Smolensk '41 artillery and its effects

[Baron von Michael]

I am using one of the original "big" three (classics?) games to get interested in the games again. Playing some small S'41 scenarios to get the blood pumping. I have a question for everbody.
Why is it that artillery is not an area attack weapon in this game? Why does it strike only units you pick out, instead of attacking all units in the hex?
I am aware that I could set the "Optional Rule" to attack all units in the hex. But, the original has artillery fire set up for a specific reason and using the "Alternate Indirect Fire Rule" was not a made a "default" rule for a reason.

Here is a quote from Designer's Notes:
"Artillery, of course, is the 'big killer' on the battlefield and it can make or break your attacks. In the offense, you should prioritize artillery for counterbattery, and then against the units you wish to assault. Disrupted units defensively fire at half strength so several artillery strikes against a defender can sometimes achieve this. In the defense, you usually want to use your artillery to disrupt those units that have not been disrupted previously, as disrupted units cannot close assault. If the attacker is not assaulting you, then you are holding ground and firing back, increasing his 'fatigue' level and causing casualties and disrupting him."

The above quote doesn't really answer my question, included it for information purposes. Anybody have input? Just curious. Thanks. Mike.

[McIvan]

I guess because anything but preplanned area fire does in fact land on a specific unit. A hex 1km by 1km is a huge area and it would be most unlikely for an arty strike to hit all of it generally.

[McIvan]

Actually I should correct myself...it would be quite in order in WWII for a commander to say "there's an enemy unit in those woods" and for the woods to be generally plastered. But for any actually spotted positions, those positions are, I would think, going to be hit specifically.

[Volcano Man]

It can work that way, you have to pick the optional rule "Alternative Indirect Fire Resolution" (or something like that). It will then apply your artillery fire to all the soft units in a hex but it will only give you one attack istead of two (it is double effectiveness, depending on how you look at it).

[Lowlander]

For the big campaign games I prefer the four Alternative Resolutions Optional Rules as it speeds up the turns, dense formations suffer more casualties, "X" fragments have got to be cleared out of locations by assaults/overruns.

However having said that I would ALWAYS use the recommended default optional rules when playing a PBEM game, as once you start tinkering with the system you alter the play balance.

Hey but that's just my opionion, terrific game system, now playing the Minsk'44 campaign game as the Germans which takes me 12hrs per turn !!!.

Now that's what I call, value for money.

[ghostrider]

[Dog Soldier]

Actually, ghostrider, I would agree/disagree.

I agree that in S41 the powerful arm is the artillery for the Russians. Properly used, the Russian artillery can wear down the German offensive somewhere after turn 100.

I disagree that the Alt Indirect fire rule is the only way for the Russian to win. In fact, this rule works better for the Germans since the Russians need to stack their units on a small front to take advantage of the few counter attack opportunities the game will provide them. Stacking in choke points on the board with entrenchments can present the Germans with a problem to dislodge the Russians and continue the advance. Russian units are smaller than the German units. Thus without the ability to stack the Russians in key positions for fear of the AIFR, the Russians can not hold any ground anywhere. The loss of this stacking ability surrenders the Russian S41 secret weapon. This is the ability to cause the Germans to take the easier route you leave less defended, which is the route you want the Germans to go rather than allowing the Germans to go anywhere they choose. Such Russian stacks will be torn to shreds in a single turn with the AIFR option. Under the default rules there is a chance these large stacks can inflict some pain on extended German units and then disperse to a defensive role when the German player reacts. If they remain stacked in tight terrain, the Germans have to set up a deliberate attack with artillery, armor direct fire and then infantry assaults. This takes time. Time is what the Russian is playing for the first half of the CG.

