Counter battery fire question
 

I checked the manual (Ctrl+F "counter") and did a search on the forum, but I still have a question about counter battery fire:

1. On-board artillery
a) Does it ever counter-battery fire against other on-board artillery (or is the player expected to plot those missions)?
b) Does it ever counter-battery fire against off-board artillery (and does it matter if the on-board artillery has the 200+ range)?

2. Off-board artillery
a) Does it ever counter-battery fire against on-board artillery?
b) Does it ever counter-battery fire against off-board artillery?

The answer to the last two seems to be yes, but I'm asking just to have 100% clarification.

I understand the rules about leaving the artillery idle, having high enough experience etc. as those are spelled out in the manual.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Off map artillery can CB other Off map artillery. On map artillery can manually CB other on map artillery (in other words, if the player plots a bombardment onto the enemy artillery. Anything else and the answer is negative (that means that on board artillery cannot CB enemy off board artillery and vice versa).

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Off map arty can counter other off map arty, if the range is >= the target battery and its skill is high and it is not plotted to fire.

On map arty is a target for both on and off map arty.

On map arty does not fire counter battery at off map arty.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Thank you for the quick response, but there are discrepancies in the two answers. Just to clarify, because the two answers are slightly different on these points:

On-map arty CAN fire counter battery fire (that is, fire on its own, as long as certain conditions are met) against on-map arty, or does it have to be plotted by the player?

Off-map arty CAN fire counter battery fire against on-map arty?

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

ΟΚ, I did a slight mistake on my first reply so I'll answer to your second post:

1-The CB fire of On-map artillery is actually the case of the player (or AI) plotting bombardment on enemy (on map) artillery, NOT automatic CB fire like when off map CBs another off map.

2-Technically it can, but in the same way as case 1 above.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

1. On map arty has no ability to "counter battery" either on map or off map artillery units. On map arty relies solely on the ability to have the target spotted, whatever the target is, though also you can "shoot in the blind" where you suspect the enemy is located. Concerning arty units you might not see the actual piece of artillery/mortars etc. but, possibly one of your units might just see smoke on the map somewhere. This is a good indication in relation to your units that closer in might be an unseen ATGW team(s), medium distance possibly a mortar unit(s) and further out either field or SPA/SPAA units as a very general rule of thumb. Note what you can figure out in this way so can an opponent whether human or AI. Speaking about this from the AI point of view, it does this very well on it's own.
So yes, it all has to be plotted.

2. Counter battery is totally in the realm belonging to Off Map Arty and then only if you have enough Off Map Units that are not committed to any other fire mission. This applies to all players including the AI.

3. All artillery attacks against On Map Arty has to be plotted whether in the blind or spotted.

Hope this clears it up for you.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Counter battery fire only happens agains off map units & is only initiated by off map units that are idle.
The firing unit must have a range equal or greater than the target.
Experience is a major factor, 80+ units are good at CB fire, below 70 normaly need to be idle for several turns & may never fire.
CB always uses all tubes even if some are turned off manually.
Use these criteria to select the best unit(s) to reserve for CB fire.

On map units do not CB fire & all attacks versus them must be plotted by you, smoke puffs give them away & are easy to see with the CD version.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

against off map

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

I'll add to this

ANSWER: THE PLAYER IS EXPECTED TO PLOT ON MAP VS ON MAP CB

ANSWER: NO THE AI WILL NEVER AUTOMATICALLY CB OFF MAP ARTY USING ON MAP ARTY ASSETS

ANSWER: NO, OFF MAP ARTY WILL NEVER AUTOMATICALLY CB ON MAP ARTY

ANSWER: YES IF LEFT IDLE...IT IS NEVER A CERTAINTY THAT IF YOU DO NOT TARGET OFF MAP ARTY IT WILL BE USED AS COUNTER BATTERY---THERE ARE A NUMBER OF RANDOM FACTORS....RANGE, CREW EXPERIENCE AND MORALE AND SOME OTHER GENERAL RANDOMNESS TOSSED IN SO THAT NOTHING IS 100% CERTAIN

Don

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

A quick follow on question, if I may?

