Artillery
 

Hi gents,

First of all, thank you for the game.

Second, I have noticed that artillery efectiveness against infantry has been changed slighty towards less casualties and more supression taken. I think that's OK.

Third, It seems that artillery effectiveness against vehicles/tanks has been beefed up a lot. From my limited experience Artillery is a true tank killer now. Even 105's kill many panzers easily every turn. I have not tried mortars yet. Anyone has noticed this or I am wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Best regards
Miki

Re: Artillery
 

Hi Miki,

I am not aware of such a dramatic change concerning arty lethality on tanks but I may give a very good solution to adjust the game according to your preferences:

In the preferences menu, set:

Tank Toughness to 105%-110%
Infantry Toughness to 90%-95% and
Artillery Effectiveness to 80%-90%

This way you may achieve a balance that will satisfy you.

cheers,
Pyros

Re: Artillery
 

Hi Miki,

that may be very true, especially if the panzers you were using have relatively thin armor. There's a good chance that a tank in the blast circle of an artillery round gets hit by flying shrapnel and/or the concussion from the blast (more than in MBT). Panzers with thin armor on certain sides or especially those with have no armor on one or more sides (like many SP-AT's) can suffer badly from artillery.

Narwan

Re: Artillery
 

I've tried
Tank Toughness 105%
Infantry Toughness 95
Artillery Effectiveness 90%
Tanks (TIII) still often killed by 120mm mortars. I donnow, is it realistic ? How often were tanks killed by heavy mortars in WW2 - was it exeption, or nothing special ?

Re: Artillery
 

A Troop of the 5th Field (4x 25-pounders) has been assisting the 21st Maori Bn in the defense of Platamon (Greece) against an attack of the I/3 Panzer Regiment of the 2nd Panzer division [100 tanks+)

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ETO/...mpaigns-21.jpg

Re: Artillery
 

There were no changes between MBT and WW2 in the arty (some think the blast circles are new, but they are not and have been there all the time - we just added a switch (originally just for debug, but we allowed this for the end user as the playtesters liked it:)) to show the circles graphically.

I will monitor this thread and see what the consensus is. But it is possibly because the armour in WW2 (esp top armour) tends to be thinner than in MBT. And many open-topped "shell spitoons" exist.

Anecdote: The first Royal Tiger kill in Normandy was with a 2 inch mortar. The guys who fired it cannot agree if the tiddly little 2lb bomb went straight down the turret hatch or simply into the ammo truck it was parked beside and replenishing from. Either way - the turret was lifted by an internal explosion, a halftrack nearby was abandoned, and the other Royal Tiger exited the village sharpish! .

Cheers
Andy

Re: Artillery
 

There was a well-documented test conducted in the UK in 1942 where 16 Churchill tanks were driven through a 600x400 yeard area, pounded by 72 25-pdr guns firing at 72 RPM for 8 minutes while the tanks drove slowly through the area.

Just for the fun of it, I tried replicating that by parking 16 Churchill IIIs in such an area and pound them at roughly 84 RPM (24 guns each firing 7 rounds pr. 2 min. turn) for three turns. The catch is, that in the real test, they timed the shells for airburst whereas SP represents the shells gonig off on impact.

In the real test, many tanks were hit, one lost a track and another suffered damage to a bogie but managed to crawl out of the area.

The SP equivalent produced the following:

Game: tanks destroyed/immobilized
#1: 3/2
#2: 6/3
#3: 5/4
#4: 3/3

I did a fifth run, monitoring the hits

#5: 2/2

The two kills were by top hits, the two immobilizations were from "NON-PENETRATING" hits. There were plenty of both that did no damage. There was also a lot of side and front turret and hull hits which did no damage, but the PEN value of the 25-pdr hits on these locations could sometimes go as high as 5 (most are less though).

The 25-pdr has HE-Pen=2.

I replaced the Churchills with Crusader IIIs with lesser armour, particularily top armour which is 1 vs the Churchills 2

#6: 8/1 (one or two imobilized vehicles were later destroyed)

In this case, 6 were destroyed by top hits, one by side turret hit and one by a front hull hit.

Replacing the Crusader IIIs with open topped M10s resulted in carnage

#7: 11/3 (two of the immobilized vehicles were later destroyed)

All destroyed fell to top hits, which also caused most of the damage to the immobilized vehicles.

In the final test, I replaced the M10s with Staghounds with thin side and rear armour (1) but changed the top armour to 10 to prevent top penetrations.

#8: 5/3

In this case, all the destroyed vehicles fell to side turret and hull penetrations.

