Artillery questions

[parzival]

These questions may have been asked before but cause I dont find the answers I will ask them anyway:

1) Range 1 artillery : If I want this artillery to support my defense is it necesssary to locate it into the very same hex that is attacked or is adjacent hex enough? I have always thought that artillery should be kept behind the lines cause it is rather vulnerable to direct attacks.

2)Artillery in reserve : What are the effects of putting the artillery into local/tactical reserve mode: will artillery in tactical reserve support also noncooperative units?

3)Are there any circumstances when it would be useful to locate artillery in the front line and not behind the lines? If enemy attacks a hex where there is an artillery unit, does that artilley unit use it defense ar attack strength? How about when artillery unit behind the lines supports defense? Does entrenching make any difference?

[golden delicious]

ORIGINAL: parzival

These questions may have been asked before but cause I dont find the answers I will ask them anyway:

1) Range 1 artillery : If I want this artillery to support my defense is it necesssary to locate it into the very same hex that is attacked or is adjacent hex enough? I have always thought that artillery should be kept behind the lines cause it is rather vulnerable to direct attacks.

Defending artillery supports defending units in range. So that means range 1 artillery supports adjacent units, range 2 supports units within 2 hexes, and so on.

3)Are there any circumstances when it would be useful to locate artillery in the front line and not behind the lines?

Yes;
a) when attacking with range 1 artillery (in the present version, using tactical reserve)
b) to increase the number of defending units within range of the artillery

[sPzAbt653]

Should artillery in Tactical Reserve support all combats, or should it depend on the formation support levels? I ask because if a formation of artillery units is put on Internal Support, it supports all combats within range regardless of unit color schemes.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Should artillery in Tactical Reserve support all combats, or should it depend on the formation support levels? I ask because if a formation of artillery units is put on Internal Support, it supports all combats within range regardless of unit color schemes.

Hmm...I always thought if an artillery unit was in a formation and that formation was on internal support the artillery unit could only support units in that formation it is a part of. It should do so regardless of the counter colors in the formation as long as the artillery and units of different colors were all in the exact same formation.

If a unit was in a different formation than the artillery unit it could not support it because the formation the artillery was a part of was on internal support regardless of unit colors.

At least this has been my belief.

[sPzAbt653]

That was my belief too, but I think there is also a percentage chance that artillery may support non-formation combats.

I'm dealing with four different corps, each with its own corp artillery. First I had them set to Army Support and I noticed they were supporting most combats within range regardless of formation or unit color. So I set them all to Internal Support and there was no change. Then I changed all the unit colors so that they were very different (one corp green, one brown, one red, and one tan), but again there was no change.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

That was my belief too, but I think there is also a percentage chance that artillery may support non-formation combats.

I'm dealing with four different corps, each with its own corp artillery. First I had them set to Army Support and I noticed they were supporting most combats within range regardless of formation or unit color. So I set them all to Internal Support and there was no change. Then I changed all the unit colors so that they were very different (one corp green, one brown, one red, and one tan), but again there was no change.

We're going to have to know more about what you're doing, because I can't reproduce this. Artillery will only join attacks it has cooperation with.

One possibility: Cooperation is best case. So, the cooperation levels of all attackers matters. If one of them has free support, then anything can join the attack.

[sPzAbt653]

If you can't reproduce it then maybe it is a possible issue with .178, or with XP or Win98. I can send you the scenario file I am working with if you would like to try it. It is small and easy. All formations are set to Internal Support, yet they cooperate with each other. Not every combat, but most of them. I would say probably 75%.

[sPzAbt653]

Here's a screen shot, four formations of different colors, all on Internal Support. When I attack with one color, artillery of all others within range support. All formations in the scenario are set to Internal Support. This is a scenario I am working on, so I can send it to you if you like. I also tried 'Rhine 44' because it has all different colored formations on Internal Support and I get the same result. That scenario is on Rugged Defense.

I usually leave the combat report option off, so I monitor the artillery supply levels. Seeing them drop 5 or 10 points lets me know they are supporting. Just to make sure, I turned on the combat reports and they did report that formations were supporting each other. [:@]

[Curtis Lemay]

Are the attacks forcing retreats? If so, that can cause disengagement attacks. Cooperation is not used for disengagement attacks (because there's nothing to cooperate with - just a moving enemy unit). Perhaps that's what you're seeing.

