To Counter Battery or not to Counter Battery...

[Cross]

Never conserve ammo. Get as much fire power onto the front as soon as possible. If you do run low on ammo, it shouldn’t matter because the battle should already be going your way. The artillery have done their job.

In the longer battles running out of ammo is a definite problem which is not the case for shorter (20 turn) battles and since i often play longer ones ammo management is a must.

Also sometimes the fire is more ranging fire than effect, just seeing where its going and so not worth expending extra ammo on.

I tend ot keep the tubes down to 2 out of 4 or sometimes even one out of 4 until I think I have something to hit, or I can see what I am shooting at then I turn them on to full.

The only exception to this is when I need to do suppression fire on a likely area of movement and want to make it as bad as possible, then I go all out.

Hi Klanx,

I think you make a good point about longer battles. I should say that my comment was more a 'rule of thumb' communicated in a deceptively emphatic manner.:soap:

I would still advise that, even in longer battles, your artillery take the first engagements the most seriously (as far as destruction of the enemy is concerned) and use all possible force early on. There may be an opportunity to conserve ammo in the middle game.

This doesn't mean wasting ammo on assembly point guesses. But as soon as you find targets, get those gunners loading and firing as if they're sitting on an ammo dump.

By winning the early firefights you gain the initiative. You could see it like an arm wrestle, put all your strength in right away or let your opponent get the upper hand.

There are, no doubt, exceptions to this, like when your plan fakes a retreat to draw your opponent into a kill zone. Or you spot a column of trucks heading into an ambush. What is it Rommel said? Something like: 'Don't interupt the enemy when he's busy making a mistake'.