Arty Effectiveness vs Tanks

[Erwin]

Just finished Comets vs PzV's scenario H2H with Probus.  We were very surprised to find that our (plentiful) arty had destroyed 4x PzV's and 2x Comets.  So, if one has (enuff) arty it appears to be very effective vs AFV's.

 

[PEB14]

Yeah! I was suprised myself last year and posted on this topic:

Since this time, I've even managed to destroy and enemy King Tiger with heavy artillery.

[slysniper]

Just dont try it onthe modern game periods.

You will not get the same results.

The arty is much more affective in the WWII stuff,

Only the specialized stuff in the modern titles will be effective

general arty will prety much only immobilize

[Centurian52]

3 hours ago, slysniper said:

Just dont try it onthe modern game periods.

You will not get the same results.

The arty is much more affective in the WWII stuff,

Only the specialized stuff in the modern titles will be effective

general arty will prety much only immobilize

That hasn't been my experience. I have found artillery to be surprisingly effective in the WW2 titles. But I routinely use artillery as an anti-tank asset in the modern titles, where I generally only use it against tanks in the WW2 titles if I don't have many good options (I'll generally try it before trying a head on engagement with my own tanks, but the slow call-in and poor accuracy means it is far from ideal). The better protection of modern tanks means that a single hit may not be as likely to achieve a kill. But since modern artillery is so much more accurate you are likely to get a lot more hits. In the WW2 titles I generally use a heavy barrage set on medium duration with the expectation of getting one or two hits on the tank. In the modern titles I use a heavy barrage set on a short duration with the expectation of getting several hits. If anything artillery is a much better anti-tank weapon in the modern era than in the WW2 era.

I'll grant that on the few occasions that I've played against, rather than as, the Americans I did notice that the Abrams seems to be a lot more resilient to artillery than I was expecting (it's certainly a beast from the front, but I didn't think the top armor was all that tough). But the artillery was still generally able to disable it, even if it couldn't get an outright kill.

[slysniper]

well, I guess it all depends if you can catch the tank not moving.

My mode of testing was to run the armor through a barrage and see what type of resuls I was gettting.

Seldom does a player let his armor sit under a barrage if he sees rounds start to fall.

I will agree modern stuff can be more accurate and then with the specialized shells, very deadly.

But I will stick wityh a general barrage on modern tanks not very deadly. Just painful.

[Shady_Side]

4 hours ago, slysniper said:

well, I guess it all depends if you can catch the tank not moving.

My mode of testing was to run the armor through a barrage and see what type of resuls I was gettting.

Seldom does a player let his armor sit under a barrage if he sees rounds start to fall.

I will agree modern stuff can be more accurate and then with the specialized shells, very deadly.

But I will stick wityh a general barrage on modern tanks not very deadly. Just painful.

My experience is in CMBS, the US Excalibur rounds will kill anything with 1 hit. Though I usually fire them in pairs just in case. My experience with US Excalibur rounds in SF2 is a lot different. It has been a few years ago I was playing a scenario and spotted  a T-55 bunker tank. I bounced my entire inventory of Excalibur rounds off it's turret or had near misses that made creators underneath it's tracks and the T-55 survived and was still fighting. I am sure there are reasons for such a wide margin in the effectiveness of between the titles... but I never really tried to find out why

 

[Erwin]

When one targets an individual vehicle it looked as if the barrage follows the vehicle (until the spotter loses LOS to the vehicle). Not 100% sure of that, but it certainly looked that way in my game vs Probus. 

[Artkin]

You dont need to get a hit on the top of a tank to kill it in real life. 

And the abrams is straight up broken with artillery. Multiple 203mm hits to the top and subsystems arent even damaged... and tank isnt destroyed. 

[A Canadian Cat]

17 hours ago, slysniper said:

My mode of testing was to run the armor through a barrage and see what type of resuls I was gettting.

Seldom does a player let his armor sit under a barrage if he sees rounds start to fall.

In CMBS I tested GPS guided rounds against various tanks. They are pretty devastating. If you can get a hit on top with a 155mm you nearly always kill anything other than and M1 and M1s sometimes die too but always end up pretty messed up with the loss of lots of sub systems.

[A Canadian Cat]

5 hours ago, Artkin said:

And the abrams is straight up broken with artillery. Multiple 203mm hits to the top and subsystems arent even damaged... and tank isnt destroyed. 

that is not my experience - see above.

Having said that we have all been around this topic a few times. The conciseness is that while direct hits are not far off near misses are not causing expected damage to sub systems. I believe that is where the report on artillery vs tanks sits at the moment.

[Artkin]

3 hours ago, A Canadian Cat said:

that is not my experience - see above.

Having said that we have all been around this topic a few times. The conciseness is that while direct hits are not far off near misses are not causing expected damage to sub systems. I believe that is where the report on artillery vs tanks sits at the moment.

I've posted evidence on these forums WITH hit markers showing that 203mm direct hits to the top abrams armor failed to damage anything other than tracks

[Erwin]

Well.. we are talking about WW2 tanks ion CMFB here.  FWIW, arty can and does kill the WW2 era tanks quite effectively.  However, in this particular scenario (Comets vs PzV's), the players have a lot of arty.  

[A Canadian Cat]

19 hours ago, Artkin said:

I've posted evidence on these forums WITH hit markers showing that 203mm direct hits to the top abrams armor failed to damage anything other than tracks

Well it is true I have not hit them with 203mm. I'll make note to tweak my test. Do you have a link to your previous post? That way I can tie both together.

[Brille]

On 7/5/2024 at 2:39 PM, Erwin said:

Well.. we are talking about WW2 tanks ion CMFB here.  FWIW, arty can and does kill the WW2 era tanks quite effectively.  However, in this particular scenario (Comets vs PzV's), the players have a lot of arty.  

