Handling the artillery assets and micromanagement - efficiency, doctrine and historical accuracy

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

I have been thinking about the issue since I started giving this game a go in the HTH mode as most of my scenarios, whenever there was a decent amount of tubes, at some point kind of degenerated into mere managing their fire missions just to allow fast and decisive manual target acquisition to maximize the enemy losses, destroy their assets and break the resistance wherever there was a ripe target. In more complex scenarios there was always a moment or even quite long periods when I actually had little chance to employ more elaborate measures in terms of manoeuvre and operational planning and most of the activity was reduced to artillery duels and barrages. I think that there is something wrong about that just like there is something wrong about micromanaging everything; despite the necessity to filter down some more elaborate thinking to emulate non-linear intelligence i.e. human type one, down the chain of command - the AI is for all practical purposes linear - especially playing against a human opponent, I'd say that the lower echelon field commanders should be left with some free hand within their respective commands and in terms of handling their fire support - that is when the game engine attempts to emulate such real life battlefield factors as Clausewitzan friction for instance. The game manual suggests to restrict managing to two levels below and not any lower and indeed I think that there has to be a healthy balance and some restraint from the on-map boss commander to adhere to the rules of realistic simulation. on the other hand it seems that divisional recon assets which are not organized into troops or squadrons - they don't have a separate HQ - are perfectly suited to be detached and deployed separately on independent missions. Any ideas or feedback please?

[Phoenix100]

I think Bletchley Geek did a great article on artillery asset management a little while back, in here. Did you see it? You would have to search for it. It was about how to get the most out of the Ai handling arty.

I think a good rule in H2H games would be no player plotted fire missions. Re-attaching the arty wherever you like would be ok (see the referred article, if you can find it, on this), but not actually plotting the missions.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

Splendid Peter. That is exactly the conclusion I have come to myself - no player plotted fire missions. Starting the first sceanrio ina row off the Greek campaign I made an agreement with my opponent on that restrictive approach towards artillery fires and suddenly the game took a whole new shape and form with lots of space to observe, assess,a adjust and react then, on top of that all - figure out waht is going on in where I cannot see.Moreover, no battery of mine run out of ammo.

[Gizuria]

I think this is the thread phoenix was referring you to.

tm.asp?m=3286717

For best effect, I prefer to leave all artillery in the hands of the AI. After all, the AI opponent has to do it that way as well.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

Thanks a lot, but regarding the AI I was addressing purely HTH situations in which we have a human at the wheel on both sides and the AI only refers then to lower rank field commanders. Fighting the AI as an overall senior on-map boss is no match for HTH.

[dazkaz15]

The problem with this is that the AI won't do preliminary bombardments of objectives, or fire plans for your attacks, which is extremely un-realistic, and negates the number one best use for artillery, in an offensive roll, which is softening up your objective, and suppressing enemy on it, ready for your imminent attack.

Its even worse for the mortars, as if you try to take control of them it alters the force size, and completely ruins your attack.

In most cases the AI won't bombard until the enemy has been routed out of its defensive position.

For these reasons I don't think leaving the artillery under the AI is a realistic option, but if your are finding that it makes the HTH games better, then that's all that matters I guess.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

You're quite right, I was thinking about that, organizing the 4th Hussars assault south-west of Veve against a motorized coy form the 1st btn SS LSAH in my 1st Clash at Veve- as usual, the rule of thumb is to work out a healthy balance, a mix of manual target acquisition and initiative left for the commanders on the spot. Thanks a lot for all the relies, I find the cimmunity support formative as ever.