Novice help arty

[Phoenix100]

Another beginner question. Sorry.

Facing a fortified position. No hurry to attack it. But would like to wear it down. There's no way to just get these masses of arty I have available to conduct a week of barrages on the target? I can target the hex with air units, it seems, but not with my SU arty units? Or any other arty units (the organic divisional units, even)? The only way I can get the arty to fire is to attach it to some kind of attack, right? Or wrong?

Many thanks.

[loki100]

ok, you are right in that the game does not really use the concept of artillery barrage outside an actual ground attack. Even the later Soviet artillery divisions don't really do this.

But there are things you can do:

a) get the corps that controls the bulk of the attacking formations stuffed with your heavy artillery SUs. Look in the CR for 'heavy' or 'mortars' should identify them. They will then be assigned when the attack goes in.
b) similarly add pioneer/combat engineers to both the HQ and directly to the attacking divisions.

Now go and read section 20.4.3 of the manual ... (seriously), you will need to apply that information.

A failed attack can take down one or more fort levels if the artillery and/or engineer allocation matches those rules.

So what you can do is to launch say 3 divisions at the target, that will pull in the related support formations. it may well fail horribly (& I've lost up around 10,000 men with this trick), but the fort is now weakened. Even if the defenders are well supplied they can only add a max of 1 level per turn (and if its at #2 probably takes longer to repair - unless it has a valid supply line).

What you do next depends. If you are short on besieiging formations, pull out the attacking units, let them refit and regain CPP. If you have plenty, now might be the time for the serious attack. Don't mess around, ideally 3 good divisions (stuffed with engineers and assault guns etc) in each possible hex. May do the job, or you may need to repeat next turn.

If the fort has no easy land connection, the enemy weakens, you can replenish.

If the fort has a land connection, you are well on the way to re-enacting Stalingrad [;)]

edit - this may be a bit gamey, but ... . Again if isolated, a GA-railyard air mission can be very useful. In part it destroys part of their depot and maybe some stored freight. Better the defenders fire at the bombers, this uses up their ammunition. In a long siege, the quicker you can run down the pre-siege supply stocks of the defender the better.

You may well lose quite a few bombers but there is no cost free way to solve this particular puzzle

[Phoenix100]

Thanks Loki. Very helpful. I suppose I was trying to avoid the infantry losses incurred just to get the artillery to fire. Are there any plans to change this and make artillery-only 'attacks' possible, I wonder? Same way air only attacks can occur.

[loki100]

I really doubt it. Think Gary has some clear ideas as to what is in/out and separate artillery barrages is on the 'out' list.

So its a case of paying the price through combat.

I'm not sure there is much historical evidence for artillery in isolation trashing well constructed defensive lines. Disputing the troops in them, hindering resupply etc, yes but from WW1 to Sevastopol the actual fortifications had to be taken out the hard way.

one of the testers - who knows what he's talking about - said that artillery does most of its killing in the first 15 seconds of a barrage. After that people get into shelter and mostly survive. Which suggests that the shelter may be degraded but still works. The point of the rest of the barrage is morale, cohesion and suppression.