Newbie questions

[peregrine]

I've been playing SP:WAW for the past couple weeks and wow! What a game! A few years ago I enjoyed East Front (between the bugs) but this game beats it by a mile, more realistic and more fun. I'm trying to learn the equipment and tactics as I go, but I do have some questions (tried to go to the FAQs listed in a thread but got a broken link.)

1) Is there a way to be notified if your artillery is out of range? I noticed that it will let me target fire missions even if the firing unit (especially mortars) is out of range. I only notice it when I try to shift fire a few hexes, then it tells me it's OOR.

2) Are other downloadable campaigns available? I've tried a few of the ones with the game and haven't been very impressed. The first three battles in the Rommel campaign are all on the same map! Two decisive victories and I thought I would have made some progress... Also I'm a bit confused by the Victors campaign. I love the idea of it, but when I start playing I'm ordered to "stop the Russian advance," however I've never been able to get better than a draw because I didn't advance far enough, even though the Russian forces were smashed? Kinda confusing.

3) Does the game decide what type of ammo to use for each attack? Some of the guns have the usual HE, some AP, and a handful of APCR (not sure what that is.) Do they automatically use AP against hard targets, HE against soft, etc? Or do I have to set this somehow.

Thanks!

[Vathailos]

1) Is there a way to be notified if your artillery is out of range? I noticed that it will let me target fire missions even if the firing unit (especially mortars) is out of range. I only notice it when I try to shift fire a few hexes, then it tells me it's OOR.

Long answer to this question (don’t cha love that?), but here goes.

Range can be found in the Encyclopedia for each weapons system. In most cases, when you try to shift, you’ll get the message at that time that lets you know you can’t shoot that far. There IS however a bug sometimes, wherein you’ll get that message when your artillery is well-within range. The only “workaround” I’ve found for that is to change FOs, and plot with him .

Three things you’ll want to be wary of (and probably more, but all my peanut of a brain can kick out now are the following three):

- Plotting on a “Priority Target Hex” (“Gold Star” hex, selected in the Deployment phase) will give you the indication that the target is within range, and has a 0.1 delay, regardless of the artillery system firing. Be wary, 50mm mortars will appear to be in-range, despite being 28 hexes away from that “Priority” hex. What will happen if you select firing this weapon? It will appear as though it’s set to fire, and at the end of your turn, will not fire (because, of course, it’s out of range).

- Damaged Tubes will still show as “Active” if you’ve not disabled their secondary weapon (small arms in H2H for 120mm mortar sections, for example). In other words, if you miss the “jam” message, you’ll still be able to plot as though that tube is functional. But when the time rolls around for it to fire, it won’t. You’ll get a message that it’s firing, then it’ll roll on to the next artillery piece without firing. I like the suggestion of others to re-name that broken piece so you know it’s “Out of Order”. That way, you won’t plot it. But on that note, I’ve heard an urban legend that weapons systems can be repaired in the course of a long game. So don’t completely write off that damaged tube.

- One last thing is the ammo status of the tube in question. Often times, in a furious battle, you may keep plotting tubes/shifting fire for arty that has no ammo remaining. If you do this, you’ll end up watching the same scenario unfold as I’ve described above with regard to how broken artillery “fires”. You’ll plot them, you’ll count on them, but they won’t show.

ASIDE: I have one caveat to that statement, and it’s worth remembering. If your artillery is next to/in the same hex as a reload unit (ammo dump, truck, crate, etc.), and your delay is 0.3 or greater, you can still plot that piece. At the end of your turn, assuming neither your “empty” piece nor the reload unit has moved, it will load your piece (at the appropriate rate, ex. You may get 1-2 rockets loaded or 3-4 mortars) and then fire during your opponent’s turn. Granted, it will only fire what’s just been loaded (a greatly reduced spread), but sometimes those one or two 120mm mortars can make a world of difference.

Don’t have a clue about your answer for #2. I don’t have any campaigns (yet) .

3) Does the game decide what type of ammo to use for each attack? Some of the guns have the usual HE, some AP, and a handful of APCR (not sure what that is.) Do they automatically use AP against hard targets, HE against soft, etc? Or do I have to set this somehow.

Yes, game decides what fires at what target. It actually differs by routine per vehicle type. Some fire their APCR (high-velocity specialty AP rounds that penetrate better than standard AP rounds) first, others exhaust their AP then fire their APCR. If you ever get your brain wrapped around just how that works, please share btw. There’s even another type of ammo to kill AFVs, and that’s HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank). It penetrates better than HE (and better than AP at long distances) by focusing an explosive jet that melts through the target’s armor.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, the only control you have over “what fires” is turning off that weapons system in the “right-click” menu.

