WWW: The German player does not use artillery

[Invader_Canuck]

What do you propose?
I see a lot of people in this thread saying ''this type of division should do this to this division'' and that's okay, I guess, but I wonder, when you imagine an infantry division that ''sucks'', what are the stats of your infantry battalions? Your artillery battalions?

We already have artillery with almost triple the soft attack of infantry. I don't know where the limit to ''sucking'' goes, but a division with three infantry brigades and an art brigade will have a lot more soft attack than one with four infantry brigades, at the cost of lower organization and speed (and possibly toughness/defensiveness). I don't see why this isn't sufficent? It seems like it will work well to me.

The problem that I have, and many others have is historic plausibly. By that I mean, at what point do we sacrifice what is realistic and factual for game play. Infantry without artillery support simply cannot attack. It cannot. Infantry without modern, proper infantry support results in WW1 style trench warfare where nobody has the ability to move and attack. It took 3 years in WW1 for people to figure out how to use artillery to attack, but once they did the entire war started to change.

Without proper indirect or direct fire support, infantry is meat. It can be achieved by artillery, it can be achieved by armor, it can be achieved by self propelled guns, but it has to be achieved by something.

The only time that these types of support regiments should be left out of the division design is when they are being detailed with very specialized purposes. Such as very low infra regions where the logistical footprint of these more supply hungry regiments would actually diminish the effectiveness of the division.

That isn't about being diverse or achieving balanced gameplay, it's about making sense. Infantry is good, infantry supported by artillery or some other heavy hitting fire support element should almost ALWAYS be better.

In this game, attacking with infantry in an area that can properly support direct or indirect support regiments should be like running face first into an airplane prop engine. Making things realistic, without being deterministic should be the goal of this game design. Real life strategy, real life division composition, these are things that should work. It isn't deterministic to say that if you can use artillery or other direct or indirect fire support regiments you should use them. It just makes sense.

I think the big issue with WWW is that they are still fine tuning things like logistics. Daniel is powergaming, and as such he is abusing the mechanics of the game as they exist to confer an advantage. If artillery was better he would have used it, but it isn't and I think the reason is how logistics and supply are working in that build.

 

[agentgb]

@Invader_Canuck

There are special cases, and it really depends on terrain. Finnish light infantry had great success with there outnumbered light infantry cutting up mechanized divisions with no dedicated artillery support, was practically a repeat of the teutoburg forest. Finnish army could not produce on the same scale has the soviet, so relied on captured equipment, especially ammo to lessen the burden on production.

a notable battle which on paper the finnish should have lost.Finn's had many more like it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suomussalmi

Spoiler: Motti

Motti
Motti is Finnish military slang for a totally encircled enemy unit. The tactic of encircling it is called motitus, literally meaning the formation of an isolated block or "motti", but in effect meaning an entrapment or envelopment.

The word motti is borrowed from the Swedish mått, or "measure" which means one cubic meter of firewood or pulpwood. When collecting timber for these purposes, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, each one a "motti", which would be left scattered in the woods to be picked up later. The word also means "mug" in many Finnish dialects; motti is thus related to kessel. A motti in military tactics therefore means the formation of "bite sized" enemy units which are easier to contain and deal with.

This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to good effect. It was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, which were effectively restricted to the long and narrow forest roads with virtually no way other than forwards or backwards. Once committed to a road, the Soviet troops effectively were trapped. Unlike the mechanized units of the Soviets, the Finnish troops could move quickly through the forests on skis and break columns of armoured Soviet units into smaller chunks (e.g., by felling trees along the road). Once the large column was split up into smaller armoured units, the Finnish forces attacking from within the forest could strike the weakened column. The smaller pockets of enemy troops could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on all sides against the entrapped unit.

A motitus is therefore a double envelopment manoeuvre, using the ability of light troops to travel over rough ground to encircle enemy troops on a road. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy many times more numerous.

By cutting the enemy columns or units into smaller groups and then encircling them with light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter a smaller force can overwhelm a much larger force. If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have entailed an unacceptably high cost, e.g., because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "stew" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies, and ammunition and was weakened enough to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held out until the end of the war because they were resupplied by air. Being trapped, these units were therefore not available for battle operations.