IF the number of vehicles destroyed or damaged by artillery fire is excessive - and I'm not saying it is - then there seem to be two culprits:

A: Too many top hits, as this is the real killer
B: The penetration value from HE is too high. In this test, a gun with a HE-pen value of 2 could end up anywhere between 0 and 5 and thus would be deadly to many armoured vehicles, particularily those with thin armour.

That's my take, anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Claus B

Re: Artillery
 

Remember to add WH size to the HE pen, as some (not all) shots will add Random(WH) to this as a "weight" factor. same as with direct AP fire. Max pen can therefore be the sum of both.

Open topped vehicles have almost no defence against HE or AP rounds if hit on the top (even rifle/mg rounds will go through if fired from a higher level and produce top hits).

Cheers
Andy

Re: Artillery
 

historically HE shells, even while not being able to penetrate armour, if large enough can crack armour just from the concussive forces of being hit with say a 122mm artillery shell.

Re: Artillery
 

I have played all the SP incarnations since the game came out, with the exception of the original SP2, and to this early point the arty seems too effective to me.

At first the AI Poles were mostly bombarding with 75mm HOW's in places where I had little or no units. Now, however, they have found a good sized force of mine and it's pretty awful; something I surely wouldn't expect from 75's. About that time I noticed this blast radius thing and turned it on. As I've read so far, it would appear this radius is always in place and it may have just coincided with the Poles finding a good-sized force, but the carnage seems extreme to me.

In the span of approximately 3 turns I've lost an estimate of 12-15 vehicles; mostly tanks such as the PZ38t.

Another frustrating thing is I can't figure out just what sort of mission I have. Normally I know such a thing, from the start, but I do question whether I know it when I thought I was in an assault and haven't seen a single mine. I have a 3200pt force and have met 3 PO AC's with maybe 15 squads of infantry and I have spotted some arty puffs of smoke, etc. I'm not quite through with the battle, but it definitely has airs of being a basically non-existent enemy. This is all the more frustrating combined with arty devastation noted above. Are the Poles picking almost nothing but 75 HOW's? That's not too interesting. The force seems extremely light for a tank-heavy force option. I believe I'm playing on a 200X140 generated map. I may be on a mission that isn't an assault, as I've restarted the campaign so many times I may had got mixed up.

One last thing, I have brought up a lot of things that don't have too much to do with arty here, but I do that to not only give the overall atmosphere but also because I can't see how I can start a new topic. Supposedly I do have that privilege.

I have bought the cd too and hope that the arty will be adjusted. I'm not too keen on fiddling with things like armor toughness as it just seems too arbitary and I'm not too sure how it works anyway. I must also say that I don't think I have ever seen anyone give the Polish tank guns so much penetration. Combine that with the arty in this game and the Gerrys wouldn't have accomplished a thing. I have hardly used my own arty in this game, and I'm glad of that as it turns out, because if it had been otherwise I guess I wouldn've had even less fights than I did by far. Well, I'm sure it will be adjusted in some manner.

Now how about telling me how I start a new topic? Thanks.

Re: Artillery
 

To start a new topic go to the main forum area ( where you see all the different topics )look at the top for the line on the left that says "The Camo Workshop >> WinSPWW2 " then look to the right of the screen on that same line and you will see...

Post .. Previous .. Index .. Next .. Expand

Press POST. The rest should be self explanatory

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

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif. 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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif 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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )
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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif 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

Re: Artillery
 

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.
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Artillery
 

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!

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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

Narwan

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

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.

Re: Artillery
 

Interesting.

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

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

Re: Artillery
 

When I get comments like this I really wonder if everyone's playing the same game we playtested but when we do get reports like this the first thing we like to do is go back and retest the game based on the information we are given.

Since I have NO idea what side you are playing but will assume it's the US side I set up a desert advance by the Germans against a mixed US infantry , mortar and AT gun formation. Very heavy on the mortars because you reported them to be the primary tank killers and with a back up of AT guns. Admittedly this was in the desert in 1942 and the 37mm AT gun isn't the best but if the mortars do the job you say they do I should leave a trail of destruction with them.

After ending the first turn I had plenty of targets to fire at but I choose two armoured cars that had advanced further than the rest and were between 650 and 750 yards from my mortars with good visibility and a clear LOS. I started firing at them in an attempt to see how many shots it would take to knock them both out. These were "double" mortars so for every three shots showing available to a unit 6 rounds went towards the two targets.

14 individual mortar units were fired at those two armoured cars 14x3x2= 84 rounds went downrange towards those targets. I recorded 15 hits ( 17% ) with the net result of one destroyed AC and one disabled so I had one kill and one disablement from 2.4 % of the 84 shots fired.