One additional note, when you “Z” fire (firing blindly into a hex to damage/suppress units hidden there or nearby that you can’t see), most units fire HE.

Hope it helps.

PBEM “n00bie”,

~Vath

[Jim1954]

There are a number of downloadable ones out there. Sometimes finding them can be a bit of a trick, though. There are a couple at these sites:

http://www.wargamer.com/hosted/steelpanthers/index.asp

http://redleg.homestead.com/

http://64.26.50.215/armorsite/sp_waw.htm

Then there is this MOD for the base game that has numerous updated campaigns in it. Note that this mod will require a duplicate install of SPWaW since this overwrites a lot in the base game. It is VERY good.

http://www.theblitz.org/member_sites/pa ... rework.php

[Voriax]

Howdy Peregrine

Check the 'single player campaigns' thread in this same subforum. You'll find download locations from there. And Vathailos, if you have SPWaW you should have a few campaigns...not megas but campaigns all the same.

That mortar/spotter bug is indeed a weird one..I once did some testing and if I recall correctly it was related to the vision range...if the spotter was further away from target than the max vision range in the battle then you got those out of range notices. I may be wrong though, it's been couple years since I looked at this.

Hmm..oh yes, APCR stand for Armour Piercing Composite Rigid, it is a round where you have a special hardened steel or tungsten penetrator inside a lighter metal core.

Voriax

[peregrine]

Thanks for the information! I can tell how much more I need to learn just from reading Vathailos' post! I don't really use FOs as it stands, I guess I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with them. Whenever I try to put them somewhere where they can see the enemy, they just get shot and killed. As far as artillery delay, I had guessed that the numbers after each gun section were some kind of delay, but didn't really know the details. Usually I just try to plot as few missions as possible to keep the guns firing. I really like how artillery is modeled in the game, it definitely messes up an infantry attack and the larger guns can be crushing.

I'll check out the mod as well, one I have gotten some of the tactics down a bit better.

[Voriax]

Oh and Peregrine, check the victory hexes in the 'victors' campaign. It may be that they are points per turn variant. Thus, if the opposition holds them long enough they get so much points that you can't achieve a decisive or even a marginal victory.

Voriax

[Vathailos]

Hey buddy. Glad you found at least something worthwhile amidst all that rambling.

RE: Forward Observers

There are three reasons to purchase them (for countries other than the US), two of which can be lumped under “faster response”.

1) FOs call in artillery faster than your A0 Command unit or most any other unit (unless you’re the US, in which almost everyone’s good at calling in arty quickly). The speed advantage is one thing FO’s are good for. They can also increase the speed of your calls for fire (response times/delays) in one other way. If you have more than one FO, your odds increase that you’ll get a “Veteran”. If you get an experienced FO, coupled with fast-response (or even “Veteran” artillery), you can cut your delay time significantly (from 0.4 to 0.2 for example, enabling you to hit your opponent at the end of your turn before he can move his units). In addition, you gain “shifting economy” with experience. In inexperienced FO may increase the delay by 0.2 for each “adjustment” made (using the red circle shifting), whereas a more experienced FO may be able to shift at a 0.1 economy.

2) EDITED TO REMOVE AN INCORRECT STATEMENT, SEE CPT PIXEL'S RESPONSE BELOW FOR CORRECT INFORMATION

3) Damage. In the manual, it states that damage is cut by 50% for all indirect fire that is not in the direct LOS of the unit calling for the fire (“spotter”). If you’re using your FO to call in Arty (which you should), and he can actually see his targets, then you’ll notice a significant increase in the damage/suppression done across all types of artillery he calls in. This is why I prefer dismounted FOs compared to vehicle ones, as they stay hidden better. I typically turn their weapons off, set them to “Defend” and their weapons range to 0. They’re very hard to spot when left stationary this way for a few turns, even if the enemy is in the same hex with them. Just a thought.

[peregrine]

Thanks for the detailed answer. I think I'll have to look into this more. To be honest, I've sort of left some aspects of the game alone while I learned to play the basics. I know the units have a setting like Advance or Defend but I've never tried to change it, and turning weapons off sounds interesting, I didn't know you could do that either. Up to now (I know this will sound stupid) I didn't really pay attention to who was calling for artillery. I just knew that if I clicked on some units I could bring up the artillery screen, and other units I couldn't. I've probably been inflicting a lot of delays on myself, really.

Oh well, I chalk it up to more things I need to learn. One of the things I really like about the game is you can start playing pretty immediately, and "fill in the gaps" as you go.

