Land Mattress

Pretty sure no-one has suggested this unit before and I don't think its too ridiculous (it meets BurroDiablo's EF unit inclusion diagram).

The Land Mattress was the Allies version of the Nebelwerfer, it was heavily used during the crossing of the Scheldt (fired over 1000 rockets) full details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Mattress
http://www.friends-amis.org/facts/land_mattress_e.pdf
http://www.war44.com/allied-heavy-weapons/2261-british-land-mattress.html

I thought in the game it could perhaps be a reward unit for the 25 pounder or the priest, perhaps exclusively for the 25 pounder in the RMC faction. Pushed like a Nebel but with a firing pattern similar to a Katuysha, I'm not sure if its possible to do but more rockets fired with smaller explosions and less accurate would fit the historical use. I guess it would be a hard model to create as its a metal framework filled with rockets, but perhaps it could be simplified for the purposes of the game.

EDIT: Also the Mattress was developed and used primarily by the Canadian Army making it ideal for the Canadian Artillery Doctrine.

Last edited May 30, 2011 at 8:33 PM by Raelity

Doesn't sound like a bad idea for a replacement, but the question stands for what? You can't replace the 25 Pounder cause its in an emplacement and replacing the Priest (or whichever they use, i forget, hate the Brits in this game) is just not worth it because the Land Mattress would get slaughtered without the armor and MG of the Priest.

Its not a bad idea, but I don't believe it fits anywhere. Also you can't forget that the Devs don't change anything Vanilla and the RMC won't have new doctrines.

Your reasons for excluding it are invalid.

neosdark wrote:
Doesn't sound like a bad idea for a replacement, but the question stands for what? You can't replace the 25 Pounder cause its in an emplacement and replacing the Priest (or whichever they use, i forget, hate the Brits in this game) is just not worth it because the Land Mattress would get slaughtered without the armor and MG of the Priest.

Its not a bad idea, but I don't believe it fits anywhere. Also you can't forget that the Devs don't change anything Vanilla and the RMC won't have new doctrines.

I don't know for sure but I figured if you could replace the Flak36 with a call-in (Nashorn) then there is no reason you couldn't replace the 25pounder. By replacing I mean as a reward unit, so it wouldn't be changing the vanilla. It could either be in a fixed emplacement like the 25 pounder or free like a Nebel, in which case it would be as vulnerable as a Nebel, which I think is fine if its damage capability reflects that. In short I agree with Pariah :)

EDIT: Its just occured to me if it replaced the 25Pdr and wasn't able to do things like creeping barrage or overwatch then that would render half the doctrine useless. I'm not sure if it can be made to use those abillities (obviously with rockets not arty shells.) but that would be really cool to watch. I guess it could still replace the Priest though.

EDIT 2 :): Just realised that creeping barrage is basically offmap arty, you need a gun to do it but the shells the gun fires aren't the ones that hit the target. Don't know if that changes anything.

Last edited May 31, 2011 at 12:14 AM by Raelity

The land mattress was represented in Kolaris' Brit rebalance mod as a massive callin arty in the Scots engineers doctrine to finally give a munitions use to it. It was pretty cool. Won't happen though.

GodlikeDennis wrote:
The land mattress was represented in Kolaris' Brit rebalance mod as a massive callin arty in the Scots engineers doctrine to finally give a munitions use to it. It was pretty cool. Won't happen though.

And the God of Balance has spoken.

Can't be that hard to balance, we already have a Calliope and the Katyusha ;D

(For comparison, Katyushas could have between 14 and 48 launchers, the Calliope had 60 tubes, the Land Mattress has about 30, judging from the picture on wikipedia).

32 judging by the OP's pic anyway its a nice concept and not a bad idea but wont happen Brits have their four rewards and thats all their gonna get, ntm I prefer the Willy's Jeep Calliope myself ;P

Raider217 wrote:
32 judging by the OP's pic anyway its a nice concept and not a bad idea but wont happen Brits have their four rewards and thats all their gonna get, ntm I prefer the Willy's Jeep Calliope myself ;P

True, but there is one thing, the Comet is a reward unit on its own, but its also included with the RMC, maybe the solo Comet could make way for something else? ???

I actually like idea of replacing 25-pdr with Land Matress. Just with some nerfs it could be quite useful replacement:
(my proposition):
1. less range/ supercharge rounds don't affect it
2. overwatch doesn't affect it
3. counter battery doesn't affect it
4. Victor target doesn't affect it.

Similiar to Wehr nebelwerfer, but immobilised. Damage like in Katyusha/Calliope.

