"Artillery -- how much is too much?" Topic

We have a perpetual discussion about artillery in our ongoing campaign. In essence, some guys think more is better and it's just fine to dominate the entire game with artillery (off board type).

The other side of this coin is the complaint that trading barrage for barrage, game after game, isn't all that much fun and really isn't what WWII is all about.

How much impact do you think off board artillery should have on a wargame? (Not asking for what is 'realistic' here but what is enjoyable).

mjc

trading barrage for barrage, game after game, isn't all that much fun and really isn't what WWII is all about.

Unfortunately, artillery is what caused the majority of casualties. So, that IS what W2 is all about.

It should have to be taken into consideration but should not be able to win the game for someone. Nothing fun about having something off the board blasting you turn after turn until everything is destroyed.

Played a couple of games like that years ago and it really isn't much fun at all.

Just use ammo limits, it will suddenly cause commanders to look for high value targets to expend their precious shells upon.

A few doses of friendly fire can work wonders.

Like with all these questions, it depends on the scale. Unless you're doing skirmish, lots of artillery is better. Off board, mortars, tanks and assault guns firing over open sights or indirect. The more the merrier. Otherwise are you really playing WW2?

Three words.

Counter Battery Fire.

Terry

As a retired Infantryman, there never is enough. I would look to the game mechanics to include the perameters mentioned by LeadLair, Maj Mike and Mark and compensate for numbers of tubes. Allied artillery was much disliked by German forces, especially after using up their fine artillery in the East.

I have to agree – it is hard to have too much, historically, but it can make for a not so great game

I think ammo limits, counter battery fire and rounds dropping short are all good mechanisms to reduce the impact of off-table arty

Logistic is even more what WW2 is all about.

Does that mean we should spend 1/2 of every game moving trucks?

(Not asking for what is 'realistic' here but what is enjoyable)

A little in game artillery can be fun, even necessary esp smoke. Large artillery barrages should be dealt with as a pre-game/set up mechanic.

Unless they enjoy spending entire games pointing at targets, rolling dice and removing casualties. Which they might if they have the big guns and like winning more than playing.

I like Artillery to make someone pay for doing something outside the manual:infantry moving lockarm in the open, tanks sitting there popshoting everything and NOT moving. It is also great for Smoke, often overlooked. No one ever thinks to even ask about smoke availability. I've been using Skirmish Campaigns in the last year: the author rarely provides for any artillery.

I love the sound of AGRAs in the morning… The sound of vctory!

I find that, as a Briton, the game where I have HMS Warspite off the coast of Normandy and my opponent has a platoon of German infantry trying to dig in against a barrage of naval gunnery is a pleasing one.

I have yet to find an opponent, however.

Its not so much the artillery, its what size of force its supporting. Its hard to imagine a platoon of grunts having batteries of 105's just waiting to deliver high explosive steel death at their whim (and of course never a delay either)

Then you must not play… oh, never mind.

Allen

To answer the artillery question;
We played a game recently, the scenario was in 6mm (Spearhead & Firely mix rules)I was 2 French Colonial regiments; one Algerian the other Zouvre, protecting three bridges over a canal in the north and two bridges over the river in the south.
The Falshrimjaeger dropped and captured the road bridge but not the rail, where the rest of the army was bugging out.

To break my centre the German player dropped a squadron of Stukas on my reinforcing armour (30% losses) and at the same time hit a big wood where my reserve battlion was hiding with 3 batteries of Nebelwerfers and a battery of 17cm artillery, result high casualties and a morale failure due to the presence of the 1st Pz Recce they surrendered.

A fairly correct result…..mine you my opponent was an ex gunner. thats my excuse and i'm sticking to it.

The point is if you want reality then you must use lots and have high lossed if its just a game and you opponent may never want to play you again or slang off your scenario then its got to be small amounts only.

Oh and by the way 2 of the canal bridges failed to blow on a die roll of 1 on a d6, the French really had a bad day.

