How's the status of artillery ? wrong or not - fixed or not?

[oho]

There is some discussion about artillery not being realistic, short range too strong, lnong range too weak.
What's your opinion? I'm not too much of an expert, so: is that true? If yes - will this be addressed in the first patch?

[norb]

We have done a lot of work on arty in the beta patch that was released today. We have done a lot of testing and are happy with the results.

[gbs]

To me it's not the strength or weakness of artillery that seems well..silly. It's the fact that a regiment of 300 men can face off at inside 100 yards with one cannon with no effect that I can see on the crew. The infantry is eventually decimated and they run for the hills while the unscathed artillery crew rotate the gun toward the next victem. I'll admit I am far from an expert but at that range i would think that one volly from 300 guys aiming at 8 guys would kill or wound half the cannon crew and at least effect their speed or aim or something. Am I wrong...it seems the best way to use cannon is to role them up as close as possible and blow a hole in the enemy lines. they seem impervious to infantry musket fire.

[norb]

That is something that we worked on for the patch and we agree that should not be able to happen without significant consequences.

[Shirkon]

gbs wrote:

To me it's not the strength or weakness of artillery that seems well..silly. It's the fact that a regiment of 300 men can face off at inside 100 yards with one cannon with no effect that I can see on the crew. The infantry is eventually decimated and they run for the hills while the unscathed artillery crew rotate the gun toward the next victem. I'll admit I am far from an expert but at that range i would think that one volly from 300 guys aiming at 8 guys would kill or wound half the cannon crew and at least effect their speed or aim or something. Am I wrong...it seems the best way to use cannon is to role them up as close as possible and blow a hole in the enemy lines. they seem impervious to infantry musket fire.

There are a lot of reasons that the infantry fire isn't as effective on artillery as it is on another infantry regiment. Very few regiments had more training on firing their rifle muskets then loading and pointing them in the general direction of the enemy and pulling the trigger. There are very few documented instances of any regiments ever going to a firing range and learning how to aim. An artillery piece and it's crew are a relatively small target when compared to an infantry regiment. More often then not it was the horses of a battery that were killed rather then the crew itself. Remember also, in the game infantry with the exception of the US Sharpshooters can't open fire until they close to 165 yds, while the artillery can begin firing canister at 200 yds. Closing from 200 yds to 165 yds when each canister round fired into you takes out 5-10 men can even make pointing your rifle towards the artillery a iffy situation. Each hit by the canister is going to lower the targets morale significantly. If you must close on an artillery battery, close to just outside 200 yds, then charge to close the range as rapidly as possible. You'll probably get hit a couple of times, but you will probably make it unless other guns of the battery start blasting you as well.

[gbs]

Shirkon wrote:

gbs wrote:

To me it's not the strength or weakness of artillery that seems well..silly. It's the fact that a regiment of 300 men can face off at inside 100 yards with one cannon with no effect that I can see on the crew. The infantry is eventually decimated and they run for the hills while the unscathed artillery crew rotate the gun toward the next victem. I'll admit I am far from an expert but at that range i would think that one volly from 300 guys aiming at 8 guys would kill or wound half the cannon crew and at least effect their speed or aim or something. Am I wrong...it seems the best way to use cannon is to role them up as close as possible and blow a hole in the enemy lines. they seem impervious to infantry musket fire.

There are a lot of reasons that the infantry fire isn't as effective on artillery as it is on another infantry regiment. Very few regiments had more training on firing their rifle muskets then loading and pointing them in the general direction of the enemy and pulling the trigger. There are very few documented instances of any regiments ever going to a firing range and learning how to aim. An artillery piece and it's crew are a relatively small target when compared to an infantry regiment. More often then not it was the horses of a battery that were killed rather then the crew itself. Remember also, in the game infantry with the exception of the US Sharpshooters can't open fire until they close to 165 yds, while the artillery can begin firing canister at 200 yds. Closing from 200 yds to 165 yds when each canister round fired into you takes out 5-10 men can even make pointing your rifle towards the artillery a iffy situation. Each hit by the canister is going to lower the targets morale significantly. If you must close on an artillery battery, close to just outside 200 yds, then charge to close the range as rapidly as possible. You'll probably get hit a couple of times, but you will probably make it unless other guns of the battery start blasting you as well.

