Artillery

[narwan]

He might be refering to the continuation war, not the winter war?

Narwan

[serg3d]

narwan said:
He might be refering to the continuation war, not the winter war?
Narwan

Hmm, seems you are correct. Battle of Tali-Ihantala was in the continuation war.

[Charles22]

pdoktar said:
In Talin-Ihantala battles in Finland, finnish artillery several times finished off russian tank columns in massive integrated artillery strikes. Several times the whole defence dependend on artillery as finnish troops were badly depleted with all heavy equipment lost and facing tank and assult gun regiments head-on.

One story from the veterans stick to my mind, when a badly depleted battalion, with a few light AT-guns surviving had just beaten back a russian assault. After the attack ended they heard a tank regiment gunning it´s engines preparing for a overrrun attack in the next moments. However they were amazed when they heard a "freight train" (heavy artillery barrage) over their heads and after seeking cover, found it was going for the russians. In a few minutes some 500 shells struck the russian occupied forest and the tank regiment existed no more.

Heavy tanks, KV-1, T-34s, assault guns were destroyed, blown to pieces or just tipped to their side. Infantry and surviving tank crews had vanished.

And after seeing 120mm mortars and 155mm artillery in action I doubt that a Panzer III or IV or something armored could survive a well directed artillery strike.

Yeah, but these were mere 75mm's. Another poster showed how the top hit ratio is way too large. I can't say I noticed that, though it isn't small, but what I can say is if that the top should scarcely be hit at all when where the shell orginally falls isn't the same hex. I'm not sure how many of my units were the result of 'splash' from another hex, but with all the destruction it is disconerting to suspect the splash hits are just as high in hitting the tops as the original hit hex is.

BTW, I mentioned how I scarcely has any enemy to fight, and now I've run into a bunch more units, including two small seperate armored counter-attacks. It's just that the AI didn';t seem to buy any mines, or DT's, or BW, but they did buy at least two pillboxes. Apart from the artillery issue, it's a real nice first battle, as it's encouraging to see units where I didn't expect them, such that they are in places that the last version of SPWW2 wouldn't have put them. Very nice protection of some of the scattered VP's.

[snake]

Yes,
My tanks get slaughtered with artillery. Also, the Poles always buy between 20 and 26 75mm guns so as the German with 38T's and Pz IVc's, I get slaughtered. Against the French, it's 75's and 105's with the same result.
My men do about right so I think the kill against tanks is wrong. I say this because I've been buying cheap 82mm morters and they have been destroying the enemy tanks like TP7's, Char B's, H20's etc. Nothing is safe so I don't buy the 'early weaker armor gets killed' theory. I even turned down the art effectiveness to 10% and the results don't change much.
And this is not coordinated spotted artillery but random fire.

[serg3d]

snake said:
Nothing is safe so I don't buy the 'early weaker armor gets killed' theory. I even turned down the art effectiveness to 10% and the results don't change much.
And this is not coordinated spotted artillery but random fire.

I'm using artillery 80% and tank 105% and my T-34 and KV almoste always survive barrage, 152mm or more.
BTW how do you know that it is not a spotted fire ? AI usually trying to move forward observere into front line.

[JaM]

I made some tests, and there are definitelly something wrong. every splash damage hits top armour, so even a mortar can kill tank with top armor 1 without direct hits... Next thing i found is that if you fire at a tank side (90 degrees) there is a chance 50:50 to hit front hull at extreme angle. I know that if you have a bad luck something like that could happen, but it is happening too often.with direct side shot there must be a 90% (or so) chance to hit side.

[Charles22]

Interesting.

[cbo]

snake said:
Yes,
My tanks get slaughtered with artillery. Also, the Poles always buy between 20 and 26 75mm guns so as the German with 38T's and Pz IVc's, I get slaughtered. Against the French, it's 75's and 105's with the same result.
My men do about right so I think the kill against tanks is wrong. I say this because I've been buying cheap 82mm morters and they have been destroying the enemy tanks like TP7's, Char B's, H20's etc. Nothing is safe so I don't buy the 'early weaker armor gets killed' theory. I even turned down the art effectiveness to 10% and the results don't change much.
And this is not coordinated spotted artillery but random fire.

Odd, I'm playing about the same period and nothing like this happens (see previous post). On the contrary, if infantry and tanks are in the same area and pounded by enemy artillery, the tanks do fairly well while the infantry runs.

I'm not saying what you are experiencing is not happening, but clearly, it is not a general thing.

Do you have a save prior to one of those deadly barrages that you could share?

Claus B

[dwmalesevich]

Artillery in direct fire mode is much differnt than artillery in in-direct fire mode. So far the most effective AT weapons that I have seen are the 81mm Mortars which is BS. I've had more vehicles killed by 81 mortars than by direct fire AT weapons. I am a retired US Army Armored Platoon Sergeant who was also a Master Gunner for 16 years of my 21 years Active duty. I would also like to have a loader that can fire his machine gun and load the main gun at the same time. And any gunner who constently fired his coax at the same time as the main gun would no longer be a gunner.

SFC Dave Malesevich
USA-Ret 19K4HA7

[narwan]

JaM said:
I made some tests, and there are definitelly something wrong. every splash damage hits top armour, so even a mortar can kill tank with top armor 1 without direct hits... Next thing i found is that if you fire at a tank side (90 degrees) there is a chance 50:50 to hit front hull at extreme angle. I know that if you have a bad luck something like that could happen, but it is happening too often.with direct side shot there must be a 90% (or so) chance to hit side.

Then please post the test you did. Mine do show a fair percentage of top hits but those are less than 50%. If you have a test set up that consistently shows top hits please let us know exactly what you were doing.

Narwan