Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

I don't even remember when it was the last time the AI attacked my artillery. I play single player often. The AI will attack my air defences some times, but not the other type of artillery.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

Several things to take into account before doing onboard CB fire.

1st I often do not bother unless I know or think its a heavy gun.
2nd how far through the game is it could be running out of ammo soon anyway

These are important because your guns will be away from the front lines for a while
Call time of 1.5 plus 2 turns to bombard means 6 turns minimum they are not suppresing the front line.

If you do CB using a Batt is a waste unless a tight group.
2 Mortars or guns if they wont reach on target should route & convince to run with the second go in most instances. If they are in rough I would not bother or assign a 3rd gun. If you think did not hit to well or side seems to rally well leaving one gun for an extra turn falling just back from in the position it routed to should stop it recovering.
This is an ideal use for your plane that just has its cannon left send it in on turn 2 so you see it & know its running.

Basically if you are going to CB you need to route it badly enough so it continues running. 2 or 3 guns will achieve this & one will remind it to keep running.

Truth is though I only do it if I am struggling for targets or know its something nasty as arty is much more useful giving my front line an easier ride. Especially if you are a mech force the best defence against arty is to move strike hard & relocate before it hits. If playing foot sloogers all you can do is diperse if you think its coming in trying to get platoon leaders clear as a priority.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

What size game do you play & how much arty do you have compared to the AI. I always have less & would say it tries to hit it every 4 or 5 games, not sure as not thought about but think pretty rare in meetings probably because it does not normally have so much. Recent assault battle I did pre bombarded with smoke screen & AI hit my arty a couple of turns later with everything it had.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

I don't have much artillery. 3-4 platoons plus some mortars, in max size map and 30K wallet.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

You must just be lucky then or conversely I am not, it does seem to depend what mood the AI is in but moving has saved me several times.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

To be honest I've pretty well given up trying to fire mortars/artillery on the front lines.
With the automatic scatter for the first volley (unless you have a high tech FO spotting) and my incredible luck - I'm not joking or exaggerating when I say close to 75% of the time it scatters toward my units - and the lack of effect suppression seems to have on the AI until it builds to about 50+ I find I hinder myself far more then the AI trying to hit the front lines.
I tend to stick to countermortar/battery and air defense suppression.

Only on rare occasions have I seen AI controlled mortars/artillery/SAM's collect enough suppression from less then 3 to 6 tubes of anything smaller then 155mm for the crew to rout. I just wish my troops were that steady under fire!

That's probably the difference, I tend to play with infantry heavy forces so running away is rarely an option, and AI indirect fire has an uncanny ability to land at the worst possible place at the worst possible moment, so suppressing it really does have to be a priority.

I rarely play with more then two batteries of off-map artillery on my side, and I pretty much have to leave them to the automatic counter battery routine to deal with the battalions of artillery the AI tends to have. So most of my counterbattery is done with 60mm, 81mm, 4.2"/120mm mortars - not the most effective weapons in the world for it, but all that I have available.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

I assume you are playing with standard settings.

Your troops are obviosly rather close to the enemy always assume the first round will fall short in that instance.
The only time I tend to bombard if within 100m is cluttered terrain namely woods & urban pinning them means you can move adjacent unseen mortars are the tool for the job or light arty but not offboard ever if you are in close proximity. You place the arty in the hex behind them not on them if distance is only 100m between the forces. Z fire with anyone in your force thats stuck & then move in.


Yes they are the most effective weapons to use thats why I said use them. Don't know if I have ever CB fired with 60s mind you due to range.
Your FOO probably does not have LOS so the goal is to route not kill them esp if near the map edge. Small weapons with a high rate of fire are best for this 2 single mortars probably put out as many shells as 3 155s

Never bothered to test but try setting up a quick one human vs human make sure target has a morale of 70-75 say Russia or Nato.
Fire 3 single mortars or 2 doubles if use those for 2 turns & see effect.
If you like try with 155s they will probably just be pinned.
To make sure you leave one gun firing an extra turn to keep them running both if you think you missed.
Using bigger guns only really do if have a LOS not hopeing to kill them but might get lucky & break the gun.

Using arty generally if suppresing a suspected location might spread about but tend to concentrate on targets firing at adj hexes often. If you do not do this need to fire for several turns to have an effect as rally each time in between fires. Very important if they are dug in in which case I would probably use near double the guns stated if I had them.
Means you never have enough to go round so have to think ahead where you are going to need it.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

Unless you have your units very close to the fire hexes, there is no way your arti will fire that far out.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

Hi all,

A bit late on the discussion, but I've just recently dug back into SP-MBT recently in resolving battles generated by GDW's The Third World War.

Anyways, I completely agree that aircraft in the game are generally not too terrible effective. I also agree with the reasons presented - namely that actual 'close support' really ISNT that effective within the time your average battle models.

Would it be possible to 'officially' reduce the point cost of the aircraft to model their in-game effectiveness (or lack there of ;) ). Are the points flexible to that sort of 'fudge factor'? I wouldnt want to see them super cheap or anything, but if almost everyone (including the coders) agrees that they arent that effective, it would seem logical to have the points match the perceived effectiveness.

Has this been proposed before or is there some other reason for not wanting to do this?

Anyways, thanks again for all the hard work. Regardless of all the other tactical games that come out, we always come back to SP-WW2 and SP-MBT. The modeling is simply superior to so many other games which boast more bells and whistles.

Re: is aircraft worth it?
 

If you think they are not cost effective why not just not buy them, if anything they are to cheap as making more expensive would mean people are less likely to use them.
Also the game bases cost on the units capabilities taking no acout of the useful battlefield info the pilot instantly radios to you.