Matrix Games Forums

What is the justification for Artillery having an 80% penalty for being on a hill, or shooting to a hill?

It seems to me to be a complete over-reaction to the artillery trajectory difficulties that one can have when firing from a higher contour. Artillery on hills was a positive and staple feature of many battles.

Even at close range, when presumably there is canister being used, there is still an 80% penalty for firing down a hill at attackers?

I agree the penalty is too high.

I never could figure this one either. In every account I can recall of Napoleonic and American War Between the States battles if a general could get soe artillery on a height then he did so. Quickly.

I admit that the 80% penalty does represent the most severe description of the deficiencies of plunging fire on Napoleonic era artillery that I found. From what I could find of French military doctrine, artillery were ideally placed on a slight height advantage on a gentle forward slope, but this is less height than the height hex is supposed to represent.

Solid shot did most of its damage by skipping over the ground, but artillery firing down from too great a height would not always skip. I haven't been able to find firm data on this, just anecdotal and doctrinal. Other gaming systems I've looked ascribe various levels of penalties to plunging fire.

I'm open to suggestions for simple modifications to the rule. We could reduce the penalty overall, or change it at certain ranges (where plunging fire isn't as detrimental because solid shot skips, or reduce it at close range to represent canister shot.) I'd like to hear more opinions, see if anyone knows of any available statistics.

At close range (adjacent to the firing piece) where cannister would be used, I don't think there should be any penalty. At longer ranges I can see where this penalty is a realistic thing.

Ideally, a better map system were there was such a thing as a slope and not just a series of planes, some higher than the others, or lower, would be perfect. However, I don't know if such a thing is programmable.

I suggest:

- The penalty be reduced to 20% firing down (cf current 80%) to represent the difficulty of plunging fire (more in line with other rulesets I have seen)
- The penalty be reduce to 50% firing up (cf current 80%) to represent the use of hill lee by troops in defence to avoid ricochet
- British Troops only -20% instead of -50% firing up (shell (or make this a military upgrade to allow shell))
- No penalty for firing up or down at all at range 1 (canister)

Additionally, while we are mucking about with the guns:

- Artillery vs Artillery penalty reduced from -90% to -80% (doubling the effect of the guns from 10% to 20% of normal). Counter-battery fire was not uncommon, or silly.

Having great fun with it, cheers,

Hunter

Going with the range idea would be the best way in my opinion. They should probably be around 30% penalty at close range to 50% at middle and 80% at long range. And maybe increase the range a little when they are on a hill. But it really depends on how high or steep the hills are in the first place. The higher & steeper the hills are the less effective artillery will be at close range. So I think we should look at hills as a small ridge or height and change the mountain terrain into a high steep or rough hill that only skirmishers can go into. There really not that many battles near mountains because they are so huge (probably take up the whole map) and the terrain is very rough and erratic around them. I don't know if this would be hard to implement... but there it is. [:)]

I think people are not noticing that the 'base factor' of artillery is much higher than in other games. On level terrain, they are awesomely powerful. The last time we went over this we started from the same point - thinking that plunging fire was too weak - but we ended up increasing the base values for artillery instead of tinkering with the plunging fire stuff.

The argument at the time was:
a) having artillery firing from slight rises is factored into their base capability
b) hills in the game are actually pretty high
c) cannister had such short range in the period that it was almost not relevent: wouldn't reach out a hex!
d) people who thought the arty was underpowered always seemed to be using crap units - I seem to recall distributing some saved combats where my forces - after the upgrades - and with careful positioning, artillery completely dominated the battlefield ALREADY, with the ability to completely destroy the combat worthiness of an enemy unit EACH ROUND.

In a pure gameplay sense, I would support modifying the plunging fire modifiers to say half them at one hex range, reduce by 25% at 2 hex range - but massively reducing them will just make artillery far far far more powerful than it was historically.

Greetings Ralegh!

I'd like to find some references for how well solid shot worked when firing from a considerable height. The Pratzen Heights are about 250 meters high and, I think, this would make a good benchmark. There are lots of great numbers for musket fire and artillery trajectories out there, so I'd be surprised if there weren't data on this somewhere. If we can't find data, maybe I'll just cut the penalty to some smaller amount than it is now. I can weaken artillery overall by 10-20% to compensate. A high morale artillery unit when the player has several artillery upgrades is very very powerful in COG -- but toward the end of the period artillery were doing 80% of the battlefield casualties, so this is perhaps not so bad.

There's an argument for using canister numbers at range 1 because adjacent enemy units can be considered to be closing in on each other (that's why the musket fire is much more devastating at range 1 than range 2.) But enemy units very close to the base of a hill were somewhat protected from the artillery at the top simply because of the angles involved and because artillery at the top can't be aimed down very easily.

Ah, that sounds great! Weakening them overall by a little also sounds good (I have been playing with a Russian Grand Battery of 12 Pdrs, in the triple reinforced sizes...very nasty

Can I just say that I have found this the most incredibly detailed and interesting, totally compelling game experience I have had in many, many years. Great work.

ORIGINAL: The Hunter
Can I just say that I have found this the most incredibly detailed and interesting, totally compelling game experience I have had in many, many years. Great work.

Thank you.