It took only five shots from 800 yards to finish off the disabled AC with a 37mm AT gun.

Now..... maybe a 17% to-hit ratio for direct fire mortars against a vehicle at 750 yards in perfect visibility is too much ( any mortarmen out there ??? ) but I expended a lot of assets at the enemy for very little return using Mortars as AT guns. I reran the save game only this time I fired the 37 mm AT guns that were backing up the mortars at the two armoured cars. I had killed both AC's after firing a grand total of 7 shots ( that's 7 shots to kill two AC's not 7 per AC ) so I would say that it's "BS" that mortars are better AT guns than AT guns.

However, if you would like to provide us with a save game that demonstrates your contention we will be GLAD to look into it. We already know something is a bit off with the arty code and we think we may be on track to isolating it so if you can provide a save or better still a test sceanrio that proves your theory you will be helping everyone out. However the test *I* ran seems to prove otherwise

Don

UNLESS you were comparing indirect mortar fire to direct AT gun fire??? It's not clear from your report just which mode the mortars are the best "tank killers"

Re: Artillery
 

Sorry, i dont have a save from this. As soon as i will be back home i will make another one and will post it.

Re: Artillery
 

OK... test number two

one company of Shermans being bombarded on the opening turn by ten sections of German 81 MM mortars and 1 company of MkIVf's being bombarded by 10 sections of US mortars.

Net result...... 7 Shermans retreating from ground zero with no losses and on the German side three PzIV's retreating. One disabled, one destroyed

160 mortar rounds expended by the US side and the same for the Germans. 10 sections each with two mortars and each tube fired 8 rounds

Don

Re: Artillery
 

What I am saying is not that I use the mortars but in a generated campain game in 2 games I have lost an average of 6 armored vehicles to 75mm artillery and 81mm mortors including at least one sherman, and 2 M-10's. Most losses being M-3 apcs. As a 20 year armor man I have seen what an 81mm mortor round looks like when it hits and it is not like the movies. Also If you take the square meters of a hex 2175 and the square meters of a M-3 (15) the number is way to high. If you plot out the burst radius of an 81mm mortar round at about 40 meters in diameter you get that high a hit ratio. However that diameter is the 50% hit radius on personnel targets with the shrapnal. You have to use the size of the projectile agains the area of the hex and the actual area of the vehicle. Then on an open topped pc you would have to halve the area for the open rear compartment. I could see more mobility hits or the killing of passengers rather than the destruction of the vehicle. Your example of a British 2 inch mortar killing a King Tiger is a case of using the exception to prove the rule. I doubt if that has ever happened again.

In summery what I do not like is the high precentage of vehicle kills by 75mm and 81mm mortars. If they were mobility hits I could accept that but not that many kills by mortars.


Dave Malesevich

SFC USA-Ret 19K4HA7

Re: Artillery
 

Hi gents,

Andy, Don, Thanks for looking into it.

Re: Artillery
 

We are looking into this and we are testing changes but it's a delicate balance to keep everyone happy ( well.......not EVERYONE, that's impossible.....just most people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

Don

Re: Artillery
 

We are looking into this. The "problem" was not obvious to us while playtesting. It was only after the game was released and the complaints started and we specifically set up tests that the issue really showed up. The changes to the code to make these changes are always small and subtle otherwise we end up with the pendulum on the other side. It also depends on the tests run. The first few we ran didn't really show a problem so we had to refine the tests. There are quite a number of random variables built into the game and these can throw off test results in small test samples so what you see in a couple of games may not show up in a couple of tests simple becasue the game tossed in a couple of curve balls to my test ( or your game )

Don

Re: Artillery
 

Don,

I understand what your are saying. So you understand where I am comming from leave me tell you a little about myself. 1st I have 21 years of Active Duty in the US Army as a tank commander/platoon sergeant and Master Gunner. I have also taught soldiers how to be tank commanders. On computers I go back to an Altair 6000 with 640bits of memory. In gaming I go back to 1961 and Avalon Hills D-Day. In the 70's I acquired over 100 SPI games. Your two games are the only armor games that I currently play to any extent. They are fun and fairly accuate.

What I do not like comes from over 2500 main gun rounds fired out my tanks. I do know tank gunnery.

After the 1st round is fired any competent gunner should be able to hit the target by the 2nd at latest 3rd round fired. Once you have hit the target the largest problem is solved (determining range) From then on you should be able to continue to hit the target as long as the err budget doesn't cause you to miss. In game turms once you hit you should probobly get a 15-20% bonus for contiued hits on the same target or any target within 2 hexes of the origional target.

