Artillery

[cbo]

Andy,

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

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

Claus B

[chuckfourth]

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

Thanks for your time Chuck

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

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

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

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

[dwmalesevich]

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