Advice on incoming arty

[zgrose]

I've advanced my troops under cover. Taken key locations to provide overwatch for further advances. Kept my exposure to enemy fire to a minimum.

And then the shells start dropping.

I've tried 2 tactics in response:

1) Give my troops orders to move perpendicular to their current motion hoping that the opposing force will order the arty to targets to the front of their previous direction. Worked OK once. Depending on terrain, this tactic seems only somewhat reliable.

1a) Variant One. Moving away slowly (Move).

1b) Variant Two. Move away quickly (Fast) to escape shells faster.

Variant Two always seems like a bad idea when offboard arty is involved because the kill rates seems to go up exponentially.

2) Sit tight (Hide or Crawl foward) and attempt to rely on "cover" to protect my men from the shelling.

My plea to the CM crowd:

Having never served in the armed forces, what is the correct course of action (for infantry) when under arty barrage and does this course of action translate well into CM terms?

Any help would be appreciated. At least my brother seems to have used up his ammo from this battle.

[Lacky]

It depends on who your opponent is and if they saw you move into the cover. Sometimes it's best to sit tight, if no other cover is close by. If your men break morale while running away, they'll often run back to the terrain you just ran from thus putting them in double artillery jeopardy.

Sometimes it's wise to use the withdraw command (no delay) in order to vacate a local region. Other times it's best to break up your formation into teams and run to all four corners! Your men will break. Your men will scatter. But by breaking up your squads into teams, you tend to take less damage from shelling.

One other note is the type of artillery raining down on you. If it's BIG guns, 155mm+, just hang tough because if the shelling is zeroed in on your location, your men are already dead.

[Flipper]

and that is why artillery caused 80% of all battle casualties.

[Smeltz]

I was in the infantry and the proper military response to arty was, and I quote what we were told by the C.O. "put your noses in the dirt and start praying cause it a long ride to hell." And thats what we did.

[Maj. Bosco]

No idea about real world tactics other than hit the dirt but in CM:

The caliber of the arty is important, but as a general rule get them out of buildings and into woods of some sort. There is the increase probability of air bursting but in general the thicker the cover the better. If you think that your opponent is firing the arty off blind then run your troops away from the area to more cover. You had the right idea about lateral movement. If you think that they can see your troops then your best bet is probably just to hope they don't get beat up to bad and let the weather the assualt. Remember that FO's often identify as crew so if you see crew kill them. It helps if you're the Amis to have scout cars for things like that. No FO = No Barrage.

[Jackal]

zgrose,

You have certainly asked the million dollar question. I have certainly had the **** kicked out of my troops in CM by artillery on many occasions. The above posts are correct, but hanging around is a suicide. While on active duty they told us to eat dirt all right because of the shrapnel projections, but airbursts takes the smile off of that idea. I have tried to hid and hunker down in all forms of woods and still the arty kept chewing at my troops. I done a scenario test where I create a flat terrain with no trees, buildings, or anything for shelter. I had the enemy troops (the US for this) spread out across the terrain. I used the german arty from all calibers to see what the bursts looked like, the number of shells fired for a full turn, and how long the shelling would last. If the germans have directed indirect fire on your troops and the bursts are relatively close then they have eyes on you. Expect at least 3 turns of this to continue, possibly longer. After three turns of this crap, your troops will be useless or dead. Experiment with a few created scenarios using different forms of indirect fire and different forms of cover. The AI is excellent at using its indirect fires and will adjust fires accordingly with little or no wait, so when you move troops out of an area - you need to MOVE them quickly and in a direction that will put them out of line of sight. Keep in mind the area covered by each artillery/mortar when firing so that you can estimate possible routes. The withdrawal command is good to use but I am not sure if they will keep going or stop where you telling them to.

[Maj. Bosco]

Just an aside, if you're playing the Germans and facing direct fire from VT artillery give up on those infantry and hope that your opponent uses all his arty on them. If any survive (which is unlikely) it's a plus.

[zgrose]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Just an aside, if you're playing the Germans and facing direct fire from VT artillery give up on those infantry and hope that your opponent uses all his arty on them. If any survive (which is unlikely) it's a plus.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

VT stands for?

[Hans]

Variable time, a fuse that used radio waves to denonate above the ground. In woods it explodes in the tree tops creating a large amount of splinters.

Still used today....replaced/assisted the more unreliable/more difficult to use Time fuse which used a mechanical timer...now an electronic timer.

Modern VT is set to explode at 7 meters the older versions when off (avg) 20 meters.

Time fuse is still used in certain terrains do due reflectivity of the target (swamp) etc

[Maj. Bosco]

VT artillery is deadly because of the shrapnel. Rarely does the actual explosion of an artillery shell kill anyone - the shrapnel that explosion hurls is another story though. If you watch an artillery barrage of non-VT in game you'll notice that basically all the shells hit the ground then explode. This is ineffecient because most of the shrapnel just goes right into the ground. VT artillery rounds almost always burst in the air though. This sends a greater volume of shrapnel over a greater area. Absolutely deadly. Usually any infantry not dead or wounded after a VT barrage are thouroughly broken and routed.

[Banshee]

I prefer tactics which minimize or negate arty:

1) Keep squads as widely seperated as possible. This will dilute the effectiveness of a barrage. (some people even split squads, I do not)

2) Try not to have one platoon directly follow behind another.

3) Keep moving! If you move fast arty wont be able to re-target you fast enough. Speed is essential.

------------------

Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[Chief]

In the real world, I was taught to run like hell if under artillery fires. I have no idea whether this would work in action, but the training I got (Army ROTC, 1972) was aimed at overcoming the instinct to get down in the mood and wait for it to be over. As another poster said, this may have been prompted by modern air burst ordnance.

In game terms, I would add the rather cold-blooded tactic of providing a sacrificial lamb to your opponent's fires. A platoon in the open works for this. Scout vehicles work even better, because they can keep moving and survive longer. Kubelwagens, for example, can last for astoundingly long times and do some useful spotting at the same time.

[Jeff Heidman]

AS you can see, there is no real "solution" for getting nailed with artillery.

That is why I have a very simple SOP: Under almost all circumstances, I do not change anything when the arty starts coming down. Once it starts to land, there is little or nothing I can do to effect the outcome, hence it is not worth me spending time worrying about.

The only thing to worry about is to assess the probably impat it has on my plan. Other than that, ride it out and see what's left.

Never spend time worrying about that which you cannot change anyway.

Jeff Heidman