The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at the Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions as well as a tank brigade trapped on a road.

This led to the great sausage war, but yeah, if you yolo into artillery, your gonna have a bad day,

 

[Invader_Canuck]

@Invader_Canuck

There are special cases, and it really depends on terrain. Finnish light infantry had great success with there outnumbered light infantry cutting up mechanized divisions with no dedicated artillery support, was practically a repeat of the teutoburg forest. Finnish army could not produce on the same scale has the soviet, so relied on captured equipment, especially ammo to lessen the burden on production.

a notable battle which on paper the finnish should have lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Suomussalmi

Spoiler: Motti

Motti
Motti is Finnish military slang for a totally encircled enemy unit. The tactic of encircling it is called motitus, literally meaning the formation of an isolated block or "motti", but in effect meaning an entrapment or envelopment.

The word motti is borrowed from the Swedish mått, or "measure" which means one cubic meter of firewood or pulpwood. When collecting timber for these purposes, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, each one a "motti", which would be left scattered in the woods to be picked up later. The word also means "mug" in many Finnish dialects; motti is thus related to kessel. A motti in military tactics therefore means the formation of "bite sized" enemy units which are easier to contain and deal with.

This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to good effect. It was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, which were effectively restricted to the long and narrow forest roads with virtually no way other than forwards or backwards. Once committed to a road, the Soviet troops effectively were trapped. Unlike the mechanized units of the Soviets, the Finnish troops could move quickly through the forests on skis and break columns of armoured Soviet units into smaller chunks (e.g., by felling trees along the road). Once the large column was split up into smaller armoured units, the Finnish forces attacking from within the forest could strike the weakened column. The smaller pockets of enemy troops could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on all sides against the entrapped unit.

A motitus is therefore a double envelopment manoeuvre, using the ability of light troops to travel over rough ground to encircle enemy troops on a road. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy many times more numerous.

By cutting the enemy columns or units into smaller groups and then encircling them with light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter a smaller force can overwhelm a much larger force. If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have entailed an unacceptably high cost, e.g., because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "stew" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies, and ammunition and was weakened enough to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held out until the end of the war because they were resupplied by air. Being trapped, these units were therefore not available for battle operations.

The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at the Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions as well as a tank brigade trapped on a road.

This led to the great sausage war

Right, and how much worse would the Soviets have fared without artillery support?

Artillery is arguably more important on the attack, actually, I'd say it absolutely is more important on the attack. The finns were defending, they had to work without artillery and fire support assets not by choice. If they could have had artillery or self propelled guns they would have, and imagine what they would have done if they did. Finnish world conquest? ;p

 

[agentgb]

Right, and how much worse would the Soviets have fared without artillery support?

Artillery is arguably more important on the attack, actually, I'd say it absolutely is more important on the attack. The finns were defending, they had to work without artillery and fire support assets not by choice. If they could have had artillery or self propelled guns they would have, and imagine what they would have done if they did. Finnish world conquest? ;p

ahhh no, you are correct, just pointing out that there are special cases, and it is down to terrain i think mostly, were artillery and tanks, and if the weather is bad, aircraft are unwieldy. I think although the russians lacked dedicated artillery, they had field guns... but mostly i think it was there airforce that was compensating for ther lack of artillery.

The finn's did use artillery, but they had it all concentrated at the Mannerheim Line, given that they knew they had to fight proper conventional battles, but proved deadly for the russians. Thoughout the thread i've been saying that artillery is purely situational, i think, jungle warfare, infantry fighting happened at pointblank, although not to say that artillery in such terrain would not give you a edge, especially if attacking, but with a field of view, signallers could walk artillery in to there target, and would have better effect.

I'd say what happened in the case of WWW, has people have mentioned, Dan caught the soviets with there pants down, infantry zerg was more then enough to do the job, and johans earlier failures was down to supplies, lack of holding ports in sweden i think, and anywhere for the most part with the failed invasions. Johan said his success in egypt was down to signal companys, that gave him a planning bonus, which i guess if you have a artillery heavy division waiting behind ready to join, it will get them into the battle quicker, but also down to logistics, since he built up infrastructure, and had a big port sitting behind him.

