I've been playing these games quiet a bit now and I'm often frustrated by lots of artillery which for some reason or another is unable to fire. In for instance the Normandy campaigns this is compounded with lots of ships just stood by doing nothing while the infantry struggles onshore.
I can understand moving artillery units, then having to set up again and sometimes breakdowns in communications. But surely in 2 hour turns there is a pretty good chance the unit will be ready to fire and in communication.
Lack of ammo might well be another reason, but I wouldn't have thought that would apply to ships that carry large amounts of ammo.
I wonder if anyone can enlighten me on the reasoning behind this non firing.
Whilst on the subject of artillery the Commonwealth forces have an abundance of 3" mortars in Bren Carriers yet when firing these, they never seem to get any result, or very occasionally 1 man. Why are these so ineffective even against men who are not dug in.
First off, I would assume you are playing one of the game stock scns - anything else and your mileage may vary depending upon what was done.
All I can say on the Naval Fire is what the rules say:
"For naval units, half the default Global Supply Value for that side applies. Otherwise, the supply rules for naval units are the same as for artillery units."
I didn't have much to do with the Normandy game beyond testing it but I know in Sicily I had to take steps to cut the availablity of the naval fire because the way the game worked it was much more effective than was the historically the case. In the case of the British I added FOO units to direct the fire where only these units could spot - not ANY Unit.
IN N44 the stock scn genrally have 60% allied global supply - so that makes 30% for Naval units.
The commonwealth 3inch Mortar - not sure. Certainly the firse rules would have some effect. The HARD attack is only 6 while the soft is 15 so it will be more effective against a soft target.
Assuming you are using the Default Rules - so ALT fire is ON - then Density of the target hex plays a role - firing at a hex with a lot on men in it will kill more. Firing at a target in the clear hex has no modified fire. While firing at a target in Bocage cuts the fire effect in half.
If you want to see the math involved turn the "On Map Result" OFF and you will see the raw values and modifiers if the info on the target hex is known (FOW OFF)
Not sure if it answers you question or not.
Glenn
Thanks Glenn to some extent it helps explain it, but from all I've read on this campaign the naval artillery was pretty devastating when used against ground targets, I'm not referring to bunkers or pillboxes here but other more vunerable targets.(perhaps I'm biased I was once in the Navy)
I can see however now for game purposes it would be desirable to tune it down a bit. We certainly have a much better view of the battlefield targets than they ever would have in real life.
Hence I suppose the non firing units.
As regard the 3" mortars I've been played both stock scenarios with default rules and alt ones. There are so many of these mortars I usually fire them against soft targets which are in the open but hardly ever seem to get a result. It makes you wonder sometimes why bother to have them at all. They just seem to be there to make up the numbers.
Perhaps I've just been unlucky with them, but I wonder if others have had the same result.
Gordon
Ships not being able to fire may have to do probably with both command structure and ships firing range I would say...
I would agree that the 3" mortar units in N44 are a bit too much, kind of like the 50mm or so 3 gun US at gun units with each infantry battalion. However, if you have the time to devote to it, you can occasionally get a disruption with the 3" mortar units and the small AT guns are good to just sit and hold ground with infantry (but not useful to actually fire at anything).
As for naval units, they do become low on ammo frequently and this is tied to the global supply level for the allied side in N44. In both stock and _Alt the level is low and it is necissary for it to be that way to properly model the intitial landings. The side effect being that if you fire a naval unit then it will likely be low ammo next turn. That might be resonable though considering that naval units did need to have a break in their fire from time to time. The _Alt scenarios generally have more effective BB and CA firepower against hard and soft targets though.
I think it's easy to over-estimate the ammount of ammo large warships carried for their big guns. I just looked up the figures for the Bismarck, but I doubt the are too great differences between afterall quite similar designs. The Bismarck had just over a hundred rounds for her main 15" battery and 150 for her 6" guns. That means less than an hour of continuous fire. So I think it makes sense that naval artillery can't keep firing all day in support of land operations.
Thanks for the input everyone.
I guess that's about the right amount of ammo load for the big ships, smaller ones with the 4 or 5" guns would carry something like 750 rounds, but of course they would be expended a lot quicker.
What I was really thinking of here was the small ships that came in very close to support Omaha beach.
It seems from what I've read they were a essential in helping the men struggling on the beach and it's very difficult to assimilate this in the game when the ships won't fire. But I do take the point that ships would have to restock with ammo and that can take time.
I would say roughly every other turn availability was fair on reflection.
Back to the mortars although not very useful as artillery I have found a use for them, they can fill out the battlefield and plug gaps. They are also very mobile and are quite useful when use similar to German flak units, exploiting breakthroughs and cutting off enemy supply.
They can also be used effectively as scouts, although I'm sure they weren't designed for this. But I expect some Bren carriers were used this way at sometime.
Gordon