Soviet Artillery

[Gungalley]

Why is soviet artillery so lousy? I just played cracking the egg and i lost terribly, and i would say one of the causes is the ineffective artillery. Here is the story:

I have this 132 mm arti (or rocket?) spotter with around 96 ammo.I positioned him in view of a group of tiger tanks and targetted them. Then i would have to wait for 12 minutes, during which the tigers kicked my ISU's asses. Well, 12 minutes up, then guess what? All the rounds landed outside the map! in 1 turn too!

Anyone can help me make good use of soviet artillery?

[ng cavscout]

For extremely slow modules, like Soviet corp level or above, I would only use it in prep bombardments, ie, set up on turn one.

[Michael Emrys]

On call Sov artillery is slow, that's historically correct. The smaller calibers are usually faster because the FO doesn't have to work so far up the chain of command to get some. The rockets were usually a corps or army asset, so naturally they were slow. The best way to use them is a pre-programmed barrage. It will always land on time and on target. Of course, you have to guess where the Germans are going to be, and when...

Michael

[Gungalley]

What do you mean by preprogrammed barrage? TRPs? Do the 18 minute waiting crap be gone if i use the arties on turn 1? Besides, the enemy units will probably be Out of Sight. SO how do i target? The arties might even drop onto my advancing troops!

[PiggDogg]

Galley,

What do you mean by preprogrammed barrage?

Target on Turn 1.

TRPs?

Those are some sweet if they are available. Buy them if you can. Usually, you can't.

Do the 18 minute waiting crap be gone if i use the arties on turn 1?

Yep.

Besides, the enemy units will probably be Out of Sight.

Yep.

SO how do i target?

Use clairvoyance or guess real well.

The arties might even drop onto my advancing troops!

Yep. Target far from your guys, or have your guys take their chances.

Cheers, Richard

[ July 26, 2003, 01:33 AM: Message edited by: PiggDogg ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Gungalley:

What do you mean by preprogrammed barrage? TRPs?

No. In CMBB the player has the option on the first turn of having his FO call in a mission on any point on the map and have it begin on any turn he designates.

Do the 18 minute waiting crap be gone if i use the arties on turn 1?

Yep. But it doesn't have to actually shoot on turn one.

Besides, the enemy units will probably be Out of Sight.

Yep, that's the catch.

SO how do i target?

By guess and by gosh. Study the map carefully and put yourself in the other guy's shoes. Ask yourself where you would put your troops to defend the objectives. Then plaster as many of those points as you have arty for. And the Sovs had lots of arty. If you are going to play as the Sovs, it helps to know how they did it and why.

The arties might even drop onto my advancing troops!

Although possible, it doesn't have to happen. Keep track of your FOs and know when and where their missions are going to drop. If it looks like your attack is going faster than planned, you can cancel a mission that is scheduled to fall on terrain that you expect your troops to be occupying at that time.

Experience is a great help, in fact it is indispensible in carrying out a well-planned attack supported by staged artillery. Before the war was over, the Sovs got to be pretty good at this sort of thing.

Michael

[Gungalley]

Well, what stops me from calling a mission on the enemy starting point? Its easy to guess, the other end of the map. Also, if i designate on lets say turn 6, then i found out that the enemy is going faster or slower than expected, can i increase/decrease the turns without occuring a penalty?

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Gungalley:

Well, what stops me from calling a mission on the enemy starting point? Its easy to guess, the other end of the map. Also, if i designate on lets say turn 6, then i found out that the enemy is going faster or slower than expected, can i increase/decrease the turns without occuring a penalty?

Nothing stops you from calling a mission on the enemy starting point, but a good scenario designer will create setup zones that are deep and wide enough so that it is impossible to cover the entire setup zone with arty. Part of good tactics, after all, is being where the enemy doesn't expect you to be. . .

And no, you can't increase/decrease the delay on a 'pre-planned' (i.e., turn one) barrage after turn one - you're stuck with the timing you originally established. This is, of course, the great weakness of a rigid artillery system - it doesn't let you respond to a rapidly developing tactical situation.