A lot of the problems with artillery stem from the factors given to them in wargames rules, and our tidy little wargamer minds wanting "logical" progressions.
eg: How many wargame rules do you see where say a 25 pdr has a fire value of 4, a 105 a 5, a 150 a 6, etc etc…then infantry in a foxhole get a minus 1, a trench minus 2, a bunker minus 3 etc?…
When in reality the numbers should be more like 25 pdr 4, 105 5, 150 8…and a foxhole should be a minus 2 a trench a minus 4 and a bunker minus 8…(or something, these are arbitary numbers)
Also prolonged artillery barrages tend to be effective in wargames rules when historically they were not.
Which leads often to infantry in good cover still being blown away when a lot of artillery is dropped on them.
My own feeling is that infantry in the open should be hit hard by artillery, those in good cover hardly hit at all, few rules reflect this. However, the BIGGEST effect of artillery (in a game context) should not be to kill infantry but to suppress it, prevent it moving or responding to the enemy and severely degrade its effectiveness, regardless of the cover its in.

Right on target Christot.

I have never seen artillery modelled really well and I've seen it misdone too many times to mention.

Yet – the data is there online from numerous field tests.

It must be utterly terrifying to be hit by an artillery fire mission, so the morale effects especially on green troops ought to be profound.

However, even lying down in the open makes a lot of artillery far less effective. And being below ground level is a further help. Then how about lying down at the bottom of your foxhole? What if you have overhead cover?

If targets are well dug in the arty needs to use delay fuses..and then it's pretty much only the foxhole/bunker hit that are casualties.

105mm guns have largely fallen out of use nowadays, and 155mm is the standard tube size, mortars being more effective for targets moving in the open anyway.

Artillery is a very interesting area much neglected in C20th games. Usually overabstracted and then hardly used so the 'broken rules' never get noticed.

Given it was perhaps the most important arm in WW2 especially for the allies, that is indeed a shame.

Indeed, it does depend on the scale of game you are playing.

Many games are company and below.
You need a huge concentration of artillery to do much beyond suppression in a "turn" of real life shelling.
I would suggest that large scale effects are more appropriate pre-game.
So your US forces move onto the table and the germans in area such and such start suppressed and one morale state down… and their platoon is understrength.
You also obviate problems with keeping units damaged by artillery hidden yet resolving what happens to them.

If your SS company suddenly has an AGRA land on it and that's half your force then in gaming terms you just may as well not have had that company.

Artillery can be hugely powerful. Like carpet bombing though, those large concentrations are something you want to be a LONG way away from. Often not on the same board…

There's probably a stack of stuff I don't know about ww2.
30 odd years just isn't enough and artillery just isn't sexy.
German 17cm guns in 1940?
Were there any?
The 17cm which was supposed to be so great was introduced 1942.

Use historically accurate Orders of Battle, and allocate artillery based on your scenario. Also take into account historical differences, i.e. between US/Brit, German, and Soviet artillery doctrine.

I may be a heretic (and recognizing it warps the realistic OB concept), but this is one of the reasons I like the Flames of War method of having your artillery on-board. You may not be using realistic ranges, but it does limit the amount, it does take national doctrinal (and actual use) issues into account, counter-battery fire is a factor, and you have to think about displacing your artillery, and protecting it. In the majority of WWII games that use realistic ranges, the artillery just sits off the board, untouched, and strikes like lightening from the gods above. (BTW, I also play Spearhead and Blitzkrieg Commander so I'm not a total heathen.)

How much is too much?
Russian can never have enough, brits and americans will always want more.

Other correspondents have pointed out that it depends on the scale of the game.
If you have a platoon or company of infantry, then you can only really expect a section of your battalion's mortars to assist.
If you're moving Corps and armies with each stand representing a battalion, then artillery and supply will be central to any plan.

There are plenty of references detailing the quantity of artillery available to any formation.
That should form a basic guide, though leading elements in an attack would expect a generous reinforcement from the higher echelons.

