Arty over 155mm

SPWaW is a tactical squad-level World War II game on single platoon or up to an entire battalion through Europe and the Pacific (1939 to 1945).

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Alby
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Post by Alby »

Dig that man!! How about a game with Axis Minors, for a real challenge, enough of this damn high and mighty Germans/Americans horse****!!! Me and a fellow did a Hungarian/Rumanian, THAT was fun!!

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Heheh you my long lost brother???
as i always say...YOU DA MAN MIKE~!
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Paul Vebber
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Post by Paul Vebber »

To paraphrase Ian Hogg in "The guns - 1939-45"

Field artillery up to 15cm or so is organic to the warfighting formation and has as its primary purpose the direct aid of the infantry in the particular battle afoot...It is the job of the heavy artillery to harrass the enemy artillery, known AA positons, distant crossraods and railheads, forming up points for armor and other such targets. Its ability reach well behind the lines to such targets is indespensible to the interdiction of enemy movements and denying him the ability to mass for an attack.

You can also check pp 97 and 109 fo Hoggs "Barrage" for discussion of severe ammunition shortages among US artillery, particualrl in Italy and after the Breakout in France. Even a few weeks after teh D-Day landings, artillery batteries were warned about indiscriminant use of ammo and to "make sure you don't use 3 rounds if 2 will do the job". In 44 in Italy 155's were limited to 11 rounds per day for a significant period due to ammo shortages for example.

You can do a little back of the envelope figuring and if an 8in round with powder was ~250lbs that is 8 per ton, and a 2 and 1/2 ton truck could carry about 20 rounds - say 25 if you bent the sprngs a bit, so if you had 6 guns firing a bit better than 1 round per minute, you had a battery of 6 guns expending maybe 400 rounds an hour, requiring an hourly convoy of 16 trucks to supply or if firing continuously 384 truckloads of ammo per day. A truck convoy over a 3 and half miles long. That would be a rather serious logistics drain for 1 battery.

In one battle preperation a US Corps in the attack in Italy was provided with 18 batteries combined of 7.2 in, 8 in Gun, 8in How and 240mm How - and it took them over 3 weeks to amass the ammo to fire a 4 hour barrage. That was the normal operating mode for heavy artillery.

But I'm sure Ian Hogg is a tool of the anti American conspriacy keeping the real truth of how direct support from 8in guns won the war under wraps.

As to the "Artillery casued all the casualties" that is true and the vast majority of those were caused not by 8in guns, but lowly 81mm mortars. The fighting men of World War 2 were not daily in death grapple with the enemy, but actually in SP:WaW style engagments fairly infrequently (theater and timeframe dependant of course).
(Macdonald's "Company Commander" gives what is widely considered a generic view).

But the one constant day in and day out was artillery fire, everywhere up and down the front - especially mortars that would be fired if anyone tried to come or go from the front line trenches in a careless way. Those onsey-twosey casualties, day after day, all along the front, added up to be the primary cause of death.

Artillery during engagements tended to be used as area denial or flank protection because movement was difficult if not impossible - even to armored vehicels throught the beaten zone. Those pesky mortars were the primary killers in company and battalion level engagements.

There will never be complete agreement on what weapons should go where in a space limited OOB like the Germans. The Nation button can help that...

That's the last I've got to say on the subject.

If folks can find references to contradict the premise of Mr Hogg, then I'll be glad to look, but in reading over 15 books on WW2 artillery I have not found it. Maybe I read the wrong books...

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 08, 2001).]
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Alby
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Post by Alby »

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
To paraphrase Ian Hogg in "The guns - 1939-45"

Field artillery up to 15cm or so is organic to the warfighting formation and has as its primary purpose the direct aid of the infantry in the particular battle afoot...It is the job of the heavy artillery to harrass the enemy artillery, known AA positons, distant crossraods and railheads, forming up points for armor and other such targets. Its ability reach well behind the lines to such targets is indespensible to the interdiction of enemy movements and denying him the ability to mass for an attack.

You can also check pp 97 and 109 fo Hoggs "Barrage" for discussion of severe ammunition shortages among US artillery, particualrl in Italy and after the Breakout in France. Even a few weeks after teh D-Day landings, artillery batteries were warned about indiscriminant use of ammo and to "make sure you don't use 3 rounds if 2 will do the job". In 44 in Italy 155's were limited to 11 rounds per day for a significant period due to ammo shortages for example.

