Best showing for your off-map arty?

[Ogiwan]

Greetings, all. It's been a long time since I posted on here.

Anyways. Last night, i just played the "Brits at Anzio" map, and my off-map artillery had a damn good showing. I waited until they were 100-150 meters away from the first line of platoons, and opened up with the platoons. That stopped the Germans in their tracks, and while they were slugging it out with them, i ordered my two 25pdrs to target wide, and let them pound away. A little while later, i ordered my mortar observer (81mm?) to hammer another area.

At the end of the battle, i saw that one of the 25pdr obervers caused 43 infantry casulties, another caused 42, and the mortar oberver caused 23 infantry casulties. Each one knocked out some mortars as well.

So, what's your best showing for your off-map artillery? I ask 'cause usally mine does nothing.

[Kingfish]

Bloody Buron - CMBO

Second to last battle in the Op. One 14" spotter, one salvo - 5 Mark IVs, 2 Kubelwagons, about two platoons+ of infantry, and the town they were deployed in (forget the name).

Needless to say nothing much happened in the last battle.

[MikeyD]

CMBO operation for me too, though its too long ago for me to recall which. After the 3rd battle I was being attacked by overwhelming forces when my artillery manged to bring down the stone bridge they were attacking over! WooHoo! Happy Day!

[Fredrock1957]

On a Playtest at Hell at Waldam Beach a Sie Kommen battle, I saw 8 inch arty kill 1 AFV's, 2 bunkers, 1 pillbox, and about 45 Infantry casuatlies... and that was with a salvo (8 rds) ....

and also at a thread I had a The Proving Grounds it was explained that in a scenario discussion that a spotter (off map, 122mm, with only nine rds) could do nuthing... and after 3 min... he took out 3 AFV's (including a T-34).... you gotta love it...

That is all

-FR

[Other Means]

Conscript 155mm spotter + open map + 1 clump of trees for cover + TRP = ~150 Enemy infantry.

Happy days.

[dieseltaylor]

52 in a recent HSG scenario to a 150mm battery.

One I did not see but a close friend and his nephew played was in CMBO. Mark was an infantry rusher to the flag maniac. Entire force - I believe six platoons occupies small town with extreme speed. Shortly afterwards entire town disappears to 14" salvoes : )

[JasonC]

I racked up 229 infantry from a single on-map 150mm sIG once. As for 40 odd figures, I routinely get those with medium modules. 150mm stuff and up sometimes breaks 3 digits in a large fight against the dumb AI. Depends heavily on target density though. What the AI does that human never do is pack everyone into the same channel, not noticing it is well stoppered farther ahead. That allows outsized kills from any HE that hits the "cul de sac". Even one on map 81mm or 75mm field gun firing direct, can break 40 kills when that happens. But it is mostly a stupid AI trick. Against humans, mid 2 digits is good.

[John Kettler]

Don't know about my best overall performance, but my most memorable was against Kingfish in one of the ROW battles (...sur Mer). A single 14" round laid waste to an entire block of buildings and its German occupants. Kingfish can supply the details.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Kingfish]

"To the last man", which wasn't a ROW battle but was designed by Wild Bill. Its been, what, 4-5 years since we've played that game, and to date it still ranks as the best CMBO match I've ever played.

I still remember that round coming in. I've just ordered a Company HQ and platoon forward as reinforcements, and the round arrived just as they left the buildings (not that they would have survived inside anyway). The company HQ managed to get one foot out the door...

[John Kettler]

Kingfish,

Wasn't that the same battle where you clobbered my AVREs but my Croc won the duel with your pillbox, or have I conflated memories yet again?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by JasonC:

What the AI does that human never do is pack everyone into the same channel, not noticing it is well stoppered farther ahead. That allows outsized kills from any HE that hits the "cul de sac". Even one on map 81mm or 75mm field gun firing direct, can break 40 kills when that happens. But it is mostly a stupid AI trick.

My favorite stupid AI trick against artillery was in a battle in BO where I was US defending. The Germans had sent about half their infantry against my right flank. Their approach was over mostly open ground, through two small almost adjacent patches of woods, and into some kind of large building.

As soon as I saw them headed that way, I targetted one patch with a battery of 105s and the other with a battery of 81mm mortars. As soon as they got to the nearest patch of woods, they paused to take a breather. That's when the 105s started arriving. Of course, after half a turn of tree bursts, they all jumped up and ran back to the other patch of woods. And that's when the mortars started arriving. For the next two or three turns, they kept running back and forth between the two patches of woods. And dying. I don't know what the final body count was; it couldn't have been terribly high, because they only started out with a couple of platoons in that location. But it sure was fun to watch.

Michael

[SgtMuhammed]

AI assaulting one of my fortified positions. They got hung up in the wire and my 81mm spotter firing on a TRP dumped his entire load of 400 rounds. Something like 250 kills and 4 mortars.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Kingfish:

The company HQ managed to get one foot out the door...

Was it in a detached state?

Regards

Jim R.

[stoat]

I managed to hit chokepoint for the attacking troops right as they were choking through it. The 105mm spotter caused 81 casualties, destroyed 4 mortars, and knocked out 2 armored cars.

[Xavier_1986]

I'm afraid I have you all beat. I played an Anzio operation called Rush of Jousts last spring, TCP/IP. My opponent lost all of his armor to my anti-tank guns and then proceeded to launch nearly suicidal human waves against my second line of defense (the first line was wiped out).

Now imagine this - the left, center, and right of my line was held by about three infantry platoons. Against the central and right flanks the Germans tried to overrun my men with their infantry, the same way they'd done earlier. Except this time I'd positioned target reference points between 50 - 100 meters infront of my line.

Well it just turned into a massacre. One minute there was a steady formation of infantry charging through the vineyards and brush, and the next they were just engulfed in fireballs.

The attack on the center and right was repulsed by artillery.

A second attack on the right flank by both infantry -and- tanks was repulsed by artillery and an anti-tank gun.

And at the end I think the Germans guessed my men would be tired and low on ammo, so they tried to sneak up through the brush in order to rush the Americans and engage in hand to hand fighting. But we spotted them and let them have it with artillery again.

120mm and 150mm fire. The 150mm spotter accumulated over 450 kills, the 120mm around 150.

[Mies]

On a Playtest at Hell at Waldam Beach a Sie Kommen battle, I saw 8 inch arty kill 1 AFV's, 2 bunkers, 1 pillbox, and about 45 Infantry casuatlies... and that was with a salvo (8 rds) ....

...mmm yes, I have been on the receiving end of one of these (a little over a salvo though) the day before yesterday while playing the scenario. I had around the same amount of hardware gone (add some mortars) and maybe a bit less infantry casualties. Not so good for me....

Mies