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Common sense and everything I have read is that undefended artillary is very vulnarable. However, not in HTTR. I finaly got my game, and started up a battle. I ordered a Bn to attack, but for some stupid reason, the commander chose to move the artillery straight into the enemy line. It was surrounded, and under some pretty heavy fire. It kept going and going instead of finding another route. And it survived everything. Sure, it got bugged down, occaisonally routed etc, but never lost any (significant) strength. Thats weird.

The same for the enemies artillery. I attacked on several occations their undefended artillery, and never ever did I manage to kill them. Thats just too strange, or? They appear to me to be the absolute kings (queens on the battlefield, no matter defended or not.

Then I have a question. Does artillery and Air strikes deliver good damage, or are they mainly used as a surpressor? In RL they do significant dmg. I wonder if it is a good tactic to use art. against art. in HTTR.

So far, I understand what all the fuzz about HTTR was about! My view of RealTimeStrategy has been totally altered! But I sure wish there was an in-game hierarcical overview of my forces (OOB).




JT

Are you fully patched? IIRC the issue with bns attacking with their arty in the line was a bug and may have been resolved in the most recent patch? Usually it was the AA and AT batteries I saw doing that. (Arty would go a-wanderin' looking for Dutch girls of loose morals, as far as I could make out )

Depending on what kind of arty it was, and how large a unit, that behaviour may not be too unreasonable - if it was a XXX Corps Regiment, that's a LOT of firepower, and a lot of guys. They can look after themselves unless really targeted.

From what I've heard the main effect of arty is suppression IRL too - Great War experience was that no weight of arty could reliable destroy a defence system, but a sharp barrage could disorganise the defence if the assault troops got into the defenders' position before they could recover from the suppression. There's quite a bit of anecdotal evidence in WW2 of the same thing - just from Market Garden, GAD had to fight their way up the highway, despite the fire support that was supposed to break open the road - those Germans weren't significantly damaged. Frost's Bn at the Arnhem bridge pretty much had to be dug out with direct fire/combat too, despite a punishing barrage. One could also cite examples from almost every amphib assault in the war - no amount of naval gunfire support every did more than suppress the defenders, as the assualt troops on any number of atolls could verify.

But counter-battery fire is still well worthwhile - finding the enemy artillery is no easy matter, though.

As MadScot says make sure you are fully patched. We added extra reaction code to affect arty units when they were being assaulted by inf and armour. They are more likely to rout and lose guns when being so assaulted.

As to causing casualties, well in RL arty/mortars/Rkts caused 80% of all casualties in WW2. In HTTR they do hurt...a lot. If the target is caught in the open undeployed then it will suffer significant casualties, even more so if its in woods ( 115% bonus due to tree burst effect ). OTOH if the target is dug-in or better in any terrain, but best in urban or fort then it's going to reduce the effect of the arty very significantly. The end result being fewer casualties but still significant suppression. This is what MadScot is referring to in the examples he cites. So best to use your arty on undeployed enemy for maximum kills.