Good Form Artillery Barrages

[Bradley Dick]

I personally believe that bombarding another human player's deployment zone with pre-planned artillery is kind of underhanded. I don't know if the setup zones are randomized or not, but it's still a bit gamey.

It reminds me of the old Ghost Recon games when people would pick the semiautomatic grenade launchers and mortar barrage the spawn points within seconds of the match start.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Ahhh, I just noticed that George MC uploaded a nice big map to the repository a couple days ago.

[Dietrich]

In a recent quasi-meeting-engagement (neither side is dug in at all, but each side knows the other side is in the immediate vicinity) PBEM, I called in a pre-planned linear medium-mortar barrage to screen the advance of two-thirds of my force (that is, the barrage was not targeted on the enemy setup area). My opponent, who lost about a quarter of his force to said barrage, pointed out that pre-planned arty is generally rather frowned upon; however, he also said that in his opinion the barrage earned the Best Order of the Scenario award. *shrug*

[Hull down]

The problem is that, especially on smaller maps, it's often much easier to make an educated guess as to where the "likely form up points" are in the game than it would be IRL.

In the case of a defense, a defender also wouldn't necessarily know exactly when an attack was coming -- a defending commander might have a pretty good idea that an attack was coming within the next few hours, but the nature of CM QBs means you know the jump-off time of the attack, down to the minute. This makes turn 0 spoiling barrages unrealistically effective on many CM maps; it's been this way since CMBO.

In the case of an attacker, you *know* the enemy's MLR is somewhere within the limits of the map. Attacking commanders often didn't have such detailed intel IRL. In QBs, the defender also can't avail himself of certain common tactics to reduce the effects of prep barrages, such as leaving a good reserve a km or so behind the MLR, and bringing them up to prepared positions once the barrage lifts (this is technically possible in CM, but many maps lack sufficient size to allow this kind of tactic.)

The game also doesn't currently support important sheltering techniques like putting your defenders in deep, covered (non-fighting position) dugouts, or in the basements of buildings.

Those are good points you made in favor of limiting pre-planned barrages. I had allowed it for an attacker, but I see what you are saying about the defender having no good way to ride it out.

I guess it depends, too, on what kind of game someone wants--an easy win with large explosions and flesh everywhere, or a sophisticated affair where you deftly and subtly engage your opponent while discussing Sun Tzu's "Art of War" and sipping tea with an upturned pinkie.

[7thGalaxy]

I think Sun Tzu would definitely be in favour of bombing the hell out of the other side before attacking

I think it should be frowned upon in meeting engagements, and maybe also when defenders are bombing attackers setup zones, but attackers should be allowed to bomb defensive strong-points. After-all, it just saves some time, as they'd probably want to do it anyway, but if they didn't pre-plan it, there would be 5 mins of little more than scouting to get a good observation post. And some of the arty is virtually unusable except in a preplanned barrage.

[LJFHutch]

The obvious fix for this is larger maps with larger setup zones. That would also make for some more interesting engagements too.

[LongLeftFlank]

The other obvious fix for this is better survivability of entrenched and hunkered down (Cowering or Hiding) infantry against artillery non-direct hits, which I gather BFC is looking at.