Under the Hood: artillery support in TOAW

[cathar1244]

1--

An aspect of TOAW mentioned in recent threads is the differing behavior of artillery equipment when it is in a unit with an artillery icon symbol, and when it is simply more equipment in a unit with a icon symbol not associated with artillery. Essentially, what was discussed was that artillery in artillery units is more effective than artillery in non-artillery units. The reasoning given was that the more effective instance represents indirect fire while the other instance represents artillery pieces firing over open sights. So I set up a simple scenario and conducted attacks to see what would be logged by TOAW.

[cathar1244]

2--

The combat actions were on one side composed of "divisions" of 100 rifle squads. These units tested various setups--

* A battalion of 105-mm guns organic to the division.
* A division with no guns but a detached 105-mm gun battalion in support.
* A division with a battalion of 105-mm guns modified to have no range (true direct fire pieces).
* A battalion of 105-mm guns modified to be twice as lethal for antipersonnel effect, organic to a division.

Finally, some tests were done with an "artillery division" made up of 100 105-mm guns and 50 trucks.

On the opposing side, the divisions were identical: 100 rifle squads.

Both sides had the same proficiency, supply, etc. Terrain was open and weather was fair. Attacks were all of moderate intensity and intended to capture the hex attacked.

Although I tracked the number of squads impacted (damaged or destroyed) by the combat actions, I was not so much interested in the casualties (which in any case vary widely from action to action in TOAW's system), but rather which equipment was inflicting casualties. During testing, I noted a couple of oddities which I will mention. One may be a bug (or a feature), and the other probably is a bug.

[cathar1244]

3--

The case with the "true direct fire pieces" produced casualties similar to the division with an organic battalion of 105-mm guns. The difference was without pieces being ranged equipment, there is no bombardment weight and associated diminishing of a targeted unit's entrenchment level.

In no case where guns were organic to the (infantry) "division" did they directly create casualties. In these cases, the TOAW log indicated casualties inflicted were the result of fire by rifle squads.

What is not clear is how much effect the "organic guns" had. They do increase the antipersonnel strength of the unit to which they belong. And, although it is not clear from the log, it appears that, in a combat action, an advantage in antipersonnel strength allows a unit to target more equipment in an enemy unit than it could do otherwise. That is, it makes the unit with the disadvantage in antipersonnel strength more vulnerable to fire than its opponent. Of note is that the "division" with 105-mm guns of doubled antipersonnel effectiveness did not appear to cause more casualties than like equipment with standard antipersonnel ratings.

[cathar1244]

4--

The effectiveness of the detached battalion (with icon symbol being artillery) varied. In terms of casualties, its share of casualties inflicted on the enemy was around 25 to 50 per cent of the total (the remainder being inflicted by the "division" it was supporting). One aspect of note was that the bombardment weight it provided was twice the total of the guns organic to "divisions", even though the equipment was identical in terms of quantity and shell weight. This was one of the "oddities" mentioned above, as subsequent tests with an artillery "division" did not produce the same effect (bombardment weight was standard for the number of guns firing).

The artillery "division" (guns and trucks only) normally retreated before combat if an enemy unit advanced on it. But in one odd case, the division stood and fought, successfully inflicting casualties on enemy rifle squads. The problem, as noted by the log, is which equipment inflicted the casualties:

APCombat :Anti personnel combat begins.
Combat : Attacking unit under fire: Legion D (attrit: 245)
Combat :
Combat : Smite: Targets 1st Formation, Legion D, (anti-personnel), attrition%= 15.
Combat : Attackers weapons firing on Targets Rifle Squad.
APCombat : Potentially effective hit on Targets Rifle Squad by Attackers Truck.
Combat : Rifle Squad destroyed. (specificAttrit=13)
Combat : Attackers weapons firing on Targets Rifle Squad.
APCombat : Potentially effective hit on Targets Rifle Squad by Attackers Truck.
Combat : Rifle Squad destroyed. (specificAttrit=13)

... and so on. The trucks were standard TOAW equipment with no antipersonnel rating. Bug, or some aspect of the combat routine that used the collective defense value of the unit to inflict casualties in an absurd manner? If the latter, the combat routine should check that units "firing" on targets are in fact capable of doing so.

An occasional event I appreciated regarding retreat before combat is that sometimes the retreating unit was tagged as "flanked" and lost something like 10% of its strength while executing the RBC.