A good set of rules ought to reflect artillery doctrine.
This should include speed of response (Some armies could call in a strike faster than others), volume (How many tubes could be coordinated in response to a prize target),
Supply (You can't just stonk away all day unless you have a fair stockpile of ammunition), and counterbattery (Some of those guns will need to relocate, and they won't be shooting when they do).

Another thought is that many attacks started to run out of steam when they outran their pre-registered artillery range.
Most wargame tables are considered "all in range" with artillery off-table.
Those big corps and army games tend to reflect this attack, breakthrough and exploitation type of game better.

I think most rule writers are aware of the intrincacies of artillery, and thats the problem! Its a complicated subject..and very few folk get it right, they pitch the detail of artillery effects either incorrectly for the style of game they are playing or overcomplicate the rules, so the players are either bored silly,(or are frankly often incapable of understanding whats being modelled) or they shy away from the complications on the grounds of "playability" and end up with simplistic rules that either make artillery too effective or not effective enough.
Its a hard balance, and I've never seen a really good system, even the better ones tend to have "loopholes" which are quickly exploited by canny gamers.

No such thing as too much artillery. The problem is knowing where and when to put it to actually do some good.

Its not so much the artillery, its what size of force its supporting. Its hard to imagine a platoon of grunts having batteries of 105's just waiting to deliver high explosive steel death at their whim (and of course never a delay either)

Then you must not play… oh, never mind.

If you get regualr, accurate artillery fire in … the game that Must Not Be Named, can I have your dice, please? mine and don't respond most of the time.

We try to use artillery in amounts that equate to historical norms. If gaming the American army, that often means more than the four battalions of 'divisional' artillery.

I ran across an OrBat for a prepared assault and the quanity of artillery committed to support the attack was-by gaming standards-excessive. *Battalions* of guns and mortars ranging from 105mm up to 8". Some dedicated to counter-battery, some to suppressive interdiction fire and some (chemical mortar battalions) to smoke.

I've come to think that USA stood for United States of Artillery.

To echo the comments above, it depends what size of engagement you are doing, but in general I prefer to fight historical battles and use the historical amounts of artillery.

This includes both entire Rocket Divisions for breakthrough at Orsha, hundreds of heavy bombers for Goodwood as well as the more mundane AGRAs etc. Ammo limits, CB, deep defences and perhaps most important, realistic combat outcomes rather than artillery = nuclear weapons. The main effect of artillery fire is going to be suppressive, particularly against well entrenched positions, and for any lasting effect to has to be backed up with coordinated ground action. Major artillery strikes also took days to prepare and then shot off all their ammo a few hours, so you are into operational level games to actually model this sort of thing.

In tactical games, particularly where troops aren't especially dug in, then you need to be a bit careful with the amounts of on-call fire and treat big barrages etc as part of the scenario setup.

In pure game terms, artillery has to be deployed in playable quantities, so you may want to resolve fire at the battalion or even regiment level. I've done creeping barrages just with a line on the table which moves forward at a pre-planned rate but which may represent hundreds of guns.

I'd think that in lower level (skirmish) games, any artillery beyond company mortars should be treated as an act of god more than a asset to be employed.

I play BKC/CWC, preferably late War British.

I like artillery, lots of it with extra and upgraded FAOs to make it more effective.

Some opponents may get a bit sniffy and feel hard done by when I employ my artillery units to hurt them, but I have paid the points for them after all, and for late war British this is not unhistorical.

Does it spoil the game? That depends. Constantly fighting German armour/big cats (unhistorical) spoils the game for me, but this is considered acceptable.

So what is the difference between Tigers and Panthers dealing out death and destruction on the table and 25pdrs/5.5"/155mm/7.2"/HMS Warspite dealing it out from off the table?

I've come to think that USA stood for United States of Artillery.

I suspect that the Germans felt the same way.

Well folks,

Seems people are the same where every you go -- where artillery is concerned.

You all sound just like my campaign group.

mjc

"I've come to think that USA stood for United States of Artillery.