You can do a little back of the envelope figuring and if an 8in round with powder was ~250lbs that is 8 per ton, and a 2 and 1/2 ton truck could carry about 20 rounds - say 25 if you bent the sprngs a bit, so if you had 6 guns firing a bit better than 1 round per minute, you had a battery of 6 guns expending maybe 400 rounds an hour, requiring an hourly convoy of 16 trucks to supply or if firing continuously 384 truckloads of ammo per day. A truck convoy over a 3 and half miles long. That would be a rather serious logistics drain for 1 battery.

In one battle preperation a US Corps in the attack in Italy was provided with 18 batteries combined of 7.2 in, 8 in Gun, 8in How and 240mm How - and it took them over 3 weeks to amass the ammo to fire a 4 hour barrage. That was the normal operating mode for heavy artillery.

But I'm sure Ian Hogg is a tool of the anti American conspriacy keeping the real truth of how direct support from 8in guns won the war under wraps.

As to the "Artillery casued all the casualties" that is true and the vast majority of those were caused not by 8in guns, but lowly 81mm mortars. The fighting men of World War 2 were not daily in death grapple with the enemy, but actually in SP:WaW style engagments fairly infrequently (theater and timeframe dependant of course).
(Macdonald's "Company Commander" gives what is widely considered a generic view).

But the one constant day in and day out was artillery fire, everywhere up and down the front - especially mortars that would be fired if anyone tried to come or go from the front line trenches in a careless way. Those onsey-twosey casualties, day after day, all along the front, added up to be the primary cause of death.

Artillery during engagements tended to be used as area denial or flank protection because movement was difficult if not impossible - even to armored vehicels throught the beaten zone. Those pesky mortars were the primary killers in company and battalion level engagements.

There will never be complete agreement on what weapons should go where in a space limited OOB like the Germans. The Nation button can help that...

That's the last I've got to say on the subject.

If folks can find references to contradict the premise of Mr Hogg, then I'll be glad to look, but in reading over 15 books on WW2 artillery I have not found it. Maybe I read the wrong books...

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 08, 2001).]
Now this is what I call a good post!
Documentation, gotta luv it, well done paul!
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Alby
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Post by Alby »

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
IMHO SPWAW should try to be as realistic as possible. So the question to ask should be, were real WW2 battles the arty massacre that is outlined above?

If they were, then nothing should be changed.

If they were not, the the question is why.

If they weren't because arty was usually not availbale to batallions in those quatities then the price of arty should be increased.

If they weren't because arty wasn't as effective as it is in SPWAW, then artillery effectiveness should decreased in some way (longer plotting times etc).

I do not like the idea of removing anything from the OOB though. It would be better to introduce some sort of limit to odd stuff, so that you cannot buy lots of it even if you have the points (ie not more than 1 sec of Maus). Or you could perhaps attach a rarity factor to each unit, indicating the chance that kind of unit would be available for this particular battle.

Just my 2 cents...
You the Yogi from sp3 fame??? if so I know YOU luv your arty!!! LOL
just razzin ya!
Alby


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Post by Yogi Yohan »

Originally posted by Alby:
You the Yogi from sp3 fame??? if so I know YOU luv your arty!!! LOL
just razzin ya!
Alby
[/B]
Noop, sorry, wrong Yogi. If I have any previous fame, it comes from playing another E-mail game called...belive it or not... World at War! Strategic level stuff, you can check it out at:
http://www.islandnet.com/~dgreenin/emg.htm#Contents

Over there I'm known simply as Johan, thoguh.
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Post by Pack Rat »

Anyone that overloads on any one type of a combined arms is asking for a world of hurt. This game has eveolved to far to make this mistake with out paying for it by losing. Artillery can't take hexes nor can it stop a determined mech infantry attack let alone an armor attack. Let them buy huge amounts of artillery, once I realize what is going on it means one thing to me, they won't have the other types of units needed to push any kind of attack let alone stop mine. Once you've closed with what ever force they did buy it's good bye to their safe barrages they take the same chance hitting me as they do themselves, this stuff isn't that accurate, well mortars are a different ball game. Where ever they think I'm going to be I won't be, artillery barrages can be guessed. Their very eyes will be gone, they won't see me due to their own smoke. I love to crawl my infantry into the moonscapes created by heavy bore guns. Bring it on.

