Tear down the wall, by Artillery

[Chibot Mk IX]

If you want to make a breach on the wall by using Artillery support to destroy the wall, what is the best method? General purpose ammo, anti-tank ammo or air burst anti-personal ammo? which one will be better for this job?

[Combatintman]

Personally I'd always try to use a direct fire system but if you absolutely have to use an indirect asset I'd make sure that is 105mm calibre or above otherwise you could end up expending quite a few rounds. I've not tested this at all but in game I would go with standard HE over the other two. I only use anti-tank rounds when I'm engaging armour and while anti-personnel will do the job in game, you will probably end up expending more ammunition than if you use standard HE.

[Kieme(ITA)]

General pourpose ammo should work best, but you'd need some testing with the editor.

Anti personnel ammo should be the one doing the less damage to a concrete wall so I wouldn't recommend that.

[Erwin]

Logically, AT ammo would make a small hole. HE is blast only. General would seem to be what one uses vs lightly/non-armored vehicles. IIRC the manual recommends General vs buildings. Walls are buildings(?).

Interesting to test to see how the game handles em.

[BlackMoria]

I have seen walls crumbled by air burst artillery, if enough is fired at the area, but I don't recall if it is caliber dependent. General artillery works better, regardless of the caliber.

[agusto]

Theoretically everything in CMSF that is of a larger calibre than and including 12,7x99mm will do damage to walls and buildings. Practically though it would be a waste of ammo to take down walls with anything smaller than direct fire 30mm HE, unless you have a a LOT of surplus ammunation. Regarding artillery, howitzers or guns in the ~150mm range on a general purpose fire mission (ground burst HE) are best in my experience. Mortars should work as well, but because you will need an almost direct hit on the wall due to their small calibre, it is going to take a lot of ammo. Air burst is the worst fire mode for destroying buildings or walls because it will do almost no damage. It is only effective against soft targets (people, unarmored vehicles and the like).

EDIT: Just as Combatintman said, direct fire systems work best for taking down walls. Preferably something large, like the M1 Abrams 120mm gun. It will let you tear down a wall in less than a turn with only 1 or 2 shots, compared to artillery where you have to wait for several turns until it arrives and then have to expand 10+ rounds for spotting + the strike.