Tech question about artillery

[NY Cavalry]

I've noticed that the Confederate artillery is very inconsistent. Just finished a MP game where the reb batteries had 300 kills except one battery that had around 3 from ranges above 200 yards. That reb battery had the best rated crews all skilled. I've noticed this in SP play also. That is, certain batteries, for whatever reason, scoring very few hits while other batteries getting hits. This is a problem on the reb side. Yanks batteries always get kills.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

NY Cavalry wrote:

This is a problem on the reb side. Yanks batteries always get kills

Yes, that is by design. The reb ammo had unreliable fusing so the odds of scoring hits with it are much smaller than that of the union's. For SP, you can try the Arty & Enfilade Fire Mod which doubles the rebel odds of scoring hits among other things.

[Kerflumoxed]

NY Cavalry wrote:

This is a problem on the reb side. Yanks batteries always get kills

Yes, that is by design. The reb ammo had unreliable fusing so the odds of scoring hits with it are much smaller than that of the union's. For SP, you can try the Arty & Enfilade Fire Mod which doubles the rebel odds of scoring hits among other things.

Good morning, MTG!

For your consideration:

I was the artillery commander in last night's game referred to by NY Cav. The "by design concept" is flawed (as are many of the artillery factors that have been discussed relentlessly on this forum by myself and others, such as Mr. Willard, with no remedial measures being taken by the artillery wizards), especially when one considers that "solid shot" were being used with no fuse required! Obviously, this aspect is not reflected in the game and needs to be rectified in a future patch. If it wasn't so sad last night, it would have been laughable (in fact, we were all "laughing" and stunned). Three casualties inflicted in over 1 hour of fire from 2 Naps and 2 3" Ordnance Rifles with all guns having "skilled" attributes at ranges of under 300 yards! Ludricuous, at the very least! I am not sure who developed these artillery stats, but they do need to be reevaluated, especially when one considers that many renowned historians and artillery scholars have concluded that between 20% and 50% of all battlefield casualities were inflicted by the artillery.

As to the fuse problem, yes, it was there. But, remember, that the guns in the pre-artillery Pickett's Charge bombardment were firing over a mile away...our range is limited to a maximum of 1,000 yards which has an impact upon fusing. From the "American Civil War Message Board": "New fuses had been issued which had a slower burn time. Due to a recent explosion at the Richmond ordnance plant, the new fuses, supplied from other plants, were longer resulting in delays of about 200 yards or more before detonating the shells. That's why, for example, Meade's headquarters at the Widow Leister's home was rocked so hard from the beginning of the cannonade." When shells were "fused" at shorter ranges, there would be less delay in the charge exploding simply because there was less "flight time" resulting in a shorter "burn" time. In other words, the shells would explode in closer proximity to the enemy.

Here is a site for the post-war "rationale" of artillery problems for the Confederacy from Gen. E. P. Alexander, Chief of Artillery of Longstreet's Corps (is this self-serving and "accurate") discussing the fuse problems as he saw them:

http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Alex ... alex1.html

Hope this adds some insight to possible readjustments!

J

[Marching Thru Georgia]

Kerflumoxed wrote:

When shells were "fused" at shorter ranges, there would be less delay in the charge exploding simply because there was less "flight time" resulting in a shorter "burn" time. In other words, the shells would explode in closer proximity to the enemy.

You are quite right as always. The problem is that the current arty model is a very simple one. It does not take things such as flight time, proximitry of detonation to target or the facing of the target into account. But the good news is that the arty model is going to be re-visited for the next feature patch.

Indeed I have witnessed the same pitiful results from arty fire as you do. I have also been on the receiving end of rebel arty fire that tears apart my flank and sends my poor boys in blue running for the hills. It's very inconsistent. I still recommend you try the arty fire mod for SP. With the enfilade fire enhancement, even rebel artillery will drive the enemy away if they are firing into the flank of a regiment. It's 10 times as effective as the stock game.

[NY Cavalry]

It is hard to learn to run the reb artillery when it is so inconsistent. I like the advantage the Union artillery has, that is historically accurate. I just think that the reb artillery should be looked at because of its inconsistency.