The Russians in S41 will have their lines broken time and time again. The best Russian play is to get as many units to survive when the line breaks and retreat to the new line formed with the reinforcements. The more units that can escape to fight again, the better the Russian chances are to effect a draw or minor win. With the AIFR, the German player can concentrate on assaults that bunch the Russian units into a single hex rather than try to disperse the defending units to break through. Once an assault or two is successful in "creating" a stack of Russian units in a single hex, the artillery is called in to pound the stack for far greater casualties than under the default indirect fire rule. The main delay to the Germans of mopping up the Russian units caught after a break in the Russian lines is lost. The Germans can then proceed faster to the next Russian defensive line, even before it is cohesive enough to hold for a day or two.

The effect is the German offensive can roll forward much faster with AIFR than under the default rule. The Russians have no ability to mount a counter attack or ambush in some of the many choke points in the terrain since stacking is equal to death for the smaller Russian units under the AIFR.

Dog Soldier

[Glenn Saunders]

Why is it that artillery is not an area attack weapon in this game? Why does it strike only units you pick out, instead of attacking all units in the hex?

Now that everone has had a chance to weigh in, I will tell you why I think John Tiller and Sturmer Smith made it this way.

1000m x 1000m = a lot of ground and in the case of very open terrain like the wide expanses of the Russian Steppe the designers felt it best to allow players to pick the units they want to fire at - assuming of courdse they had a visual on the hex.

Now of course there is lots of real life examples one can raise like "that clump of trees" within the 1 km hex - or that low ground behinds the farm but on a 1km scale that doesn't wash. It has to be one way or the other and with the first pass of the game they did it that way.

Next came Normandy where you knew where the enemy might be, but in the cloe terrain of the Bocage country, it would be impossible to target the Tanks or the AT guns and if the rules remained as they were designed for Smolensk, players could cherry pick in Normandy to an extent that simply wasn't possible. So the ALt Rules were developed to provide another way to have the same basic game engine simulate battles as different as Normandy was\is to Smolensk.

Neither set of rules are wrong or right - boith use very different calculation methods. The KEY WORD here is DIFFERENT and not MORE or LESS BLOODY. You see it was only during the testing of K42, when some players used one set of rules and another player used the other that we began to see the very different results that were attained.

My first approach was to set up a number of tests to see if one set gave more or less kills. This is where I discovered that the results were neither more nor less. They were different depending upon the different situations or test shots that were setup. Density is a factor I believe - although it has been a long time since I looked closely at it.

John and Sturm believe the ALT Rules should not be the default set. And I learned it was impossible to test a game and compare apples to apples unless the Fire Rules were consistent in all games.

So to use the Alt Rules throws out the Vic levels established by the original Scn designer. Understand too that the longer and larger the Scn the more chances there are for statistical variation from play to play.

I was not involved in the Playtest of Smolensk, but I know the guys who were involved and I also know how long and how far they tested the default Campaign in HTH - far longer than I dreamed any few people would evey play a scn this large.

Anyway - the Optional Rules are there for you to experiment with and if you prefer one set over the other, feel free to use them. We've been working with a new guy on a new title which we'll have out before long - he is a gunner too and he likes the ALT Fire RUles for Arty better. But we still stayed with the default rules in testing so when it comes to the Vic levels, if you change those fire rules "your mileage my vary" - so maybe you should pick your own Vic levels too, because the ones set in the game will really no longer be valid.

....man, set out to give a simple explanation and end up writing much more than expected<G>

Glenn

[Baron von Michael]

Glenn,
You have given me the answer needed to satisfy my curiosity. Thanks. I figured it would have to do with the playtesting and how the "default" rules were originally set up (and why the rules were set up that way) for each Pzc game.
It just seemed to confuse me how I could "pick" my targets out of a stack of units for indirect fire. Real life comparisons to how arty works vs. how arty works in the PzC universe made that confusion harder to understand not easier to understand. Thanks again. Mike.

[Baron von Michael]

Just another thought. Could the game engine allow for indirect artillery fire to hit one random unit (assuming that a hex has multiple units) out of a stack? After a player determines a target hex; the game engine would randomly determine that "unit x" would be hit instead of "units y or z"? And, more importantly, would you guys consider doing something like that? Thanks again. Mike.