Artillery Ruins Scenarios

[Runyan99]

Scenario Designers. PLEASE GIVE US A BREAK WITH THE GODDAMN ARTILLERY.

Recently I've been playing both CMBN and CMFI scenarios PBEM. I've played a lot of CM. A lot. It is a game. I am trying to use my tanks and infantry, primarily, to defeat my opponents tanks and infantry. That is the heart of the game.

Artillery acts like a bolt from the sky, and kills tanks and infantry. I can't stop artillery. It kills my troops, and there isn't anything I can do about it.

That takes the game totally out of my hands. That isn't fun.

Too many scenarios included on the CDs are drenched in artillery. Artillery included and available in many scenarios is sufficient to wipe out half of the forces involved in most given scenarios, in the typical 1-2 hour long scenario.

If the scenario consists of two forces making contact, and then the artillery comes in and kills one side or the other, what is the point in that? I don't see it.

Scenario designers, consider allowing me the player decide the outcome of the game. Let me conduct a small arms firefight. Let me hold an infantry position. Let me flank and infantry position. I can't do that if the artillery will decide the issue in every case.

If you are working on a scenario, please consider making it artillery free, or artillery light. Whatever you are planning on using, cut it in half maybe. If it is enough to cover the whole front twice, that might be too much.

Thank you.

[noob]

Why don't you remove the artillery yourself in the scenario editor, it's not illegal :- )......asking designers to remove artillery, would force them to create two versions of each scenario, one with, and one without artillery, which is impractical, as it would double the size of the lists in the repository, and, until BF come up with a better way of organising and displaying scenarios, make it even more of a chore perusing them.

I find artillery dodging half the fun of CM battles, however, i find it can be too powerful if not tweaked, so there are some restrictions i use, if my opponents allow them, and that is to limit an artillery battery to an area fire circle diameter of 35m per gun, which means a four gun battery would have a maximum area fire circle of 140m, and added to that, if the spotter could only plot an area fire circle of 70m, he could only use two guns, this allows artillery to still play a role, but with less coverage, given the maximum area fire circle is currently 400m.

I also ban Linear and Point fire for all off map assets, and I ban area and linear fire, for on map mortars, this reduces the precision, these restrictions were suggested by Jon S, and i find that they reduce the dominance of artillery to level that feels right, or at least it feels right for me.

[womble]

...trying to use my tanks and infantry, primarily, to defeat my opponents tanks and infantry. That is the heart of the game.

For you, maybe. But it certainly isn't any kind of definition. Combined Arms doesn't preclude Arty.

Artillery acts like a bolt from the sky...

A bolt from the sky that usually has some warning so you can get the flock out of Dodge, or eat dirt, and ride it out.

...kills tanks...

Only if you leave them there to be killed. Mobile firepower was mobile for a reason. Sure, once in a blue moon, the first salvo will slow your tank down enough that it can't get out of the way of the following stonks, but that's rare, and even then you have to be pretty unlucky to lose proper armour to indirect arty. I can't remember the last time I lost or killed a tank with artillery. I did a bit of testing and even a Maximum, Heavy point strike on a Sherman by 4 German 105s barely scratched it. Barring a direct hit, which is rare, that's all you should get. It takes heavy stuff to do any damage to armour, and one battery of 150s will never kill the three medium tanks that are its rough equivalent in points. If it's lucky, it might bag one, and the other two will do far more damage to the enemy than

I can't stop artillery.

No, but you can mitigate its effects.

...there isn't anything I can do about it.

Yes there is. First option is to evade it. Don't fanny about in places the bad guys can drop arty on you. If you see spotting rounds falling near any of your troops, move them. Backwards if you have to. Into decent protection if possible: hugging a wall or bocage berm will give you protection from bursts landing the other side; many buildings give near total protection from fragments, and so long as you're not in the top storey, even direct hits won't hurt much.

If you can't becuase they're trapped between fire lanes for example, give them hide orders, and have them Slow (crawl) towards any protection that might be available. Spread out. Split your squads.

That takes the game totally out of my hands. That isn't fun.

As you can see, that's simply not true. Getting your troops in good condition past enemy bombardment is part of the combined arms challenge. Another part is bombing the bejazus out of the opposition. Or at least using your arty to stop him going where you don't want him to.

If the scenario consists of two forces making contact, and then the artillery comes in and kills one side or the other, what is the point in that? I don't see it.

Quite so, obviously. I don't see this occur with any regularity, however, and if it does, it's usually because the side that got dead screwed up in some way.