Perfect reward for RMC , imo.

cephalos wrote:
I actually like idea of replacing 25-pdr with Land Matress. Just with some nerfs it could be quite useful replacement:
(my proposition):
1. less range/ supercharge rounds don't affect it
2. overwatch doesn't affect it
3. counter battery doesn't affect it
4. Victor target doesn't affect it.

Similiar to Wehr nebelwerfer, but immobilised. Damage like in Katyusha/Calliope.

Perfect reward for RMC , imo.

That's just wrong because it ruins the Royal Canadian Artillery doctrine entirely, it is simply not worth going to that doctrine if it'd only affect the mortars, and the Priest comes a bit late to make any sense on unlocking the abilities.

Having it replace the Priest (making it have the same pop, since it's +2 from the 25pdr) and make it an extra buildable for the sappers would probably make it worth it, or make it movable like the Nebel, with maybe making it a bit slow because of it's sheer size, weight and power.

Yeah I think having it replace the Priest is probably the better idea. However seeing as its the last item on the RHS of the doctrine, if its moveable (which I think would be better for the RMC, less sim city) it'll be slow and vulnerable and if it can't be made to use the abillities like overwatch or creeping barrage then it needs to be pretty powerful to be worth choosing over the Priest, or cheaper in both MP and CPs.

The reason i really don't want to see it, is because then every single Allied faction will have a lot of rockets and that is just a giant slap in the face for any Axis player. The Nebel has 5 rockets (I think), the Hotch has 4 and the Halftrack has 6. The Calliope has a large number of them (was it 60?), the Katuysha has a large number of them (around 48 i think), and the Land Mattress has a large number of them (about 40). Do the Allies really need anymore rockets?

The doctrine specific argument doesn't really work because in longer games where you know you will get bogged down, you have a really high chance of choosing an arty based doctrine, whether RCA, Infantry or Propaganda (all of which are most often used for their factions in my personal experience). So sure the Wehr have a Nebel as standard but that tiny thing only has like 5 rockets. I pretty sure the 25 pounder shoots more shells than that per barrage.

So I really don't see the need for a replacement for an artillery piece that does a wonderful job at fucking up my CoH gaming experience and bombing my base 10 mins into the game.

Replace an artilley howitzer with a good spammable rocket launcher with the same damage of Callope?

Uhm..I don't know..I'm not sure.

neosdark wrote:
The reason i really don't want to see it, is because then every single Allied faction will have a lot of rockets and that is just a giant slap in the face for any Axis player. The Nebel has 5 rockets (I think), the Hotch has 4 and the Halftrack has 6. The Calliope has a large number of them (was it 60?), the Katuysha has a large number of them (around 48 i think), and the Land Mattress has a large number of them (about 40). Do the Allies really need anymore rockets?

The doctrine specific argument doesn't really work because in longer games where you know you will get bogged down, you have a really high chance of choosing an arty based doctrine, whether RCA, Infantry or Propaganda (all of which are most often used for their factions in my personal experience). So sure the Wehr have a Nebel as standard but that tiny thing only has like 5 rockets. I pretty sure the 25 pounder shoots more shells than that per barrage.

So I really don't see the need for a replacement for an artillery piece that does a wonderful job at fucking up my CoH gaming experience and bombing my base 10 mins into the game.

lol, this actually makes sense... maybe it could be used as an offmap ability with uber long recharge (similar to V1)

In EF, the Calliope fires a 30 missile salvo, the Kat 16, the Nebel 6.
The 25pdr also fires a barrage of 6 shells, it just seems more because they're "spread out" unlike the Neb (also because they're much more powerful).

If the Land Mattress were to be in game, and if it would replace the Priest, it'd be fairly different, for starters, it'd probably only do a missile salvo of between 10 and 15, it would not have access to supercharge (these were shells, not rockets) and victor target (because of limited range), mix it with a slow movement speed and this would probably increase the chance of the opposing players being able to steal it for their own purposes.

The land mattress would probably have its damage between the Cal and the Neb, and have a nice long(er) cooldown because of all the abilities it could use (afaic, the Walking Stuka rockets have the highest base damage of unit-based artillery (120-100), Nebel has the lowest (30-20), this is not counting any possible modifiers).


Very alternatively, maybe we could replace the FOO from a 25pdr off-map barrage to a rocket barrage, only Axis have these. ;D

TBH I think the Dev team should just simply replace the Comet Reward unit and change it to soley fixing the doctrines in order to get rid of all the hate that goes with the current brit doctrines.