Quick Question - Off Board Artillery & Defensive Fire

[Al]

I agree - allow it.

[Sgt Jasper]

Logically, it should be allowed, but if it's going to seriously distort play balance, the scenarios having been field tested without it, I'd say skip it unless and until changes can be made to the scenarios to compensate for the change. I'm new enough to this series that I'm not sure how big a problem this change might cause, though.

[Strela]

One issue is that artillery units fire in support of units that don't belong to the same formation. Everybody can fire at everything in range.

If it were possible to change the code so that, when units are fired upon, they only attract fire from artillery units belonging to the same formation/artillery units they can spot for, that would be very nice. I expect that might take time mister Tiller doesn't have, however.

For scenarios where all medium and heavy artillery is off-map, it could unbalance the scenario as is, particularly for scenarios where Allied artillery units are big like Bois du Homme. There are only a handful of artillery units in most smaller scenarios, so the chance of any of them firing is still small. There are also scenarios where the Germans have more off-map artillery.

Perhaps this could be paired with a reduction of the indirect fire modifier to 175% or so to account for more artillery units being able to use defensive fire.

Hi,

Spotter rules still apply for off-board artillery. You will soon find this out in your Bluecoat play through (or the British player will at least...!)

Also I am less concerned about scenarios where there is a concentration of artillery off-board. For example, Bois du Homme was historically won by the weight of Allied artillery fire - you will find few scenarios where there is large amounts of off board guns.

Finally, as this is not a player controlled function and less likely prone to abuse, I think it should be on. If we see significant impacts on scenarios we will adjust accordingly.

David

[Strela]

Here is a screenshot from Bluecoat showing the current state of off board artillery. Every artillery piece shown here is off board. The highlighted units can spot for the current artillery piece. You can see the Churchill tanks and the 43rd Infantry Division's troops (top right hand corner) are not spotting for the currently selected artillery unit.

Hope that clarifies.







David

[ComradeP]

Spotter rules still apply for off-board artillery. You will soon find this out in your Bluecoat play through (or the British player will at least...!)

Spotter rules only apply during your turn, they don't apply to defensive fire.

That was what I was commenting on: off-map artillery being able to fire defensively means more guns can fire in support of units not belonging to the same formation, or army, as long as they belong to the same side. For example: 2nd Armored mortars in Carentan fire in support of airborne troops, and I expect British guns will fire in support of US units in Bluecoat as well.

The more long ranged artillery there is, the greater the potential problems this can cause. An example would be the numerous ships in the longest day being able to fire in support of neighbouring beaches, or divisional artillery being able to do so.

[Strela]

Spotter rules still apply for off-board artillery. You will soon find this out in your Bluecoat play through (or the British player will at least...!)

Spotter rules only apply during your turn, they don't apply to defensive fire.

That was what I was commenting on: off-map artillery being able to fire defensively means more guns can fire in support of units not belonging to the same formation, or army, as long as they belong to the same side. For example: 2nd Armored mortars in Carentan fire in support of airborne troops, and I expect British guns will fire in support of US units in Bluecoat as well.

The more long ranged artillery there is, the greater the potential problems this can cause. An example would be the numerous ships in the longest day being able to fire in support of neighbouring beaches, or divisional artillery being able to do so.

Thanks - I wasn't aware of that - let me validate it myself and discuss with John Tiller.

David

[Dog Soldier]

There is the issue of the off board guns being immune to counter battery fire when firing in the defensive fire phase, while on board guns are subject to return fire. They are not subject to fatigue or losses results. There is no way to spot them for purposes of the counter battery optional rule which is a default rule in PzB.

This makes things a bit more complicated IMHO.

Dog Soldier

[ComradeP]

True, but they're already immune to counterbattery fire, so making them able to use defensive fire doesn't really change how those mechanics have worked since Kursk.

The number of times they will fire in support per unit during most scenarios will be low compared to the times they fire during the player's turn. For normal artillery units, counterbattery fire losses also tend to be low with good positioning.

Losses only really go up in situations where you can't move artillery units due to the units being Fixed (a Soviet problem in Kursk), or it's risky to move them due to the high interdiction chance (a potential German problem in Normandy). Both of those situations make it more likely that their units will be spotted as enemy units can get closer to the artillery than they normally would.

There are also not that many scenarios with a large number of artillery units where one side's artillery is predominantly on-map whilst the other side's artillery is mostly off-map, aside from small scenarios where the Germans have numerous Nebelwerfer units.

In that case losses can be reduced through moving their initial locations further to the rear in hexes offering good protection.

Considering that in most large scenarios, artillery tends to be on-map, I don't mind off-map artillery never becoming fatigued or taking losses, as it applies to both sides.

[Strela]

One other comment here - I asked John to look at 'availability' for off map artillery. Air uses a routine where it is not always available after use and I think this would make sense based upon base supply levels here as well.

David

[ComradeP]

David, this is already in place. Off-map artillery checks for availability just like on-map artillery.

I have no problems with how off-map artillery works in terms of not being able to take fatigue or losses, due to the advantage usually not being limited to one side and there being no special mechanics in play other than the artillery units not being on the map.

For all intents and purposes, they function as regular artillery units.

The limitations (or the lack of in-game limitations) of something like the interdiction system (such as ignoring visibility air limitations, air availability and AA due to the game not actually using a unit in the normal sense aside from using its size and stats to calculate losses) in the way the feature is abstracted is more difficult to counter for the side facing a high interdiction chance than off-map artillery, or defensive artillery fire in general.

Aside from truly large scenarios where guns from other armies sometimes fire in support, I don't feel the artillery mechanics are unbalanced as they currently are, and don't think they should be restricted.

That is: with the possible exception of reducing the counterbattery spotting chance in smaller scenarios where both sides have mostly off-map artillery, but one side having numerous on-map artillery units close to the initial frontline (like Nebelwerfers) that would otherwise be very exposed.