[Capt. Pixel]

... If you have an FO, you can place your artillery further from your A0 unit and still maintain radio contact (assuming the FO is in range of both the A0 and artillery units IIRC). In other words, if he’s within radio range of your A0, he’ll always be able to call in arty. And if your FOs in radio range of your artillery pieces at the same time, they should be able to remain in radio contact as well (keeping them available for fire missions)....

This is not accurate. The FO has nothing to do with on-board artillery being 'In Contact'. FOs, HQ tents, et al, do NOT have the ability to establish and maintain contact with other units at any range. This is solely the ability of the A0 unit.

The only way to guarantee that your on-board arty is constantly 'In Contact' is having the leader unit of the artillery platoon to be within 3 hexes (Visual Contact range) of your A0. While this is usually true, I've found on rare occasions that I have to move the A0 to within 2 hexes to regain or maintain contact. It doesn't happen all the time, but does occur once in a while. The remaining arty platoon units must be within 3 hexes of their platoon leader in order for them to maintain their 'In Contact' status.

To guarantee that your FO is constantly 'In Contact', he must also be within 3 hexes of the A0 unit.

Contact can be maintained through radio at any range on the map, but radio contact is not guaranteed and tends to be inconsistent. This is the method used to contact Off-board artillery or artillery that is outside the 3 hex 'Visual Contact' range of the A0 unit.

[Vathailos]

Darn good to hear, and TY CPT Pixel.

Must be a chain of lucky circumstances that have kept me in contact using the my "method". Of course, the grass skirt and chicken bones helped too .

Is it customary, even using your setup, to experience a loss of contact if you're shelled/shot at (receive an attack that causes suppression)?

Perigrine,

What he said!

[VikingNo2]

I recomend playing a person in a PBEM, I have not played the computer in two years after starting in on PBEM

[Capt. Pixel]

Darn good to hear, and TY CPT Pixel.

Must be a chain of lucky circumstances that have kept me in contact using the my "method". Of course, the grass skirt and chicken bones helped too .

Is it customary, even using your setup, to experience a loss of contact if you're shelled/shot at (receive an attack that causes suppression)?

Perigrine,

What he said!

I haven't noticed that being shelled in that arty formation specifically causes loss of contact. (Loss of arms and legs, perhaps :p )

Suppression and/or low experience could make even visual contact iffy though.

I've noticed lately (playing a DYO Campaign as the Soviets) that I have difficulty maintaining contact with more than 3 platoons of arty. The 4th platoon's contact is pretty good (maybe 80-90%), but not consistent. I'm not sure why this is. (C&C Off, BTW)

Incidentally, I've had very good contact with arty if my force is highly experienced (80+ Exp) By the time you're near the 100s in Experience, they can remain in almost constant radio contact.

[peregrine]

In reading the sticky artillery thread (great stuff) I saw some references to "reverse slope." I wasn't able to find anything via search (it may be down atm) but what is this all about?

[Vathailos]

A “reverse-slope” is just that, a position taken up on the rear (considering the “front” being the direction from which the enemy is approaching) of a hill. Imagine the enemy’s approaching you from your front, and you’re positioned behind the crest of the hill he’s coming up.

This provides several benefits for you.

One is that the enemy can no longer engage you at range. In game context, this type of defense often denies the Germans their traditional range advantage (they had more accurate guns/sights and were able to fire accurately better than most other nations). When the enemy pops up on the crest of the hill, you may well get an OP-fire opportunity before he can fire at you. Penetration is better at short ranges when using AP/APCR, so this is a better way to kill AFVs.

To add to the effectiveness of your OP-fires in this instance, shots from 100m or less and from a height of 5 (or greater) lower than the target’s height have a chance of hitting the soft underbelly of the target. Often times, the bottom of AFVs can be MUCH easier to penetrate (especially if it’s a MBT).

The disadvantages of the “reverse-slope” is that if you’re doing it with armor, your opponent now has the opportunity for a top-shot on your vehicles, again, bypassing your thickest armor. So, in that vein, try and set up short-range AT weapons and infantry in the reverse, with your armor on another hilltop rear of you.

Good luck, experiment against the AI, and you’ll get the hang of it quickly.

[Procrustes]

3) Does the game decide what type of ammo to use for each attack? Some of the guns have the usual HE, some AP, and a handful of APCR (not sure what that is.) Do they automatically use AP against hard targets, HE against soft, etc? Or do I have to set this somehow.

Thanks!

One thing I've noticed about APCR - yes, the computer will fire your APCR rounds first *IF* you are close to the target. Once the range to the target has increased beyond a certain limit, it starts firing regular AP.

I've always assumed this has something to do with the penetration table - pen values for APCR beyond 10 hexes is rarely (never?) listed, though the range of the weapon may be far greater.

I try to keep this in mind - especially when I'm trying to ward off some KV's with a PzIII

HTH someone,

P.