Counter battery fire question

[Suhiir]

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.

[Weasel]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

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.

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.

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by Weasel

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.

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).