Another arty question

[rn]

This is tactical - when postioning arty units, can they be better protected from counter-battery fire if they are distributed across a wide front (as opposed to allowing the AI to chose the front width)? Or would this affect their ability to coordinate a bombardment?

[Grouchy]

Best way to avoid counter-battery fire is simply keep the artillery out of enemy los [:)]

[cabron66]

I don't think counter-battery fire was ever direct except in the most exceptional of circumstances. In fact, apart from naval artillery (and even in this case the vast majority of spotting was done from the air), I can't think of what form direct counter-battery fire would take. Probably the original poster did not intend to have his post understood in this way.

Counter-battery fire, as far as I can tell from HttR and CotA, was very hard to avoid unless you could place your arty units several kilometres away from any enemy units. I don't know if the game takes sound into account directly or indirectly, but I used to notice that arty units closer to the front would get hit almost invariably by return fire while those farther back would not.

From what I understand, a battery of guns can compensate to a great degree for virtually any pattern in which they are emplaced. If CotA is true to life in this aspect, as it is in most, the formation of an arty unit or units should not effect its/their firepower. My only consideration would be keeping them well back from the fighting and spread out to avoid having more than one unit get hit when another is located and fired upon.

Incidentally, counter-battery fire in WWII was a new idea based on very new technology. It was not very effective and only improved marginally in most armies during the war (with the exception of the Red Army which saw drastic improvement relative to a very poor starting point). The most effective way to find and neutralize enemy guns remained, throughout the war, spotting from aircraft and from forward observers.

The newer methods of sound and flash ranging took a very long time to achieve any results and more often than not only ended up pressuring enemy units to reposition themselves.

Counter-battery fire based on intelligence and guesstimation (that spot on the map looks like a likely place let's drop some shells there) was probably as or more effective than counter-battery fire.

Cheers

Paul