Why are artillery units so powerful when defending in a hex alone?

[Icedawg]

I'm playing Bulge 44 as Germany, and I consistently find myself attacking single American artillery units. Time after time, I get my butt kicked by these lone artillery units. What's up with that? I thought historically, artillery was highly vulnerable when directly defending alone. They should be subject to being overrun quite easily (especially by armor).

I have tried attacking with infantry, armor and combined arms. The result is the same. The defending artillery takes virtually no losses, and my guys get torn to shreds. My attacking units have organization and supply values at 80+, so it's not like I'm attacking with worn out units. These are rested, supplied and high-proficiency units attacking artillery that should be hung out to dry, yet my attacks are consistently repulsed.

Any ideas?

[Lobster]

The U.S. Artillery battalions were well endowed with AT weapons and HMG.

[Shadrach]

I've seen the same, in the scenario "Goodwood 44", where the Germans have a lot of Nebelwerfer battalions. These are 150mm and have has a AP strength of 22, but their passive defence strength is only 2. I found I had suffered a massive amount of casualties when taking these on. Especially since they often ended up in large surrounded stacks.

It maybe could make sense if the units were used in direct fire, and like big guns they would inflict massive casualties used like that, but I can't see how it would happen realistically if a support unit was overrun by line units.

Usually artillery units would have howitzers which would be pretty useless on defense, as well as not having the correct ammunition to take out armour. And the troops would certainly not be prepared for such combat.

Maybe something about them being set to to able to do direct fire on defense when they really shouldn't be? Something specific about these scenarios?

[Lobster]

The 105mm M101 Howitzer had the M67 HEAT round and T-18 Canister round. Considering their deployment I would surprised if they didn't have both available since they were in a defensive position. Charging a 105mm shotgun would not be pretty. Because they are divisional guns I imagine they were well equipped to defend themselves. And looking at the TOE they were certainly concerned there would be action vs armor because they had a large number of AT weapons. Probably need to ask the scenario designer if the .eqp file is standard.

Sorry, I guess during WW2 it was called the M2A1. Changed the designation after the war sometime.

[Lobster]

Here's the TO&E

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

The U.S. Artillery battalions were well endowed with AT weapons and HMG.

Yes, they do have a pretty hefty HMG package, but no AT (at least not in the ones I was looking at). One of the more outrageous beatings I took involved 12 105 mm howitzers and 20 or so HMG completely spanking a well-ordered, well-rested armored regiment with 50+ Panthers. That many Panthers should have completely overrun such an artillery unit with little-to-no losses. Instead, the defending artillery lost a couple jeeps and trucks, and my armored regiment lost 6 or 7 Panthers and most of its supporting infantry. Just seems a bit unrealistic to me.

[Lobster]

I would suggest talking to the scenario author to see if that is WAD.

[cathar1244]

That's an old scenario, btw, year 2000 or so.

Doesn't appear to have a modified equipment file. The artillery units had their complement of pieces, some machine guns and bazookas, a jeeps. Proficiency was around 70 to 80%.

The only thing that may be contributing is that some of the artillery units are in fortified posture in difficult terrain, as well as having a high recon rating.

But they shouldn't be able to repulse a strong enough tank attack. Two batteries of the 333d FA were overrun early in the battle. Brave men in the 333d, but terribly outnumbered.

Cheers

[Lobster]

It would help if you would post screen shots of some of your attacks. I've tried with two infantry battalions and a Panther battalion and kicked the fortified arty out of the hex. The Germans have a huge amount of supporting artillery. And there wasn't much cooperation between the German units.

[Shadrach]

For instance, in the example above, why does a single, unsupported artillery unit with 8/4 (assuming this is Attack Strength / Defence Strength) get an Assault AP value of 32, even higher than the attacking units, 17/11 + 6/8 + 7/9? I'm guessing a fortified status, but still seems massive.

On a related (frustrating) side-note, explaining the values that go into calculating the odds I feel are the most lacking part of the manual. It never really explains what these values stand for. It just heads straight into the formulas used, without even explaining what "Soft DF", "Hard DF" or "hardFraction" even stands for. I guess for old-timers they all know this and just think it's obvious, the rest of us have to guess?

Now at least I know what AP stands for, Anti Personnel (at least I hope so...), and not Armour Piercing - which would be the first guess. Not a single place is DF explained in the manual. Section 7.13.2 is the only place I've found where a new player can maybe guess on the meaning of these values, and that's just for the unit display options... no wonder these kinds of questions arise... [8|]

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

It would help if you would post screen shots of some of your attacks. I've tried with two infantry battalions and a Panther battalion and kicked the fortified arty out of the hex. The Germans have a huge amount of supporting artillery. And there wasn't much cooperation between the German units.

Okay. I'm starting a new game. Next time it happens, I'll give a screenshot.

[Shadrach]

Here's an example of something similar I tried to recreate from Goodwood '44.

One single, unsupported, unentrenched Nebelwerfer unit, odds 40 to 1, manages to take out 30 squads, along with many other units, losing just 4 Werfers and a rifle squad. And these rocket launcher units should be completely useless as direct fire on the defence as far as I know. This unit should just be overrun and surrender.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Shadrach

Here's an example of something similar I tried to recreate from Goodwood '44.

One single, unsupported, unentrenched Nebelwerfer unit, odds 40 to 1, manages to take out 30 squads, along with many other units, losing just 4 Werfers and a rifle squad.

Can you show us the Combat Report or Combat Chart.

[BigDuke66]

Maybe the detailed combat report could explain it, but I'm not sure how because th losses do really look strange, even if the attackers got pounded by a massive German artillery concentration they would have to be in a very bad state to get such results but the screen shows them all in dark green, does not make any sense currently.

[Lobster]

ORIGINAL: Shadrach

Here's an example of something similar I tried to recreate from Goodwood '44.

One single, unsupported, unentrenched Nebelwerfer unit, odds 40 to 1, manages to take out 30 squads, along with many other units, losing just 4 Werfers and a rifle squad. And these rocket launcher units should be completely useless as direct fire on the defence as far as I know. This unit should just be overrun and surrender.

Wow. Talk about bad luck. A Neb Btn has a handful of LMG at most plus the crew personal weapons. I agree, they should have been toast.

[cathar1244]

Now at least I know what AP stands for, Anti Personnel (at least I hope so...), and not Armour Piercing

Shadrach,

Yes, AP is the anti personnel rating, but should be understood as the effectiveness rating against all soft targets, not just personnel. The AT rating is anti tank (anti-armor).

Cheers

[Shadrach]

Had another look at the results, turns out the Germans have a lot of tactical support from other artillery units, so that would go some way to explain the extra losses. This attempt, even more losses for the Allies...

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Shadrach

It also seems that the 140 Support figure for the Attackers would not actually be used in the attack: None of the artillery are in support deployment (red X through all of them). So, the Attacker AP was lower than shown above, and the Defender AP was much higher than shown above.

[Shadrach]

It also seems that the 140 Support figure for the Attackers would not actually be used in the attack: None of the artillery are in support deployment (red X through all of them). So, the Attacker AP was lower than shown above, and the Defender AP was much higher than shown above.

Well, for my second example above, I set all arty in range to T and they provided S/2 support during the battle. I didn't screenshot this (of course [8|])... I just shot the enemy part of the chart.

Losses were even higher...

[Lobster]

I don't think the amount of artillery support granted the Allies is the point. On the other hand, did you try giving the Neb unit a way to retreat? Probably makes a difference.