Artillery

[Andriko]

I am still gropping my way through the intricate details of the game, and am now wondering what is the best way to utilise artillery.

Until recently I had it spread across the line in static situations, but am starting to think that massing it on one point might be a better use.

In more fluid battlefields, artillery looses alot of its good point imo, unless you get enough combat rounds to have moved them into position (though it depends how fluid things are!)

And finally, how effective is it in defense, ie. when set to tactical reserve/entrenched. Will it cause serious problems for an attacker, or does this once again depend how massed it is on the line?

Incidently, my knowledge of artillery (like nearly all my military history/ strategy knowledge) is WW1 era, which has its benefits, but also its defects as far as this game is concerened!

Thanks!

[golden delicious]

Yeah artillery should be massed at the decisive point, but take care over co-operation levels. Unco-operative artillery is less likely to support passively.

As you note it can be difficult to bring artillery up to follow an advance; try putting it into a support status first and until it can be used directly, rely on airpower. It works more or less than same way.

Artillery can be very effective on the defence, helped by the fact that it is much easier to keep it in range of defenders than attackers. In fact I find that if the defender has good artillery, it is quite tought to advance without strong artillery of your own.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Andriko

...Incidently, my knowledge of artillery (like nearly all my military history/ strategy knowledge) is WW1 era, which has its benefits, but also its defects as far as this game is concerened!

Thanks!

I'd say the primary change in artillery between the wars was that at least the Germans and Americans had largely overcome the problem of shifting fire to match developments on the ground. I'd guess the British had as well. The Russians seem to have remained clumsy, and Manstein noted that French artillery was not able to adjust its fires in response to his troops' advances in the course of his crossing of the Somme.

[Panama]

Building artillery for the Soviets wasn't a problem. Providing the supporting equipment, radios, telephones and other electronics was a problem. Training the large number of technical personel was the largest stumbling block. Surveyors, radio operators, fire direction computers, wire personel, staff officers, etc., for over 600 artillery regiments by June 1941 was quite impossible. This resulted in only the howitzer regiment in the divisions having indirect fire capability and this regiment was stripped from the divisions in the July 1941 Shtat so that only one artillery regiment remained. This was so the indirect artillery resources could be concentrated at the Army level.

Eventually the Soviets came up with the artillery divisions which was not actually a distinct set of regiments but more a group of technical resources which would group various smaller units. So an artillery division's makeup could change drastically.

So, in a nutshell, until 1944 practically all divisional artillery was direct fire. Up to 1943 Army level could be used effectively if the number of units involved did not become to great since a large number of artillery units simply could not be coordinated, especially once an offensive began rolling. By 1943 the artillery divisions increased the effectiveness and flexibility of Soviet artillery and became the standard for non divisional artillery.

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Building artillery for the Soviets wasn't a problem. Providing the supporting equipment, radios, telephones and other electronics was a problem. Training the large number of technical personel was the largest stumbling block. Surveyors, radio operators, fire direction computers, wire personel, staff officers, etc., for over 600 artillery regiments by June 1941 was quite impossible.

I imagine any western developments in artillery tactics were ignored as decadent and capitalist, too. Also I recall something about the Soviets being reluctant to use radio communications because of the risk of interception, prefering wired phone lines- which are not only easily cut, but also a major problem for the Russians because they could not produce enough quality copper wire.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: golden delicious
Also I recall something about the Soviets being reluctant to use radio communications because of the risk of interception, prefering wired phone lines- which are not only easily cut, but also a major problem for the Russians because they could not produce enough quality copper wire.

I've heard it said that the Soviet lack of radio discipline was exceeded only by that of the US troops. [:D]

[ColinWright]

It's slightly off the topic, but the German general Rauss' memoirs contain an interesting discussion of the measures he began implementing in 1944 to deal with the usual massive Russian artillery barrage that preceded every offensive.

The Germans could usually calculate about when this barrage would hit, so the idea was to prepare an entire set of alternative positions.  Then, just before the barrage, and too late for the Russians to make any changes, all the troops would switch to the new positions.

It was only done a couple of times, but in both instances, it worked very well.

[Obsolete]

...when set to tactical reserve/entrenched.

LOL, this reminds me of how I played this game originally around 2000, and took a long break before playing the Matrix re-release, which had did a sneaky trick and changed how some of these features work on artillery.  Old habbits die hard....