In real life, the advantage of a rigid, pre-planned system is that it allows you to use large, heavy artillery assets placed far behind the front lines in support of tactical combat without a reliable wire or radio net in place. Although huge strides were made in wire and wireless communication during WWII, long-range communication between forward units and artillery batteries was still a difficult and at times unreliable thing back then, especially for the Soviets, who generally had less (and less reliable) radios than their American and British Allies.

Using pre-planned barrages in CMBB is a difficult skill to master, but if used correctly some of those big soviet arty assets can really cause a lot of damage. It just takes some careful thought and a little bit of luck.

There's been lots written about how to use pre-planned barrages here on the forum already (a search might help), but here's one quick tip: I often use pre-planned barrages early on to quickly sieze a very important piece of terrain. If I dump a whole load of artillery on a patch of woods, I can be pretty confident any SMG squads or other nasties hiding inside will be in pretty bad shape. This means I can move into the woods quickly without taking the time to setup overwatch and scout carefully, which takes up valuable time. If there aren't any enemy in the woods after all, at least I've gained the objective quickly so I have more time to achieve my goals elsewhere.

Cheers,

YD

[Gungalley]

So accuracy will not be affected in a pre-planned barrage right?

[Bone_Vulture]

Who on Earth would attempt to use heavy artillery against tanks anyway? (In CMBB I mean, in real life it might've worked).

[Gungalley]

me, im a noob

[Cpt Kernow]

remember you cant use preplanned barrages in ME's.

[Gungalley]

again, since its pre planned, i assume that accuracy will not be affected right?

[atiff]

Correct. Preplanned artillery barrages are centred on the target area with no deviation, even if out of LOS of the FO.

All of this is in the manual - which I didn't read before playing my first game, and suffered when I fired arty (smoke) and couldn't stop it, thereby wasting all the shells

[dieseltaylor]

Gungalley,

There are 52 articles showing up by the search function that mention "Soviet artillery". I have just read some of them but one " ARTY SUCKS!!!!! " seems pretty exhaustive.

And I have learnt a bit with only a quick glance at it.

[Gungalley]

Originally posted by atiff:

Correct. Preplanned artillery barrages are centred on the target area with no deviation, even if out of LOS of the FO.

All of this is in the manual - which I didn't read before playing my first game, and suffered when I fired arty (smoke) and couldn't stop it, thereby wasting all the shells

thats nothing, once i had a spotter who spent all his 96 ammo in 1 turn, everything just dropped immediately, i don't know how the hell it happened.

[JasonC]

Also those 132mm are rockets. Those are innaccurate but fire very rapidly, covering a wide area in a short period of time. They are meant to suppress or stun a large body of enemy troops, not to engage point targets reactively. You can target the whole enemy side of the map, practically (just stay ~400m from the edges). Whether a round lands close to any given spot will then be a crap shoot, but all of them have to come down somewhere. If he has a large force, chances are a number of them will be under part of the barrage.

Another trick about using Russian arty in QBs is to take lower quality FOs for the big, slow types you use for planned fire. Because quality does not matter for planned fire, and you can buy big stuff cheaper that way. Planned fire will always be accurate, always be on time, even if it is a conscript FO and he leaves the map or dies. It is often sensible to use "target wide" along with 2-3 FOs firing at the same aim point, to cover wide areas. Instead of guessing exactly where the Germans will be, you aim at whole sectors. Fire plan arty is best used as a bludgeon, not as a scalpel.

Keep a few modules for reactive fire, ones with faster response time, for "scalpel" use. I like a pair of 120mm mortar FOs for this. They have a 5 minute delay, which isn't great but is livable. I then target one ahead of time on a guessed enemy position, and after 3 minutes target the other and change the aim point of the first if it doesn't look like there will be someone there. I walk their aimpoints. This gives me useful sized shells 1-3 minutes out whenever a firefight starts, provided I haven't completely messed up the general area.

