remembered my arty question

[Arno 2]

hi guys,

just remembered my artillery question: when I use artillery to attack over more than 1 hex, how can my unit suffer casualties??? I guess the main purpose of the loss tolerance options for bombardments is for setting how much supply they use up, right? but how come that sometimes I really lose personnel while attacking over that distance? they dont throw the shells back, do they?! can the other side's artillery react to bombardment by firing their own guns during MY turn??

thanks for the "noob-tolerance" [8|]
cheers
Arno

[ralphtricky]

If his artillery is in range, and in the correct stance, you will be subject to counter-battery fire.

[JAMiAM]

This is from a reply that I sent to a personal inquiry, but it should serve as a quick primer for some of the aspects of artillery use that you may need clarification on...

First, note the difference between bombardment, and
support.

If you make a pure bombardment, at range, that is one
without any accompanying friendly ground forces, and
at non-adjacent enemy units, then the number of
tactical rounds that a unit will bombard is equal to
the number of pips in its loss tolerance setting.
Thus, minimize loss bombardments will go for one
tactical round. Limit loss bombardments will
nominally go for two tactical rounds. Ignore loss
bombardments will nominally go for three tactical
rounds.

If your artillery is supporting (passively, or
directly) in a ground combat, then regardless of loss
tolerance they fire for every round that ground combat
is fought. Thus, the length of their support
participation is dictated, indirectly, by the loss
tolerances of the ground units fighting over the hex.

Passively supporting artillery fires at half strength,
while directly supporting artillery fires at full
strength, with further modifications due to
cooperation penalties for each. Passively supporting
artillery expends supplies at half the rate that
direct firing artillery does.

If firing at range at a hex that also has artillery
capable of reaching back to the unit's hex, a
bombarding unit's hex is subject to counterbattery
fire from ranged equipment in the target hex. If the
counterfiring artillery causes enough losses to the
firing artillery to cause it to break off combat
before it would have reached its limit of rounds (as
explained above) then it will stop prematurely.

Subject to losses, and unit strength depletion from
supply expenditure, artillery fires at a constant
strength for each round that it is engaged in combat,
whether in bombardment, or support.

Air and Naval units function as artillery in this
respect, and follow the same rules as above.

[Arno 2]

thanks very much guys, problem solved!

Cheers
Arno