Question about 105 mm Artillery

[Herr Kruger]

Will such artillery affect enemy infantry inside heave buildings and if so, to what degree? Will it inflict appreciable casualties or just rattle them?

[JasonC]

Medium sized artillery like that is least effective against buildings. Misses land outside and the walls provide good cover against them. Hits on the buildings themselves will still rattle the guys inside, and cause a few losses. But it takes a lot of shells to have the random scatter wind up hitting every house.

You won't annihilate them. They won't like it very much, but most of them will be alive after a few minutes of fire. If you keep the fire up long enough and they sit it out under the barrage, many of them will be broken and some will be reduced to half-squads. But some will still be there, and effective 2-3 minutes after the fire stops.

Green quality troops, incidentally, will all break. And the level of suppression described will often be enough, e.g. if you can follow it up with a rapid and full strength infantry attack, before the survivors can rally. But if you want to actual KO the men for good with just the arty, it will take 155mm and up to "do" heavy buildings.

Also, note that direct fire HE e.g. from tanks, can be more effective against buildings. Because aimed fire is accurate enough that each shell will strike a building, and the walls are much less effective cover when the shell actually hits. Even 75mm if delivered direct, can be more effective than 105mm delivered indirect. Whereas indirect HE is great at woods, which tanks can't see very far into, and can also get "airbursts" in the treetops. So a good "division of labor" is to have the tanks do the buildings with direct fire, while 105mm size medium artillery does the woods.

I hope this helps.

[ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Michael Emrys]

Using 105mm direct fire (either the Priest or--my favorite--the support Sherman) is also effective.

Michael