When does artillery fire

[Chris21wen]

Simple question and on the sound of it, dumb but I've spent near two hour trying to find this.

An LCU set to deliberate or shock attack is likely to have indirect fire elements capable of bombardment. They will bombard if set to it but when do they fire during other attack types? During the bombardment phase or assault fire phase? This applies equally to attacker or defender.

[BBfanboy]

If attacked by enemy artillery, your arty will attempt counter-battery fire. That also shows the enemy approximately where your guns are and they can try the same against them. Usually the side with the larger caliber/longer range/more accurate arty wins the duel.

If enemy troops attack your troops your arty will fire at them. If the enemy is landing on a beach but not shock attacking, only coast defence or dual purpose guns fire at the transports and landing craft. Arty fires at the beach in support of other beach defences like MGs. You only see this in the casualties during landing.

If you set your arty to bombard enemy troops without your troops attacking, the arty will have fewer op points available to fire on an attacking enemy later on the same day.

[Diliwitm]

I think searching older posts maybe even not AE will give you some information.

[Chris21wen]

Thanks, I concur with almost everything you said here with I couple of exceptions.

... That also shows the enemy approximately where your guns are and they can try the same against them. ...

I agree they now become a target but only for art that has nor already fired that turn.

[quote
... the arty will have fewer op points available to fire on an attacking enemy later on the same day.
[/quote]

There is no mention of OP being used in ground combat although it makes some sense? I've always thought that a device fires once per combat, e.g. if it fires in the bombardment it can fire in any of the fire phases. OP suggest in can fire many times up to its OP limit?



Bombardment and counter bombardment is clear, well as clear as anything is in the manual re ground combat. But there's one sentence that makes no sense what-so-ever. 8.4.2 states: '... If the order is to execute a Deliberate Attack or Shock Attack, units that can only bombard will be given the Bombardment Attack order instead.'

Units that can only bombard cannot be given a Deliberate or Shock Attack order. They must be set to bombard to participate in the attack, they will not automatically be included in the attack. What do artillery devices in LCU that are capable of bombarding do? Is this sentence aimed at them because it's the only thing that fits and partly answers my question.

The other thing is targetting. A unit set to bombard picks a target to fire at, counter bombardment fires at that bombarding artillery.

I've always assumed that units set to attack will pick a front line target, by preference, and fire at them with it's attached artillery firing in the bombardment phase but at the This which includes any art device they have. I other words the art does not bombard but fires in the fire phase.

What happens on defence? Bombard or fire phase?

Some artillery devices are incapable in direct fire. The rules state this in 8.4.1 and 8.4.2.1:

'When bombarding or firing defensively at a unit that is Bombarding, only weapons with a range of at least 3 and an anti-soft
rating of at least 5 may fire. Coast defense naval guns and dual purpose guns with a range less than 15,000 yards may not
fire. Not all weapons will fire, but the longer the range of the weapon the greater the chance of firing.'

Are these indirect fire device so will only ever fire in a bombardment phase.

This rule also brings up another question on '... Not all weapons will fire, but the...'. What does this mean for those that don't? Can they subsequently fire during the fire phase?

[Chris21wen]

Digging into the OP business it appears I've got it wrong, units can fire multiple times during a combat so an OP limit does make sense. Other than this bullet point in 8.4.2.1 'Number of times the unit has already fired this combat round' there's nothing else.

So if it is the case what do they fire at, same target of a random one each time they fire. Do the combat routines fire once, alternately att, def etc until the OP limit is reached or does the attacker fire all followed by the def? The first I suspect.

What determines the OP cost for each firing?

Many questions and I really like someone with access to the code would respond.

[Chris21wen]

I've also re-read section 8.4.2 again on

'... If the order is to execute a Deliberate Attack or Shock Attack, units that can only bombard will be given the Bombardment Attack order instead.'

and its apparently in reference to the 'Set all to this combat order'.