I don't want to be negative, because I do enjoy the game, but the enfilading fire in the stock game is not modeled very well. I like to play MP games, that is where the real challenge is at. We cannot mod MP games. Here is my observation. Enfilading fire and rear fire bonuses are in my opinion nonexistent. TC2M was very good, no problems at all. Now, I'm sure some table was developed to represent this, but it doesn't work. It would be better for the overall game for this to be remedied.

I think a good solution to the Mp play problem of sharps can be fixed by adjusting the OOB and giving the sharps the 250 yard ranged rifle. This has also had the added bonus of keeping artillery off the front lines. This leads me to a request.

I hope the team is still working on fixing the cavalry. I request that in the rifles chart there could be added or adjusted the cavalry rifles to ranges of 140 yards and 120 yards. This would give modder's the option of replacing the cavalry rifles of range 160 with rifles of ranges of 140 or 120 yards. The infantry always had the advantage of longer range weapons over cavalry. I would like to simulate this in a modded OOB.

The artillery is the king of the battlefield. Civil war artillery was not WW1 artillery and was not as dominate as some may like it to be. I think most civil war casualties were caused by small arms fire and canister. Not by long range artillery and not by the bayonet, though both did cause casualties. I hope this game doesn't become a shoot 'em up game.

I feel the game does a really good job of modeling and it is a great game to play. I do say it does need some tweaks. Enfilading fire effectiveness being the biggest concern. It would also be nice for troops in column formations to take more casualties.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

NY Cavalry wrote:

Enfilading fire and rear fire bonuses are in my opinion nonexistent. TC2M was very good, no problems at all. Now, I'm sure some table was developed to represent this, but it doesn't work. It would be better for the overall game for this to be remedied.

The bonus does exist, it's just 10 times too small. The big problem is that regiments are all too willing to expose their flanks to enemy fire. Higher levels of organization worry about their flanks, but not regiments. There is a request to look at this for the next patch.

I hope the team is still working on fixing the cavalry. I request that in the rifles chart there could be added or adjusted the cavalry rifles to ranges of 140 yards and 120 yards.

Cavalry will be remodeled. The problem with giving cavalry a shorter range is that it will tend to stay in line and be shot at until it breaks. It won't advance on the enemy if it has orders to hold the line. Just think about how the first scenario would play with that change.

Enfilading fire effectiveness being the biggest concern. It would also be nice for troops in column formations to take more casualties.

It's on the list.

[NY Cavalry]

Thanks for the reply. My main concern is with MP play. Regarding the cavalry, I was just requesting that 2 or 4 of the rifles be modified in the "rifle" tables so we could mod OOB's. Like for the Burnside, include a version that only fires to 140 yards. In MP play, we can have the sharps use the Model_1861s_Springfield_USA(range 250 yards), but we have no such options for cavalry unless we want to give them a weapon that has a range of 60 yards. Weapons can be switched for MP play, but not modded.

[Marching Thru Georgia]

I understand now. I'll add that request to the list.

[Kerflumoxed]

I understand now. I'll add that request to the list.

....and thanks for revisiting the arty question as well!:woohoo:

J

[Jim]

.... Three casualties inflicted in over 1 hour of fire from 2 Naps and 2 3" Ordnance Rifles with all guns having "skilled" attributes at ranges of under 300 yards!

J

Jack,
The quoted performance is not by design. For a CS unit with a 3 in Ord at 300 yds, firing shrapnel at infantry, with exp=6, you should be getting a kill every 12 rounds or so per gun. A kill should give you 2-5 casualties depending on the dice roll. For solid you should be getting a kill about every 3 rounds, with casualties of 2. For artillery, divide all #s by 4 as a rough guide as artillery guns have a lot of open spaces compared to infantry in LOB.

We did extensive testing this past summer to chase down another artillery bug and after that fix was in, the accuracy code was working exactly as designed.

If you see this failure again, please get a saved game. Reload the game in SP and make sure the bad behavior is still going on. If so, then email it in to the support email so Norb can look at what is not working correctly. These guns should be performing as they did historically and what you saw is not even close to correct. This needs to be fixed, but we need a saved game to see where the error lies.

-Jim