Matrix Games Forums

How much of heavy artillery you guys usually purchase during your WW2 campaigns, generally speaking? Obviously the amount of support points and the type of battle affects this, but give me some estimates, I'm curious.

Somehow I always seem to underestimate its importance! Should have fair deal of them creating suppression. Playing long WW2 campaign as Germans (most recent was an assault mission, mid-40's), of course I spent major share of resources on Stukas (I can't help myself, I just love 'em ), and the French almost whopped me big time - just barely I managed to pull the battle to a draw. Thanks to those men on gliders who attacked the right flank!

The AA was like a wall, and they had 40 (!!!) Somua S35's on entrenched positions defending the primary target area. And yes, the few tanks I had (their armor were of no match to Somua's anyway) were too eager to see action and they drove to a minefield. hehe

Another lesson learned!

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The bravery of being out of range...

Personally, I've only found 2 types of off-board artillery to be sufficiently effective: rockets and 150 or 155mm. If the battles are going to heavy on infantry I get as much as I can. Air is also good, but apt to get blown out of the sky.

Originally posted by REMF:
Personally, I've only found 2 types of off-board artillery to be sufficiently effective: rockets and 150 or 155mm. If the battles are going to heavy on infantry I get as much as I can. Air is also good, but apt to get blown out of the sky.

Rockets are a good choice, but tend to have less ammo than conventional arty. Better make those strikes count then I guess!

Its too bad there's no airborne recon option available (am I right?), sometimes it would be nice to get some location intel about those nasty AT-guns the opposition has placed. One can make educated guesses on this when fighting the computer, but human adversary is another matter altogether.




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"The bravery of being out of range..."

I ususally try to take a couple of batteries or a battalion. It really depends on the points available and the mission. I also tend to take the small to mid range stuff. It doesn't have the killing power but more tubes give you more options and more smoke. Also, the smaller tubes will give you more suppression opportunities since for the same price you are firing more rounds and are able to cover a larger area.

Aircraft are fun but I don't use them too much. They can be very deadly !IF! they actually do what you want them to do.

Usually I get one battery of 150 and two 105's for the Germans. The 150 is for counterbattery or tanks.

If I am doing an assualt I get one battalion of 150 and two of 105's. My usual force is a renforced Inf Company. Foot, motor, or mech, plus one platoon tanks, one section ATg foot and one Mech AT section, one platoon AA (mech or foot) and one platoon of mortars, plus transport. This may be over kill. Aircraft are good for one shot so using a level bomber like the JU88 is preferred.

I usually don't use offboard artillery since they tends to be out of contact too often. Onboard artillery, if leave behind with the A0 units, never gets out of contact, and with ammo dump, could shoot every turn for the entire battle. This is especially effective with rockets when you have them.

I'm a big believer in lots of artillery (and me a former grunt). For an assault I get as much off-map artillery as I can, 2-6 battalions. If the enemy has off-map artillery I try to dedicate one or two batteries per turn to counterbattery by leaving them uncommitted. It seems to help some.
For other types of missions, I usually get a battalion or two. I use on-map artillery as part of my core force and park ammo trucks with them. In two complete long campaigns, I have never seen the AI fire counterbattery at on-map units.
As a German, the amount of points I could spend on artillery was limited by the necessity to lots of AA weapons.

Originally posted by lnp4668:
I usually don't use offboard artillery since they tends to be out of contact too often. Onboard artillery, if leave behind with the A0 units, never gets out of contact, and with ammo dump, could shoot every turn for the entire battle. This is especially effective with rockets when you have them.

Call me (extremely) lucky, never had them getting out of contact yet! Onboard artillery works just fine against the computer, but when facing human player (if he's clever enough) it runs a great risk of being discovered and attacked on. I've had that happen several times, no matter how deviously I hide the guns.

Can the opponent see the smoke artillery create on the hexes they are stationed when they fire? Its easy to lay a counter-barrage on those hexes. I recall this was the case in original SP, but can't tell for sure how it is now?



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"The bravery of being out of range..."

Originally posted by timc:
If the enemy has off-map artillery I try to dedicate one or two batteries per turn to counterbattery by leaving them uncommitted. It seems to help some.

Many thanks for the idea, timc, I have to try that one out!



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"The bravery of being out of range..."

Originally posted by Infanterie:
Onboard artillery works just fine against the computer, but when facing human player (if he's clever enough) it runs a great risk of being discovered and attacked on. I've had that happen several times, no matter how deviously I hide the guns.

That is why I always conduct survivability moves (just like in real life). Believe you me, as soon as I see smoke puffs well to the rear of the main battle area, I'm laying a mass of steel on them. May not kill them, but it will ruin their day. On average, every third turn after firing I conduct a survivability move. Nothing better than seeing counterfire fall upon a position I recently displaced from.

Just thought I would throw my two cents in on the subject. Artillery is probably one of the key forces to have in SP. Try an assault mission without artillery and you will see what I mean.

I do have a question on counter-battery fire however. I have noticed the computer counterfiring my offboard artillery and read posts on the value of this. I don't remember seeing this in the manual. How do I tell my offboard arty to counterbattery my opponents artillery?

Originally posted by lynchc:
How do I tell my offboard arty to counterbattery my opponents artillery?

According to my knowledge you cant.
This comes automatically when:

1)You have some arty with larger caliber than the largest of yr opponent;

2)That arty has not fired on the battlefield in that turn

This way there's a quite high chance to counterfire,but it's never 100% sure.

I think there's something more involved in the matter but i dont remember what

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Federico "Resisti" Doveri
If you cannot defeat your enemy,join him.

[This message has been edited by Resisti (edited February 15, 2001).]

As a dedicated pbem player( now on vacation, licking up wounds) I don't use much arty.

But if I use it is 105mm offboard battery counterattacks and emergency to cool down too fast enemy movement. Best I've found for germans is SP-mortar platoon. Its on the halftracks, can move and fire direct fire and can survive hits. Hummels I have tested, but they are too expensive to loose for Air attacks, Wespe is worth of trying because it costs as much as a footed 81mm mortars with decent movers. I keep my halftrack mortars far away at the beginning, but when enemy positions are found and area secured I'll move them to dirct contact against infantry. Fire few rounds and get back to bushes. More than once those guys have saved my Tiger E:s by coming to clear field and firing smoke screen between enemy TD:s and Tigers. It is also usefull to smoke Tigers hexes if airattacks are awaited.

Against AI buy ammodump and install rockets on it if there is too much infantry. But this becomes very boring after few victories. As comes to all arty, I'll prefer to use game interesting and using only nesessary artillery for infantry support.

mosh

Originally posted by Infanterie:

Can the opponent see the smoke artillery create on the hexes they are stationed when they fire? Its easy to lay a counter-barrage on those hexes. I recall this was the case in original SP, but can't tell for sure how it is now?

Yes the opponent can see the smoke if they have someone in LOS (deep penetration recce units). Try against the AI, move around looking for smoke....

Some only use the heavy (> 150mm) arty. It does kick butt but sometimes its too effective. If I'm moving in a low visability scenario or where I might encounter enemy infantry, I'd like to be able to spray hot metal around my tanks to keep infantry from popping up and effectively close assaulting them. If I use heavy artillery, it can damage my tanks. I find that 75mm arty or mortars can effectively surpress infantry but won't hurt my tanks.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

Despite of what people think I would use Nebelwerfers also if I know that enemy has lots of infantry.

Infantry is pain in ass if you have two company of it and opposite has five, because he knows that I use Independent heavy tank battalion as a rolemodel in my pbem and campaign -games.

Holt has said rest of my opinion.

mosh