Rate of Fire for Artillery

[GaryChildress]

How does the value "rate of fire" factor into the performance of artillery? I notice most 75mm guns in the game have RoF of 11 and most 150-155 between 8-9 and then 105s don't seem to have a rating at all. Does a higher rate of fire translate into better combat results? Why don't 105s have a rate of fire?

Thanks.

[Razz1]

It's the starting number of die rolls

[JimmyC]

There has been extensive ROF discussion in another thread which I can’t find at the moment. My understanding is as follows:
1. Think of ROF as a percentage. A ROF of 10 is equivalent to 100% (ie. neutral). ROF of 11 is equivalent to 110% (positive impact) and ROF 8 is equivalent to 80% (negative impact).
2. Multiply the ROF % by your unit strength to work out the number of attack dice you roll.
3. Where ROF is not displayed (eg. 105’s), that means they have a ROF of 10 (ie. neutral). Most units have ROF of 10. So if you had a 10 strength unit with ROF 10, the number of attack dice would be 10x100% = 10.
For your 75mm with a ROF of 11 and strength 10, he would roll 11 attack dice (10x110%=11). For the 17cm K18 with a ROF of 8, it would roll 8 attack dice (10x80%=8).

So the higher ROF the better as it lets you roll more attack dice. One trick to beware of is with overstrengthing units with ROF<10. Sometimes its not sensible to do so. For example the 17cm K18 with a ROF of 8, if overstrengthed to 11, would still only get to roll 8 attack dice (11x80%=8.8, which the game rounds down to 8 attack dice).

Another trick to watch out for is to not just always upgrade your artillery to the latest model. Whilst the newer models have more hitting power, they have lower ROF (and hence roll less attack dice) than earlier models. So it’s a bit of a tradeoff.

Its mostly just artillery that has a varying ROF. Almost all other units have neutral ROF, with the exception of the Flampanzer (ROF of 14) and some of the AA.

[GaryChildress]

There has been extensive ROF discussion in another thread which I can’t find at the moment. My understanding is as follows:
1. Think of ROF as a percentage. A ROF of 10 is equivalent to 100% (ie. neutral). ROF of 11 is equivalent to 110% (positive impact) and ROF 8 is equivalent to 80% (negative impact).
2. Multiply the ROF % by your unit strength to work out the number of attack dice you roll.
3. Where ROF is not displayed (eg. 105’s), that means they have a ROF of 10 (ie. neutral). Most units have ROF of 10. So if you had a 10 strength unit with ROF 10, the number of attack dice would be 10x100% = 10.
For your 75mm with a ROF of 11 and strength 10, he would roll 11 attack dice (10x110%=11). For the 17cm K18 with a ROF of 8, it would roll 8 attack dice (10x80%=8).

So the higher ROF the better as it lets you roll more attack dice. One trick to beware of is with overstrengthing units with ROF<10. Sometimes its not sensible to do so. For example the 17cm K18 with a ROF of 8, if overstrengthed to 11, would still only get to roll 8 attack dice (11x80%=8.8, which the game rounds down to 8 attack dice).

Another trick to watch out for is to not just always upgrade your artillery to the latest model. Whilst the newer models have more hitting power, they have lower ROF (and hence roll less attack dice) than earlier models. So it’s a bit of a tradeoff.

Its mostly just artillery that has a varying ROF. Almost all other units have neutral ROF, with the exception of the Flampanzer (ROF of 14) and some of the AA.

Thanks for the detailed analysis JimmyC! I also did a little experiment. I Took a 75mm artillery piece and copied it twice in the equipment editor. One version I gave RoF of 10, another RoF of 12 and then there is the original with RoF of 11. I put one each of the 3 guns on a map and placed 1 soviet regular infantry and 1 BT-5 within range of each gun-all on clear terrain. When I hovered the mouse over each target, the guns with RoF of 10 and 11 showed a predicted result of 1 against the soviet soldiers and tanks. When I hovered the gun with the RoF of 12 over the infantry it gave me a predicted result of 2 against the infantry but still 1 against the tank.

I'm thinking of maybe introducing multiple versions of some artillery pieces in the game and then giving the different pieces different rates of fire maybe to give incentives to upgrade. For instance I may do the 10.5cm leFH 18 (available 1940), the 10.5cm leFH 18M (available 1941) and the 10.5cm leFH 18/40 (1942) and just increase the RoF for the newer models to make them more attractive to upgrade to.

[JimmyC]

No problem. As i said, there was a really detailed discussion of it in another thread somewhere.

From the discussion in the other thread (which i cant locate), someone did a detailed analysis of the different guns. It seemed that against low defense enemy, higher ROF was the most important factor in suppressing/damaging. But as the defense of enemy's increased, ROF became less important and strength of the gun was more a factor. This meant that the 10.5cm was still quite useful in later years vs infantry, but on the other hand was almost worthless vs heavy armour.

If you were to mod to make ROF even higher, then i imagine those light guns would be very effective vs infantry, but that it wouldn't change their ability vs heavy tanks.

[impar]

viewtopic.php?f=121&t=26663

Have to search for the images that are missing. Pretty sure I kept them somewhere.

[ThvN]

Thanks for the link, impar. As an extra, I posted about the RoF somewhere with a similar explanation, only I used percentages and no experience bonuses: viewtopic.php?f=121&t=46916&p=444121#p444121