Artillerie-rework

[Grondel]

Someone planted the idea to tangle with the artillerie ranges of the game and make them relate a little more to reality than the simplistic caliber to range method that was used.

General idea:
the range of a artillerie-gun is not alone determined by it´s caliber, but by the propulsion-charge in relation to the caliber.
ww I and II both made exesive use of artillerie and it was a constant struggle to build a gun that would outrange the enemy guns.

This is the list with real ranges and estimated hex ranges(roughly 4km->1 hex). Implementing this change is a matter of minutes. Dealing with the balance issues/changes this will cause is a different matter.

The same needs to be done with ship guns as well of course, but i am not touching mayor naval changes before pacific is out. i hate doing stuff more than once.

Let me know what u think about this. If u have any different infos on a gun, please let me know.

ingame-name: Real: Hex:
StuGIVATY 2 km 1
75mmFK16nA 12.3 km 3
105mmleFH18 12 km 3
15cmsFH18 12.3 km/Rap 18.2km 3/4
17cmK18 29.6 km 7
21cmMrs18 16.7 km 4
15cmNW41 10 km 2
21cmNW42 8 km 2
30cmNW42 4.5 km 1
15/30cm RW 56 4.5/8 km 1/2
Wurfrahmen40 8 km 2
Panzerwerfer42 10 km 2
StuGIIIB 2 km 1
StuH42ATY 5.4 km 1
Brummbär 4 km 1
Sturmtiger 5 km 1
SturmpanzerI 4 km 1
sIG33IISf 4 km 1
sIG38tM 4 km 1
Wespe 12 km 3
Hummel 13,3 km 3
KarlGerat040 4-11km 1-3
Gustav 28-47km 7-14
280mmK5 62/86RAP 15/21
V1ATY ----- ----
V2ATY ----- ----
KV2ATY 12.4 km 3
SU152ATY 17.23 km 4
ISU122ATY 19.8 km 5
76mmM1939 13 km 3
76mmM1942ATY 13.2 km 3
122mmM1938 11.8 km 3
152mmM1938 12.4 km 3
203mmM1931 16 km 4
SU5_2 8.8km 2
SPT_18 ----- ----
BT7A-ATY 4.2 km 1
SU76ATY 13.2 km 3
SU122ATY 11.8 km 3
ISU152ATY 17.2 km 4
BM8_8 3-12 km 1-3
BM8_24 3-12 km 1-3
BM13Katyusha 3-12 km 1-3
BM31Katyusha 3-12 km 1-3
FireflyTulip 1 km 1
QF25pdrATY 12.3 km 3
BL5-5inch 16.6 km 4
BL6inch26cwt 10 km 3
BL7-2inch 17.9 km 4
76mmLandMattress 7.2 km 2
Bishop 12.3 km 3
GBM7Priest 10.9 km 3
Sexton 12.3 km 3
CruiserCS 1.8 km 1
CrusaderCS 1.8 km 1
CromwellCS 1.8 km 1
ChurchillAVRE 2.4 km 1
M3-75GMC-ATY 12.7 km 3
75mmM1A1 8.8 km 2
105mmM2A1 11 km 3
155mmLongTom 23.7 km 6
M7 10.9 km 3
75mmHMCM8 7.6 km 2
155mmM12GMC 19.5 km 5
M4A3-105ATY 11.2 km 3
8InchM1 32 km 8
Calliope 3.7 km 1
Xylophone 3.7 km 1
JB2Loon ----- ----
75mm75-18 9.5 km 2
75mm75-27 9.8 km 2
75-32M37ATY 12.5 km 3
100mm100-17 20 km 5
105mm105-28 11 km 3
149mm149-19 14.2 3
M40da75-18ATY 9.5 km 2
M43da105-25ATY 2.5 km 1
ITBrummbar 4 km 1
FR75mmmle1897 11 km 3
FR105mmmle1913 12 km 3
FR155mmCmle1917 11.2 km 3
75mmwz97 12.7 km 3
105mmwz29 15.5 km 4
155mmwz17 10 km 3
SK75mmvz15 8.2 km 2
SK100mmSkodavz14-19 8.4 km 2
SK150mmvz25 14.6 3
HU80mm18M 5 km 1
HU105mm37M 11 km 3
HU150mmBofors ----- ----
HU15cmNebelwerfer41 10 km 2
RO75mmmodel1897 11 km 3
RO105mmmodel1913 12 km 3
RO150mmmodel1934 15 km 4
BG75mmM1904 8 km 2
BG105mmM1935 11 km 3
BG12cmM1909 8 km 2
YU75mmM15 8.2 km 2
YU105mmM13 12 km 3
YU155mmM17 19.5 km 5
GR75mmM1919 11 km 3
GR105mmM1925-27 11 km 3
GR155mmM1917 19.5 km 5
NO75mmm-01 10 km 3
NL75mmKrupp 6 km 2
NL105mmBofors 16.5 km 4
NL150mmKrupp 12.3 km/Rap 18.2km 3/4
BECanonde75mle 11 km 3
BE105mmleFH16 9.2 km 2
BEObusierde155 6.8 km 2
15cmsIG33 4 km 1
76mmM1943 4.2 km 1
SU76MATY 13.2 km 3
A10CruiserCS 5.4 km 1
M42da149-40ATY 23.7 km 6
76mmM1902-30 13.2 km 3
CZ75mmvz15 8 km 2
CZ100mmSkodavz14-19 8.4 km 2
CZ150mmvz25 23.8 km 6
70mmSchneiderM08 7 km 2
75mmSchneiderM06 8.5 km 2
105mmVickersM22 11 km 3
122mm M10-30 7-9 km 2
152mmM10-30 9.8 km 3
QF18pdrATY 6-10 km 2-3
BL4-5inch 18.7 km 4
Grille17 29.6 km 7
Grille21 16.7 km 4
HeuschreckeATY 12.3 km 3