Secondly I do not like the way that each tank will fire all of its weapons at the same target even if there is no chance of target damage. I would really like to see the possibilty of multipule engagements ie(engaging 2 or more targets with 2 or more weapons systems) In game turms this means putting the gunner on to a main gun or mg target and then letting the TC fire his 50 at a different target. The bow gunner should always engage the closest infantry in his line of sight.

I realize that I have rambled here. I'm sorry.

In conclusion please do not think that I don't like what you guys have done because I realy apprciate your hard work.

Dave Malesevich
SFC USA-Ret 19K4HA7

Re: Artillery
 

You do recall these are WWII tanks don't you? I mean some of them didn't have anything more thna the most rudimentary optics. Also consider that your targets in many cases are not standing still, because even though the enemy unit is stationary as you see it, sometimes the unit actually has a speed that it's traveling. Of course, the shot is more difficult still when your tank is moving also. The WWII tanks found it pretty close to impossible to hit much of anything while moving as I understand, and then there's the often added difficulty if the tank hits a bump or divet in the ground, further throwing the shot off.

Re: Artillery
 

Yes I understand that these are WWII tanks I started on the M48A2 which is basicly an M-26 with a balictic computer and a rangefinder. Using the balistic sights on a tank an experianced gunner can hit moving targets by the 2nd or 3rd round. Now if you are moving (and cannot execute a short halt attack) that is a differnt story unless you are in an M-3 or M-5 light tank that had a stabalization system. Then you have a great 37mm gun that is usless against anything made after 1942. Altho there is a story about an M-8 AC that destroyed a Tiger with its 37mm. (It was a shot up the rear of the tank at about 10 feet range.)

Dave Malesevich
SFC USA-Ret 19K4HA7

Re: Artillery
 

Have you considered the high-velocity issue too? Because I would assume the vast majority of the modern or semi-modern systems see a much higher proportion of high-velocity, therefore making the shot much surer with or without any optics.

Also, please consider that you said "experienced gunner" as there's a great many of these nations that aren't using those sort of gunners at various times. Get a Panther out there with an experienced gunner (what, a guy with experience in the 80's?) and I think you'll usually egt them by the 3rd shot in not too far a distance. Also, remember the game is just giving percentages, so for every decent tank that misses the first 6 shots, you may have another that hits the first time, which would average what you're saying the average gunner could do.

Re: Artillery
 

OK.... do you have any examples of what you are unhappy with exactly becasue if I take a tank with an experienced gunner in this game and fire it at a target it will almost certainly hit and kill that target in three shots. ( assuming the gun has the penetration to kill ). Set up a test sceanrio and show me the problem. Give the gunner 95 experience




Point 2 I'm almost 100% certain you are never going to see the way you describle it. The tank may switch targets but having the turret engage one target and the hull MG engage another is very, very unlikely to happen

Don

Re: Artillery
 

The game system uses a 3 shot ladder for most weapons (exeptions are infantry small arms and missiles mainly).

Roughly speaking, first shot at a target is 1/3 the chance, second 2/3 and third (and subsequent) at full to-hit chance.

And I changed the code in MBT for laser range finders (20+) to a 2-stage ladder, if within a certain multiplier of the RF number, which I cannot recall ATM - may be 1.5 .

The Fire Control and Range Finder, and other factors also produce limitations, so if you have a shot that goes say 25% and then sticks on say 50% for subsequent shots, then you have reached some sort of limitation (FC, range finder, or movement (yours or target) etc).

Personally, I do not really like the SP "formula based" sytem. If I were ever to do my own engine from scratch, it would be a system based like all good tabletop wargames, on tables. Same for target effect. For an example - see any of the WRG or TTG wargames rule sets. So - a to-hit table for each gun/ammo combination, and an effect table for each ammo type, with columns for 0-50, 51-100 etc, and line items for adjustment factors (Target in woods, -20, and so on). Tables can be published easily, formulae would need the end user to scrabble through thousands of lines of C code. Tables are also easier for the programmer to debug too, as you can make an educated guess on what some adjustment would do to hit chance or kill chance, otherwise you have to debug thousands of lines of C, calling various subroutines and so on.

This game system has no "I have hit the target" modifier either, unlike say the WRG 1950-2000 system. Just number of shots fired on target which gets reset if you change to a new one.

The other problem with the SSI formula-based system is that it uses one set of numbers and then tries to fit this into various entirely different types/modes of fire (AA, HE, AP, missile) etc.

