Artillery Fire Routine

[RERomine]

I just read the thread on Smoke and thought I would start a new one related to the artillery fire routine in general. In the battle I'm currently doing a DAR on, there is fighting taking place up and down my line. Several turns ago, the AI cut loose twelve 25-pdr troops against one machine gun section. They got him, but would anyone realistically fire 48 artillery pieces at two machine guns? Earlier in the battle, they all pounded another area and got one tank. In both cases, we aren't talking about massed targets. With the machine gun section, the only unit within 150m was an immobilized tank. When I lost the tank early in the battle, there were two other tanks within 150m. For some reason off-board artillery seems to latch onto a target and sling everything at it, even if it is massive over kill. One thing I can add is both areas targeted didn't have units that moved. In both cases, units in and around the impact zone had not moved. They were just blazing away at targets of opportunity.

Is it possible to have the routine check to see if a target has artillery already assigned to strike? If the routine finds artillery is already assigned, maybe a sub-routine to determine if it is worthy of more guns, otherwise it looks for another target. With at least 12 artillery troops in my current battle, the AI is wasting them by not hitting dozens of other areas that it has to know I have troops. The only other indirect fire I recall came from a couple of 3in mortar sections firing smoke. While my current battle is difficult because of my inability to destroy Matilda IIs, it would be even more complex if the AI was dropping artillery all along my static defensive line.

The AI use of artillery does seem to be a consistent weakness in the AI battle plan. With the scads of artillery it tends to take, it needs to use it better than it does. People will probably complain more if artillery is more effective, but clean one fish at a time. A general impression I have is the AI utilizes on-board artillery more effectively than off-board. Other folks might have different opinions and are more than welcome chime in. If my impression is correct, maybe the AI is attaching more importance to formations than it should. If the AI purchases two 25-pdr regiments, it might be looking at them as just two fire missions instead of 12 troops capable of engaging different target areas. I could be wrong, but I have to believe in real life troops within artillery regiments/battalions aren't technologically restricted to firing at one target area en mass any more than tank companies in a battalion are required to stay together.

[Imp]

Been a while since I played the AI but while it can have an off day would say its arty routines are pretty good, does better than many humans on a good day.
Hitting an area with to much is better than with to little spreading the love about does not work unless you know exactly what you are doing & the AI does not.
Yes its geared more to leg infantry I would say fast stuff can avoid to a degree but I have been severly caught out at times. Its seen your unit called fire on it & makes an assumption other units might be there. If a company of leg infantry had been it would have hurt.
One starnge thing I have noticed is when it is defending still often drops a smoke screen early in the game while holding position. This can be beneficial to the attacker, that said does occasionaly spoil what you are up to.

[RERomine]

Don't get me wrong. The AI typically puts artillery on target. Maybe not so much when assaulting, but there it doesn't usually know where enemy units are until contact is made. Until then, it tends to sling shells around hoping for a good strike. I can't say this isn't an unrealistic use in an assault situation.

I still think it needs to weigh the target's value before slinging two regiments worth of artillery at it. In my current game against the AI, one enemy mortar section has caused me more trouble than two regiments of off-board artillery. The mortars just hit one of my forward positions and caught me shifting troops.

So far, I'm 17 turns into my battle and only three different fire missions from off-board artillery have been called. The two massive ones already mentioned and a one troop mission that was short and dropping on their own troops. Other than that, no counter battery fire, no fire on 14 other machine gun positions I have, none on the my 10 ATG or IG positions and and none anywhere along my line unless you want to count the short fire last turn. The AI just has too much artillery that isn't being used effectively and it seems to be confined to off-board varieties. If the AI was dropping artillery in places along my main line, with the volume it has my line would have dissolved by now. I'm only in my second campaign battle so my core is still pretty close to the starting experience of the Italians in June, 1940, which isn't all that great.

Call it a sense, but there seems to be something the AI is doing differently with the off-board artillery. The AI seems to be much more effective with on-board artillery, but I can't really quantify it.