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I was tinkering in the editor and noticed that most of the self propelled mortars do not have shell weight listed. The most popular 81-120mm SP mortars are not doing their jobs effectively. I have set about correcting this. UPDATE---most of the SP MRL's have no shell weight listed. This is important as shell weight helps when bombarding entrenched units.

ORIGINAL: dpabrams
This is important as shell weight helps when bombarding entrenched units.

Are you sure about this? The manual is silent on this point. What the manual does say is:
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19.2.2. artIllery vs. entrenChments Artillery can lower the effectiveness of prepared defensive positions during combat. The effect is intended to model the earth-churning tendencies of heavy Artillery and is tied to the weight of individual shells. Heavier pieces are much more effective than lighter pieces. MRL’s (Multiple Rocket Launchers) generally do not receive this advantage. While the Anti-Personnel strengths of heavy Artillery may seem weak (due to very low rates of fire), weapons of 150mm or larger can be very effective against entrenched enemies.
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Shell weight is not mentioned, although artillery caliber (>150mm) is...the only place that I found where shell weight is mentioned is regarding naval combat? Also, in most games I've played, rocket launchers don't reduce fortifications the way that artillery does.

Are you sure this? The manual is silent on this point. What the manual does say is:

19.2.2. artIllery vs. entrenChments

It doesn't make sense. Why would an 81 mm mortar by itself have a shell weight of 9 kilograms and that same mortar on a half track or armored personnel carrier have a shell weight of zero? Why would a SP 160 mm mortar have a shell weight of zero? I see that in the database all these units are listed has 0 kilogram shell weight. But it doesn't make sense to me.

Yes, as you say, SP mortars, as they have no shell weight, are not working effectively against entrenched units, same for multiple rocket launchers. This issue exists from the old TOAW II. The solution is that you can edit the database easily and correct this.

ORIGINAL: dpabrams
It doesn't make sense. Why would an 81 mm mortar by itself have a shell weight of 9 kilograms and that same mortar on a half track or armored personnel carrier have a shell weight of zero? Why would a SP 160 mm mortar have a shell weight of zero? I see that in the database all these units are listed has 0 kilogram shell weight. But it doesn't make sense to me.

Well, I agree that it doesn't make sense for difference types of mortar to be treated differently...I just haven't seen anything in the manual about the effect of shell weight on troops in entrenchments.

ORIGINAL: josant
Yes, as you say, SP mortars, as they have no shell weight, are not working effectively against entrenched units, same for multiple rocket launchers. This issue exists from the old TOAW II. The solution is that you can edit the database easily and correct this.

Mortars are easy enough to correct, but how to you correct the rocket launchers? Again, my understanding is that they were in fact less effective than artillery against entrenched troops. Do you assign them half of their actual shell weight, or what?

Mortars are easy enough to correct, but how to you correct the rocket launchers? Again, my understanding is that they were in fact less effective than artillery against entrenched troops. Do you assign them half of their actual shell weight, or what?

Adding shell weight to a high trajectory mortars seems to be a no brainer. However, you raise a valid point with low trajectory and in the early days, very inaccurate , saturation weapons like rockets. A comparison of in game Soviet rocket systems of the 122 mm variety show an anti personnel strength of 46, while 122mm Soviet artillery generally have an anti personnel strength of 22. Generally speaking the projectile weight of these 122 mm systems mentioned above we're roughly the same.

ORIGINAL: dpabrams

Mortars are easy enough to correct, but how to you correct the rocket launchers? Again, my understanding is that they were in fact less effective than artillery against entrenched troops. Do you assign them half of their actual shell weight, or what?

Adding shell weight to a high trajectory mortars seems to be a no brainer. However, you raise a valid point with low trajectory and in the early days, very inaccurate , saturation weapons like rockets. A comparison of in game Soviet rocket systems of the 122 mm variety show an anti personnel strength of 46, while 122mm Soviet artillery generally have an anti personnel strength of 22. Generally speaking the projectile weight of these 122 mm systems mentioned above we're roughly the same.

Very different rate of fire, however.

Rocket artillery is typically not all that accurate and meant as an offensive saturation weapon capable of delivering large amounts of HE over a very short time. They didn't even have the penetration ability of light artillery so against fortifications or entrenched troops they were not all that effective. The blast was all they had. They were slower to load and used more propellant than an artillery round. But they were easy to make and didn't require the same heavy manufacturing artillery did.

