Artillery, please read.

Artillery, please read. (Full Version)

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ZeroAntipop -> Artillery, please read. (3/29/2002 5:40:19 AM)
Is it just me or do artillery and mortars seem to be worthless, except the enemies. Whenever I call in an artillery strike (even with Forward Observers and Scouts!) it seems to take 2-5 turns to reign in, and the enemy is halfway across the map by that time. And my mortars can never hit in single fire, or bombardment. I think I may be doing something wrong, but who knows. Also, what is the appropriate amoun of artillery for a company, a batallion and a brigade (three batallions, sometimes I play with this many). Any comments/suggestions are welcomed and encouraged. Danke Schon

zaxilon -> Artillery and you, or how I learned not to get killed by my own guns. (3/29/2002 6:37:42 AM)
As far as how much artillery is alloted to what kind of force depends greatly on the nations OOB, the mission at hand and the resources available. That is if you want to be historically accurate you can find a lot of info from the web and many of the gamers here. However when it comes to how well your artillery works in this game you can effect that a lot by editing some of your units values. Look at the observer who is calling in the artillery. A critical component is their artillery value. Lower values equate to lower understanding of artillery and capability to call it in accurately. Then look at your artillery units. There are values there that equate to their ability to place rounds on target, to shift fire and to adjust fire as the fire mission progresses. I am sorry but I cant remember the exact categories off the top of my head to adjust but I am sure there are those here that can or will take some time to check it out. The organic OOB is not necessarily accurate for the scenario you are building or playing. This is one of the most powerful aspects of this game. You the gamer and scenario builder have a lot of power to modify and customize units and equipment for your scenarios. My advice is to build smaller scenarios and tinker with making adjustments and watch their effects. This will help you customize units to perform the way you want for a particular situation you are trying to simulate. Yes you can make bizarre things happen but my point is that if you understand the mechanics of these values then you can apply them to the units you are using to create the situation you invision within the game settings. Just a little FYI here. Keep in mind as far as artillery goes that the more experienced an artillery unit is at working fire missions and the more experienced units are at calling in and directing and adjusting fire missions the better and quicker results you should see. Provided there is not some mitigating circumstance which can affect the mission. The idea is that when you build a scenario you need to understand the game mechanics well enough to make the proper adjustments to illicet the effects you invision. If you are only playing scenarios built by others there may be some inconsistancies in the units or forces they incorporated into the scenario. Although you may not be as well informed about the situation as you may think. Just some thoughts from an old gamer. Hope they will help you with the issues you are having. Later, Zaxilon :D

ZeroAntipop -> (3/29/2002 6:54:46 AM)
Danke, only lately have I been working with editing unit stats, I did not know this applied to artillery as well. Am I correct in presuming that when you make a scenario and don't edit the units that they all have exp and morale and such values of green troops?

Charles2222 -> (3/29/2002 8:29:11 AM)
ZeroAntipop: Have a little secret for you. I'm not a big proponent of artillery, but I have noticed there's a way to speed it up. Firstly, and most importantly, set up some very good locations for your advanced spotting through the deployment phase. Using those things, will come in handy when you think the enemy is around that area fro very quick bombardment. Let's assume in deployment you've targeted hex 22,22. When the enemy reaches that point, your eligible artillery can lay into it with I believe only .01 delay (or 1.0 at worst). Now, let's assume the enemy moved 20,22 or so when the turn ended. You can then use the bombard screen to shift the aiming point slightly so that you can cover their 2 hex advance, and be laying on them within .01 delay again. The maximium hexes you can shift the aiming is two hexes a re-bombard, however, and I don't know if this is strictly cheating or not, but you could take the very same unit on the same turn, and shift it another two hexes, but each time you do that you incur another order used and another .01 delay. So if you shifted the same gun twice in one turn, you could see it aim four hexes away from the last spot, and also see a .02 delay.

tracer -> (3/29/2002 8:36:22 AM)
If you're playing a generated battle, don't forget to select your target hexes during deployment. Any fire missions to these 'golden spots' will land at the end of your current turn; or you can target a mission there, shift fire (up to two hexes), and your bombardment will arrive almost as fast. As for 'worthless', try using a larger caliber gun (105mm or above). Infantry units in the hexes adjacent to where the rounds land will even sustain casualties, though the primary effect is to cause suppression. In certain PBEM games I've had opponent's well targeted/timed arty devastate my force.

troopie -> (3/29/2002 9:29:05 AM)
I recently won a battle largely by the use of onboard artillery (120mm mortars) airstrikes, and 81mm mortars. I selected 'gold spots' during deployment and by good fortune they were on the enemy's line of march. Then scouts went forward to observe. All fire missions were called by observers. Artillery is effective. It just has to be used properly. troopie

Fallschirmjager -> (3/29/2002 10:39:19 AM)
Much like a rifle you never shoot at a moving target at its current location. I always "lead" my artiallary where I know the enemy is going to be the turn that it drops. Doing this I played the Eye of the Storm scenario and butchered 50-75 soveits with massed mortars.