"I don't have to tell you who won the war – you know it was our artillery" – George S. Patton, 1945.

"Allied artillery was much disliked by German forces, especially after using up their fine artillery in the East."

German artillery was never as good as Allied artillery. It took about 10-12 minutes to call in German artillery, 3-5 for British and American. And the Germans didn't learn to mass their artillery until late 1944, leading the Americans to conclude that the Germans must have finally captured one of their artillery manuals.

I know it's not a popular to say to some people, but just because it was German doesn't mean it was better than everyone else's.

No-ones questioning the superiority of allied artillery, Whats patently wrong with the majority of wargames rules is the methods and effectiveness with which artillery is employed by all nations.

No-ones questioning the superiority of allied artillery, Whats patently wrong with the majority of wargames rules is the methods and effectiveness with which artillery is employed by all nations.

In wargames artillery is inordinately guided by a good dose of ESP.

"Oh, there's a enemy Kubelwagen, there must be battalion hidden in the woods beside it. All batteries, fire!"

It took about 10-12 minutes to call in German artillery, 3-5 for British and American.

Hey Mark, do you have a cite for those figures? They sound right to me from what I know, but it would be interestng to try and reflect the delay for unplanned fire in our games.
--
Tim

Trying to reflect the cost of artillery ammunition – not just monetary but in terms of resources that are best not wasted on low value targets is usually ignored by most rules. Either tha battery fires or it doesn't.

In reality an FO might call for single rounds, 'battery 1' thru 'battery 6' (to use what I think is the US terminology) depending on the target type and what the object of the fire is.

They may also request that all fire be aimed at a single point, or that an area be 'blanketed' as evenly as possible. (Though numerous small errors compound to leave quite large holes in any such fireplan)

Often the guns fire a 'parallel sheaf' with each gun using the same firing data – this saves time but if the guns are laid out in an odd shape, this is mirrored in the target area.

Nowadays, I suppose fire control computers allow for all that in the blink of an eye, making parallel sheafs a thing of the past.

In points based games I considered charging points for the ammunition rather than the battery. When a round is fired, it counts the same as that many points of casualties. Then players will not expend rounds for trivial target just cos they might as well.

Dealing with the ESP issue is a whole can of worms that needs addressing for many aspects of command and control.

I make it MUCH harder to get fire on suspected targets than on confirmed enemy units. More senior officers and specialist FOs should have an advantage when requesting fire anyway – cos they have the connections/clout that a 'mere' sargeant lacks.

It's a very interesting area of C20th and I guess C21st warfare that can have a large influence right down to platoon or smaller games. I mostly play Vietnam war scenarios and the availability of US artillery has a huge impact on the way games play out. Intricate, accurate yet elegant and therefore streamlined rules for this arm took me a long time to work out and are still subject ot development. It's far more important than air support or even helicopters for example – cos it was always there, whatever the weather and often took less than a minute to arrive!

The NVA/NLF based their tactics on this and would only engage from very close ranges or from well fortified positions. They knew that artillery could be on the way within 2 minutes maximum, so they allowed for that.

If you havn't seen it, this site is the dog's for all things pertaining to WWII British artillery, and reveals just how complex the whole business is (and how badly your favourite rules probably deal with it). Lots of unit and OB info too

nigelef.tripod.com/directory.htm

Arillery not effective, what stats are people reading having seen a barrage I can tell you there not only effective they destroy people, buildings and fortifications.

I suggest there is a wargames myth about effectiveness of barrages, test cases are the British at Dunkirk 1940, sthe oviet opening assaults in 1942 Stalingrad and again the British in 1944 Normandy disprove the artillery isn't effective therorists.

Oh by the way before anyone responds saying this is wrong, a friend of mine is an MoD weapons analyst and has lots of data to disprove most arguements on HMGs and Artillery.

A second for Nigelf's site.