 

[Acaios]

during vietnam war the usual US tactic was to send infantry ahead to spot enemy bunkers and then call the artillery to raze them down.

are you all really arguing about the utility of the artillery in a modern combat scenario?

 

[agentgb]

during vietnam war the usual US tactic was to send infantry ahead to spot enemy bunkers and then call the artillery to raze them down.

are you all really arguing about the utility of the artillery in a modern combat scenario?

you still lost didn't ya?

 

[Acaios]

yes, it happen when people talk about nonsense.

The main artillery goal is not to deal casualties. Caen teaches us that indeed it's pretty ineffective in dealing casualties.
Artillery main purpose is to hit what in game is called organization. It can blast fortifications, hit forward hqs, cut supply lines, clear obstacles and it's also good in inspiring terror into enemy infantry.
terrain does not mean anything. even in a flat terrain, how do you easily kill a bunker protected by at and aa guns? Sending planes and tanks to face their direct counters? pretty wise.

 

[agentgb]

yes, it happen when people talk about nonsense.

The main artillery goal is not to deal casualties. Caen teaches us that indeed it's pretty ineffective in dealing casualties.
Artillery main purpose is to hit what in game is called organization. It can blast fortifications, hit forward hqs, cut supply lines, clear obstacles and it's also good in inspiring terror into enemy infantry.
terrain does not mean anything. even in a flat terrain, how do you easily kill a bunker protected by at and aa guns? Sending planes and tanks to face their direct counters? pretty wise.

plently of other examples to draw from too, british artillery was ineffective against german dugouts/bunkers/obstacles in ww1, but of course it was awe inspiring, the french had the right idea in ww1, and were the first to use it with precision, since the french knew a preliminary bombardment just alerted the germans to sit it out until it stopped, while precision artillery strikes forced the germans to be bombed regardless if they were going to defend there trench/bunker and not be overun. But if the terrain is blocking a signallers field of view from relative safety, the job becomes alot more difficult, in vietnam IED & other improvised booby traps had a greater effect on US morale then artillery, walking point wasn't a job you volunteered for, and in the jungle you need to get pretty close in order to find those bunkers, and the vietnamese weren't silly, they knew they had to get under the range of artillery so the US artillery could not be used for fear of killing friendlies, although they did shell themselves in times of deseperation, the vietcong used the terrain to there advanatge to sneak up close to US positions then attempt to over run them. Terrain means everything imo anyway.

Also about planes, the jungle canopy countered the effective use of hiting targets effectively, much like the (canopy & weather in east finland), made it horrible for the US to supply positions due to vietcong waiting in the jungle with AA, that didn't stop the yanks though, has we saw with operation rolling thunder, but it wasn't hugely effective in the end. The russians had great success using tanks to hit bunkers/fortified positions, but that was mostly due to the 88mm flak gun being the only effective AT gun, same with the british during world war one when tanks first entered the scene and broke the stalemate. Terrain means everything, you don't take tanks into cities for obvious reasons.

The beaches of normandy were pre-sighted with kill zones, so artillery was indeed effective, the Mannerheim Line was pre-sighted with kill zones, and used to deadly effect, while the offshore bombardment from the allied forces was ineffective for the most part since they were trying to hit what they could barely see without signallers actually being able to survey the results due to it being a preliminary bombardment until they got ashore.

In short on terrain:

Flat Open Terrain - see the enemy coming a mile off, artillery can do its thing
Jungle/Densed Woodland - Enemy is already on top of you before you can adequately support with artillery.
Fortified Positions - Offering protection from artillery, requires creeping or precise bombardment.
Cities - Preliminary bombardment, Precesion bombardment

Use of artillery:

Preliminary Bombardment - hit them with everything and hope you have done enough damage
Creeping Barrage - walk the infantry in with artillery support requring timing & signallers so infantry can overun positions
Precesion Bombardment - location the target, neutralise it, move up, repeat.

 

[kalauer]

Artillery main purpose is to hit what in game is called organization.

And I guess that is what is not reflected properly right now since Daniel removed the Art support stating he wanted to be able to fight longer than the enemy in terms of organisation. So the Org-malus he got from having the art obviously is atm higher than the org loss inflicted to the enemy.

