Arty questions.

[SgtKopanos]

Hello all,

New to this forum and this game and it looks to be great fun so far.

Now, I don't know what the other members' MO is concerning their arty but I hardly ever use it to maximum effect and this bugs me so much. I should add that this is especially true when I'm the attacker. I'll have to admit I find it much easier to direct arty strikes against attacking columns.

But, honestly when I'm on the attack I find it impractical.

Especially in bocage laden maps where I scout out enemy positions with rifle(or scout) platoons and where I almost never manage to put a pin on them until I'm 50m away. I can never safely call an arty attack on them without fearing for the safety of my scout troops.

I know this is pretty much realistic and that a WW2-era platoon leader probably wouldn't call in an arty strike a mere 50m from his positions unless pretty desperate, still I dont see how else to utilise my arty to max efficiency.

Granted, some maps have very nice vantage points, where a well placed FO can survey the whole property, but most of them don't(unless they do in which case I'm just being noobish).

Personally, some of the most effective arty strikes I ever handed out, were almost blind. I'd have an FO or HQ team on the adjacent ridge to the one I plan to occupy next. If I'm nearing my objective and haven't encountered any significant resistance yet, I pretty much know there's enemy dug in and hiding there, that I can't see yet. So I just call in a linear shot along the ridge, usually mortars, since I'm very reluctant to waste any howitzer shots that way. Usually when the strike is over and I send my grunts in to occupy, they will find small litters of enemy dead here and there, their surviving comrades having retreated further down the way.

But when I'm fully engaged with the enemy and I have most of his positions pinned on the map, I'm usually too close to call in artillery on them for fear of blowing my own guys away.

Is it just me being too soft on my guys? Should I just call in the howitzers to pulverize the enemy and just not care about my casualties? I mean I've had entire rifle squads wiped out by my own arty's "spotting" shots. Was that often the case with real war commanders? Should I just go along with it?

I don't know if it is too obvious but I'm very reluctant to suffer heavy casualties especially from friendly fire...

[Artofwar]

Yeah it's different when attacking but I think you got it down good by hitting areas where the enemy might be that you are going to be moving in. The AI often does the same thing.

I think perhaps mortar fire 60 and 80 can be more "accurate" when shooting this stuff close to your troops plus the spash damage is not as far. The spotting rounds are usually nearer to where you want it especially with Veteran troops.

[womble]

It's fairly unlucky to lose an entire squad to a spotting round. The risk can be further mitigated by splitting your squads and giving the teams greater separation. At, of course, the cost of additional micromanagement. If you've goit the time, you might find it useful to withdraw all the troops except those essential to getting the shells on target. Once you know where the enemy are, the FO doesn't actually have to be able to see them, just be able to get enough LOS to walk the strike onto target.

[YankeeDog]

Yep; you're dealing with some of the exact same problems Allied forces dealt with when attacking through the bocage. Closely coordinating artillery with advancing troops is difficult in close terrain where LOS is often short and limited.

Personally, I use a lot of my artillery in CMBN as "pre-planned" turn 1 strikes, though often delayed to start 10 or 15 minutes into the battle. This is especially true with the bigger stuff -- 105mm and up.

Even if I guess wrong and don't actually hit an enemy position with my pre-planned strikes, in my experience, it can really help your attack plan to know that any enemy in a given area of the map have been at least severely weakened by the artillery strike. This can allow you to move much more quickly and confidently than you otherwise might have been able to.

[womble]

Personally, I use a lot of my artillery in CMBN as "pre-planned" turn 1 strikes, though often delayed to start 10 or 15 minutes into the battle. This is especially true with the bigger stuff -- 105mm and up.

If you've got it during setup, heavy arty with potentially lonnnng call times is really useful as a persistent area-denial. 2 tubes of 150mm German stuff firing "Light" will keep firing for over 40 minutes. And anything near the target line of a 100m linear barrage mission won't be in any shape to fight you when you get to them. With such a long mission duration, too, once the FO you used to call it in gets forward some, you can walk it around to places where you know there's resistance to be crushed.

It sounds a bit backward, but if you put an initial mark at the rear of where you're attacking, when you get to LOS of the front of it, you can shift the barrage nearer. If you started with it at the front, you wouldn't be able to transfer it to the rear of the target, unless you managed to remove enough obstructions to LOS...

[SgtKopanos]

Maybe a rolling barrage option would be nice but with really close intervals between the shots, especially when attacking a prepared defensive line, with fortifications like trenches, bunkers, foxholes etc.

