Counter battery fire question

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

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?

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.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

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

[Imp]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

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?

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.

[Mobhack]

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.

[keif149]

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

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by keif149

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

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.

[Weasel]

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?

[Imp]

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

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by Imp

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

from the game Guide:

Direct and General Artillery Support

General Support and Direct Support off-map artillery types have been added for off-map artillery purchase. Direct Support costs 75% of a full Under Command battery and General Support costs 50% of a full Under Command battery.

Direct Support is less responsive than normal arty, General Support even less so. The delay is longer for calls for fire, other than onto gold spots or as a pre game bombardment (their main use).
Shifting fires costs a little more for these type of batteries and they are less likely to be in radio contact as they are theoretically shared with other formations than yours. As well, they are less likely to fire counter battery fires if left idle.

[Weasel]

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.