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PR
http://electricwar.tripod.com/

Another tactic is to insist on the very large maps. It is to bad that there isn't more depth to the battle field, but length will help make up for it.

[This message has been edited by Pack Rat (edited March 09, 2001).]
PR
JTV
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Post by JTV »

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
For my part, I would only want to see limitations that increase realism. If lots and lots of arty is the way battles were fought, then let it be that way, and let those who want to play with less arty agree to do so. My suggestion came entirely from the notion that really large caliber artillery was most often used in a pre-bombardment role. If this was not so, I withdraw it readily.

I think in the long run, the best limitation would be to have a "rarity" factor attached to each type of unit, so that they were not always available in 2 player or campaign games, and only in small numbers when they are. This would also adress the problems such as Tigers a-plenty, Wurframen extravaganza and the likes...

Ah, and all and every kind of gun or thingey should ALWAYS be available for scenario design. Reducing the options for those unselfish heros that toil endlessly to bring us fresh scenarios to play is unacceptable.

[This message has been edited by Yogi Yohan (edited March 08, 2001).]
I am familiar with Finnish artillery and how it was used (don't know that much about others). Finns used 203mm howitzers as seperate batteries (weapon used was WWI era British made 8 inch Howitzer Mk 7 allso known as Vickers Mark 6). I think that historically Finns should have them available atleast during summer of 1944 because of the Finnish artillery doctrine of that time. Finnish artillery officers at Maaselkä isthmus had developed a new more deadly and fluent method of artillery: Artillery was organised as fire-units that were designed on according situations (example: Soviets conctrate troops to area X to attack, Finns gather all artillery that have range to shoot to area X and name all that artillery under one leadership establishing them as a fire unit and make it available to any FO at the area). These fire units could had a large number of batteries worth of artillery in most cases and whole fire-power of whole artillery unit was often used to shoot one single target area few hundred meters across. Finns used this new artillery tactic at summer of 1944 and it proved to be extremely in deadly in battles like: Tali-Ihantala battles, Viipuri Gulf battles, Tienhaara battle, Vuosalmi battle
and so on... Basically in any battle (battle big enougth to be played) during June-July 1944 Finns at Karelian isthmus had 203mm howitzer support available in any important battle during whole battle (when artillery is used to help defence using it as only pre-bombardment is simply wrong way to use it). Battle of summer 1944 between Soviets and Finns were extremely heavy (sometimes over 20 batteries of artillery and some mortars shooting at the same small area). Needless to say, I don't always put all artillery that was there in my scenarios (over 20 batteries in one side in certain way to ruin scenario, but I noticed that 203mm batteries are needed to show just how deadly artillery could be in these battles).

So pre-bombardment only don't work if you fight defence and use artillery (that was not how artillery was/is used in defence).

I agree that if some-one wants to cheat in this game the large-caliber artillery most certainly is not the only way (for example preferences and biggest level bombers and heavy tank formations allow plenty of possibilities to fight with 200% supertroops that have batallions of king tigers supported by tens of level bombers of most effective kind for anybody who doesn't care about historical accuracy or balanced battles).

If more and more equipment become scenario- only it makes things much more difficult. Little example: I just tested new motor torpedo boats that I needed Soviets to have in one scenario, difference of having formation specially made for buying them or buying some other formation and changing units to these boats is about *1 hour compared to 30 seconds*. After needing to buy over 30 boats for 2 times (and 5 times later) to get them working right I decided to make formations for buing them to save few hours of time. All stuff that we make "scenario-only" is making scenario building that much harder and more time consuming.
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Post by JTV »

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
To paraphrase Ian Hogg in "The guns - 1939-45"

Field artillery up to 15cm or so is organic to the warfighting formation and has as its primary purpose the direct aid of the infantry in the particular battle afoot...It is the job of the heavy artillery to harrass the enemy artillery, known AA positons, distant crossraods and railheads, forming up points for armor and other such targets. Its ability reach well behind the lines to such targets is indespensible to the interdiction of enemy movements and denying him the ability to mass for an attack.

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 08, 2001).]
Not all armies were smaller carbon copies of US Army in their use of artillery (or otherwise). I hope that we are not changing this game to work only as US troops did. I just sent a message explaining some about fire unit-artillery tactics used by Finns (I am not certain if Germans used it allso, they atleast had this battle unit/battle detachment idea for establishing units to handle specificated battle(s) with other troops). Fire unit-tactic basically breaks all those organisational limits (you have artillery and mortars from all levels to batallional mortar platoons to divisional- and army-level artillery under same command shooting the same targets under the same FO.

