Russian Artillery Issues

[Osiris]

Hi

I guess its time this issue needs to be addressed so here we go:

Russian artillery in EF (all versions) is quite unrealistic:

Here's why:
Russian artillery even in the late stages of the war quite useless once the battle developed from a set piece attack to a fluid situation. German artillery maintained its superiority over Russian artillery right to the last days of the wars in terms of its flexibility and effectiveness. Russian artillery simply relied on numbers.

Here is an excerpt of Russian artillery doctrine (battle front games):

"At the tactical level, the Russians were inflexible in their artillery tactics, as they had few troops with the education and experience needed to call artillery, and relatively primitive communications equipment (they relied extensively on ground lines). With the exception of pre-planned barrages, on-call fire on targets of opportunity", this type of fire was extremely difficult for the Russians to perform.

Russian Artillery can be classified as:

Command - High level. The Russians tended to control their artillery centrally (as they did everything else). This did allow them to share assets and prepare massive strikes, but they were not flexible enough to use this at the tactical level.

Control - High level. The Russians planned their fire missions centrally as well.

Communications - Poor. The Russians relied on ground lines extensively. When they are displaced from their prepared positions, their ability to call-for-fire is impaired.

Russian armor for most part did not have any radios except command tanks at company and battalion level. So Russian armor could call in indirect fire support but that call was going to be made by the battalion commander and not the company commander. If a platoon commader made a request for artillery support this was going to be ignored 99% of the time..probably more like 99.99999% of the time..

Russian infantry units were even worse off..They did not have forward observers so indirect artillery fire support was practically non-exsistent..other than 82mm and 120mm batteries firing in direct support..

So EF is quite unrealistic in allowing individual Russian platoons call in Artillery fire..

osiris

[Mr. Guberman]

Very good point.

Cheers
Curt

[Huib Versloot]

If there were some sort of arty spotting privileged units in this game (instead of ALL units), this could be tackled in a simple way. Give Russians less arty spotters than the Germans or Americans for that matter.
Artillery is too effective in CS for the type of engagements that most scenarios represent. Arty was the greatest killer on the battlefield, but not necessarily during the close combat phases that we are playing in CS.

[Hawk Kriegsman]

As long as dedicated artillery spotters are made optional I am all for it.

Thanx!

[Hawk Kriegsman]

As long as dedicated artillery spotters are made optional I am all for it.

Not that it matters that much as I fire blindly by map all the time.

Thanx!

[Ivan]

This is interesting. The book I'm reading at the moment "Absolute War" states that Russian artillery was a rival for any in the world and very professional and effective. For example during the siege of Leningrad the Russians were able to perform a concert that was broadcast through out Europe. The Germans knew about it and planned on shelling the concert hall, but the Russian artillery commanders predicted this and with an amazingly accurate preemptive strike silenced the German gunners for the duration of the concert. This isn't necessarily at odds with your depiction of course but it has peaked my curiosity to find out more about their tactical ability/flexibility.

[Osiris]

Hi Adam

I do remember reading about this story. The Battle for Leningrad was more of a siege..hence more static than say the battles around wide steppes of Ukraine so Russian artillery probably had to do far less moving around and hence it could be more effective.

The front around Leningrad did not really change noticeably till around late 1943.

Osiris