ahhh, the Davy Crockett. More of that Atomic Era military and the "*** are you thinking?!?" time. I used to do NBC NCO for my old PSYOP battalion. We had some manuals lying around for these things. Problem was, the blast radius was bigger then the range. Soooo...you either fired it over some (hopefully) blocking terrain, or you set the ignition timer and run like Hell.

Not that I'd ever want to see the battlefield "go atomic", but at least we've improved on this with 155mm tac nuke shells.

And speaking of nasty artillery, in GURPS OGRE you have SATNUC rounds. These are shaped nuclear submunitions or directional plasma shots (course the 'secondary' nuke blast to initiate the shot is rather hard on the unprotected).

the big question is FAE mega damage?

[Jefffar]

If I remember correctly:

The biggest IRL "mankiller" that artillery delivers is:

Shrapnel (normal HE)
Overpressuse (Katjuscha, Nebelwerfer)

Slight Error. It's Shrapnel / Fragmentation (Bestproduced by fragmentation rounds) and Overpressure (best produced by HE, FAE and Nukes). Katyusha and Nebelewerfer, like the moern MLRS were justdelivery systems capable of hitting a target area with a large number of near simultaneous with the hope of finishing the artilelry barrage before anyone had a chance to get to cover.

The soldier of the PA era is wearing sealed MDC body armor. Will he be affected by either of those dangers? Sure, if I fire on him long enough his armor will degrade to useless but if I fire that long, the enemy air will kill me.

I would say that the Overpressure wouldn't really work all that well except to knock the guy about and cause internal injuries (which isn't that different than what it does in real life but the MDC armour should make delivering those injuries much, much tougher) and the Fragmentation has a good chance of blastign holes in the armour.

In Rifts, if you want effective suppression of EBA clad infantry with artillery fire, I recomend a culster munition with fragmentation submunitions provided the submunitions are powerful enoguh to drive thsoe fragments through armour.

And if all I want to deliver is a guided ammunition, that I might just as well take a missile. It is more maneuverable and better available.

IRL a guided artillery shell is much cheaper than a guided missile, once you start producing them in quantity of course. Thena gain, there are a lot of other comemnts on the seperation of Rifts and real life that I could (and probably have) make.

Tube launched guided projectiles have always been a "If no tank is available" (unless you are one of the good guys, than your 100/115/125mm tank gun has them) and very scarce IRL. Partially due to the cold war killing the 81 and 120mm guided mortar rounds but even Copperhead Laser-guided 155mm had a low purchase.

The ruskies' don't have guided tank rounds, they fire guided missiles from their tank gun, much like the 152 gun/launcher that was to be a part of the MBT-70 and was a part of the M551 Sheriden. The Soviets just got it to work better.

[Blight]

I think the palladin would cover lots of the problem people have in rifts with artillery. Here take a look.


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... m109a6.htm

[The Beast]

Actually I am right in it being smaller. Here is a Atomic Annie artillery piece.
http://www.clubi.ie/exalted/atomic.htm

I was referring to the overall weapon size. Davy Crocket is alot smaller.

Hey! That's not fair! I was gonna mention this one!

Also in WW 2 the Germans made artillary called Paris Guns. They were able to hit Paris with it from Germany. But it had poor mobility, needing to traverse on railroads, and required around 300 people to set up and operate.

[Drakenred®™©]

Actually I am right in it being smaller. Here is a Atomic Annie artillery piece.
http://www.clubi.ie/exalted/atomic.htm

I was referring to the overall weapon size. Davy Crocket is alot smaller.

Hey! That's not fair! I was gonna mention this one!

Also in WW 2 the Germans made artillary called Paris Guns. They were able to hit Paris with it from Germany. But it had poor mobility, needing to traverse on railroads, and required around 300 people to set up and operate.

The Paris gun was WWI although the Germans insisted on building massivly useless artilery throught the war, culminating in the V-2

[cornholioprime]

Yes, we had a CBR bunch in 10th Marines too, but with the right support elements, your enemies' CBR will get taken out before you start shelling. Think of a SEAD in reverse. And so you know, that's Suppression of Enemy Air Defense. That's a volley fired to make the enemy duck so your helo or jet can come in un-fired upon and drop his ordinance. Pretty cool huh.

Well, well, well, Misfit.

Didn't know ye were Marine Corps Material.

Carry on, teufelhunden.

OOH RAHH!!!!!!!

[cornholioprime]

Sure, the creature can dodge, but most if not all won't be able to cover the distance to escape the blast radius.

Why are we worried about dodging Creatures anyways???

Artillery isn't classically intended to be an Anti-Personnel weapon in the first place, at least as far as I can remember...

...It's usually anti-fortification/armored vehicle, isn't it???

[cornholioprime]

Historically speaking, artillery causes 80% of the total casualties in battle.

Shirley -er, surely you can't be serious?????

Artillery????

If true then I stand corrected.