[sPzAbt653]

Testing it - that is certainly true, in attacks where there were no retreats things looked to work as expected. But as soon as the enemy retreated and suffered a disengagement attack, all batteries jumped in on the action! The combat report scrolls and scrolls! What a sight to have all those batteries involved! Air units seemed to still ignore cooperation rules and joined in every attack, retreats or not.

But still, I wonder if it should be this way? Should all artillery on the board join in to pound a retreating enemy?

[Telumar]

I suppose it should not be that way. It's absolute nonsense, at least at the lower unit scales. Hopefully we will see a fix for this.

Btw, what's the map scale of the screenshot? Is that 1 km? Appears to me that Caen might be bigger than Rome..

[Curtis Lemay]

The problem is, who are you going to be cooperating with? Disengagement attacks are a consequence of enemy movement. They can actually occur in the enemy movement phase. It's not a coordinated attack by friendly units - it's actually more like an interdiction strike. So, everybody gets to join in.

[sPzAbt653]

It seems like there should be a fix, but maybe something else is involved.

The scale is 1 km. The original map was done from current google images, and I'm making changes as historical images are found. I haven't been too concerned with Caen north of the Orne as it doesn't come into play. But the part south of the Orne has to be proper. Goodwood has always been a favorite of mine, but its very much tactical. Squeezing it into TOAW probably isn't fair.

[sPzAbt653]

Disengagement attacks are a consequence of enemy movement. They can actually occur in the enemy movement phase.

Ok, but aren't disengagement attacks prompted by adjacent units? If so, non cooperating assets should maybe not be involved?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Disengagement attacks are a consequence of enemy movement. They can actually occur in the enemy movement phase.

Ok, but aren't disengagement attacks prompted by adjacent units? If so, non cooperating assets should maybe not be involved?

But not as a coordinated, planned attack. It really is more like interdiction. It's been like that since TOAW I.

I can see a case for some refinement, though. Interdiction doesn't bring the entire airforce every time. Perhaps there should be a similar limit of some sort.

[BigDuke66]

Yes some kind of check should be done, isn't there a "Communication check"?

[sPzAbt653]

I don't know how it does work, but I would think that if unit X suffers an attack while disengaging from unit Y, that would trigger a check for any units supporting unit Y to also attack, but not for all units on the board.

Air units on Internal should also not cooperate with everybody. How else can we assign the Typhoons to support the VIII Corp advance without flying all over the map supporting everybody and using up their supply and effectiveness, just as the artillery does.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Air units on Internal should also not cooperate with everybody. How else can we assign the Typhoons to support the VIII Corp advance without flying all over the map supporting everybody and using up their supply and effectiveness, just as the artillery does.

Goes back to ACOW at least. I'm not sure about the rationale. Only Norm knows.

[Champagne]

Could we re-visit this great thread?

I would like some additional advice concerning use of friendly arty when you are on defense in a scenario, say, the Allies during a Bulge scenario.

Should you use your arty to Bombard during your turn?

Or is it better to hold off on that and let your arty respond during the enemy's turn?

What's the best setting for your defending arty? Tactical Reserve? Dug in?

Thanks very much.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Champagne

Could we re-visit this great thread?

I would like some additional advice concerning use of friendly arty when you are on defense in a scenario, say, the Allies during a Bulge scenario.

Should you use your arty to Bombard during your turn?

Or is it better to hold off on that and let your arty respond during the enemy's turn?

What's the best setting for your defending arty? Tactical Reserve? Dug in?

Thanks very much.

I usually don't do mere bombardments on enemy stacks when i'm on the defence. It's not worth the supply/readiness cost. The arty does a better job in defensive support. There are exceptions though: red or yellow density stacks and if the attrition divider is set low (less than 10). And "counter battery". If i know the enemy arty is out of range range for counterbattery i sometimes bombard enemy artillery (ask Ogar ).

For the "best setting": for defensive support there is no difference between tactical reserve or digging in. But if your artillery is dug in it can't be shelled/bombed out of its supporting deployment as easily as if the unit is set on tactical reserve. In the case of an enemy breakthrough a well fortified artillery unit can fend off ground assaults better than on tactical reserve. But that again depends on scenario design and unit setup..