Whenever I was lucky enough to call an accurate strike on an enemy line I noticed that the AI squads can really run when they fall back to their secondary line after taking casualties from the strike(even under overwhelming suppressing fire). Now, I usually just use another asset to target the second line but it'd be cool(and realistic as far as I know) if you could do it with one shot. So maybe if the second line strike can be timed for like 2-3 minutes or less after the first one, you can still catch them out in the open before they get cozy in their foxholes.

@Artofwar

Sounds like something I should try. I usually keep my mortar teams deployed in some clearing(it just feels more natural to me, far as I know they'd be as effective in the woods, and better covered) way back in the rear and only use spotters to direct their shots. I'm too squeamish to "attach" them to an advancing squad or platoon as support. The only LOS shots my mortars have ever taken were when I was totally overrun and the enemy was marching on my rear. And by that point they were ineffective.

@womble

It could be that if I pull the GIs back while the strike lasts, and bring them back in line when it's over, I'll suffer less casualties, but I'll lose time. I might be missing a great shot at exploiting the results of my arty strike to the max.

Ah, well I guess I want the best of both worlds. I'll have to make up my mind what matters the most to my plans I suppose

@Yankee Dog

I suspect that after one has played a map a couple of times(or more) and knows pretty much where the enemy moves and hangs about, "pre planned" strikes might prove extremely effective! Though again timing must be the key. And timing usually means luck, which I don't seem to have a lot of...

[sburke]

Yep; you're dealing with some of the exact same problems Allied forces dealt with when attacking through the bocage. Closely coordinating artillery with advancing troops is difficult in close terrain where LOS is often short and limited.

Personally, I use a lot of my artillery in CMBN as "pre-planned" turn 1 strikes, though often delayed to start 10 or 15 minutes into the battle. This is especially true with the bigger stuff -- 105mm and up.

Even if I guess wrong and don't actually hit an enemy position with my pre-planned strikes, in my experience, it can really help your attack plan to know that any enemy in a given area of the map have been at least severely weakened by the artillery strike. This can allow you to move much more quickly and confidently than you otherwise might have been able to.

Good points

Artillery isn't just there to be dumped on known enemy units, but to protect your units and allowing them to adhere to your plan. So if you need to attack past a section of woods, dropping some arty on those woods to suppress whomever might be in there is a good idea. Now there might be no one in there. On the other hand there could be that one MG that totally hoses your attack plan. Screen your units, allow them to bypass threat locations without having to actually go in and dig someone out. Interdicting paths your opponent will need to move through to react to your plan is another good use. It may end up hitting thin air, or it could trash that platoon coming to reinforce the position you plan on attacking.

I think we all have the same issues about getting good observation locations (and those locations can become the most dangerous places to be - your opponent is looking for those to kill your FO if they can.) and figuring out how to use the various tools at our disposal. It is the fun part of the game, how to put together a plan and make it work. It isn't easy which makes it all that much more rewarding as you start figuring it out and can make it work. At least that is my theory. When I start figuring it out, I'll let you know.

[YankeeDog]

I suspect that after one has played a map a couple of times(or more) and knows pretty much where the enemy moves and hangs about, "pre planned" strikes might prove extremely effective! Though again timing must be the key. And timing usually means luck, which I don't seem to have a lot of...

It's not so much a matter of knowing where the enemy is as it is knowing what ground you want to take and hold early in the fight. If controlling a particular hill, ridgeline, or hedgerow will give you a positional advantage, then hit this terrain feature with artillery and you can move quickly and seize this objective early. If the artillery actually does land on top of some enemy units, so much the better. But if not, you're still sitting on top of a prime piece of terrain much earlier than you would have been otherwise.

Also not that sometimes you actually want to put the artillery down not on the objective itself, but on nearby terrain from whence the enemy could potentially lay down interdicting fire. This is where Womble's trick of long duration, slower ROF missions comes in really handy -- a steady trickle of higher caliber artillery can effectively neuter an enemy defensive position for an extended period of time, even it it doesn't destroy it outright.

[Artofwar]

no don't use los shot with mortars still use a HQ unit and you can have the mortar in cover or good concealment in theory near the front line with the HQ unit or FO "exposing" themselves to get the los for the mortar. The HQ can have a small firing arc by using the SHIFT key, as you know this, it won't draw attention to itself and fire on others.

Here is an example,

Opps, lookout Anti Tank gun get out of here bring up the mortar.

page 24 of manual The mortar team must also be able to communicate with the spotter.