sers,
Thomas

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

Eh, idk, I think how artillery works right now is pretty balanced for the game's mechanics.

1. Hex scale can change dramatically from map to map, from several city blocks to several dozen km
2. Ground combat is based almost entirely on adjacency. Most direct fire units have to be next to the unit they're attacking, most support units have to be next to the unit they're defending. Only a few, slot-intensive units can sit behind the second line and do counterbattery support.

If you start making arty fire from half way across the map, then tanks should outrange infantry too logically, and then most of the game's balance is broken

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

If I were reworking, artillery, I think the only thing I'd fiddle with are the infantry support guns like stugs.

Either give them 2 range to reflect that they provide active support fire, or keep range at 1 but up the soft attack value to 20-25 so that they can deal reasonable damage as direct assault weapons, or keep the 1 range and low attack values, but give them native vigilant, to reflect that their role as infantry support

[QSertorius]

One thing about which I have wondered is why there is no A-19.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm_gu ... /37_(A-19)

[Grondel]

Eh, idk, I think how artillery works right now is pretty balanced for the game's mechanics.
1. Hex scale can change dramatically from map to map, from several city blocks to several dozen km

That is true for the base game and the AO-series.

2. Ground combat is based almost entirely on adjacency. Most direct fire units have to be next to the unit they're attacking, most support units have to be next to the unit they're defending.

Direct fire "order" is balanced by initiative not range. Main diffrence is the ability to retaliate.

Only a few, slot-intensive units can sit behind the second line and do counterbattery support.

adjusting the slot cost and adding some currently missing artillerie pieces is not problematic.

If you start making arty fire from half way across the map, then tanks should outrange infantry too logically, and then most of the game's balance is broken

did u bother to take a look at the numbers or just spit out whats in ur mind after reading the headline?
I am not used to hearing polemic like this from u.