One point though, is that even the mighty AGRAs generally fired pre-programmed shoots, on-call fires were generally restricted to one battery per battalion (or so) in formal attacks. It was certainly possible to call down large coordinated fires on targets of opportunity, but they had to be very good ones (like major troop concentrations forming up).

The CRA staff manual has lots of forms in it covering barrage planning.

Well, you might well be wrong Bg…Modern artillery is pretty effective, WWII (and WWI) artillery WASN'T very effective at killing and wounding soldiers (particularly dug-in troops..ie most of them) unless employed in massive numbers (which it often was). If your friend has the Soviet stats then he can show you the figures on how many rounds were deemed neccessary to "Neutralise" a given target.It was literally THOUSANDS of rounds per square hundred meters.

"Arillery not effective, what stats are people reading having seen a barrage I can tell you there not only effective they destroy people, buildings and fortifications."

It depends what you mean by effective. Yes obviously they destroy things, flatten fortifications, wound and kill people etc, just not at the rate shown in most wargames rules, particularly for prolonged bombardments against entrenched troops. In terms of rounds expended, neutralisation is a far easier objective to achive than destruction. The difference in effect against troops in the open vs troops dug in is immense, which was why in both WW1 and WW2 the infantry spent most of their time undergound.

If I may quote from WO 291/946 Effects of bombardment – present state of knowledge.

"This summary was published in 1946.

Against men in slit trenches, 25-pdr groundburst must hit the trench or parapet to be effective.

If firing 1000 25-pdr shells into a 300 ´ 300 yard box with 100 men in it in slit trenches, the expected number of casualties would be nine.

Four kinds of effect from bombardment are distinguished:
Lethal: Killing or incapacitating personnel.
Material: Destroying weapons and equipment.
Neutralisation: Preventing the enemy from observing or using his weapons for the duration of the
bombardment.

Morale effects: Reduction in effectiveness lasting after the bombardment has ceased.
Two possible morale effects are mentioned. "Sensitization" means that greater weights of bombardment have progressively more morale effect. The existence of this effect was supported by "abundant evidence". "Habituation" means the lowering of morale effect by men getting used to small bombardments. The occurrence of this was "more difficult to support by adequate evidence".

The "minimum effective density" of a bombardment is 0.3 lbs/sq yd for 25-pdr shell.

"If the enemy is in protected positions such as pillboxes or concrete gun casemates instead of in open
positions the state of affairs is different. No projectile which cannot pierce the protection has any
noticeable effect. The neutralising, morale and lethal effects do not exist until the material effect is
achieved."

Experience on the Normandy beaches suggested that one 81mm mortar had the same casualty-causing
effect as 1 MG. Casualties were weapon were one-and-a-half times more on Omaha than the British
beaches, where they were in turn four times greater than on Utah. The difference is attributed to
greater effectiveness of preliminary bombardment.

Morale effect (lasting after the bombardment ceases) "…can only be achieved against enemy in open
positions, unless the duration is about 8 hours or more, in which case lightly protected positions may
be affected especially if retaliation is impossible."

On open positions a bombardment intensity of 0.1
lb/sq yd/hour in 25-pdr equivalents produces collapse in about 4 hours; 1.0 lb/sq yd/hour in about ¼
hour.

Neutralising effect, in NW Europe, on an enemy in open positions, was achieved with a bombardment
intensity of 0.02–0.08 lb/sq yd/hr. in 25-pdr equivalents.
Lethal effect: A density of 0.1 lb/sq yd causes 2% casualties on targets in slit trenches, about 20% on
targets in the open.

Material effect: A density of 0.1 lb/sq yd damages about 1½% of weapons or guns in pits, 20% of soft
vehicles in the open."

Logistic is even more what WW2 is all about.

Does that mean we should spend 1/2 of every game moving trucks?

A bit off topic but emphatically, yes. If your game represents corps or division sized engagements then logistics, c4i (okay, wrong period, call it c3i), and artillery are going to be as important or more so than resolving individual engagements between maneuver elements. Of course the supply columns can be abstracted, using truck miniatures or little depot dioramas as markers to represent nodes in the LOCs. But the point is, these aspects are what wargaming in this scale is all about. At least that's the way I look at it.

