Weak Artillery?

[jxrey]

Played several scenarios as the Germans and in each one I’ve had situations where I’d bomb an allied tank or tank destroyer unit with a rotation of a dozen artillery units for a day and half with little to no effect. It doesn’t matter whether the unit is dug in, moving, or in the open, my 36 hour hailstorm of shells will do nothing more than suppress the unit once or twice for 15 minutes. The only chance i have is to surround the unit from all sides with ground forces, slowly chip away for hours ( and maybe a day), while mercilessly bomboarding with all i’ve got, ignore the rest of the map, and lose numerous units in the process. I always fire based on current location. Luckily, the AI isn’t more agressive, otherwise a simultaneous attack by 3-4 tank units would wipe out my entire army.

Is anyone else having this problem? If so, is it realistic that a tank unit could survive a Hiroshima’s-worth of artillery fire? If not, what am I doing wrong? I understand that armored units are quite resistant to artillery, but doesn’t it stand to reason that a few of my 27,000 shells would destroy a few tanks just by accident? My artillery isn’t too effective against infantry either.

On the other hand, my units get routinely supressed and decimated by enemy artillery. Luckily the AI uses it less than i do. If i were playing a human opponent, I wouldn’t make it past the first day.

What gives?

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

What type of arty units were you firing and what strength? What was the target unit type - eg was it armoured?

 

[jxrey]

The target was an armored unit with a combat power of 6. The photo shows the unit composition of the target up top and most of the artillery units that i was bombarding it with at bottom. I used mostly the top three heavy artillery units.

 

[jxrey]

Btw, thanks for responding so quickly and for creating, in my opinion, the best game ever.

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

OK thanks for the picture. I'll try and recreate this.

Oh one last question, what scenario was this?

 

[jxrey]

The scenario is, ‘Advance to the Sure’

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Thanks

 

[jxrey]

The invincible armor bug continues to be a problem for me. Most recently, an allied armor unit (Shermans and Fireflies) with a combat power of 5, on open terrain, surounded from 3 different dirrections by over 15 German units, including a few armored, and while underneath a constant 5-8 hour barrage from a dozen artillery units, was neither depleted nor supressed!

It’s like a Bruce Lee movie where he knocks out 30 bad guys and winds up with, like, a scratch on his arm.

Is anyone else having this problem? If not, does anyone have any suggestions on how to defeat one armored unit or, better yet, 10 of them?

 

[jimcarravallah]

The invincible armor bug continues to be a problem for me. Most recently, an allied armor unit (Shermans and Fireflies) with a combat power of 5, on open terrain, surounded from 3 different dirrections by over 15 German units, including a few armored, and while underneath a constant 5-8 hour barrage from a dozen artillery units, was neither depleted nor supressed!

It’s like a Bruce Lee movie where he knocks out 30 bad guys and winds up with, like, a scratch on his arm.

Is anyone else having this problem? If not, does anyone have any suggestions on how to defeat one armored unit or, better yet, 10 of them?

A game save that allows developers to run the game and look at its background mechanics helps in determining the cause of the problem.

In addition, Panther Dave recorded a Sitrep a couple of days ago detailing the correction of flaw on enemy unit intel which hindered the broadcast of updated intel as the game ran.

 

[jxrey]

Thanks, Jim. I’ll take a look at the sitrep and see whether that’s the problem though, in my case, the intel would only be faulty with respect to armored units. All other unit types seem to take fire, suppress, and deplete normally.

Not sure whether I should burden Dave with a saved game since i already have him looking into my prior game. Mainly, i wanted to poll other users to see whether they were experiencing this or had any armor-killing advice.

I imagine you’re not experiencing this issue?

 

[jimcarravallah]

Thanks, Jim. I’ll take a look at the sitrep and see whether that’s the problem though, in my case, the intel would only be faulty with respect to armored units. All other unit types seem to take fire, suppress, and deplete normally.

Not sure whether I should burden Dave with a saved game since i already have him looking into my prior game. Mainly, i wanted to poll other users to see whether they were experiencing this or had any armor-killing advice.

I imagine you’re not experiencing this issue?

Indirect fire, even with high explosive ammunition, is a tactically poor means to suppress armor units, so I seldom use it.

That's because, in general, the only serious damage high explosives can do to individual armored vehicles is by direct hits on a unit top or side -- highly unlikely in a non-line-of sight bombardment.

As far as evaluating the damage to enemy units by fire from battlefield intel, you have to consider the battlefield condition in which is gathered -- the better intelligence coming from friendly units observing from close in on enemy units and that intel being reduced the further the observing unit is from the enemy unit combined with a further degradation of information based on ground cover and weather.

Dave is working on refining the amount of information degradation based on distance, ground cover, and weather constraints on intel, and happened on another issue which precluded intel that should have been updated from changing as the game ran.

If the first observation of enemy strength is affected by the distance, cover, and weather constraints I mentioned above, then the damage observed at a distance normally used to validate a bombardment zone would be less exact at start. The added whammy comes from the bug that fails to update the information if the original sighting conditions changed during the period of the bombardment.

That's not to say you haven't discovered a problem, but without a gamesave, it'll be pretty difficult to determine whether it is a problem already being addressed in the patch in development, or one which should be added as a new issue to be addressed.

 

[jxrey]

Jim, thanks for your detailed response. I read the sitrep and will wait for the update before pestering any further about this.

One question for you though, since you seem to be one of the more experienced players: What IS the best way to supress/destroy armored units? I’m sure the answer depends on situation, distance, terrain, etc. Nevertheless, any tips you could share would be hugely appreciated.

 

[jimcarravallah]

Jim, thanks for your detailed response. I read the sitrep and will wait for the update before pestering any further about this.

One question for you though, since you seem to be one of the more experienced players: What IS the best way to supress/destroy armored units? I’m sure the answer depends on situation, distance, terrain, etc. Nevertheless, any tips you could share would be hugely appreciated.

First off, user feedback to the developers isn't dumped into a bucket called "pestering."

I'm only pointing out what constraints the developers face in evaluating the feedback without "live" information on how the issue that is surfaced emerged during game play. "Live" information includes a save from the game that establishes the situation that causes concern.

During World War II, the "best" way to suppress / destroy armored units is by using anti-armor direct fire units capable of identifying and firing on enemy armored vehicles. Those units tend to include tank formations, anti-tank guns, and tank destroyer units.

Here is an evaluation of American doctrine regarding Tank destroying units during World War II:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a532138.pdf

There is a large archive of anti-tank tactics and techniques available on the web. CO2 does a reasonably good job of addressing the impacts of using that doctrine in its combat simulation.

 

[jxrey]

Thanks, Jim.