It probably made sense back in 1990 or so, when PCs were so limited in storage both disk and RAM, that a few bytes shaved here or there allowed an extra 100 units. And individual tables for each weapon would be a bad case there as well. The limitation to HEAT and sabot for weapon 1 is likely from there - my guess is there was only HE and AP, and someone added that at the last minute. And instead of extending the original array of ammo for each weapon slot, (ammo[slot][2] to ammo [slot][4]) they were tacked on as single bytes in the weapon data, and then in order to fit HEAT weapons in slots not #0 the "222 kludge" came in, which would not have been needed if the extra 2 ammo type slots had been added to the ammo array in the first place. But back then, 6 more bytes of storage (times N units) was probably important due to the limited memory. After all - when PBEM replay was added then you had to have a PC with extended memory and at least 4MB (?) of RAM, which back then was considered huge http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

So - all likely inherited limitations from the original target system, i.e. a 1MB or so RAM PC (486 processor, if lucky).

Cheers
Andy

NB - WRG have published the old out of print "Infantry Action" rules on-line here WRG 1925-75 Rules - a good use for you 1/72 Airfix figures, or an excuse to get a few boxes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And for a typical "table based" approach rather than formulas see the infantry results table of the above Anti Personell table

Re: Artillery
 

Does WinSPWW2 use the same code calculating artillery damage as WinSPMBT? And if you developers are now looking into it, does this mean there are these same problems also in WinSPMBT? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Artillery
 

I'm playing WinSPMBT quite often and i dont have problem with too many artilery kills. But its true, that MBTs top armor is much higher than ww2 tanks have...

Re: Artillery
 

Andy,

What I think would help is if the hit percentage went up for the target in the hex with each shot when you hit the target you get a 15-20% boost for the next round fired at that target or any target within 1 hex. In real life the hardest part of the early tanker was getting the range right. Once you have hit the target you have the range. If you are using a balistic reticle all you have to do is put the same range line on the target again. Again in real life once you hit a target you can engage any target withing 200 meters using the same range and the superelevation of the gun will be close enough to enable a hit. In the game with WWII ammunition I would say to restrict it to a one hex distance. Targets in the same hex should recieve the same percentaage with the extra 15-20%. I don't know if this is doable but I feel it would improve the game.

Please don't think that I don't like what you guys have done because Win SPWWII and MBT are probobly my two favorite games. When I was on active duty on tanks every day my computer gaming was Harpoon. I saw enough of tanks every day.


Dave Malesevich

Re: Artillery
 

Back on topic, just played a Germany vs. Czechoslovakia meeting in 1938, with rather huge forces on a 60x60 map. My enemy didn't use his arty properly but my 105mm and 75mm guns as well as 75mm mortars were blazing away rather permanently... And I haven't noticed any problems with too much kills. IIRC the arty destryed one vz.33 tankette and two armoured cars, the rest of Czechoslovakian tank force fell prey to my 88's and Panzers. So I don't think the light arty is as dreadful killer as someone here suggested.

EDIT: against soft vehicles it was a completely different matter, as it should be. His motor inf. in trucks got slaughtered, esp. as he moved them in tight groups - one of such groups got almost completely destroyed in one turn by splash damage of Panzer IV's 75mm shells.

Re: Artillery
 

I think you get results more indicative of what we have been talking about if it is 'your' AFV's that are being bombarded. Try bunching up maybe 15-20 at various places on a road, and let him see you and blaze away, and see what happens. If all you got was 3 AFV's then you either weren't bombarding where they were, or he basically didn't have very many. Try what I said and just out of that one group, 75mm's alone will do in twice what you saw in your game. I had about 35-40 tanks altogether and probably lost 6 of them to those mere 75's in that type of situation I described (not to count all the SPAA's, HT's, and AC's those things killed). I think I only had one HT out of all of that which survived with a track hit, as most of the hits were either bounces or kills. I was playing the Germans as the assaulting side BTW and I had to slow my attack down more than I would have liked due to the likelihood of mines in the vicinity. He didn't need mines when 75's hit like that and I got that salvo for approximately 2-3 turns before it died out for some reason.

His side (Polish) had either 12 or 16 75mmm guns. Not s great deal by any means. At least half of those were onboard or I would had really been in trouble.

Re: Artillery
 

In that specific place he had circa 6 LT-35's and three vz.33's in one spot, in neighboring hexes. Got two 75mm and one 105mm battery on him for about 6 turns and got just that one tankette. The two armoured cars were on a different spot, both got by one 75mm battery salvo.
Oh damn me! Totally forgot to mention we got the Arm toughness set to 150% (my preferred setting). So maybe that was the cause.

Re: Artillery
 

It's good you caught that. Another primary difference also: you were bombarding with very little over a more extended period, at least compared to what happened to me. I had like 12-16 guns bearing down for three straight turns. The only thing that saved several of them was that they routed out of the bombardment zone.