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Artillery is very lethal in this game. I'm not saying it is wrong, this is an observation. (In the redesign of the boardgame Air & Armor we have found this to be so to to the point I've told the designer it should be called "Artillery & Artillery)

I just got done playing "The Great Escape" as the East Germans and just got hammered by the US artillery. It was very responsive as when my units assaulting (two companies vs two scout squads in a village), the assaulting infantry got hammered immediately when it went into the hex adjacent to the enemy, I mean like right now, wamo. Ugh. Also, the OH-58s Kiowa Warriors were extremely effective at spotting and calling down the steel rain.

Then night came and I was fully at a disadvantage due to the US thermals. Gadz, it was horrible. But I only suffered a marginal loss.

I have had the opportunity to be a FO in an OH-58 and I can say that it makes for a very responsive team. Big difference from being on the ground and being able to fly around and see into the rear areas. Helps if you aren't prone to airsickness because it's quite a ride keeping track of 1) where we are on the map, 2) direction to the enemy, and 3) making an accurate observation/adjustment when the pilot pops up for 5 seconds. (we didn't have the pods that allow the chopper to stay below the trees. Also, there aren't always trees, just hills) Anyway, being in direct contact with the battery and having good observations, we could get fire on priority targets very quickly. We were looking for AA systems, and HQ mostly.

Artillery is deadly here. I think it's pretty realistic.(not that we ever fought this war). A rule of thumb we had was that if we fired 6 volleys from a position we had to move, to avoid incoming counter-battery fire. Similar rules for HQ sending radio messages. Ground radar and counter battery radar make hiding difficult.

Conversely for the Soviets, they have LOTS of artillery. LOTS.

Dave

Artillery is surely king of the battlefield. I know they spent a lot of time on the artillery system, and it's pretty deep in how it's calculating results.