Effectiveness of Direct Fire?

[PirateJock]

A question for everybody ... how often do you think Direct Fire has an effect? That is, causes disruption or lose of a hit?

I won't bias answers by saying what I *think* it is ... I've been keeping track for the last couple of months. I'm interested what people's perceptions of success rate is.

Cheers

[Fred98]

My perception is that in clear terrain it is effective. Not so in other terrain.

I think it is worth using direct fire before putting in the assault.
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[Rosseau]

I'd say direct fire effects overall are a little on the light side. However, that may be WAD and historically accurate.

As I mentioned a while back, it does require a significant amount of effort (micromanagement) on the player's part. I assume streamlining the process would be hard for the devs to do, but I'd love it.

[sabre1]

Hmmmm, personally it feels like direct fire is whacked, but never having been in a direct fire altercation, I am really not one to judge what the developer decided on.

I did disrupt a machinegun unit, and then assaulted with two stacked infantry units and destroyed the machinegun unit. So I guess I need to play more to make an informed decision.

JMass, Joe, Max86, PJ, Rosseau, J2D, Obsolete, etc... you guys are probably much better at the statistical end than I am, so I will always bow to your expertise.

Of course I think the withdrawal is better, but still not perfect. I also feel that when an infantry unit is adjacent and assaults an artillery unit, artillery should lose everytime, but that isn't happening either.

Armor should definitely be allowed to withdraw whenever, and I think that works now. At least in a match I'm having with JMass, I was able to withdraw armor and artillery, so "maybe" it's ok at the moment.

I love it when it's late and I start to ramble...

[Rosseau]

I also noticed the defensive values of arty units is very high and I usually change this in the editor. They can be used as defensive bastions, which should not be the case. It also discourages one from protecting his valuable arty from a raid, which isn't right. Maybe the designer has an explanation for it.

[Obsolete]

How often Direct Fire has an effect is going to give quite some difference in opinions depending on what scenarios a person is playing (and what side). Units with low quality are going to have some hard times trying to get in some LUCKY-SHOTS, so this phase may at times seem like a gimmick, and the best you may hope for is some disruption. On the other hand, with vets...well that's another story again.

And if your counters are weaker than MGs, again things may seem minimal in effect, particularly in a scenario where you don't find yourself constantly adjacent to your opponent every turn. In any case, I always like MGs because of the range of 3 hexes. Yes, it can be hard to damage at maximum range, but at least it's a CHANCE. You never know when even a little bit of disruption on your opponent could lead to a key breakthrough.

Anyway, I guess my answere is simply... IT DEPENDS!

[sabre1]

Artillery is way to tough to take out in my opinon if attacked directly with no support.

[PirateJock]

I was waiting for the 'it depends' answer [;)] - but I'd agree there are a lot of factors that can affect success.

What I was trying to get to with this question was did people feel they were getting an appropriate level of success from their direct fires. For example, if the conditions were right with high quality, undisrupted unit firing on an adjacent battered unit, would you be confident that you could easily finish it off in a couple of turns.

For what it's worth, I've been collecting my direct fire results from approx 20 games (PBEM & AI), covering a range of situations from combat in clear terrain to up in the mountains. And, bearing in mind that I've got a fair idea of what makes for a good attack, I get a 1 in 4 success rate, i.e. the direct fire has some effect. This may only be an increase in disruption, but they all count [;)]

Cheers

[Rosseau]

Does this mean direct fire is working well, in your opinion? Thanks for your research.

[PirateJock]

Personally I think the success rate is about right, from a realistic point of view. I think of it as modelling the drawn out, attritional fire from cover and from distance - bearing in mind even being the adjacent hex could be up to 500 yards. The deadly fire is delivered when assaulting.

Whether the modifiers could be tweaked to increase the chance of effect, and give the player a feeling that direct fire is doing something is another matter.

Cheers

[Obsolete]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

Artillery is way to tough to take out in my opinon if attacked directly with no support.

I don't think so, but that would depend on the scenario designer (armoured arty should be much stronger than towed?), and I suppose your good (or bad) luck of the battle

BTW, you don't really need to destroy arty to put it out of commission.If you can wedge a counter adjacent to it, then he's not able to bombard until he either pries you out of there, or you leave for whatever other reasons...

[Rosseau]

Ah, I didn't know about that little trick. I've seen lots of arty emplaced at "24" defense. Now I just set a recon unit down next to them. That would solve my initial gripe. Thanks.

[sabre1]

Which means I should put an AT unit with the artillery unit. [:'(]

[Rosseau]

Yes, now you have to protect those assets. I'm not sure if the AI knows this, though.

[Obsolete]

ORIGINAL: sabre1

Which means I should put an AT unit with the artillery unit. [:'(]

Which means, I will then use an infantry unit next to your little stack

[PirateJock]

I tend to just make my arty run away as fast as they can; unless they get snuck up on!

Never seem to have enough units to waste on protecting the big guns ... or do I (for PBEM opponents [;)])

Cheers

[Obsolete]

Towed arty will always burn off half the MPs just from a single posture change though. And the problem with mobile arty is that their MPs are usually much less.