Artillery patterns

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 5:11 pm

WEll, we may not be able to please everybody, but we can allow them to tweak with it if they want

There are artillery vs infantry and artillery vs tank "dials" now in the patch... If you don't like how the artillery is doing, you can change it

Think infantry should get creamed and tanks left alone? Make it so

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited 06-08-2000).]

Desert Fox · Post by **Desert Fox** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 5:27 pm

About that experience check, does that apply for the first round to hit the hex? Obviously it shouldn't because they don't know they have incoming until its already there.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 5:48 pm

There has been discussion about arty units being out of contact and not being able to fire but I've now seen where a leader could not fire his own mortars!

I had a Gerry plt ldr (G0) adjecent to his own 50mm mortar. The G0 had no supresssion, was unspotted, hadn't moved, etc. The indirect bombardment key was greyed out and the "b" key gave no results. Other plt ldrs in the same company could plot fire but not this one.

Has anyone experienced this before?

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 6:37 pm

That sounds as though he's 'out of contact' with his higher HQ. It's fairly rare, but I believe I've seen it happen. Perhaps it's only possible when either A0 or that HQ are out of orders?

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 7:53 pm

Originally posted by Charles22:
That sounds as though he's 'out of contact' with his higher HQ. It's fairly rare, but I believe I've seen it happen. Perhaps it's only possible when either A0 or that HQ are out of orders?

Sorry, I should have stated that I am playing with C&C off. I don't think the G0 unit was out of contact as it was not colored red in the unit listings.

Now I realize that when I do try to have a Plt ldr fire his mortars, on the bombardment menu, the mortar will be greyed out until I select a target hex, then the mortar becomes availible. This is unlike other arty.

Here is another bug(?) I forgot to mention. When trying other Plt ldrs, I could get one to target a hex near the 50mm mortar but as I targeted each hex further and further away from the mortar, I found that at 12 hexes range, I could not target (i.e. the mortar stayed greyed out). This indicates that the mortar thought it had a range of 12 despite the OOB defined range of 50 hexes (IIRC).

Has anyone seen this?

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Desert Fox · Post by **Desert Fox** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 10:08 pm

Well the German 50mm only has a range of 10, so whatever country you were using, 12 is probably right. I never use anything that piddly though, amazingly useless for anything but upgrading.

Tommy · Post by **Tommy** » Thu Jun 08, 2000 11:47 pm

Actually, I thought this was a feature. All arty except mortars can hit any hex on the board, so any available arty is lit all the time. The mortars can only hit certain hexes, so their availabilty is determined by, among other things, the proposed target hex. Therefore, you must first designate the target hex, then the program lights up any mortar which can reach it (and is available for a fire mission). Pretty neat, eh?

Tom

[This message has been edited by Tommy (edited 06-08-2000).]

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Jun 09, 2000 3:41 am

Remember the game's SP3 lineage - the editor uses "hexes" 1/4th normal so you have to divide range and accuracy by 4 to get what it is in the game.

Dean Robb · Post by **Dean Robb** » Fri Jun 09, 2000 9:02 pm

Originally posted by Wild Bill:
The artilleryman wants more casualties.The infantryman wants less.

I'd be happy with just realistic (relatively) results. Only in the movies does an entire battery of 105s pound the infantry in a hex with no casualties and the infantry marching away in good order

.

Another point. If I don't like where artillery is landing, I can shift it a bit. It may take an additional turn, but it can be changed. That is what observers do anyway, right artymen?

Yup, that's their job. Although by the time they're firing for effect, they should have walked the spotting rounds onto target. That's one of my arguments for increased accuracy...we have to assume that the spotter has made his adjustments to the fires and that the rounds we see impacting are the FFE.

It appears that we may have it now in the patch pretty close to the real thing.

Finally, artillery was the #1 killer in World War II. I don't want it to be that lethal in the game but I think it should produce casualties, depending on a lot of variables.

That's why Patton called it the King of Battle (of course, we redlegs called it that for years..

). One thing that reading the 34th ID's Lessons Learned brought to my attention: WWII saw the development of the Fire Direction Center (to handle adjustments for the entire battery instead of the previous gun-by-gun adjustments) and the VT (variable time) fuze. VT especially made a difference because it allowed airbursts instead of just blowing holes in the ground. VERY effective against infantry, esp. in the open.