My CB fire seems MUCH more effective on its first salvo, (usually 30+ hits and Battery destroyed) than subsequent turns (around 4 "hits") - Is this normal / intentional?

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

The artillery that causes so much destruction (20+ damage per CB salvo) is artillery equipped with DPICM munitions. These are devastating against lightly armored vehicles and also very effective against infantry in the open. Pre-DPICM, artillery usually causes around 5 dmg at best in CB fire. So what happens is that at first, your arty uses DPICM and raises hell on earth. Then, as said ammo is diminished, it has to use regular artillery rounds, which aren't that effective. In addition to that, I believe (but haven't proved that) that the less ammo an artillery unit has, the less likely it is to perform CB fire.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

I believe the numbers go down over time very simply is because there just are less surviving enemy off map units to counter battery. Two other issues I think that come into play, though, I could off base here is...
1) Less firing by the enemy due to damage, suppression and ammo supply.

2) For your side, if you've not been CB'd, the first two items from "1)" wouldn't apply, however, if you stay in CB mode against the enemy ammo becomes your issue as well.

3) One other factor I just thought of, is the player shifting fire missions of some of their off map arty to other targets. reducing the number available for CB missions and depending on which of your units you chose to continue CB missions, you might've chosen less experienced units to do the job reducing their effectiveness.

I think I'm close to the mark here (?) without having a "manusha sandwich" for lunch. Which I now need to take care of now/lunch that is! ;)

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

I have not paid much attention to this but thinking it through.

As mentioned above if the unit has CM ammo it will use it, second fire may only be a partial fire due to remaining ammo then it will switch to HE
Rockets also second fire will be with reduced ammo.
Experince also plays a part, lets assume lower experince units are detected faster on the whole so are the early targets. An on map units experince does effect its vulnerability to damage, dodges or uses cover better.
Same probably applies to offmap CB was less effective as less rounds hit target, just assume they nearly got away with relocating before being fired on.

From playing a damaged unit works exactly as an on map unit does, think of it as crew abandons & then recrews at some point. Level of damage effects ROF & probably has destroyed a tube.
Damaged units therefore may recover but will perform with reduced effectivness.

To prevent this & destroy the battery rockets are very effective, I often save second salvo for on map use & HE is normaly fine.
Generally want good HE kill so big guns, if you have special (LW or similar) ammo theses are very effective.
The units with around double the HE kill but reduced ammo. If they have the range 105 versions of these are very effective. HE kill is normally better than the bigger tubes plus they usually have a higher R0F though unit cost reflects this.

Pure speculation but I would say following happens though never bother looking at in this detail
Number of tubes x ROF ( gives approximation of the volley) x HE kill gives lethality.
Arty skill of firing unit effects lethality if really want to take into account as does experince of the defender.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Off map arty is a soft target - the C/B routine uses the shells with the highest HE kill to determine damage. Also, it needs a certain number of shells available (~6 per gun?) in order for the battery to be considered for to fire C/B. The routine deals out damage (including gun kills) on a per-shell basis, not a total HE kill times shells.

The likelihood of an off-map battery being located for C/B goes up as the game goes on, due to the target battery usually having fired more often as the game progresses.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Would be neat if a message could be pop up when a CB kill occurred.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

It does. When a successful CB mission is done, a message is displayed to notify the player about it, and the total damage the battery has sustained so far is shown as well.

If the battery sustains so much damage it ceases to exists, a message "BATTERY DESTROYED!" is displayed.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

To further expand on this:

There are three levels of artillery command:
1. under command
2. direct support
3. general command (cheapest to buy guns at 50% but slowest to shoot at targets).