Shirkon i have great respect for you and your knowledge of thir era and how this game represents it. Based in what you say it seems cannon have a great advantage over infantry. In the game the regiments don't seem to want to charge cannon that I've seen. I play currier orders with a 30 yard camera range from me in the saddle, so I have to send a currier to tell the regiment to charge. That doesn't seem to work. Meanwhile I can lose 20 - 30 % of my regiment.
I real life, if it were me and my cannon crew of 7 or 8 guys are facing an approaching infantry regiment and we fire taking out a dozen or and they keep coming....I'm out of there..forget the gun and the dead horses. I think that should happen in the game..the cannon should get one good shot in once infantry is within a certain range and then they bolt. Thats just what I think.

[BOSTON]

GBS

The artillery was skittish in TC2M, especially within range of infantry. The last two years the forum has been asking to toughen up the artillery, and that's what NSD has done, made it so the artillery would stand in there longer under fire. Take into consideration the quality of leadership and units too. that's my 2 cents.

BOSTON

[Cruiser]

First thing I did was mess with artillery a bit to see how it was working. I am pleased with the outcome. My kill rate with artillery seemed higher than before and I was able to scare away a gun with rifle fire as well as charge and capture/disrupt a 4 gun rebel battery with infantry. I began firing at the battery with rifle fire at 159 yards, march forward to around 100 yards and began double-timing. Finally, captured 2 guns which I immediately retreated to avoid having them recaptured. My infantry regiment was shot up by cannister during the charge and I knew I would not be able to protect the newly-won guns.

My 10 guns produced 42 casualties versus an enemy battery and riflemen before the battle got up close and personal. Then I got engrossed in what I was doing and neglected to see what casualties the guns had produced at the end of the battle.

So my initial impression is favorable.

[norb]

That is good to hear, thanks for the report. The entire team worked hard to get this right. Shirkon ran numerous tests on a blank map, gathered stats, got them to the team, then I took one test and stepped it all the way through the code. We found a couple of issues and fixed them. It was not a stats issues, our values were correct, it was just a couple of stupid bugs.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I am speaking without having tried the new patch yet, but one problem with artillery fire, is that the same number of casualties are created regardless of the infantry formation or direction of artillery fire. When an artillery hit occurs to infantry in line, approximately the same number of casualties occur to infantry in column. Enfilade fire produces the same casualty rate as frontal fire. That is not what occured historically. During Napoleon's time and even more so during the ACW, one of the primary roles of artillery was to "develop the battlefield." Artillery fire would force troops to change formation to less dense formations, (line), in order to minimize damage and thereby slow them down. It also directed these troops in such a way as to minimize enfilade fire, making them take detours from their intended paths. None of this seems to be modelled in the game.

As for infantry vs artillery, the game is well modelled for napoleonic battles. In those battles, artillery would be advanced 100 yds or so ahead of the infantry and blast away with impunity. Smoothbore muskets had an effective range of under 100 yds, while cannister could be employed out to 3-400 yds. Infantry could never get close enough to shoot down the gunners. However in the ACW, I do not know of any such deployment. Yet the game easily allows this. I set up a sandbox corp vs corp battle and put all of my artillery hub to hub in advance of the infantry, (a splendid grand battery, I was so proud!). The result was a bit lopsided, I suffered 7 casualties to the rebels ~2500. My infantry never engaged. The only interaction I had was running the ammo wagons around keeping the guns supplied with cannister.

As I said, I haven't tried the new patch, so these may all be moot points.