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Post by Fredde »


>As to the "Artillery casued all the >casualties" that is true and the vast >majority of those were caused not by 8in >guns, but lowly >81mm mortars. The fighting >men of World War 2 were not daily in death >grapple with the enemy, but actually in >SP:WaW style Zengagments fairly >infrequently (theater and timeframe >dependant of course).
>(Macdonald's "Company Commander" gives what is widely considered a generic view).
>
>


How true! However, mortars don't seem to cause many kills in SPWAW.. even when shelling fast moving infantry on open terrain you will be lucky to get a casualty even once in a while using the lighter 50 or 81 mm mortars. They are great for suppression though and I use them a lot. Sometimes I even get the feeling that arty of any kind below 120 mm is no good for kill purposes.

For the heavy super stuff discussion. My opinion here is that it is up to the players how they want to use this wonderful game. If you don't like much artillery, agree on not buying more than one OB battery each. If you don't like heavy artillery, agree to only buy light calibre arty. Same for Tigers, Wurfrahmens, partisans, lorries, crewmen, cavalry or whatever.. it's all up to you. Just because it is there you don't have to buy it.

When I set up an e-mail game, or discuss this with someone else, we always agree on these things beforehand to not make anyone disappointed. One of my latter PBEM's included the agreement to not start with any OB artillery at all and to start within 5 hexes from the map edge Image
"If infantry is the Queen of the battlefield, artillery is her backbone", Jukka L. Mäkelä about the Finnish victory at Ihantala.
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Post by Marder_MatrixForum »

hey freedy i can agree with you, if i don´t like heavy art than i don´t buy it!

for a challenging game i don´t buy ten tigers, but there is no tiger discussion?
"klotzen nicht kleckern"
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Post by AmmoSgt »

Books are good and helpful things ..but books often don't address the problems being discussed
I agree to the 250lb per minute per tube calculation by Paul ..But
155mm at 120-150 lb per round and 3 rounds a minute is at least 360lb ..and..
105mm at 60 lbs ( with powder on average ) at 5 rounds per minute is 300 lbs
meaning that the 8" is the least weight of logictics required per minute per barrel ..
I learned this moving ammo for 15 years and planing Corp supply and fires and stuff ..
BUT I OBJECT to any hint that moving 8" is as hard as Mortar ammo the tiedowns the dunnage the shear labor involved in getting mortar ammo straped down on a truck is unreal..8" takes less men and less time for the equal weight ...
anyway 2 1/2 ton trucks are rated 5 tons on paved roads but that would be wasteful of men unless the tactical situation demanded it Most ammo was mmoved on 12 ton stake and platform towed by 5 ton tractors or tank transport lowboys and 12 ton tractors for arty also bear in mind each tube had a tracked ammo carrier Normandy was a choke point for all supplies as was Beluguim before Antwerp ..but that ws for all supplies
I think tha fact the Higher HQ would issue a ammo usage advisory as vague and as full of the implication of discertionary usage at lower levels of command as the one cited only strengthens my contention that 8" was used in direct support ... as Pauls figures prove it certainly was the lightest ammo to move per tube per minute and 15 years experience tells me that it is the easiest to load up and tie down taking less men to move than smaller calibers ..
But books are nice
"For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary periods, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which
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Post by Paul Vebber »

Gee, If one can't use books, and can't use math I its impossible for anyone to disagree with you Image

Well the Allies didn't use attrition? I know who does... Image

Well you will be happy to know that the powers that be have decided that 8in artillery will stay in the OBA ..."fun" being the operative word in artillery, since it already bears somewhat limited relation to reality, better that it at least be fun to stonk on the big bad Tigers...but it will cost you!

It was deemed easier for those teh disagree to simply not use it than for those who wanted it not to have it.

So rejoice! Your attrition campaign has worked much like the one of the Allies (ooops, they didn't use attrition did they Image)

But take it from me, go read some of those smelly old books anyway, it really will pay off!