Most artillerie pieces will have roughly the same range as before, which is 2-4 hexes.
Only very few special or advanced artillerie pieces will have a longer range than that, which is max 8 hexes in case of the US 8inch. If 8 hexes is halfway across the map u need to tell me what u are playing. not even the basegame maps are 16*16 hexes small. The only exeption to this are the Railguns that currently only exist for germany, but can easily be implemented for other nations that had them. Since those are restricted to rail and cannot be bought anyways, i see no issue with those.

It would help a lot, if i was able to modify the counterbatterie trait to fire after the attacking artillerie fired and not before, which of course is complete nonsense. Sadly this is not possible atm, let´s hope the modding kit will show up sometime.

Things to consider is adding the "move or fire"(NoAttackAfterMove) trait to those artillerie pieces that fire beyond 4 hex range. they required a lot of preperation to establish a fire position. I have to test first if that trait works properly since i can´t remember it being used in the game so far. Another possibility is to remove moving completely from artillerie bigger than 10cm. They had to be disassembled cause they were to heavy to be towed, then moved by truck and reassembled at their new position. Having them moved "by hand", even if it´s only one hex, is not very probable as well.

In case of the german Rail-guns, it took several weeks and 5000 ppl working to enable Gustav to fire at Sevastopol.(which didn´t do much for that effort, but thats another matter)

Please continue to disagree and discuss this.

It is dissens that creates and consens that stalls.

sers,
Thomas

[Grondel]

If I were reworking, artillery, I think the only thing I'd fiddle with are the infantry support guns like stugs.
Either give them 2 range to reflect that they provide active support fire, or keep range at 1 but up the soft attack value to 20-25 so that they can deal reasonable damage as direct assault weapons, or keep the 1 range and low attack values, but give them native vigilant, to reflect that their role as infantry support

In case of the StuG the range is apropriate. might reconsider the StuH which in theory could fire up to 10 something km but afaik never was used to do that.

I am considering to enhance their close def significantly to represent their special role but still leave it lower than their ground def.

sers,
Thomas

[Grondel]

One thing about which I have wondered is why there is no A-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm_gu ... /37_(A-19)

Adding "forgotten" units is no big issue as long as there is a modell that can represent them in some form.
Sadly adding new moddels to the game is currently not "possible".

If u have more input like that, let me know.

sers,
Thomas

[QSertorius]

Eh, idk, I think how artillery works right now is pretty balanced for the game's mechanics.

1. Hex scale can change dramatically from map to map, from several city blocks to several dozen km

This is spot on. As I mentioned before, I spent many years modding a game called Blitzkrieg. The original developers basically made a game that was good on a 15.4 inch screen and was very short ranged. A lot like old Command and Conquer games. When we began modding in realistic ranges, we had to make the maps significantly larger for the sake of gameplay. Otherwise no spot on the map was ever safe from long ranged artillery. The devs in the best version of that game ended up basically removing all corps-level artillery and making it into scripted call for fire missions using the air support mechanic in the game. But even the shorter ranged AT guns could sometimes be firing at you from one or two screen widths away from your tanks. It fundamentally changes the game design to start putting in more realistic ranges.

With that said, the changes you proposed are relatively minor. If players know that a railgun can hit them from 8 hexes away, that changes things a bit, but such units are rare. It would be nice to make it so that the largest guns can have almost no accuracy if they move and fire in the same turn (isn't that a thing we can do?).

[QSertorius]

It would help a lot, if i was able to modify the counterbatterie trait to fire after the attacking artillerie fired and not before, which of course is complete nonsense. Sadly this is not possible atm, let´s hope the modding kit will show up sometime.

Things to consider is adding the "move or fire"(NoAttackAfterMove) trait to those artillerie pieces that fire beyond 4 hex range. they required a lot of preperation to establish a fire position. I have to test first if that trait works properly since i can´t remember it being used in the game so far. Another possibility is to remove moving completely from artillerie bigger than 10cm. They had to be disassembled cause they were to heavy to be towed, then moved by truck and reassembled at their new position. Having them moved "by hand", even if it´s only one hex, is not very probable as well.