Does the level of command affect the chance of CB? I did some play testing and I cannot be sure but it did seem to me that guns under general command had a better chance of CB than those of under command. Is this correct, or is the chance equal all around and I just observed an oddity in my tests?

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Pretty sure the notes said level of command does effect, 1-3 best to worst.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

from the game Guide:

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

So I had it backwards, under command give best chance of CB which is opposite from my play testing but as stated that could have been fluke results. Yeah, the manual.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Early in a Russian LC battle (turn 3 or 4 IIRC) a recently upgraded 122mm battery (experience 88) fired off-map CB against one of three German 10.5cm batteries, scoring one hit. For quite a few turns none of those batteries fired at all. Then, around turn 12 or so they all started firing again, without any response from the 122mm, which was idle throughout the battle except for that single CB salvo. Is this normal? Thanks.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Yes - you caused the battery to retreat or possibly rout. After a while it recovered and returned to business. If it was the leader battery for a battalion formation the subordinates may not have been in contact. If not in contact - no calls taken from the FOOs.

Rare to retreat so long from just one hit, but it happens.
Rare that both subordinate batteries would stay out of contact so long - but it can happen.

(The batteries may have been in direct or general support as well, so having longer call times if not pre-plotted in a programme).

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

OK thanks. But why didn't the Russian 122mm battery respond to subsequent fires later on?

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Because it did not throw good enough dice. Chance is involved in all things, there are very few certainties.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Counter battery fire is one of the truly "C'est la guerre" aspects of the game. If you leave off map batteries idle they CAN fire.... and they MAY fire....but they MAY NOT fire and you as the commander have no control whatsoever so you need to decide to use the batteries for fire missions or leave them idle on the hope the stars and planets will align and they will give the enemy trouble..... it's always been that way and always will. You can never be SURE at the start of the game what benefit or not they will give you because this randomness is the only way to simulate the science of detecting enemy batteries position and getting your guns trained on it and doing enough damage to silence it......for how long?... you don't know because RL commanders don't know either....did you actually destory the guns of drive the crews into their trenches and the same is true of your PBEM opponent or the AI....it's a crap shoot in the game just as in RL

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Warning: Generalized statements follow which are based on US military doctrine (but hold true for other military forces) and will have established exceptions:
Most counter battery assets will be at Division or Corps level which is above the level of command in both WINSP games.
Artillery assets are usually considered to be either General or Direct to the units they support or Dedicated to a specific task.
General Support Artillery fires in support of the operation as a whole rather than in support of a specific subordinate unit.
In WINSPMBT this would be the OFF MAP artillery. It could fire on map targets or be used to counter battery detected enemy artillery. It also can be considered to be supporting other commands not on the player's map.
Direct Support Artillery provides fire requested by the supported unit.
In WINSPMBT this would be the ON MAP artillery, supporting only the units on the map.

A battery assigned to one task rather than a unit (H&R, Interdiction, Counter-Battery...etc) can be considered Dedicated to that task. This is what a player is doing when they leave a battery idle for a chance of it to counter fire an enemy artillery unit.

My observation is that a dedicated CB battery would be considered to be quicker in support of that mission and deployed and supported for more efficient CB. Two ways to do this could be, 1. A new artillery unit 'Dedicated CB Arty' that the player buys that does not fire on map but has a higher % of firing. 2. No new units but arty capable of CB that remain idle gain a better % each turn they stay idle up to a capped % based on nationality/doctrine/training factors for each nation greater than the game currently simulates. In a perfect game world it would be able to CB enemy artillery on the player map without input from the player.
Oh to sleep, perchance to dream...

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

CB is already good for experienced nations as experience is the major factor that determines if a unit CB fires.
70+ are quite good 80+ I have CB fired on a battery after its first shot, cannot get better than that.

Lets assume experience simulates detection equipment & the training to use it, hence the location of the battery.