There is a reason the Infantry are the Queen of the Battlefield. That is: Artillery is King, and, as someone observed here a while back, we all know what Kings do to Queens. It's also a finite resource, and persuading your opponent to drop precious shells on ground you've vacated is another part of the tactical jigsaw. Exclude artillery and it's not WW2 any more.

[Steiner14]

Runyan,

don't you pay attention to the spotting rounds?

[General Lee Irked]

Very good post womble!

I understand the OP's frustration as I have also been viciously victimized by evil death from above. I have also benefited from some well placed artillery.

[MikeyD]

I can sympathize, but CM is a historial tactical simulation. During the Sicily invasion offshore naval artillery was used against Renault light tank attacks. German experiences with naval bombardment in the Italian theater was one of the reasons they didn't try to push the allies off the Overlord beachs using armor. I understand the Cassino battles cost as many allied lives than the entire Vietnam war over just a few short months. Only Rambo is capable of running between mortar bursts firing a machinegun in each hand.

[GerryCMBB]

I appreciate it is a simulation. And I am happy for those that like it. It is not a game, for me at least. The Artillery was one of the things that makes it impossible for me to enjoy it - the small mortars that killed way more than MGs; and so much Artillery per scenario. I play wargames for scenarios and campaigns, not QBs so I do not want to go the latter route.

Gerry

[womble]

...small mortars that killed way more than MGs...

Note that until v2, there is a bug with mortars in direct fire which means they are way too fast onto target, and thus much more effective. Add the upgrade to MGs in 2.01 (coming soon to an FI upgrade near you, I understand), and that balance has changed quite drastically.

As a game, though, CM is "serious" fun. If the levels of Arty are outside your comfort zone and you don't want to bother dealing with it, then there's always the editor.

[Killkess]

In my opinion the main issue with artillery is that we have way to flexible options to call in firesupport. Linear targetting, to small target areas and to responsive artillery easily generates oversaturation. While i like to have some more controll over the fire-mission i miss some kind of "minimal" target area or even fixed sizes like in CM1. Seeing even "entrenched" infantry beeing slaughtered by a couple of small mortars doesnt reflect WWII realities.

[MikeyD]

No scenario designer I know uses artillery at its full potential. Designers rarely include sufficient artilley to entirely overawe the enemy. There seems to be something of an informal ban on Xylophon artillery rockets, for example. This moratorium on carnage goes all the way back to CMSF days. In my day I have created a couple 'demonstration' scenarios where the player REALLY gets stonked. I'm talking Russian BM-21 artillery rockets kind'a stonked. Oh, the cries of horror! Believe me, as inconvenienced as you are by artillery currently it could be exponentially worse and still remain historically accurate.

[womble]

In my opinion the main issue with artillery is that we have way to flexible options to call in firesupport.

We also have far too few options in our preplanned fire. Without the options we have, there could be no rolling barrage, for example, lasting more than 15 minutes or so, or starting any time other than zero-time. What we have lost on the swings, we gain on the roundabouts.

...[too] small target areas...

I'm certainly not finding the scatter of offmap artillery gives a tight footprint. Even with unsaturated bombardments and cool tubes, they're hardly pinpoint.

[jep]

Without uncontrollable factors immersion would suffer; Who said that war should be fair? Of course scenarios should be invidually rated, but in generally speaking I like artillery.

[Childress]

We also have far too few options in our preplanned fire.

Maybe. But I wonder about the plausibility of on map mortars performing sophisticated missions like linear bombardments beyond turn 1. In the pre-satellite, pre-laptop era

[Redwolf]

Too many scenarios included on the CDs are drenched in artillery. Artillery included and available in many scenarios is sufficient to wipe out half of the forces involved in most given scenarios, in the typical 1-2 hour long scenario.

If the scenario consists of two forces making contact, and then the artillery comes in and kills one side or the other, what is the point in that? I don't see it.

Not bunching up to avoid the effect of artillery is very much historical gameplay.

The question is whether the artillery is still effective when the force owner did take historically correct countermeasures. In CMx2 there are some concerns about the effect of cover from fortifications (foxholes, trenches), cover from rough terrain (rock boulders that make e.g. some pacific island fights so hard for the attacker) and from hard buildings.

Plus the way that vegetation is currently treated you don't disappear from observation quickly enough in e.g. bushes.

[Steiner14]

Without uncontrollable factors immersion would suffer;

+1.

IMO the importance of this fact can't be overstated.

Giving players a tool for every problem they face, is the best way to ruin a game.

[Sixxkiller]

The other night I had an American 60mm mortar kill a Wespe. I know it's not that hard and all but that kinda shows that the game does some expected things exactly the way you want them to. But I will also admit when the computer shells my setup positions on the first couple turns it does make the game less fun. I can see why the OP would be frustrated.