Communication occurs in one of two ways; either the mortar team is close enough to be within visual or shouting distance of the spotter (about 50 meters),or the mortar team has radio contact with the spotter. (Spotter in this example is the HQ unit)

HQ and mortar move up. HQ does a SHIFT firing arc to not draw attention to itself and shoot at AT gun. The squad withdraws to late (I play on Turn based)

HQ spot for mortar that sets up behind it in defalade

[Artofwar]

After firing on the AT gun I moved the same units up had to fire again on AT gun did a slightly longer barrage with a better spot (I was able to see exactly where it was with my HQ this time) Because wasn't taken out first time shows small splash damage hence mortar can shoot near friendly troops more so than heavy arty. The same group moved up and they were split for final assault on moratar positon. of course they found other enemy troops in area I didn't move up rest of my units tactfully with this group cause just wanted to get some screen shots.

Mortar abandoned. Payback the other problem with this whole scenario is this occurred at 400 meters or more I should have done one within 100 meters but I rushed this post :eek:

[womble]

Just a quick clarification. There's no need particularly to use a shift-arc; that just gives a circular arc. It's entirely possible to make a short wedge-shaped arc instead, if that will help the spotter face the right way, say, to see through some Bocage.

[Vinnart]

Just a quick clarification. There's no need particularly to use a shift-arc; that just gives a circular arc. It's entirely possible to make a short wedge-shaped arc instead, if that will help the spotter face the right way, say, to see through some Bocage.

I agree with womble this is better, and the best thing is it visualy reduces the mellow yellow. The player can also get a better feel for the facing of the unit with a semi circle, or wedge from high camera elevations. The circle arc seems best for ambushing in buildings since entrances are usually opposite sides.

As far as arty goes I would say 90% of time I use light short or quick on known spotted targets like ATG, and harrass for long pinning down of enemy advance. One can keep the enemy opponent off balance for almost the entire game if used right. Had a game not long ago for 45min, and denied him the crest of a hill for almost 30 min this way. Keeping it open long with harrass allows for quick adjustments since comms is already established, and only shoots a few rounds per turn to save the most ammo.

I really like how the arty is modeled in the game now as compared to the first demo of it. It was just too overpowering becuase the men cannot spread out more like in reality. One round was taking out entire sqds. Since then it looks as they have abstracted it a bit I think to compensate for the games limitations. This was a good thing.

[womble]

I agree with womble this is better, and the best thing is it visualy reduces the mellow yellow. The player can also get a better feel for the facing of the unit with a semi circle, or wedge from high camera elevations. The circle arc seems best for ambushing in buildings since entrances are usually opposite sides.

For me, the circle is a "quick default", since it doesn't require as much attention to detail: just press V then hold shift while you drag out in any old direction to the range you want to limt them to. Extra useful for giving multiple units "Don't go shooting at that unbuttoned tank 1500m away" orders at the start of a battle.

As far as arty goes I would say 90% of time I use light short or quick on known spotted targets like ATG...

I always use Heavy, all tubes, if I want to kill something with tubes smaller than 150mm, and a Quick point target usually suffices. Even the smallest additional area spread seems to dilute the effect enough that ATGs can survive.

...and harrass for long pinning down of enemy advance...

There are some tables somewhere that give bombardment durations of weight-tubecount-durationbracket combinations for at least some arty formations. If I get the sort of asset that I think I might want to use for that job, I'll run a quick test somewhere to see how many minutes a "Maximum" mission for each of the weights will give me for the particular batteries I have available. The only one I have in my head is the German 150mm being 40-odd minutes with 2 tubes firing light. 105mm German was about 35min, IIRC.

Another good thing about long bombardments is that troops morale state is affected by being suppressed for multiple rounds. If the troops in a footprint don't move, a protracted bombardment probably won't kill many fewer men, since they'll be cowering after the first few shells of even a short bombardment, but the effect on their morale will be proportionately increased.

And buildings don't recover damage, or move, so a 40 minute light bombardment will clear sight lines just as well as a 4 minute heavy. So long as you don't need the additional visibility until the bombardment's due to be done. You have to think whether the dust will be to your advantage or the defender's though.

I really like how the arty is modeled in the game now as compared to the first demo of it. It was just too overpowering becuase the men cannot spread out more like in reality. One round was taking out entire sqds. Since then it looks as they have abstracted it a bit I think to compensate for the games limitations. This was a good thing.

Indeed, the blast/frag effect of HE is reduced to compensate for the slight extra bunching of pTruppen.