Low experience sides in the 60s will hardly ever CB fire unless the other side fires continuous fire missions. AI normally does 2 missions & a break try doing 5 or 6 in a row & your inviting CB fire from anyone.

My guess is this represents things well for most nations poorly trained nations will be ineffective at CB fire as portrayed.
If a low experience side has a well trained CB element its easy enough to replicate. Give the formation a experience boost so it gets 70+ experience.

Should the designers want to add a class to under command, direct, general support they could boost experience & either make it unusable on map or give it a high call time as that's not its mission.
This would probably help the AI more than the player as it would be holding its high experience units for CB fire, something you do already.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Somewhat off-topic, but are off-map arty considered dug-in for assaults/defenses? If so, then isn't it unlikely that anything smaller than 155mm will do any appreciable damage? Thanks for your kind attention.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Off map are soft. Dug in or not is ignored. Bigger shells firing are better at CB than little ones.

Counter battery is simply an abstraction - it is something dealt with by higher level commanders than you.

Leave your off map batteries idle, and higher command may use them to fire on enemy firing off-map units without bothering to ask you. Experience and range of the idle batteries is the main determinant of CB firing, and how big a bang the guns make in determining damage.

That is all you as a battalion commander need to know.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

FWIW--and at risk of flogging this dead horse--a recent assault battle had my 122mm battery firing within the first 10 turns and scoring 7 hits on the German 10.5cm battery. Then switched it to on-map fires for awhile. When the enemy battery (there was only one) resumed fire it went back to standby, apparently doing more CB (I must've missed the message) since at battle's end the German battery was retreating with 34 points of damage. Most gratifying, and yet another reason to love this incredible game.

Cheers and Happy New Year folks!

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Since I frequently make USMC scenarios, and they rely heavily on close air support, and aircraft don't perform counter-battery, I frequently put an artillery/rocket battery in my scenarios and set it's reinforcement turn to 49 (the max possible), that's often longer then the scenario. It's a pretty good way to represent CB CAS missions being performed by a higher echelon HQ.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Neat. The versatility and sophistication of this marvelous game make it a gift that keeps on giving. Happy New Year Suhir!

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Again Happy New Year!! Just wanted to make a quick comment from an earlier question on Pg. 3, I think you'll that almost all RL SP Arty can easily "Shoot-n-Scoot" and currently fire again within 5-6 minutes or slightly less. Towed arty with more modern field pieces (Because they are so much lighter now/purpose designed for it as well.) can do the same within ten minutes easily or less. Most equipment sites will bare this out as it's a now a considered evaluation point in the effectiveness of the piece most importantly of course in it's survivor ability for both weapon and crew.

Most of your more modern nations, I would think based on your opponent would use the above to their advantage with the rise of precision guided munitions that have become much more prevalent in the last 15 -10 years or so, vice digging in.

Some CB radar manufacturers are claiming they can identify/pass the targeting data/execute the fire mission within 3-4 minutes (Or less.). Not as safe an assignment as it might've once been being in artillery.

The following a quick example of many...
"Within 2 minutes the CAESAR 8x8 can fire 6 rounds and leave its position." from...
http://www.military-today.com/artillery/caesar_8x8.htm

I have found against the AI, that my CB when used given the conditions in the field, are normally very successful in that role. But I generally played long generated campaigns that will normally last 27 battles. I won't say more except that there's plenty of time to increase my units experience levels. But what's true for me is also true for the AI. But I feel the length of time involved is the key factor here. I'm just not seeing it as much of a random feature but, more along the lines that I can almost expect it to happen as the campaign moves along and sooner than later.

However if forced to shift my fire missions to support my units on the field, that seems to "break" that routine to where I won't have anymore CB opportunities for the rest of that battle somewhere just before or closer to the halfway point of that particular battle in the campaign. Those have been my experiences since I've started playing this game regardless of any changes to arty made in the "routines" in a given game patch.

Time and Experience.