In case of the german Rail-guns, it took several weeks and 5000 ppl working to enable Gustav to fire at Sevastopol.(which didn´t do much for that effort, but thats another matter)

The Counterbattery trait really bothers me too!

Something like the "fire or move" would help a great deal (if it works). Or at least diminished accuracy after moving?

[Grondel]

The Counterbattery trait really bothers me too!

Evry single time that happens my mind tries to grab how it could be possible to fire at an enemy artillerie BEFORE it fired.
Not even the most moddern of anti-artillerie devices, the Cobra, is able to do that.
The mechanic works perfectly for arty/AT/AA support where u can see an attacking unit and fire at it before it is able to strike itself.
But artillerie NEEDS to fire first or i just don´t know what to fire at.(unless i have spotter sitting next to it telling me they are about to fire, but evrytime? nah, thats nonsense)

If i could i would change it right now to make counterbatterie-fire happen after the attacking artillerie fired.

Something like the "fire or move" would help a great deal (if it works). Or at least diminished accuracy after moving?

A diminishing acc trait would help a lot, especially with the late game artillerie-issue. They become way too deadly once they get 4+ stars. but nothing like that is in the game atm.

sers,
Thomas

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

I'm sorry to offend you, but I just think the artillery currently works very well inside this particular game's mechanics, which revolves around very close range/adjacent unit combat.

To me the artillery is somewhat of an abstraction: lowest slot cost arty can only fire into the opponent's front line and only provides infantry support. The next tier can target enemy's back line, and next tier also provides AT support. All of these work well with how the combat is designed, and how units are broken down into soft and hard categories. Some other modders have tried to move away from this into ultra ranges, and I think the results have not worked well with how the core of the game is designed

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

Btw 7-14 and 15-21 ranges are very much "halfway across the map"

[Grondel]

Btw 7-14 and 15-21 ranges are very much "halfway across the map"

those are both railguns, the K5 280mm and the Gustav. not avail to player and bound to rail.

[Grondel]

I'm sorry to offend you, but I just think the artillery currently works very well inside this particular game's mechanics, which revolves around very close range/adjacent unit combat.

u didn´t offend me. i am german, what we consider a "normal" discussion is often perceived by others as rude or defensive.

To me the artillery is somewhat of an abstraction: lowest slot cost arty can only fire into the opponent's front line and only provides infantry support. The next tier can target enemy's back line, and next tier also provides AT support. All of these work well with how the combat is designed, and how units are broken down into soft and hard categories. Some other modders have tried to move away from this into ultra ranges, and I think the results have not worked well with how the core of the game is designed

U have seen and played the reworked 1939 maps. i was thinking about upping the artillerie range alrdy before this came up, since the maps are a lot bigger and i alrdy had to give planes a longer range.

To make it a bit easier to grasp i´ll some up the guns that can go beyong the established 4 hex range here:

ingame-name: Real: Hex: Year available:
Available guns:
17cmK18 29.6 km 7 1941
ISU122ATY 19.8 km 5 1944
155mmLongTom 23.7 km 6 1940
155mmM12GMC 19.5 km 5 1942
8InchM1 32 km 8 1942
100mm100-17 20 km 5 1944
YU155mmM17 19.5 km 5 1917
GR155mmM1917 19.5 km 5 1917
M42da149-40ATY 23.7 km 6 1943
CZ150mmvz25 23.8 km 6 1928
Grille17 29.6 km 7 1945

Railguns:
Gustav 28-47km 7-14
280mmK5 62/86RAP 15/21

Yes, those 2 can shoot across half the map. Which they did in ww2 as well. 90km range for a gun was unseen to this point. Since those only show up when the map designer wants to "balancing" them is kinda an easy task.
The move and shoot they can do at the moment is not very realistic, since they can only fire mostly paralell to the railway. Whenever they were used a new railway had to be build to "aim" them at their target.

