Artillery attachment long range

[hazelbark]

I note on p 89 last sentence of 1st paragraph.

Artillery attachment cannot fire at medium unless...

That also implies that artillery attachments cannot fire independently at long range.

So does that single dice at long range only apply if someone else is shooting at that target?

The long range plinking can occassionally cause a no advance CMT test otherwise?

[panda2]

I believe the intention is that artilley attachments only add dice to their parent unit's firing and that therefor an artillery attachment only adds long range dice to an artillery unit.

You've already spotted the the wording on p.89 (and the exception for medium range shooting for unreformed infantry). Its also worth considering the wording on p.49 which talks only of "artillery units" firing at long range, compared to a general reference to "units" in the sections dealing with short and medium range firing. Furthermore, if units with no long range capablity were capable of getting dice and long range from an attachment, I would expect them to get a listing of 0 dice at long range, as unreformed infantry are at medium range.

There may be a more conclusive statement somewhere in the rules, but I haven't found it yet.

Andy D

ps Its worth noting that if my understanding is correct, then artillery attachments to cavalry units add no shooting dice at any range. Cavalry are not listed a a unit capable of firing on p48, are not given even a zero dice rating on p.49 and are not listed as an exception on p.89. They do, however, add 1 combat dice to cavalry fighting cavalry or infantry in squares (p.56).

[Blathergut]

Page 49 (second bullet under **Artillery attachments...):

..."artillery...attached to any cavalry unit fires with 2 dice"...at medium range

[panda2]

Thanks for pointing that out. I'd compleatly missed it! I thought cavalry might be feeling a bit hard done by otherwise. Nothing on short range though, but that may just be because there is no need to distinguish between whether 1 or 2 dice are added. Its always 2 at short range.

Andy D

[panda2]

Thanks to Blathergut's observation on cavalry, I decided to revisit the relevant sections of the rules. Whilst I think the idea that artillery attachments can't shoot at long range unless part an artillery unit is correct, the reasons are more complex than I thought.

p.48 "In order to fire, a unit.....must be an Infantry unit, an Artillery unit or an Artillery attachment."

Thus, unless otherwise excluded artillery attachments can fire independently of their parent unit. Also, for the firing rules there is a distinction between artilley units and artillery attachments.

p.89 "Artillery in an infantry unit cannot fire independently unless their parent unit is unreformed an the target is at medium range"

This effectively excludes long range fire from artillery attachments to infantry units, since no infantry is capable of firing at long range. It still allows fire by artillery attachments to cavalry and artillery (although since artillery can fire at any range and the attachment will have the same targets as the unit it is a moot point).

This still leaves the question of whether, artillery attachments to cavalry units can shoot at long range, since so far nothing has excluded them doing so. However, on p.49 under "Dice Availability" there is a distinction between "Units firing a close range.."; "Units firing at medium range..." and "Artillery Units firing at long range..."

As noted above infanty units, artillery units and artillery attachments are capable of of firing independently. All of these, it seems, can fire at short or medium range (unless excluded), but only artillery units can fire at long range. Artillery attachments can still add dice to an artillery unit.

I'm reasonably comfortable with this reasoning. However, I'm not sure I'd want to argue the case on artillery attachments to cavalry units against someone who was utterly convinced otherwise.

Andy D

[Scrumpy]

According to p49-50 only Light Infantry in skirmish formation do not receive arty attachment bonus.

One rule I noticed Hazelwood & I missed in our game Wednesday was squares only have a 2 mu range for firing. I assume they get the +2 bonus for arty att. if at medium range ?

[Blathergut]

It seems clear that only artillery units fire at long range and an artillery attachment will add to that firing. As to why artillery attachments don't have long range fire, that would be a design concept I suppose as opposed to actual ability of those attached guns.

[Blathergut]

According to p49-50 only Light Infantry in skirmish formation do not receive arty attachment bonus.

One rule I noticed Hazelwood & I missed in our game Wednesday was squares only have a 2 mu range for firing. I assume they get the +2 bonus for arty att. if at medium range ?

Since the square is not Lights in skirmish, that makes sense to me!!

[terrys]

> Long Range:
Artillery Attachments can only fire (with 1 dice) at long range if they are attached to an artillery unit.
* The reason we did this was to reduce the number of wasted dice rolls in a game (1 dice at a 5 or 6, only relevent in your opponents turn).

> Close Range:
All artillery attachments fire (with 2 dice) at close range, except that a unit in square only gets +1 dice (The artillery is spread around the square, usually at the corners).

> Medium Range:
The Rule in general is that if your unit of infantry or cavalry get no dice at medium range, then the artillery attachment fires with 2 dice, otherwise it fires with 1 dice.

> Squares:
What happens with an artillery attachment at medium range?
At the moment if you take the rulers literally (who'd do that?), unreformed infantry in square would get 2 dice and reformed infantry in square would get none - which seems just a little odd.
But the 2nd bullet point on page 50 is supposed to overrule this:
* Infantry in square can only fire at close range.
To make it clearer we should ammend it to:
"Infantry in square and their attachments, can only fire at close range."

In general. we don't allow units to fire with just a single dice. (before deductions).

[panda2]

Terry,

thanks for this very clear explination. I think someting along those lines should go in the FAQ, since at the moment the rules required to reach that conclusion consist of seperate entries over several pages and are clearly capable of causing confusion if you have spotted them all.

Andy D

[Chasseur]

Hi,

> Long Range:
Artillery Attachments can only fire (with 1 dice) at long range if they are attached to an Artillery unit.
* The reason we did this was to reduce the number of wasted dice rolls in a game (1 dice at a 5 or 6, only relevent in your opponent's turn).

It also makes sense from a historical point of view. The doctrine was that attached Artillery did not usually fire at long range. Their use was for close support (in game terms close and medium range) of the unit they were attached to. They saved their fire for immediate threats to these units, rather than wasting their fire. It was typically the task of the Corps reserve and Army reserve batteries to perform long range fire.

Regards,
John Shaw