Regards,
Pat
:capt:

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

What's "fun" is from time-to-time the AI will counter-battery one of my units that just fired a counter-battery on one of theirs. Never seen this go to a 3rd level tho, would be rather amusing if it did.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Hi Guys; Sorry to raise this old thread but in my current MBT game I purchased 4 batteries strictly for CB which they have been doing a great job of (4x175mm). About 90% of the time when my opponent fires his batteries (130mmx6) I will get CB with damage, in all I have about 50 points of damage against at least. Now to the point: I searched the manual and no where does it say what the damage does to the target, and what it takes to kill a battery. When I did a phrase search of 'counter battery' it only appeared in the manual about 4 times, and nothing dealt with damage. Perhaps the next update could have something included?

By reading this thread I gather that it takes about 40 hits to kill a battery, and lesser can make the battery go offline while the crew cowers. Can you kill individual tubes of a battery, or blow up their ammo? I think in the old WAW version you could hit their ammo supply, but not sure.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Counter battery is an abstraction. The points of damage count towards the points value of the battery - see the results screen and check the enmey forces after the battle.

It is possible to destroy guns - a message comes up saying so, if that happens.

Destroying all the guns of a battery, or doing 100% of its points value ion damage will kill it - a message will come up saying so if that happens.

However, its rare to do much more than kill a gun as a well-hit battery will often be in retreat status for a long while, so not firing and thus not receiving CB fires.

NB - there is no "old WAW" version of this game - WAW is another game developed by others and nothing whatsoever to do with us at Camo Workshop. This game is based on SP2.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Thanks, that makes sense and should be added into the manual, just my 2 cents, I will pass it along to my opponent as he had no idea either. What is SPMBT based upon, SPIII? WAW is still a version of SP.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

winSPWW2 and winSPMBT are a development of SP2. WAW was a development of SP3. They are all "a version of SP" but that's where the similarities end.

There was nothing in the GG explaining how CB worked because it took 20+ years for it to be an issue that needed explaining.

But to add to what Andy wrote...... the higher experience and morale of your CB batteries the more effective they are so in a long campaign your best batteries with the longest ranged guns would be the first choice to set aside for CB

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Per what Don wrote, plus my two cents.

SPWW2 and SPMBT were built on SP2, SPWaW was built on SPIII. Only SPWW2 and SPMBT are in current development and are the best of any of the SP series of games, mainly because of Don and Andy's continued hard work for the last 18+ years on both SPWW2 and SPMBT.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

That explains why I never liked WAW, my buddy had SP3 when it came out and I watched him play it once and said "not for me". I had SP1 and 2; geez, Sp1, you get a whole 20 units to play with. You guys have advanced the ball a long ways!:up:

CB range suggestion, just for discussion
 

As a suggestion, and strictly just a discussion here, I don't wish to make anyone mad :), CB could be based upon blocks of range. For example, Syria has 130mm guns with 217 range, while Turkey has 175mm with range of 227, so Syria can never CB Turkey but Turkey can CB Syria (in my game I have routed/destroyed 7 of 10 batteries with CB).

In the block suggestion a block could be 150-199, 200-250, so any battery with a range of 200+ can CB another battery within the block, in this case 227 with a battery of 217 since batteries do not deploy at extreme range. A battery with a range of 175 cannot CB a 200+ but the 200+ can obviously CB anything down the ladder.

OR: remove individual battery ranges and set all to a like, so anything with a 200+ range is set to 204 for example, while anything with a 150=199 is set to 175.

I don't know if block range could be coded in, but I do know that battery ranges could be changed, and I am more then willing to help or do it myself if the idea is considered to have merit.