No wonder it's so deadly! And it looks like v2.0 may be getting it about right.

So when you consider all of those variables, you are never going to get a black and white guaranteed number of kills or suppression. And someone will be unhappy with the results.

Welcome to the real world

. Especially on the scale of SPWAW, artillery is going to have to be abstracted somewhat. In one LL I read from the 34th, an officer described a barrage called in against a very heavily fortified/manned German strongpoint. DivArty fired some 1500 shells over 30 mins onto the target. The infantry then was able to walk unmolested through the (former) strongpoint - the artillery had wiped out the Germans (at least a reinforced company) to a man. Obviously, we can't have that kind of fire rate in SPWAW...but it's an example of how lethal artillery was in WWII.

Charles22 · Post by **Charles22** » Fri Jun 09, 2000 9:17 pm

Dare I say it? How about the Gustav cannon? It only fired 45 rounds it's entire life, at Sevastopol, but what a gun. A book I have at home, mentioned that a round had hit a Russian bunker/fort after going through 100' of sea floor and THEN exploded. Who says Gerry didn't use strategic bombers?

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Fri Jun 09, 2000 9:37 pm

We are working on improving artillery! One of the things to help make everyone happy is teh addition of two new dials, one for artillery effect vs soft and one for artillery effect vs hard targets.

Data conflicts on just how much "weight" of shell was needed. For every case of an arty batty shredding whole companies right and left are the cases where Btn after Btn pounded dug in positions to little effect.

One common theme is if you can check a force in motion its in for pounding, but against entrenched troops, it makes them keep there heads down but even fearsome barrages, did little. Many factors influenced teh success and failure of artillery.

We are setting the "defalts" to be a bit of a compromise between "what plays well" and "what's more realistc" and give you the capability to tip teh balance one way or another to your taste.

Alastair at Work · Post by **Alastair at Work** » Mon Jun 12, 2000 1:36 pm

Good Paul - but please can the cost of artillery units after the adjustments have been made be looked at carefully?? If the effectiveness is to be increased and spotting made more effective [which judging from what I have seen would be a good thing] can the cost of artillery pieces reflect their usefeulness. I recall the horribly cheap 120mm 6 tube platoons of sp3 that were able to decimate all comers and cost virtually nothing. It ruined pbem games unless both parties were happy to agree a limit on the number of tubes or a % of points spent.

Make 'em effective/suppressive/destructive by all means when used properly with los spotting and in large enough quantities, but make 'em expensive with it!

Patch not for another week...

This great game is playing havoc with my life and it is a sign of its "greatness" that my day is now entirely ruined with this news. Keep up the good work though guys - much appreciated by me and all gamers I know.

Cheers
Al

Pack Rat · Post by **Pack Rat** » Mon Jun 12, 2000 11:03 pm

Originally posted by Charles22:
Dare I say it? How about the Gustav cannon? It only fired 45 rounds it's entire life, at Sevastopol, but what a gun. A book I have at home, mentioned that a round had hit a Russian bunker/fort after going through 100' of sea floor and THEN exploded.

What a battle!! I love reading about the assult and all the details of this battle. What a fortress it must have been. The idea for using assult boats was sheer genius.

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Good hunting,
Pack Rat

Tombstone · Post by **Tombstone** » Tue Jun 13, 2000 1:34 am

What if SPWAW modelled artillery with spotter rounds? Then once you got what you wanted you could fire for effect..?? It would make the artillery system more tangible in the players' hands.

Tomo

Dean Robb · Post by **Dean Robb** » Wed Jun 14, 2000 4:37 am

Originally posted by Tombstone:
What if SPWAW modelled artillery with spotter rounds? Then once you got what you wanted you could fire for effect..?? It would make the artillery system more tangible in the players' hands.
Tomo

Yes it certainly would! However, it wouldn't work on the scale of this game. In reading WWII artillery lessons learned, one point made several times is to bracket the target with your spotting rounds before calling for FFE. That means one round over, one round under, FFE (assuming you're good in azimuth).
That means a minimum of 3 turns for every fire mission. THAT would not make us artillery-types happy...