 

[Centerbe]

No it isn't.
The game is based around an idea of the PDS design team.
Podcat even said that in their vision historical accuracy is less important then the gameplay.

umm on steam is described as an "authentic real time war simulator"

"Authentic real-time war simulation:
Let the greatest commanders of WW2 fight your war
with the tools of the time; tanks, planes, ships, guns
and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction."

of course as in all games ist impossible simulate everything, but players here probably like more the idea of realism.

 

[Denkt]

Well Podcat have said this:

We are making a game, not a historical simulation

The game is basically historical fiction made so that hindsight should not play a big role.

 

[Zaku]

umm on steam is described as an "authentic real time war simulator"

"Authentic real-time war simulation:
Let the greatest commanders of WW2 fight your war
with the tools of the time; tanks, planes, ships, guns
and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction."

of course as in all games ist impossible simulate everything, but players here probably like more the idea of realism.

@Denkt already answered you.

 

[Centerbe]

@Denkt already answered you.

i dont know if he answered to me, i didnt ask anything...
mine was only and observation, is what stream say

 

[ASPGolan]

umm on steam is described as an "authentic real time war simulator"

"Authentic real-time war simulation:
Let the greatest commanders of WW2 fight your war
with the tools of the time; tanks, planes, ships, guns
and newly discovered weapons of mass destruction."

of course as in all games ist impossible simulate everything, but players here probably like more the idea of realism.

Authentic =/= accurate. Authentic can be the simple fact that the game has the flavour of the period and it doesn't justify any further assertions you or anybody else makes out of it (it is chosen on purpose, because it reflects better what they intend to do). What is authentic is subjective from person to person. You can keep insisting on defining terms, but then again it's obvious to any veteran "forumer" that you're only interested in pushing your own version. However, the previous replies were fairly easy to understand and there are plenty of Pdox replies to prove that they're going for authenticity not accuracy, that whenever fun is impacted by realism, they'll pick the gamey solution. And they have explained this exhaustively by now, they also want realism and the game to be as accurate as possible, but some features just don't make sense from gameplay considerations and others are unjustifiably difficult to implement when compared to the actual significance to most players. In such areas, it would be hard for them to argue with people that give constructive criticism, but they still can't find ways to keep both the realism and ease of use.

Edit: I can't say that I agree or not with their option, but they have made it pretty clear, it's their choice and everybody should know what they're getting themselves into. It's not productive in discussions to insist on things that the developers have explained they can't accommodate.

 

[kalauer]

Slightly lost our topic here, didn't we?

Are there more insights about this artillery thing?

 

[Centerbe]

Authentic =/= accurate. Authentic can be the simple fact that the game has the flavour of the period and it doesn't justify any further assertions you or anybody else makes out of it (it is chosen on purpose, because it reflects better what they intend to do). What is authentic is subjective from person to person. You can keep insisting on defining terms, but then again it's obvious to any veteran "forumer" that you're only interested in pushing your own version. However, the previous replies were fairly easy to understand and there are plenty of Pdox replies to prove that they're going for authenticity not accuracy, that whenever fun is impacted by realism, they'll pick the gamey solution. And they have explained this exhaustively by now, they also want realism and the game to be as accurate as possible, but some features just don't make sense from gameplay considerations and others are unjustifiably difficult to implement when compared to the actual significance to most players. In such areas, it would be hard for them to argue with people that give constructive criticism, but they still can't find ways to keep both the realism and ease of use.

Edit: I can't say that I agree or not with their option, but they have made it pretty clear, it's their choice and everybody should know what they're getting themselves into. It's not productive in discussions to insist on things that the developers have explained they can't accommodate.

Simulation =/= is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Key issues in simulation include acquisition of valid source information about the relevant selection of key characteristics and behaviours, the use of simplifying approximations and assumptions within the simulation, and fidelity and validity of the simulation outcomes.

PS; i didnt express my opinion, my taste, my idea, but only what the description of the game in the commercial site said. The same description every buyer read before get this product.
Every resulting conjecture you re doing is not made by me.