Iam playing the scenario currently and got 4 Panthers with the 25 pounder artillery.

My oponent riled them up into some tight platoon formations and let them stay to long so my artillery could zero in on them.

 

Got multiple hits on every one of them. So yeah, artillery can be very effective against tanks if the odds are right.

[Redwolf]

Where is Pelican Pal when you need him?

[Chibot Mk IX]

On 7/3/2024 at 7:16 AM, slysniper said:

Just dont try it onthe modern game periods.

You will not get the same results.

The arty is much more affective in the WWII stuff,

Only the specialized stuff in the modern titles will be effective

general arty will prety much only immobilize

I killed a lots of T-64A with 155mm HE direct hits in my CMCW games.  The problem is the near miss only cause neglectable damage on the sub system.

 

Of course CMBS is a little different story, ERA blocks seem to be able to absorb the damage from large caliber artillery shells, maybe they have a mysterious force shield around them just like those bulletproof trees

[Erwin]

What is interesting is that even since CM1, the common wisdom in CM1 and CM2 was that targeting AFV's with arty (unless it was a modern precision munition) was ineffective and a waste of ammo.  

Either the engine has been changed to make arty more effective vs AFV's, or...  perhaps designers don't usually give the player sufficient arty to make it a viable tactic.  In the "Comet vs PzV" scenario the Brits get two batteries with (IIRC) over 800 rounds of General munitions each.  

 

 

[Centurian52]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

designers don't usually give the player sufficient arty

Even without considering effectiveness against tanks, this is definitely one of the issues. Perhaps it's realistic for CMSF2 and CMBS, since those games assume short conflicts set at a time when we weren't maintaining massive stockpiles of artillery ammunition. But in the WW2 titles and CMCW the player should be positively swimming in artillery ammunition*. By the earliest point in the WW2 titles industry has already more than caught up with the ammunition expenditure requirements of a massive, high intensity, peer vs peer war. And during the Cold War both the US and the Soviet Union were anticipating another massive, high intensity, peer vs peer war to break out at any moment, remembered what their artillery ammunition requirements were like in WW2, and knew that it would take a couple years for industry to catch up to those requirements, so were maintaining stockpiles of tens of millions of rounds of artillery ammunition that they hoped would last for the first year or two of any war until industry caught up with requirements.

*Edit: I now have an image in my head of Scrooge McDuck diving into a pool of artillery shells.

Edited July 9 by Centurian52

[chuckdyke]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Either the engine has been changed to make arty more effective vs AFV's

Few years ago 25 pdrs got rid of a Stug III. A direct hit is modelled. The Stug ia roughly 3 by 2 meters while an action square is 8 by 8 meters so the odds are even if a shell hits the action square the odds are. 1:10 to hit the AFV itself let alone an HE on the engine deck. Would a WW2 HE shell penetrate its top armor? 

[Redwolf]

5 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

I killed a lots of T-64A with 155mm HE direct hits in my CMCW games.  The problem is the near miss only cause neglectable damage on the sub system.

 

Isn't one of the problem Pelican Pal found that only direct hits do any damage and near misses do none?

[Lethaface]

On 7/5/2024 at 8:39 PM, A Canadian Cat said:

Well it is true I have not hit them with 203mm. I'll make note to tweak my test. Do you have a link to your previous post? That way I can tie both together.

FWIW a while ago I also tested Oplot-M against 152mm guided and 203mm artillery and its basically not impressed by direct hits. Some subsystem degradation after multiple hits, bit like hitting it with a HMG ;-). I was able to KO one after like 6 direct hits. 

[Centurian52]

14 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Would a WW2 HE shell penetrate its top armor? 

Yes.

[Chibot Mk IX]

20 hours ago, Redwolf said:

 

Isn't one of the problem Pelican Pal found that only direct hits do any damage and near misses do none?

If my memory is correct, Pelican Pal's testing was focus on the airburst arty vs sub-system.

In the meantime HerrTom's test and analysis (with MATLAB) prove that near miss needs a buff in CM.

 

Also in CM, a direct hit is the best way to disable a tank. However, it is ironic that a direct hit rarely damages the track, whereas a near miss often does.

[slysniper]

On 7/9/2024 at 4:07 PM, Erwin said:

What is interesting is that even since CM1, the common wisdom in CM1 and CM2 was that targeting AFV's with arty (unless it was a modern precision munition) was ineffective and a waste of ammo.  

Either the engine has been changed to make arty more effective vs AFV's, or...  perhaps designers don't usually give the player sufficient arty to make it a viable tactic.  In the "Comet vs PzV" scenario the Brits get two batteries with (IIRC) over 800 rounds of General munitions each.  

 

 

I do not know where you get this common wisdom from.

Arty vs tanks for the WW2 games has been pretty effective , I do not recall any modifications that have ever been done that has made a change  to it in any major way.

A lot of these view points come from statements of someone having tried something and it did not work out in the game  instead of any real testing to see what the game actually does.

Like I recall a player complaining about it and when I looked into it he was using 81 mm mortar.  "Not going to happed bud". Try 155 and come back to me and we will discuss how effective arty is.

 I think the best testing and complaint that has been done that shows results that arty still has issues to its modelling was the one resently done that did show the lack of sub systems being effected .

[Sgt Joch]

As I recall, the issue with WW2 artillery was not effectiveness, but accuracy. Typical medium/heavy artillery rounds had an average CEP of say 50-100 meters so you would have to fire a lot or hope for a lucky shot. Even the modern GPS guided 155mm Excalibur round has a CEP of 1.5 meters, so not guarantee it will score a direct hit.