[cathar1244]

5--

A consideration for scenario designers is if the artillery should be broken out as separate units. Designers have to determine a "break even point", weighing the effects of many extra units (recalling that those artillery units can break down and potentially triple in number) in the scenario versus whatever gains one may perceive by having "fully functional" artillery units. More testing would have to be done to prove that separate artillery units are really that much more lethal than "organic guns". The doubled bombardment weight of the detached battalion is an attractive advantage, but it wasn't seen in the case of the fires of the artillery "division". As well, more testing would have to be done to determine how much "organic guns" increase the antipersonnel effectiveness of a unit. I may have missed something, but it did not appear to be a simple sum of the antipersonnel ratings of the equipment.

(End 5 of 5 comments)

Cheers

[popejohnpaul]

I really appreciate everything you've done ( tests and everything ) to study this situation ( including a secondary icon to include arty to some other kind of unit ).

Any other unit? Can you do this with vulnerable recon units as well, giving them a small contingent of tanks? The possibilities are exponential.

Can one create a special unit and then using one of the existing icons, changing the old one to represent the special unit you've created and add THAT as a secondary icon?

Giving special forces abilities to all your infantry units? Can you do that somehow?

Enquiring minds want to know.

scientific lab.gif (3.16 MiB) Viewed 1783 times

[cathar1244]

Thanks for the comments. I had actually forgotten to test the effects of secondary icons with artillery support.

So I ran some more tests. One involved an infantry unit with artillery as its secondary icon. The other was an artillery unit with infantry as its secondary icon, as well as some infantry squads added to it.

The infantry unit with a secondary artillery icon, in both attack and defense, produced casualties only with its rifle squads. Mind, the effect of the guns being present increased the anti personnel strength of the division, but the log does not depict them directly hitting enemy rifle squads.

The artillery unit with a secondary infantry icon was interesting. When attacked, instead of retreating before combat, it held its ground (and how). The attacking force got shredded, losses between one quarter and over one half incurred by the attacking force. This could be a really gamey trick in a scenario. German player sees a Soviet artillery division. "Yay, let's blow it away!" And then a German infantry corps gets its Schnitzel handed to it because the "artillery" division included infantry support besides its guns.

In the attack, this unit used its bombardment strength only (in line with its primary function as artillery).

Cheers

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

I'll note that the "weight of artillery" can be a really big deal depending on the scenario. In a lot of them the defender is going to be doing everything in their power to dig in and dig in deep.

The result I have observed is that the attacker - no matter how powerful they are and how numerous their organic artillery is basically bounces off entrenched positions with nothing but high losses to show for it.

If they have independent artillery support however then the "weight of artillery" digs the defenders out of their trenches and the attack has a (very good) chance of succeeding.

Hence I think your tests where done in an environment (open terrain with both sides in mobile formation) where artillery is least important and impactful.

I suspect if you ran the tests again but with the defender in fortified formation you would find the differences between having independent artillery (presuming you have enough for weight of artillery to actually dig the defenders out) to be significantly more dramatic.

[cathar1244]

Hi Mr. Mac Donald,

I'll note that the "weight of artillery" can be a really big deal depending on the scenario. In a lot of them the defender is going to be doing everything in their power to dig in and dig in deep.

The result I have observed is that the attacker - no matter how powerful they are and how numerous their organic artillery is basically bounces off entrenched positions with nothing but high losses to show for it.

If they have independent artillery support however then the "weight of artillery" digs the defenders out of their trenches and the attack has a (very good) chance of succeeding.

Yep, yep, and yep. From what the log indicates, the bombardment weight of organic artillery is a small bit above one-half the bombardment weight delivered by the same number and type of guns when they are firing as an independent artillery unit. Thus, the benefit seems to be something (a small bit) less than twice the bombardment weight for the independent artillery units. I should also mention that as rounds of combat proceed, the bombardment weight slackens somewhat.

Note this "times 2" benefit was seen when the artillery unit was at or near 100% proficiency. A test run with the artillery unit at 50% proficiency resulted in a bombardment weight that was about 70% of what the "perfect" artillery unit provided ... so proficiency ratings also impact the bombardment weight delivered by the artillery unit.

Hence I think your tests where done in an environment (open terrain with both sides in mobile formation) where artillery is least important and impactful.

Your comment is very correct for any "real" scenario. For these "under the hood" tests, I run them with as few influences as possible so as to limit the number of variables. Even then, interpreting the TOAW log can be a head scratcher at times. And even then, there is still significant variation in combat results like equipment lost and if a retreat occurs or not.

Thanks for your comments!

Cheers

[cathar1244]

Giving special forces abilities to all your infantry units? Can you do that somehow?

Larry, my guess is one could modify the SF icon to look like regular infantry to achieve this effect (SF icon is one of the "special ability" icons IIRC). But then one would not have an SF icon for the SF units that looked different from regular infantry.

Cheers

[StuccoFresco]

Interesting conclusions!