Pinned Down: Steel Rain | Autonomous Artillery, CAS & VLS

Steel Rain gives AI forces autonomous artillery and close air support.

AI Forward Observers find known enemy targets, choose suitable support, and call in artillery, cruise missiles, illumination, or aircraft. Available support depends on what each side actually has.

• Automatically assigns AI Forward Observers.
• Uses artillery already available to each side.
• Groups nearby guns into working batteries.
• Selects ammunition based on the target.
• Uses mortars and artillery against infantry and lighter targets.
• Uses cruise missiles or CAS against heavy armor and air defenses.
• Provides nighttime illumination when enabled.
• Calls aircraft against armor, artillery, air defenses, and concentrated infantry.
• Uses guns against soft targets and bombs or rockets against hardened targets.
• Supports modern and historical aircraft.
• Can launch empty parked aircraft by creating a crew.
• Can optionally generate virtual aircraft when no usable planes are available.
• Allows artillery and physical aircraft to rearm.
• Includes adjustable accuracy, timing, targeting, safety, and CAS settings through CBA.

• It does not command infantry groups.
• It does not assign normal infantry movement or combat waypoints.
• It does not control sectors, objectives, reinforcements, or the overall battle.
• It does not automatically spawn ground combat units.
• It does not require Battle Lines.
• It does not make every weapon perfectly accurate.
• It does not guarantee that every modded aircraft or artillery piece has usable configuration data.

Steel Rain controls only artillery and aircraft while they are performing support duties.

Steel Rain and Battle Lines are separate mods.

Battle Lines can place rear artillery batteries and aircraft when a side lacks them. Steel Rain detects those assets and uses them normally.

Neither mod requires the other.

• Battle Lines runs the ground war.
• Steel Rain provides artillery and CAS.

Steel Rain should work with most factions and era mods that use normal Arma 3 configuration standards.

Possible conflicts include

• Other mods or mission scripts that command the same artillery pieces.
• Other CAS systems that command the same aircraft.
• Scripts that replace aircraft crews, ammunition, waypoints, or targeting behavior.
• Systems that continuously reset vehicle ammo or busy states.
• Mods with unusual artillery, aircraft, weapon, ammunition, faction, or side configurations.

For best results, use only one automatic artillery system and one automatic CAS system at a time.

• Steel Rain needs AI units capable of acting as Forward Observers.
• A side needs usable artillery or aircraft unless Virtual Wing is enabled.
• Empty parked aircraft may be crewed and launched automatically.
• Virtual Wing aircraft are real AI aircraft while active and may affect performance.
• Known enemy air defenses can prevent normal CAS missions.
• CAS may still attack air defenses when no safer option is available.
• Friendly units and civilians near the target can cancel a strike.
• Aircraft accuracy varies by aircraft, weapon, speed, altitude, terrain, and mod configuration.
• Debug mode produces detailed logs and should normally be disabled after testing.

• Load CBA_A3 and Steel Rain.
• Place units for at least two hostile sides.
• Place artillery or armed aircraft for the sides that need support.
• Start the mission.

No modules or scripting are required for normal use.

Virtual Wing is disabled by default.

When enabled, Steel Rain may generate an appropriate armed aircraft if a side has no usable physical aircraft. Virtual aircraft fly real missions and are removed after completing their duty.

Leave this disabled if you want support limited strictly to aircraft placed by the mission maker.

For the simplest and safest setup

• Keep Virtual Wing disabled unless needed.
• Keep Extra Standby Planes disabled.
• Limit concurrent CAS missions.
• Disable Debug Trace during normal play.
• Avoid running another automatic artillery or CAS system alongside Steel Rain.

Steel Rain watches the battlefield, finds worthwhile targets, and lets AI forces call in the fire support they actually have.

Artillery handles the ground.

Aircraft handle the hard targets.

The mission maker remains in control of everything else.