 

[nhsk]

Maybe artillery counts as heavy artillery? Which the germans didn't utilize much of, it was much more integrated light artillery that moved faster with the infantry (ie. in game terms it is integrated into the infantry itself)

 

[Fremor]

My Idea:

INF:
Stats are focused on "Defensiveness" , Pure INF should be extremly terrible in makeing an offensive. But pretty good to defend things.
So if we have 2 Pure Infantries army face each other, it ends in a stalemate. You need to out maneuver, massivley outnumber or let the enemy run out of supply to win.

ART:
stats are focused on "Soft Attack" , Artillery allows to deal casualties to the enemy makeing the manpower grind more efficent for you, potentially enough to push the enemy back.

Planes and tanks can replace ART in its function of dealing casulties.

ARM:
stats give good soft (+hard) attack, armor and toughness. Tanks allow to make an offensive without suffering too much casulties, achieving a breakthrough.
An army haveing access to tanks will be able to breakthrough the enemy line and encircle the enemy.
Two armies with tanks faceing each other will end in a war of maneuver.

An Army without ART would work. They are not an automatic choice. But if you have no access to Tanks or Planes, it is the only tool left to make an offensive.

Not really. INF is all-round and adaptable. Art is attack and defence, with much artillary being great at def since you dont need to move the guns much and thus dont have to worry about speed.

Planes or tanks can't replace arty. Tanks too low range to have the same function as arty, more expencive and lower boom, unless you got a tank unit that is, but even then you have sp arty. Planes would be too expencive and not efficiant enough. Plus slower to put to use in practice.

An enemy without art would get attacked by our art untill he has so few units we could just steamroll him. Airplanes cant intercept shells. Tanks cant reach the arty due to you having too few of them to both survive arty barrage and inf anti tank weapons to take out the arty. If enemy has AA weapons too, thus being more diverse rather than skipping an entire weapon class, you're in big trubble with those airplanes too.

 

[EleventhAvenue]

The problem that I have, and many others have is historic plausibly. By that I mean, at what point do we sacrifice what is realistic and factual for game play. Infantry without artillery support simply cannot attack. It cannot. Infantry without modern, proper infantry support results in WW1 style trench warfare where nobody has the ability to move and attack. It took 3 years in WW1 for people to figure out how to use artillery to attack, but once they did the entire war started to change.

Without proper indirect or direct fire support, infantry is meat. It can be achieved by artillery, it can be achieved by armor, it can be achieved by self propelled guns, but it has to be achieved by something.

The only time that these types of support regiments should be left out of the division design is when they are being detailed with very specialized purposes. Such as very low infra regions where the logistical footprint of these more supply hungry regiments would actually diminish the effectiveness of the division.

That isn't about being diverse or achieving balanced gameplay, it's about making sense. Infantry is good, infantry supported by artillery or some other heavy hitting fire support element should almost ALWAYS be better.

In this game, attacking with infantry in an area that can properly support direct or indirect support regiments should be like running face first into an airplane prop engine. Making things realistic, without being deterministic should be the goal of this game design. Real life strategy, real life division composition, these are things that should work. It isn't deterministic to say that if you can use artillery or other direct or indirect fire support regiments you should use them. It just makes sense.

I think the big issue with WWW is that they are still fine tuning things like logistics. Daniel is powergaming, and as such he is abusing the mechanics of the game as they exist to confer an advantage. If artillery was better he would have used it, but it isn't and I think the reason is how logistics and supply are working in that build.

I still don't understand. Daniel's divisions do have artillery support. They have infantry mortars, they have regimental guns, possibly some light motorised artillery too, depending on
what you want to count as a part of the infantry equipment. It's not like Daniel's divisions lack any field hospitals just because he didn't get the field hospital company.

And now say things ''should'' and ''should'' again. Artillery has three times the soft attack of infantry. What do you want, 50?

 

[Zaku]

i dont know if he answered to me, i didnt ask anything...
mine was only and observation, is what stream say

You don't need to ask to get an answer, someone can also answer to an observation.

answer
ˈɑːnsə/

1.
say or write something as a reaction to someone or something.
"‘Of course I can,’ she answered"
synonyms: reply, respond, speak/say in response