There is a reason that technoloie vanished after the war.

sers,
Thomas



sers,
Thomas

[Sequester Grundleplith, MD]

It makes sense for the planes to have longer ranges in bigger maps, because they operate from fixed airbases, but artillery moves with the troops, and size of the map doesn't really matter., because the combat cycle is the same no matter the size:

You or the opponent move your force up to the enemy's force. Your frontline is in the tile adjacent to the enemy's front line, and both are supported immediately behind with artillery and antitank units. if the artillery has a much longer range, the ai is going to do some combination of sitting it way out of range of your troops and pasting down your units in a way you can do nothing about and/or not supporting their own front line, making it easier for you to defeat their tanks and infantry

[Grondel]

You or the opponent move your force up to the enemy's force. Your frontline is in the tile adjacent to the enemy's front line, and both are supported immediately behind with artillery and antitank units. if the artillery has a much longer range, the ai is going to do some combination of sitting it way out of range of your troops and pasting down your units in a way you can do nothing about and/or not supporting their own front line, making it easier for you to defeat their tanks and infantry

If player or AI use just 1 kind of artillerie piece instead of mixing them that is def what is going to happen.
The AI mix of units is under my controle and will be no issue, since i can mix them in a decent way to make sense.
The player units are under his controle, if he can´t make it work, well...

I will test around a bit with this and the "nomovepoints" on 10+cm pieces or the "NoAttackAfterMove" trait to see if i can get this into a working condition that puts artillerie in the place they belong to be. maybe i will add the "NoMoveAfterAttack" as well to make them even more sitting ducks. "VulnerableTarget" might be another option to give them a weakness correlating with their immobility. That would be a buff to selfpropelled guns as well which are kinda underrated atm.

but this will have to wait till 1943NH is finished.

If u have any more ideas thoughts or missing arty pieces u want to see in the game, please let me know.

sers,
Thomas

[VirgilInTheSKY]

As we are on topic, a few name of the units might need some adjustment or clarification from official team:

The Italian 75/27, name is unclear about which piece is this unit resembling, there are bascially two kinds of 75mm 27 caliber guns, M1906/1912 and M1911
Hungarian 80mm 18M, too few sources to pin down the exact origin, I guessed it was the German 7.5cm FK 18 but not sure.
Hungarian Bofors 150mm, personal guess is Swedish 15cm haubits m/38.
Romanian 150mm Schneider M1934, looks like it should be the Skoda 149mm K, not a Schneider product.

[Grondel]

As we are on topic, a few name of the units might need some adjustment or clarification from official team:
The Italian 75/27, name is unclear about which piece is this unit resembling, there are bascially two kinds of 75mm 27 caliber guns, M1906/1912 and M1911
Hungarian 80mm 18M, too few sources to pin down the exact origin, I guessed it was the German 7.5cm FK 18 but not sure.
Hungarian Bofors 150mm, personal guess is Swedish 15cm haubits m/38.
Romanian 150mm Schneider M1934, looks like it should be the Skoda 149mm K, not a Schneider product.

There´s a big mess, yes. could be cleaned up as well. i noticed several other "problematic" or unclear names. but that can all be easily solved. getting it to work in a balanced way and establishing the diffrence between close-support artillerie and assault-artillerie is the diffrent task.

If u have more of those, please let me know.

sers,
Thomas

[VirgilInTheSKY]

The SP-T-18, correct name being SU-18, should be using the same gun as BT-7A, the KT tank gun modified from 76mm M1927.

[DefiantXYX]

If you ask me artillery is just fine. Only problem that was already mentioned here before is that high level art. is too deadly.

While you gues are discussing about different models and names, I am not sure if thats something the standard player care about.
Last time I played the mod (or was it Storm over Europe?!) even in 1939 my inventory was full of different guns and stuff, with no real difference between the models. Makes no sense for me, the way its done in the official game is just fine.

Players want more maps, more campaigns, not units they will never use. But thats just my feeling about this, it is your mod and of course you decide whats coming next.