I only bring this up for 2 reasons: 1. Batteries do not deploy at extreme range as they would not be able to support the advance if they did and 2. Checking Syria artillery he can never CB me which makes him defenseless, as my 175mm out range anything he can buy.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Blocks would not work, in your example why cant the 199 engage the 200.
Agree with the idea though if its codeable allowing units to CBF on units whose range is less than say 20 higher would solve the issue.
At the moment if you have the range advantage you know your units are 100% safe, about the only thing in the game with no randomness.
Also means smaller calibre could occasionaly CBF the big boys with the longer range.

If desired could make it another option on the artillery supply screen.
Reserved for CBF gets to engage as above for a penalty to on map call times.
Or just let batteries bought as general support CBF units with a range 15-20 higher, think they already are more likely to CBF than other units

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

I didn't think blocks would work either, but to answer your question why not a 199 shoot at a 200, well because it is short of 200 and 199 represents all the lighter field pieces. I honestly think guns should all have the same range when in a certain area, 200s get 210 for example, 100s gets 175 or something like that.

I doubt anything will change, so from now I will suggest to my opponents that all off map artillery have their tubes turned off when not actively shooting an on map mission so there is no CB, it is the only way to make off map guns equal.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

But artillery isn't equal.
Take for instance the US 175mm, it was designed specifically for counter battery fire. Sure it was used mostly for normal missions (artillery is never held in reserve after all), but that was it's primary task.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Well yeah. If artillery have different ranges then they ain't equal. How could they be?

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

You miss my point: with artillery having different ranges you can dominate a player in a game, such as I am doing, with him having no way at all to counter it. He cannot move his guns, he cannot hope to CB your CB batteries, or anything, he just sits and gets killed. As I stated earlier, my 4 x175mm batteries have now routed/destroyed 7 of 10 130mm batteries in about 20 of 40 turns, and his best battery he could buy, an MRLS, still could not reach my 175mm, thus it is unfair to him. Also, as stated, you do not set batteries up at maximum range, in fact they are normally 1 or 2 miles behind the front line for medium/heavy guns (talking ww2/mbt). There are guys who have been/are in the artillery on this board, they can chime in.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Well. Although artillery rarely fires against targets at the maximum range, so does the enemy artillery. In order for the latter to be able to be used effectively on the battlefield, it has to be closer than what its range suggests, thus more vulnerable to artillery that has longer range than it. Artillery range is an actual prerequisite for an artillery piece to be used for CB fire, you cannot go around that.

As for the way to counter an opponent that has superior artillery to you, the answer is simple, though tedious. Buy on map artillery and use shoot-and-scoot technique (fire, then relocate to avoid CB). SP artillery pieces are the best for this, but even towed arty with prime movers can suffice. An added benefit of on map artillery is that it can be resupplied, unlike off map arty, while a drawback is vulnerability to air strikes and on map units. However, if you believe that the enemy artillery is much more of a threat than the latter, it is a risk worth taking (plus, it is very rare that a player has a huge amount of air strikes available in a random battle anyway).

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Counter battery firing is a simple abstraction in the game. The primary metric for this is the gun's range(s). If you have equal or greater range than a target piece then you can fire CB, if not, you cannot. Simples.

It wont be changing.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Believe me, I had absolutely NO expectation that it would be changing. To fix a lopsided part of the game by saying "don't buy off map artillery" is silly. Your tanks are better then mine, so I won't buy tanks, just infantry; oh wait a minute, your infantry out gun mine, guess I am just buying trucks.

As I said, I will be turning off my tubes and in fact I am going to offer my opponent a draw even though I am winning, just because I think "abstraction" and basing on who can put his guns the furthest back is a lazy way of creating a system.

Re: Counter battery fire question
 

Fine......do that. YOU are the only one b*ching about it and we are happy with the way it works..... the entire game is an abstraction so this one fits right in......if your arty has a longer range than your opponent...your arty wins CB ** IF** the other side hits you....if they are both equal then it's who hits who first with the most who wins that part of the battle and if the random number generator smiles on you your results a better......another "abstraction"...maybe it might even fire CB just when you need it most ..another "abstraction"