Something Odd I've Noticed About Artillery and Rarity

[Andreas]

BTW - the argument that I am making is not to say that the rarity factors are perfect, or anything like that.

A better solution would be a dynamic rarity linked to the chosen game form (could be variable rarity with some modifier depending on whether you play an assault game or not; in that case the heavy Soviet stuff would always get -15% to -50%, or sumfink). That would be an added complication though, and I don't know whether BFC have looked into this at all. Still, I can not think of many who would choose to be the Germans in that form of game, so maybe the point is moot, and introducing it in the QB section of the game would have been a waste of time.

[JasonC]

"1.7 Soviet rifle divisions against one German infantry division. In terms of guns that means that 20.4 122mm and 61.2 76mm"

You are still talking about only the guns organic to divisions, and you've left out the organic 120mm mortars, which would reach your same 20.4 figure for 122s. (Let alone the higher echelon ones, see below).

Here are some late war levels of higher echelon support for armies that weren't on assault sectors, though naturally the whole Russian army was attacking one way or another for the whole second half of the war.

27 Army with 6 RDs, no mobile formations. It had 3 SU-76 regiments, 1 towed ATG regiment, and 3 120mm mortar regiments above division level. This is not an attack sector. Its AT defense ability is boosted by army level assets, and it gets the equivalent of an extra 120mm mortar battalion per division.

So on that quiet sector without true heavies supporting the Russians, just run of the mill higher echelon stuff, the German ID faces 20 122s, 40 120s, and 88 76s. There are 122s for every 150 and 120s for every 105. Half again as many 76s are gravy.

Meanwhile the nearby 40 Army had heavier support, though it was not the mobile spearhead of its front. It had 9 RDs and 1 infantry brigade as maneuver elements. It had a gun brigade (3 regiments mixed 122 and 152), 2 howitzer regiments, 3 mortar regiments, 4 motorized AT, and 1 SU. That means essentially 1 battalion of 122s or 152s, 2/3rds of a 120 mortar, and 1 of 76s per division slice.

So for that formation, take your 20.4 and double it to 41 for higher echelon tube stuff, and add 34 120mm. So the heavy calibers are 1.5 to 1, before you even get to the 80 odd 76s per defending ID.

The large Russian guns just lived at corps and army, rather than being organic to the divisions. Yes they massed them on attack sectors. But they also had so many higher echelon formations, 120mm and 76mm calibers as well as the larger stuff, that ordinary areas got "stiffening" beyond the level of their organic arty.

When their mission called for AT defense, they would get a motorized AT or an SU regiment per division. When it called for infantry defense, they might get an extra 120mm mortar regiment per division, or half of one in a quiet sector. When instead it called for attack, they got 122s and 152s and 132 rockets. In the attack sectors of large offensives they would get all of the above.

The Russians did not believe in vanilla TOEs for artillery. They believed in mission specific tasking. And they used higher level commands to coordinate indirect fire in particular, because their division level artillery commands frankly weren't trusted with the job.

[JasonC]

Well thanks Andreas, that helps. What I've advocated is such a variable use of rarity to reflect real Russian arty availability differences, by battle type. In Russian assaults (*only*), we don't need -15 or -30 rarity tweaks as code changes. Just turn rarity *off*. The higher level Russian guns then become ordinary price, with *no* premium.

In Russian attacks or probes, or defenses, you can leave variable rarity on. The dice will then determine whether there are any higher echelon gun types "available", assuming players will be interested in them (as opposed, say, to 120mm mortars) at modest 0-30 rarity numbers but not at 40-100 ones.

If you specifically want to exclude higher level Russian arty, for instance to simulate a breakthrough fight far from an initial front line, with only the most mobile Russian guns keeping up, then you can put rarity on "fixed". This will effectively ban anything above 122mm, and strongly encourage the Russians to use only 120mm, 76mm, and 82mm.

The last should *not* be seen as the "ordinary" case. It is exceptional, in presenting a German arty edge they actually only had if the Russians had outrun their supply lines. The variable option, which I suspect most people use today the most often, is OK for most cases but *not* for Russian assaults. The solution for assault fighting is to turn rarity off.

I hope this helps.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The solution for assault fighting is to turn rarity off.

I fully agree - alternatively have someone design a scenario for it. Being on the receiving end of one at the moment, I can tell you it is no fun though.