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I was investigating how to reduce fortification levels.
There are three categories.

1. Artillery (rarely seen, bugged)
2. Engineers (seem to work - 2% increments)
3. Combat Intensity (seem to work - whole level reduction)
   This third one shows the size of the attacker, so indicates Battle/Combat Intensity. That's the one many, including me, assumed to be/include Artillery. But it doesn't.

Following what the Manual states, so it's at hand for further understanding. So we are back to Logo No.1. This first logo, that's the "Artillery" Fort reduction in 2% increments (per point applied). This overall "works", so a number 14 will reduce the defenders Fort level by 28%. Looking through AARs this is nowhere to be seen, so I wondered what's wrong with it and what's actually causing it to pop up (or rather what's causing it to not show up). At first I needed to realize that the 3rd logo would not include Artillery. Then I tried triggering the Artillery Fort Reduction, going crazy in the process, because it all made 0 sense (for a reason) and no matter how many/super-/heavy-/ Artillery, I amassed I never could get the logo to trigger and cause any Fort reduction. Then I decided to leave the Editor and go to live games with exported Combat logs. And there I found the reason.

The cause for the defenders Fort Reduction is not as the manual states the (attackers) artillery/heavy artillery, but the defenders rockets.
Not sure if there are other elements bugging it, but rockets always seem to work.
So that's the Bug I want to report. It seems consistent, once there are no Rockets it works. While I could not get the Fort redced whatsoever without any Rocket Ground elements present. Not exacly sure if it is related to Ground element types ...or whatever.
Here I have tests with Ground Element type: 84 - "Unarmored SP Rocket" and type 31 - "Rocket". I did test the type 56 "SP Rocket Launcher" in the Editor, also seem to have worked (got no Combat Log). So it is about the Rockets of all kinds. Attached an Example Battle. It's vanilla VtB, just move the 2 Rocket Brigades to the frontline near the Kurland Pocket and additionally assign all available Rocket SUs to the Army HQs of them/the Units in their Hex. Then attack in German turn. This also works only with the SUs (that's how I got the "14" in the initial screenshot where I marked the 3 categories).

From the battle reports, it appears that various weapons are firing at defending side rockets, and as part of the attack, it sometimes reports that the fort was reduced by the defending rocket unit. So part of this could be a display issue with how the report is generated. But if the only fort reduction you ever see by artillery fire is when a defending rocket unit is targeted, then there may be some other kind of problem. Is that what you are seeing?

Joel Billings wrote: Mon Oct 28, 2024 3:55 pm From the battle reports, it appears that various weapons are firing at defending side rockets, and as part of the attack, it sometimes reports that the fort was reduced by the defending rocket unit. So part of this could be a display issue with how the report is generated. But if the only fort reduction you ever see by artillery fire is when a defending rocket unit is targeted, then there may be some other kind of problem. Is that what you are seeing?

Yes exactly that. K62 on Discord also assumed it could only be a Display/spelling bug, but as you said, it only ever appears in Battles with any kind of "rocket artillery" on the defending side. If this Rocket Artillery is not present I do never get any Fort level reduction by "Artillery" (Logo 1). I tried stuffing defending Units with "Heavy Artillery" if they'd also "explode on hit" but that does not happen (from how far I can tell) and so it is a Rocket only issue ...or rather a Heavy Artillery issue....however one want to spin it.

From tm1's WITW AAR, back then it seems to have worked. Weird why the decision was made to exchange the 3rd logo to appear as being Artillery, while it is the combat intensity.

Not sure what you mean by "exchange of 3rd logo...". Did something change with the combat intensity indicator (how it works or is displayed)?

At least one piece of the artillery portion is bugged. Pavel and I have been working through sorting it out and are making progress, but it's an iterative process. We will get it working in the next bug fix update, but we don't expect a quick fix. Thanks.

Joel Billings wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 3:11 pm Not sure what you mean by "exchange of 3rd logo...". Did something change with the combat intensity indicator (how it works or is displayed)?

At least one piece of the artillery portion is bugged. Pavel and I have been working through sorting it out and are making progress, but it's an iterative process. We will get it working in the next bug fix update, but we don't expect a quick fix. Thanks.

Sounds good.

I mean the general logo of the "3rd effect". Like I initially stated, many others and me, we assumed that the third logo would be the "Artillery" Fort reduction, since it was presented as an "stacked Artillery" NATO logo. While in WitW the third logo (the stacking modifier-thing) is presented as a more neutral Infantry-NATO symbol.

Are we not showing combat intensity levels in battle reports in WitE2? In WitW, does the "intensity" number with the infantry symbols come up only when odds are between 1 and 1.99 to 1 and some kind of fort reduction kicks in? I thought we added a new combat intensity fort reduction when we were testing Red God of War for WitE2, but I don't see anything more than the rules that were added/clarified in WitW in 2016 (which is before I remember adding something in WitE2). But my memory on all of this is foggy, and could be wrong as we often added items in and modified or removed them during WitE2 development. Some WitW items remained in the WitE2 manual by mistake, while I'm pretty sure a few other new rules got missed or were not fully detailed, so the manual does not cover 100% of the correct rules.

Joel Billings wrote: Fri Nov 01, 2024 10:40 pm Are we not showing combat intensity levels in battle reports in WitE2? In WitW, does the "intensity" number with the infantry symbols come up only when odds are between 1 and 1.99 to 1 and some kind of fort reduction kicks in? I thought we added a new combat intensity fort reduction when we were testing Red God of War for WitE2, but I don't see anything more than the rules that were added/clarified in WitW in 2016 (which is before I remember adding something in WitE2).

It's all good, Combat Intensity in WITE2 seems fine, just the logo/symbol is an Artillery Counter instead of an Infantry Counter compared to WITW.
I do not own WITW, so I can only compare Manuals and Screenshots.