Artillery

[snake]

Well, I caught about 20 French R35's and H39's moving in a clear space - slowed them with a few AT rifles and rained artillery (about 9 105's) on them for three turns. Nothing left but one immobilized and one running.
Very unrealistic IMHO but I believe the problem is that every tank in every blast radius gets checked for a top hit when a top hit check should only occur if the original round hits the tank (MUCH LESS LIKELY!) The blasts should cause disruption and a few immobilizations but instead you should hear the number of hits!
This needs to be fixed!
In every instance where I defend or delay, the AI buys 20-30 artillery units and my armor just gets slaughtered.
In one case, I lost 12 units to 4 75mm and 1 150mm blast area (one time) all from top hits when the rounds clearly did not 'hit' the tanks (the little smoke spots were never ON an AFV but near them).
Please fix this! A top hit check should only be made if the round actually hits the hex with the vehicle - not near it.

[Mobhack]

A new EXe is already in playtest.

Top hits are restricted now to the shell impact x,y hex (except cluster ammo of course). Any splash hits in hexes outside the impact x,y (bar cluster) cannot cause top hits, and the penetration outside the impact x,y is reduced for being splinters (not cluster). (Previously, top hits were allowed in splash hexes.)

Results are encouraging - less damages in splash hit hexes, and some more track hits.

If you want armoured targets to be damaged by arty, you really now need a) 105mm or better b) a batallion firing (12-18 guns) into the same target point.

Cheers
Andy

[Alby]

12-18 guns into the same hex to get any armor damage?
I would think 3-4 guns would be enough

[Vikhr]

Sounds nice, indeed.

I like the new way artillery fire is resolved against vehicles, although there have been too many splash hits (horrendous for morale, especially with Russians), and one case where a KV-8 in a hex next to target was killed by a comrades flamethrower!

[DRG]

Alby said:
12-18 guns into the same hex to get any armor damage?
I would think 3-4 guns would be enough

The higher the caliber the great the chance of damage, the greater the number of guns the greater the chance of damage. Different combinations give different results but our testing is showing far less of the type of problem that people were complaining about yet tanks are not immune to gun fire by any means. The just aren't as fragile as they were

Don

[Mobhack]

3-4 guns (a platoon/troop) may well get some damage. But that really would be for harrasing fire only, the minimum unit of fire of Arty on any worthwhile target is usually an entire battery (6-8 guns). e.g - a platoon of enemy infantry in the defence would be such. A company sized infantry target needs a batallion (UK Regiment).

However, in order to really break up armoured formations you really need a battalion sized stonk, preferably more. Artillery is a club, so the more weight the better.

The chapter on artillery in Isbys "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" has this to say on weight of fire (in Soviet terms, Projectile Expenditure Rate or PER):

The PERs recognise that mass creates effectiveness. To get the equivalent effect of one three-batallion volley (54 shells) against infantry in the open requires ten one-batallion volleys (180 shells) or 43 one-battery volleys (258 shells).

If a British FOO called "Uncle target, Uncle target, Uncle target", All guns within range (unlike the e.g. Americans, for emergency fires the British would pull guns off any programmed missions etc) would fire 6-8 rounds FFE onto the coordinates within 5 minutes of the call, without registration. This was a standard response to a platoon sized tank target in 44. Apparently, it would turn the earh over a metre deep in a 500 metre circle. tanks would be flipped on thier backs.

As a school army cadet, I went on a weeks artillery course in the mid 70s at the School of Artillery at Larkhall. Fun with 25 pounders . At the weekend it happened to be the annual Artillery Day public show. The grand finale was a divisional shoot by 72 guns. Most impressive. But that would be a "Victor" target an "Uncle" was the entire arty park of the AGRA (Army Group, Royal Artillery), barring the FLAK.

Cheers
Andy

[snake]

Thank you Mobhack! I'm ready to download that fix!

As a side note, will the loss of smoke in long campaigns be fixed too? I really miss laying smoke with my CS tanks.....

[DRG]

Yes, the smoke issue has been fixed as well

Don

[Charles22]

Yay!!!

[groszdix]

First, let me reiterate my thanks ("The Man Hours") to the SPCamo folks: what you guys do is what wargaming is all about!

Second, I too have noticed the increased lethality of AI arty against armor in the new Win version. Chuckforth's 19 May comment sounds right to me, and I would like to agree with Charles22 on the percentage of top hits, Snake's experience with Polish 75mm and 100mm arty, and Vikhr's post regarding splash hits. As an example from recent game play, on a 40x40 map playing as the Germans against the poles in '39 my mixed armor company (PzIIIs, ACs), which was spread out over a 15x30 area with at least a hex between each vehicle, suffered 8 kills in less than half a dozen turns by Polish 75mm and 100mm off-map arty. I have also noticed a marked increase over other versions of SP in the amount of hits (clink!) taken by armor units from artillery.

I am reluctant to change the arty effectiveness preference because its effect on infantry and other soft targets at 100% seems right and I don't want to minimize this for the sake of armor. (BTW, for my money, the arty effectiveness for the last version of SPWW2 was just about perfect!) Thanks to Andy for looking into addressing this issue (28 May comment) as well as smoke in campaigns!

Lastly, while I understand the ambiguity and personal preferences in modeling arty "realism" and can accept the arty as it stands now in WinSp, what seem unrealistic are some of the splash effects, especially from non-arty weapons. For example, in a '44 game of Germany v. GB several odd splash hits occured within the first 8-10 turns. Once, I fired a single Panzerfaust round at an AC in a hex which contained three other ACs. I missed the target AC but TWO other ACs in the hex got destroyed. Or again, a British infantry squad fired at a motorcycle squad and, after inflicting a couple of casualties on the MCs from rifle fire, I saw the Puma AC that shared the hex explode (perhaps from a PIAT or Mills bomb?). I understand blast radius, MG bullet spray, etc. as well as the overall messiness of weapon fire (and how difficult it is to model these things with such a rational machine as a computer) but these splash effects seem too frequent to chalk up to accident and not very realistic - and made more so in light of the frequency of occurance. Am I missing some realism factor you guys were thinking about? Can you help me understand this a bit?

Thanks!

Groszdix