Some like the 82mm mortar module for this, because it is fast enough you can just use 1. The 9 tube version hits reasonably hard against infantry in woods, or in the open. But I find them underpowered still against men with good cover, so I prefer the 120s and the pair with staggered times trick.

[Bone_Vulture]

Oh yeah, I forgot about mentioning that the artillery Gungalley used were rockets.. Anyway, as said: rockets have a terrible spread, so they're hard to utilize with pin-point (if any) precision.

When used pre-planned, the rockets do have a certain "clear skies" advantage in comparison to normal howitzer assets: normally, a gun battery will fire it's pre-planned barrage for minutes, effectively barring your own troops from entering the bombarded zone, and granting a more mobile defender a chance to maneuver outside the fire zone and prepare to move back in once the barrage stops.

But most rocket batteries on the Soviet side are exhausted in a single huge salvo: with a little luck and a good aim, a majority of the rockets will fall into the vicinity of your opponent's fortifications, shocking his troops. With some talented use of the "pause" command, your infantry will be ready to storm the front as soon as the rockets have landed. Very tricky to execute properly, but is guaranteed to catch your opponent off guard.

[Stavka_lite]

Soviet artillery is not lousy, just hard to use. I use the big stuff as preplanned, with suitable delay, on areas that look like they might hold enemy troops. I have seen arty damage tanks but not knock one out so I don't even plan to knock out armor with indirect arty anymore.

You might want to try on map mortars(50mm and 81+mm). These are really quick, quite good and are versatile both offensively and defensively. Soviet off map mortars can be as quick as 2 minutes and have upwards of 200 rounds. Anything bigger than a 50mm can take out AT guns and MGs. 50mm are great for suppression but won't kill a flea. Make sure you read your manual for using mortars with some type of leader, indirect fire with units on map, very very wicked

Rockets are very cool to watch, cover a big area but are generally useless after your troops get to within fighting range of the enemy, its just too inaccurate. If you want to use rockets the 132mm are the best, but I won't use them after turn 6 or 7 as they are just as likely to take out advincing friendly units.

My 2 cents worth...

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Stavka_lite:

50mm are great for suppression but won't kill a flea.

I disagree. You can kill with a 50mm round, but it has to be a very accurate shot since it has a much smaller blast radius. I think my biggest gripe with the 50mm is its small ammo load. It tends to shoot all its stuff up in just a couple of turns. It might be helpful to have an additional command to specify how many rounds you want it to fire in a given salvo. Also, stockpiled ammo for unmoved mortars seems reasonable to me.

Michael

[Soddball]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stavka_lite:

50mm are great for suppression but won't kill a flea.

I disagree. You can kill with a 50mm round, but it has to be a very accurate shot since it has a much smaller blast radius. I think my biggest gripe with the 50mm is its small ammo load. It tends to shoot all its stuff up in just a couple of turns. It might be helpful to have an additional command to specify how many rounds you want it to fire in a given salvo. Also, stockpiled ammo for unmoved mortars seems reasonable to me.

Michael </font>

[Gungalley]

Hey how do i know if a particular artillery is accurate or inaccurate? Any way of telling? same with mortar and rockets

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Soddball:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stavka_lite:

50mm are great for suppression but won't kill a flea.

I disagree. You can kill with a 50mm round, but it has to be a very accurate shot since it has a much smaller blast radius. I think my biggest gripe with the 50mm is its small ammo load. It tends to shoot all its stuff up in just a couple of turns. It might be helpful to have an additional command to specify how many rounds you want it to fire in a given salvo. Also, stockpiled ammo for unmoved mortars seems reasonable to me.

Michael </font>

[Gungalley]

hey can i spot with my leader then hide him while pumping the enemy with mortar fire?

[tabpub]

Not in BB. In BO you can. But in BB, you put your HQ unit with a short Cover arc so that he doesn't shoot and expose himself that way.