Artillery

[DRG]

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Re " I can't figure out just what sort of mission I have"


When you end your turn look below the flag on the top right of the screen that indicates if it is your turn ending or the AI turn running and it will tell you what you or the AI is playing.

Your mission is also given to you at the start before you buy your core force AND it is given again after you pick your core force and there is a "mission" button on the formation selection screen that you can press at any time to check what type of mission you are fighting while you select your support troops. Then, after you select your support troops and are given the option of human or auto deploy or quit deploy or Save game there is another "Mission" button that allows you to re-check what type of battle you are fighting. After pressing "Quite deploy it appears again as I described at the start after you end your turn so we're not trying to keep this info a secret.

Don

[Charles22]

Okay, thanks DRG, I was fully aware of the many places I could find the mission, only it seems as though on the prior SPWW2 that I could find it in-game easily enough. I do further think I'm in an assault because the Poles have dug in units and if this SP is as the others have been, that's a surefire indicator.

One last thing though on this subject. One is that I've seen no mines, but I've seen dug in units. Is there a problem there? I've also noticed that for all the campaign starts I've done, though maybe only a couple of them were defensive missions, I didn't see any option for mines. Bear in mind I have played these games a great deal, so I know where they usually go (either towards the bottom of the screen or more likely in the support set of units (don't have the game with me at the moment so I forget the name - the one that commonly has trucks for example). I admit I only looked for the mines on two or three occasions of those campaign starts, and maybe I was ditzy enough just to look when "I" was on the offensive end, but I still didn't see them nonetheless. Is it a coincidence that I'm apparently in a assault mission with no mines, and I can't find mines for myself?

Thanks for the answers.

P.S. I like this game quite a bit better than SPWAW. The SPWAW maps aren't alterable on the fly and get far too small without warning and the smoke hanging around for ages is insufferable. This Windows version has removed most of the hangups I had with this game, including sound burps and mouse problems. BUT, then one of the main pleasantries I've found is the new ease of changing ranges at any time. I just hated always having to drag a somewhat sluggish mouse to the menu everytime in the old version. Now it's keyboard responsive too and that is sweet.

[cbo]

Andy,

Forgot about the warhead thing - in this case it is "5", so I guess that theoretically, the penetration could go as high as "7" (HE-pen=2 + warhead =5).
I assume that the randomness in the penetration values of HE hits on armour is there to represent the difference between shell fragments hitting the vehicle (very limited effect except for open-topped vehicles) and a direct hit by the complete shell, which could have rather dramatic effects?

Anyway, I'm currently in a campaign battle as the Italians, battling the French in the Alps. Somehow the bastards managed to drag a bunch of Char B1-bis up there . My AT-guns and puny Italian tanks are not really a match for those and the infantry seems more keen to run away than do close assaults, so I've been pounding the Char Bs with 75mm and 100mm artillery. I'd say that even if artillery may seem really deadly to AFVs when you are on the recieving end, it doesn't seem so when you need it to destroy opposing armour The 75mm guns have made no impression, while the 100mm guns have claimed 3 Char Bs. They have only fired at tank concentrations (mostly 2-3 tanks around the target hex sometimes a few others further away) and mostly out of LOS from the artillery observer. They have now fired most of their ammo, so that is about 250 rounds of 100mm HE to claim three tanks. A likely explanation for this result could be the thick roof of the Char B - it has top armour of "3" (which is correct, I was so shocked I looked it up )
My own pesky M13/40 tanks with top armour of "2" have been hit by French 60mm and 81mm mortars as well as 75mm and 105mm artillery, though not to the same extent that I've pounded the Char Bs. Still, I havent lost a single vehicle to enemy artillery, not even an immobilization. The supporting infantry is running away, though!
Incidentally, the bastard AI started the game by dumping a pre-emptive turn 0 barrage on the only left-right road. I did the same to the AI the difference being that I had stacked up on the road, he hadn't This was 75mm fire and had no ill effects on the M13/40s either (a platoon of infantry had to sit pinned for a couple of turns though).

Claus B

[chuckfourth]

Hello
I should of course firstly say thanks to all those who have brought to me so many many hours of enjoyment by contributing to this game.
Below I have attached the "results" of a test I did on the DOS version some time ago which may have some relevance to this thread. Of course I do not know if the causes of this descrepancy in results between indirect and direct fire has been addressed other than to make open topped vehicle a bit cheaper.

