Hello All,
I've got myself into a pickle. One of my supplying bases was eliminated which has put my supply routes at a snails pace. Several of my artillery units have no HE ammo but have plenty of AP ammo. I'm attempting to engage the armor units with either fire or bombard orders but the AP ammo doesn't seem to be firing. Is it possible to select the AP ammo to fire at the enemy armor unit?
Thanks,
Steve
It depends on what kind of weapons are available to fire the AP rounds. In the World War II era, AP was a direct fire (line of sight) weapon, meaning the gun firing it had to see the target before engaging it. It largely relied on the mass and velocity (kinetic energy) of the round to penetrate armor to be effective. There were shaped charges (high energy armor piercing) which relied on explosives in the projectile to penetrate armor, but those, too, were fired at targets along a line of sight and at high velocities.
Most guns which can bombard rely on tossing high energy (HE) rounds to explode over an area at low velocities. They are usually fired at targets in non-line of sight situations -- the area where he shell hits is out of the sight of the personnel firing the weapon. The projectile's explosive force and shrapnel is good against formations of soldiers or unarmored vehicles, but not effective against a tank unless they score a direct hit on the target. Because the crew can't see what the shell hits once it is fired, it would be almost impossible to use that firing mode to assure a hit on a single tank either with a HE round or, if it was lofted in the same manner, an AP round.
There were few World War II-era weapons which could be converted from bombardment roles to high velocity armor piercing direct fire roles on the battlefield (the German 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41 (88) was used in both roles in an ad hoc basis during the later combat on the Eastern Front, but was primarily designed as an anti-tank direct fire, and anti-aircraft weapon).
Bottom line is, unless your artillery unit also has anti-tank guns assigned it, there is little use for anti-tank AP rounds once the HE has been consumed.