"Does that mean we should spend 1/2 of every game moving trucks?"

For operational gaming, then yes.

"these aspects are what wargaming in this scale is all about."

As are the physical capacities of the road net (if such is present).

Yes, fuel & ammo consumption, replacement/repair of losses, allocation of support assets, engineering etc are what operational gaming is all about. So you do spend a lot of time moving trucks around, setting up (and defending) supply dumps, repair centres, HQs etc as well as breaching/crossing obstacles. There is a bit of tactical stuff about where to mass troops, axes of advance, when to commit resrves etc as well of course. That is the other half.

Pig has hit the nail on the it is the LOGISTICs that win wars, he who has the most will, more often,outsustain an enemy.

Although artillery is devestating (depending on the calibre remembering a 25pdr is a light weapon where as a 5.5" or 7.2" will really spoil your day, don't forget the concussion effect and broken bones, if an expectation of 100 men is 9 dead, how many are wounded, or unfit through shock? lets guess at 30 wounded 10 shocked that leaves 50% so maybe some rules do have it right in one way.

I always find Firefly is pretty accurate on the table top when used corrrectly. Again numbers is the game, if your using multiple batteries say 4 for argument sake then its shock effect will be higher than 1 battery firing into your area.

The fire power demo I saw started off with GPMG 7.62mm and mortars, then moved up to heavy guns and rockets, and to cap it all Airpower came in.

I for one would have not to been with a mile of that position.

I supose its what you want out of a game really??? anon

indeed. This question really really depends on what size of game you are playing.
Operation Torch ? Bring on the full weight of artillery, navy and airforce

2nd platoon checking out a farm house ? a 2" mortar and however far you can chuck a hand grenade

Tim,

"Hey Mark, do you have a cite for those figures? They sound right to me from what I know, but it would be interestng to try and reflect the delay for unplanned fire in our games."

It's here:

link

Daryl's site is an excellent source for all sorts of artillery-related questions.

" if an expectation of 100 men is 9 dead, how many are wounded, or unfit through shock? lets guess at 30 wounded 10 shocked that leaves 50% so maybe some rules do have it right in one way."

It isn't 9 dead..its 9 total casualties,…thats it, less than 10% for a THOUSAND shells.

In the end, whatever scale of game you are playing, you probably don't/can't use as much artillery/mortars as you should, because under the rules its way more effective than it should be at KO'ing kit, as oppossed to suppressing etc.
The idea of wall to wall 5.5" guns, AGRA's and Battleships dropping 700 gun stonks on oportunity targets is just the allied version of the full strength Panzer battalion wet dream…both happened occassionally, but very rarely.

My research arrives at similar conclusions to christot's statements.

Improved positions make a profound difference in the effectiveness of artillery (or direct fire for that matter).

Doesn't mean you won't get touched but we are talking a magnitude of 100 when compared to the same body of troops standing in a parking lot. -- now that as to casualties only.

As noted above there are other benefits to artillery bombardments.

mjc

Going back to the origional question…..for a game to be a game and not a reenactment, I would go for 1 battery per battalion.

Don't know about the original question, but the last few comments remind me of how many times the phrase, 'after seeing the shells land from the cruisers and battleships, and the bombers going in, we all thought, Hell, no one can live through that, but we were wrong' has appeared in veteran accounts. Artillery can be subbed for said weapons in other quotes.

Artillery was, as mentioned way up at the top, the single biggest killer of the war, and quite likely the Great War also. But when occupying prepared defences, troops have proven they cannot simply be blasted out of existence purely by weight of fire. It was at its most lethal when engaging unprotected advancing of forming troops, as proven by the RA and RCA during some desperate times in Normandy. When the enemy were dug in however, the effects of the same weight of barrage could be notably mitigated, and those held back in reservve for counterattack possibly not even affected.

Gary