Thanks for your time Chuck

------------------------------------------------------------

control;
DIRECT fire of 50 mm Russ mortar (range > 250m) at sdkfz251 face armour 1 target, yields from 43 hits: 1 destroyed, 3 immobilised, 1 "*" hit. About 300 (give or take a couple) rounds fired.
test;
INDIRECT fire of 50 mm Russ mortar at sdkfz251, yield from 48 hits: 15 destroyed, 5 immobilised, 3 "*" hits. Total of 360 rounds fired.
test conditions;
big park of sdkfz251(1 per hex) surrounded by snipers (if not in view I dont get the 'hit, no effect' message) Artillery spotter AO cannot see target.
All shots reported as 'No Line Of Sight'
My conclusions;
The ratio of kills to hits is much higher for indirect fire than for direct fire
Possible cause(ignoring airburst);
shells falling directly in open back of vehicle
problem;
Probability of round falling in open back if they fall randomly in the 50 m hex, about 1 in 625 (given open back area of about 4 m sq.)
Actual probability according to test, 15 in 360. ie 104 in 2500 or 1 in 25
Possible causes;
1. Being in view is being interpreted by the Game as being in Artillery OP view(ie directed fire).
2. Consistency or Dispersion of the mortar is much less than "random in 50m square" ie by a significant digit shouldnt apply to "undirected" fire however as in this test.
3. Game considers being in blast zone equivelent to direct hit for purposes of calculating indirect fire effect, as this is indirect (plunging) fire the game is testing the HE effect against the top rather than the much more probable side, rear or front armour. This effectively increases the vehicles open top to the size of the blast zone explaining the difference if kills between direct and indirect fire.
While watching the fall of shot for results you soon realise that the distrubution of the results is even enough for this to be considered a big enough result set to draw conclusions from.

Also No. of rounds fired for the indirect test is an underestimate by about maybe 5% as rounds that fall in a hex where the vehicle has already been destroyed should be ignored.

Re: point 3 If this is in fact the case then (for closed top vehicles) near misses from indirect fire are being tested against the top armour rather than the side armour.
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[Cameronius]

In Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader, HE and Arty AFV kills are quite common. An 81mm mortar can be a better AT weapon than a 37mm ATG. Try firing your mortars directly at the AFVs in line of sight, the Polish AI has been doing this to my Panzer IIs with some good effect!

[Mobhack]

The AI does not always buy mines, in a defence.

And you mentioned about 3K points on a rather large (200 by 100?) map. The AI will have maybe 2 coys of infantry, a tank platoon and some ATG spread over a HUGE map, more the size for a brigade. Ditto with mines, if any bought they may be spread far and wide, and will be 40 to 80 points or so if bought, maybe 120 at the max.

With 3K points as the assaulting troop, you would be best sticking to the default 100 by 80 map, or smaller. For early war, and where I have (historic) mainly marching troops, I find 60 wide by 80, or 80 by 80 adequate where the core is about 3K to 4K points.

Cheers
Andy

[Niko3]

Firts, congartulations for the new Windows version, thanks!

But... always exist a "but" I play several battles and a campaign adn the artillery is VERY affective agains vehicles, including tanks and armored vehicles, the artillery kill more tanks than a AT, please any idea of how or when can be fixed that problem?, thanks.

Best
Niko

[Charles22]

Mobhack,
Thanks for the advice, but I much enjoy playing a very large map like that, with as it turns out is a 3200pt force instead. I like having enough territory to where having fire brigades is of much more important value. I've played enough games where with a visibility of 40, in one turn reinforcements in the middle can fire at either pole of the map. It's really much better this way and not for the faint of heart (200X140). It does tend to make attacks slightly more boring, but then I spread out my force somewhat to make it more challenging, but playing defense, now that's where the fun and the fire brigades are needed. Maybe one day I'll lose my love for that style of play, but I've played way too many of the Cram-a-lot games to interest me much. Anyway, I'm used to playing that way with the last version of SPWW2 with no problem and unless the AI scheming was changed in a major degree, I've covered enough of the map to know that I should have ran into some by now. I will say however, that I have run into more opposition, but just not where I expected it, as apparently there has been some re-working to get them to cover some of the more rearmost grapeshot VP's.

Alright, I have confirmed now that my suspicions about there not being mines to pick is incorrect. I was somehow letting the fact that Germany was 'attacking' in an assualt leading me to believe that mines should be avilable to the attacker, when that just isn't so. I then started a campaign as Poland and saw the 'defends' do indeed allow for mines to be bought. It will be interesing after this German campaign where I'm not seeing any mines, and though there have been more forces further back, to just see what was going on with the lack of mines. Strangely enough I haven't seen a single type of improvement be that mine, BW, or trenches. This game no longer had dragon's teeth available does it?

edited - Oh, sorry, I didn't know what 'DT' means and it didn't occur to me till now that it would in fact be dragon's teeth. Doh!

Thanks again.

[pdoktar]

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.

[serg3d]

pdoktar said:
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.

Somehow I doubt validity of this report. There weren't any T-34 in winter war, and only five KV-1 were deployed in the last months of the war.