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Post by AmmoSgt »

Paul thanks for keeping it in .. aw shucks , i admit it i read all them books when i taught this stuff at Redstone Arsenal ... Image Image I know it got a little rough there ..i sure ain't no poet or wordsmith ..thanks for takin the time to wade through it all ...
"For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary periods, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which
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Paul Vebber
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Post by Paul Vebber »

Well, you certain are never at a loss for words ... and I'm the last one to say a single word about grammer or spelling Image

Heck if everybody always agreed this would be a pretty boring board! We're glad you take the time to share your experience (even if as a Navy Squid I'm genetically predisposed to heavy sarcasm around Army types Image)
drob
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Post by drob »

IMHO it would be nice to have a feature that limited availability on ANY unit that was in short supply. No commander ever gets what they want. Weather wise, troop condition wise, equipment or enemy capability.
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Post by CaptainBrian »

Originally posted by AmmoSgt:
Books are good and helpful things ..but books often don't address the problems being discussed
I agree to the 250lb per minute per tube calculation by Paul ..But
155mm at 120-150 lb per round and 3 rounds a minute is at least 360lb ..and..
105mm at 60 lbs ( with powder on average ) at 5 rounds per minute is 300 lbs
meaning that the 8" is the least weight of logictics required per minute per barrel ..
I learned this moving ammo for 15 years and planing Corp supply and fires and stuff ..
BUT I OBJECT to any hint that moving 8" is as hard as Mortar ammo the tiedowns the dunnage the shear labor involved in getting mortar ammo straped down on a truck is unreal..8" takes less men and less time for the equal weight ...
anyway 2 1/2 ton trucks are rated 5 tons on paved roads but that would be wasteful of men unless the tactical situation demanded it Most ammo was mmoved on 12 ton stake and platform towed by 5 ton tractors or tank transport lowboys and 12 ton tractors for arty also bear in mind each tube had a tracked ammo carrier Normandy was a choke point for all supplies as was Beluguim before Antwerp ..but that ws for all supplies
I think tha fact the Higher HQ would issue a ammo usage advisory as vague and as full of the implication of discertionary usage at lower levels of command as the one cited only strengthens my contention that 8" was used in direct support ... as Pauls figures prove it certainly was the lightest ammo to move per tube per minute and 15 years experience tells me that it is the easiest to load up and tie down taking less men to move than smaller calibers ..
But books are nice
The proper weights (assuming standard square weight) for US 155mm and 105mm Arty ammo is 95 and 33 lbs. respectively. 8" was 220 lbs.
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Post by Pack Rat »

Originally posted by drob:
No commander ever gets what they want. Weather wise, troop condition wise, equipment or enemy capability.
Very true, but no commander worth their salt doesn't try. Some did it at the very risk of their lives. :)
PR
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Post by john g »

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
To paraphrase Ian Hogg in "The guns - 1939-45"

You can do a little back of the envelope figuring and if an 8in round with powder was ~250lbs that is 8 per ton, and a 2 and 1/2 ton truck could carry about 20 rounds - say 25 if you bent the sprngs a bit, so if you had 6 guns firing a bit better than 1 round per minute, you had a battery of 6 guns expending maybe 400 rounds an hour, requiring an hourly convoy of 16 trucks to supply or if firing continuously 384 truckloads of ammo per day. A truck convoy over a 3 and half miles long. That would be a rather serious logistics drain for 1 battery.
[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited March 08, 2001).]
Paul I won't question your statements about artillery, to me it should be a greater killer in the game, but then it becomes more of a boring sim than an exciting game.

However, the 2 1/2 ton truck does not have a 5000 lb carrying capacity. Just a ship doesn't figure it's carrying capacity from it's rated tonnage.

I drove a 5 ton truck for years that had a 29,000 lb gross weight rating and that was figured more from the tires that it mounted not from the load the springs could support.
The truck weighed about 11000 pounds and could carry about 18000 pounds of cargo.
For one short trip it was overloaded with approx 30000 lbs of cargo against my wishes and didn't blow any tires or shocks, it just swayed side to side as it rolled down the road and was a bear to slow back down.

A 10 ton truck is perhaps more familiar to you as a semi, 60000 to 80000 lbs gross weight rating depending on which states they are driving through. Locally, one driver overloaded to 120,000 lbs only got caught when he collapsed a bridge he was driving over.
thanks, John.
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Paul Vebber
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Post by Paul Vebber »

Thanks - I appreciate the correction! Any idea on where to find a table on load ranges for 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 3 1/2 ton trucks?

I stand corrected!
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