Because they were not very accurate using them as on call support the same way as you would artillery would be as dangerous for the troops they are supporting as they would be for the enemy. Not saying it wasn't done. Just saying using them for close artillery support would be a crap shoot.

In summation at this point I am adding shell weight to all SP Mortars as there less mobile counterparts have them. I am not comfortable messing with shell weight and rockets at this time. In game rockets have higher Anti personnel ratings than similar caliber artillery but with no shell weight by design I am sure.

What about other SP Guns? Should the 90mm Semovente be given Shell Weight? Looking at these weapons I notice that some also have no range. The Semovente 90mm is reported as being an effective long range weapon. How should we handle this? Is it an oversight in the eqp file, or is there reason why these weapons were given no Range or Shell Weights?

What about other SP Guns? Should the 90mm Semovente be given Shell Weight?

It looks like Semovente’s are setup in game is direct fire anti-tank weapons. However, looking further into the self-propelled systems it looks like North Korean copies of Soviet self-propelled artillery like the M-1974 152mm SP Gun and M-1975 130mm SP Gun have 0Kg shell weight also.

So what is the effect of shell weight? It is not mentioned in the manual at all, except in reference to naval combat...

In the real world the heavier the shell the more penetration into earthworks. So while a 75mm gun might have a fair AP value due to it's high rate of fire it won't have much penetration vs earthworks. 210mm gun will have a lower AP due to it's lower rate of fire but because of the shell weight it will have better penetration and it will produce better results vs earthworks. So given that, is it really necessary to have a shell weight for a 75mm gun?

I don't know how the game handles this. But since there is mention of heavier guns churning earth I would guess an attempt is made to model shell weight in a real world way.

ORIGINAL: Lobster
I don't know how the game handles this. But since there is mention of heavier guns churning earth I would guess an attempt is made to model shell weight in a real world way.

Yes, I understand the real-world effects, but the question is how/if the game handles it. The manual only mentions an effect on entrenchments for guns >=150mm, but IIRC that relates to degradation of the entrenchments, not necessarily any additional effect on the troops within them. So for the game, does shell weight for smaller guns mean anything?

It would seem rather bizarre go to the trouble to include shell weight and assign values to all (most!) units if the game only uses it for naval combat...

So what is the effect of shell weight?

I will have to test it against entrenched infantry I suppose.

ORIGINAL: dpabrams

So what is the effect of shell weight?

I will have to test it against entrenched infantry I suppose.

Unless Bob knows the effect from his memory, testing would be nice. This is all I found:

19.2.2. Artillery vs. Entrenchments
Artillery can lower the effectiveness of prepared defensive positions during combat. The effect is intended to model the earth-churning tendencies of heavy Artillery and is tied to the weight of individual shells. Heavier pieces are much more effective than lighter pieces. MRL’s (Multiple Rocket Launchers) generally do not receive this advantage. While the Anti-Personnel strengths of heavy Artillery may seem weak (due to very low rates of fire), weapons of 150mm or larger can be very effective against entrenched enemies. Bombardments won't reduce entrenchment, but Bombardments may knock a defender out of Defend, Entrenched or Fortified status.

Although the above is not clear if it really means the Shell Weight or if it is just using that as a reference and really means the size [150mm or larger].

Some guys can noodle thru the TOAW Logs, and maybe that way can tell the difference between Weighted and Non-Weighted Shells.

Maybe compare the same mortars to TOAW III db, if the values are the same then most likely this issue goes back to ACOW and the way that Norm created it.

I believe I did some testing on this in the ancient past- picked a pair of artillery pieces with the same AP strength but radically difference calibres and compared the results from otherwise identical attacks.

The upshot is that there's some chance during combat resolution that the defending unit will have its deployment status reset to "mobile", and this is dependent on the aggregate shell weight of the attacker. Obviously this gives a big advantage in breaking through a fixed position, especially if the terrain is otherwise fairly open. Whether this test is done only at the start of combat or for every round, and whether it is done before or after resolving the rest of the action is unclear.

From my "lived experience" I also find that when the stickiness of fortified units was jacked up in TOAW III, the only way to deal with it was to apply a colossal amount of artillery to the target hex. Then those guys tend to retreat easily enough.

As to the original question- well clearly if a 120mm mortar has shell weight it should always have shell weight. It's probably an error made when the database was updated for all these SP mortars.