Artillery

[serg3d]

snake said:
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.

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.

[JaM]

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.

[Charles22]

Interesting.

[narwan]

JaM said:
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.

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

[DRG]

dwmalesevich said:
Artillery in direct fire mode is much different 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 constantly fired his coax at the same time as the main gun would no longer be a gunner.

SFC Dave Malesevich
USA-Ret 19K4HA7

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"

[JaM]

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.

[cbo]

snake said:
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.

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