[Killer Cyborg]

Historically speaking, artillery causes 80% of the total casualties in battle.

Shirley -er, surely you can't be serious?????

Artillery????

If true then I stand corrected.

I can't vouch for the numbers, but they don't sound that far off.

Watch the movies "We Were Soldiers" and "Glory."
There's a reason for the term "Cannon Fodder"...

[Dustin Fireblade]

Actually artillery can be very fast and responsive, especially at company- and battalion-level ....

But my point is that all the action takes place at a platoon level. The CS rarely needs to bring that kind of force to bear.

Also remember that the CS doesn't necessarily use Golden Age technology all the time. While its technology is certainly advanced, it's entirely possible that they have in fact reverted to WW1 style use of artillery... using it only to support massive advances of skelebots and the like.

In most respects the CS is like the proverbial child who finds his daddy's gun. It has all this technology but it doesn't necessarily know how to use it. They have less than 100 years experience in waging war, and knowledge of wars from before the Time of Rifts is criminal. Unlike todays armies which can draw from thousands of years of history, the CS is limited in the information at its disposal.

The platoon size action may have been true in the past for Rifts, but the last five to eight years in the Rifts timeline have seen large number's of troops used (JU, Tolkeen, FQ). Heck according to Aftermath the CS sent a entire brigade to investigate the Republicans.

Military history is also pretty big within the CS as well. Cabot, Underhill, Kashbrook and I'm sure there are a few others that are well versed in pre-rifts military history. (see their descriptions)

[Mack]

Uhh, Darkechilde... I don't suppose you noticed the date on the post right before yours?

[Shades of Eternity]

well at least he necroed one of mine .

but yeah

even with all the changes made over the years, I still say artillery is viable.

edit: and yet again, somebody has come up with a viable weapon that should have been a staple for lazlo, dwoemer, tolkeen, etc.

[ZINO]

Lightweight Counter-Mortar Radar (LCMR)

hey links down !!!!

[Shades of Eternity]

http://www.srcinc.com/what-we-do/product.aspx?id=120

new link.

[ZINO]

LCMR System
http://www.amrel.com/rugged-computers/images/LCMR.gif

The LCMR system, a lightweight counter-mortar radar, also known as AN/TPQ-48, provides continuous 360 degree surveillance and mortar location. It detects and locates mortar firing positions by tracking the mortar shell to the weapon it was fired from. When a mortar is detected, the LCMR system sends a warning message indicating a round is incoming. The LCMR system is also capable of tracking small aircraft simultaneous while indicating mortar location. Or, when operated in a dedicated air surveillance mode, the LCMR system will track small aircraft at a significant distance. The LCMR system is compatible with airborne operations, can be deployed in a door bundle, and assembled/disassembled quickly by two soldiers.

The LCMR system is manufactured by our subsidiary, SRCTec. To learn more SRCTec and the products they manufacture, click here.

The LCMR system was named one of the Army's "Top Ten Greatest Inventions" of 2004

But now there must be some official use in PB but there no stats for it
and two been lost in time will be a while before G.A.W or W.I make one or some one

[Mack]

In the time since the topic was started (5 years ago) Merc Ops was published, which contains a handful of traditional artillery pieces.

[glitterboy2098]

most groups in rifts earth seem to rely on Medium or Long range missiles for their artillery capability, either using unguided 'missiles' (with all the resulting penalties to strike) in a MLRS or katuysha style system, or guided version in a more "cruise missile" approach.

personally i think the lack of ballistic artillery systems is less of an issue there than the fact we haven't seen specialty missile warheads to duplicate the capabilities of conventional systems. like Improved conventional munitions, or FASCAM mine deploying rounds. or air-deployable "smart" anti-tank rounds..

the main advantage of conventional artillery over rocket based systems is going to be cost. most of the same tricks you can do with shells can be done on missiles (special warheads, self guidance, etc), only shells don't have ot pay for the big rocket or jet engines. then again, missiles will usually have a range advantage, and possibly options to do terrain following or greater offaxis targeting...

[ZINO]

Artillery in Rifts can be used and work well . however rifts earth is mobile as well so there a balance ,trust me i seen my player bomb the hell hell out of the coalition troops, but also over run by them as well .that not mentioning other factors as well ( like air support , infantry support Oh magic support as well ).

[Shark_Force]

this is true against equally advanced (technologically) opponents, but it is very much not true when you're shooting demons or creatures that don't understand the concept of artillery, let alone have artillery or the training to use it.

or, in other words, the ability to drop fragmentation wood shells on a horde of vampires when they're 5 miles away instead of having to wait until they're 300 feet away is not insignificant.

[Wooly]

A small magazine fed, laser guided mortar say 120mm would be just the thing for surprises attacks. You average bandits aren't going to have radar/sensors and counter battery fire on hand.

Though some of you might be interested in Dragon fire which is/was a USMC program for an automated 120mm mortar system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Fire_%28mortar%29