[womble]

The other night I had an American 60mm mortar kill a Wespe. I know it's not that hard and all but that kinda shows that the game does some expected things exactly the way you want them to. But I will also admit when the computer shells my setup positions on the first couple turns it does make the game less fun. I can see why the OP would be frustrated.

And yet I've been shelling half tracks with Brixias and a couple of 81mm missions for half an hour, and got one direct hit (which was a kill, obviously). I think there's a massive amount of "observer bias" involved in the reportage of excessive arty kills: people, entirely naturally, remember the times they got spanked, and not the times they drove a tank through a wall of mortar shrapnel, or a mission hit somewhere you weren't.

[JonS]

And yet I've been shelling half tracks with Brixias and a couple of 81mm missions for half an hour, and got one direct hit (which was a kill, obviously). I think there's a massive amount of "observer bias" involved in the reportage of excessive arty kills: people, entirely naturally, remember the times they got spanked, and not the times they drove a tank through a wall of mortar shrapnel, or a mission hit somewhere you weren't.

Heh. In an ongoing scenario I've just recently dropped a ton (figurative, not literall ... although, actually, it might have been literal? There were a lot of rounds.) on an enemy position, then conducted a platoon assaulted across the open ground in front of the position.

Sure enough, a few of the enemy survived at least one of whom had an LMG.

Now I'm back to shelling the position while the wounded are patched up ...

[Wodin]

This only really needed to be posted in one forum...not CMBN and CMFI. Just a thought.

[Tarquelne]

I've played played several scenarios with a lot of artillery, and a few that were arguably dominated by artillery, but outside of some QBs I've never had a battle spoiled by too much artillery. That includes Le Desert, which I've played from both sides. I spent a fair amount of time moving quickly in fear of artillery, or hiding from artillery... but that's WWII for you.

Hmm... I don't think I've ever been seriously screwed-over by arty in a game. I've had some teams or even squads get wiped out or suppressed-to-a-fair-the-well and AFVs get immobilized. Mostly, though, I have just either have to pull out or the few troops in the target zone hunker down and take some casualties. Then I say "Thank the FSM these are just pixeltruppen!" and move in the reserve platoon.

OTOH I can understand the desire to play a scenario that focuses a lot more on small-arms fire and maneuver. I like to play infantry only games sometimes. No tanks! (Occasionally battles were fought without armor. No, really!) And if the map isn't huge I'll likely want a house-rule limiting arty.

Sure enough, a few of the enemy survived at least one of whom had an LMG.

If that's the game with me you're talking about, it was a... wait...

Now I'm back to shelling the position while the wounded are patched up ...

...What!? Uh... when was that posted?

(And get my wounded why you're at it, please? There's those two guys by the house. The one that's still standing.)

[Alan8325]

Maybe some smaller scenarios have too much arty. I will agree there. I do however think that heavy arty 150mm+, and maybe even 105, should do even more damage to tanks than it does now.

[Apocal]

Maybe some smaller scenarios have too much arty. I will agree there. I do however think that heavy arty 150mm+, and maybe even 105, should do even more damage to tanks than it does now.

150 or higher works fine against tanks. Probably 4.2" and 120mm mortars as well. The problem is that tanks can (and do!) move out from under the barrage, rather than eating volley after volley in a stunlocked state.

[cool breeze]

88mm is great at taking out tanks if they stay still long enough. I do a heavy point target on quick or short and its seems to just about always work if they dont move before the come in. I mean the 25 pounders.

[pnzrldr]

See the Niscemi Highway AAR (both sides, but esp. allied) for some good examples of artillery dodging. Demonstrates how to track the spotting rounds, estimate the likely target and TOT time and bug out the potential victims.

On the other hand, worth noting that our ammo limitations on artillery represent only some of the real world limitations on it. We don't seem to suffer from counterbattery much (though I've seen some of my off-map mortars suddenly indicating crew casualties?) and certainly I've never had an off-map asset taken out or lost priority of fires to another notional element. I've also not had my assets suddenly say, "sorry, can't shoot, gotta pack up and move!" I griped in another post about how we cannot 'repeat' a target and get repetitive effects on the same location - have to wait another full series of spotting rounds. This is an artificial limitation on arty effects which is significant, especially with limited ammo. Means you have to guess, accurately, just how much to shoot to get the effects you want or else you will have to wait another full target series to hit it again. Real world, you just say "repeat" into the radio and (if they have ammo) they keep right on shooting.

I want illum rounds though...

[akd]

(though I've seen some of my off-map mortars suddenly indicating crew casualties?)

The dots changing to red for off-map artillery represents tube overheating and leads to a temporary reduction in rate of fire.