zaxilon -> Zeroantipop ----> Yes, and here is a little more for you. (3/29/2002 3:25:49 PM)
You are correct. The organic values are that of green inexperienced troops. The generic values are that of trained troops. If a force has worked together then their experience values should be increased. Just how far to bump them is a matter of trial and taste on your part. There are other values there besides experience to look at also. For example an infantry unit which has been under fire and in action continuously for an extended period of time should have a higher Infantry value than a unit right out of Advanced Infantry Training. A lot of other things also facter in to it than just that but I hope you are getting the idea. Some of the other posters brought up some excellent things I didnt go into. Like how you use your artillery, your spotting units and the terrain. That along with just what guns you bring on the field have a lot to do with your success. If you dont know how to use your artillery then you probably wont be very successful with it and you probably wont have much of an appreciation for what it can do for you. Personally I really try to utilize my artillery to the max in every battle I play or build. If you are using only 60mm mortars I can understand why you may think artillery is pretty useless. But even with just that if you really use it right you can supress very well. This is one aspect I really like about SPWAW, the supression. The idea for utilizing your artillery is that you need know a few basics like the range of your guns, their effectiveness against various targets with respect to various terrains, what is your objective with respect to the terrain and your forces, visibility across the terrain and the mobility of both your and your enemies forces with respect to all of the previous just for a start. You need to think along lines of coordinating your mobile forces movements with your artillery's actions and capabilities. If your are going to run a footrace your artillery will be hard pressed to be on target and on time unless the terrain visibility supports it. You may find it more successful to think ahead in smaller coordinated leaps. You can hand off spotting duty from unit to unit to help with this. You can also try to equalize the field by using smoke. Just a point here, from my gaming experience the use of smoke on the battlefield is one of the most underused aspects of the game. A lot of people dont even include it in the scenarios they build. You cant shoot at what you cant see, but beware! You have to be careful how you use smoke. Although this game makes pretty good use of LOS disruption due to impact from fire. So if you use your artillery carefully you can get both for the price of one. One of the first things you need to decide is are you trying to destroy or to supress and disrupt. If you are trying to destroy you need to concentrate you fire on a small defined target in order to destroy it in a relatively short time. Otherwise you can keep pounding away at it with one large calibre gun all day and not do too much to it. If you are trying to supress movement or disrupt force cohesion then you need to bracket an area with fire. If a unit is in a hex that is under fire it gains supression. Higher supression values will slow or stop actions of units. Now this is where those values which effect accuracy of you fire mission come in. If you push these values so high that your artillery always hits its target then there is no impact area but rather an impact hex. For area fire to cause supression this is not good. It is great for destruction missions because every round fired lands in the target hex. A pretty rare thing I think for WWII. Considering that each hex has a diameter of 50 yards and these guns are probably fireing at ranges in the thousands of yards. Maybe not if you only have the 60mm mortars. Well, anyways.... just some friendly advice but I think you should either take some of the scenarios you are familiar with or create a small one of your own and tinker with the artillery a bit. Build some 3 or 4 gun batterys and see what happens. There are some things I have yet to see mentioned here or anywhere for that matter about artillery. You see the layout of the guns in the battery was done so to make a pattern. This pattern of gun position is transferred to the impact area during the fire mission. If you do some research you can find these patterns. Try laying your guns targeting out using these patterns. You may see some interesting things for area fire missions. It may help you be a bit more successful at supressing mobile formations. Of course LOS from spotters to each target hex can be a problem with this game. This is the one aspect I hope has been changed since the old version I have. It would be very nice to be able to call fire into areas based on principles of fire and the map alone. Hope I was of some help. Good luck and have fun! Later, Zaxilon

Larry Holt -> (3/29/2002 8:33:26 PM)
Zaxilon, excellent explanition of tactics. Are you prior service? ZeroAntipop, there seem to be two issues. -Game mechanics: From your statement that it takes 2-5 turns to bring in fires I wonder if you are having some problem. Even inexperienced Soviet FOs can get fires in 1.1 turns. Have you read the manual and are you sure that you are calling for fires correctly? Non-FO units can take 1.5 - 2.0 turns of course. If your FO is out of contact, call fires with the unit that has the highest artillery rating. -artillery doctrine: This has been addressed here. I would only add that in defense target likely avenues of approach to your positions and in the attack, target the objective, likely defensive positions along your route to the objective and likely counterattack routes beyond the objective.

zaxilon -> Yes Mr Holt, USMC Veteran, SEMPER FI (3/30/2002 5:08:59 AM)
Yes, as a matter of fact when I was young and dumb, as opposed to now being old and dumb, I was in the Corps. I learned first hand about Artillery and Close Air Support after almost being killed by both on more than one occasion. I have a deep respect for 105mm and 155mm Howitzers and field guns and F4 and A4 close support aircraft. I got started in strategic and tactical games when I was a kid. I was probably one of the first to use micro miniatures when they came out. When in the Corps as a platoon sgt I had to participate in Bn tach training with the new board games Blitzkrieg and Tactics II. When I was getting short in my last tour and being the only one salty enough to do so I burried our Bn's copy of Tactics II at sea one rainy afternoon in the Southwest Pacific ocean. Did ya hear that Fearless Fly??? It was me. I threw it overboard!! I took your stinking hot coco too! Later, Zaxilon :D

tracer -> (3/30/2002 7:05:55 AM)
Also check the arrival time of missions ordered by your HQ unit; many times the delay will be less using the HQ than units with higher arty ratings who are essentially 'out of the loop'. This is especially true when the firing unit is a ship or plane.

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