Artillery

[Charles22]

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.

[DRG]

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

[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.

[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.

[Charles22]

pdoktar said:
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.

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.