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By Panzermeyer PLACEMENT Whenever possible if I have an artillery unit that is low on ammo during a turn, I will hitch it up to the wagons horses and move the artillery piece forward. If you can bring your artillery close to the front you can get substantial gains in damage to enemy units. Check first with the manual in the unit roster of the Campaign CD to find if moving forward your artillery will actually give you better results, as moving your artillery will generally put them out of action for a turn or two. Also I almost never move artillery during a short scenario (16 turns or less). But otherwise moving artillery is very effective. IF I am on the defense I will attempt to move my artillery to easier defended positions, such as bunkers or pillboxes, which are not in the front line and do not have a danger of being in the front line, but are closer to the front line. Basically you must find a balance of being well defended, close to the front, but out of harms why. Losing artillery pieces is not conducive to victory as their points can add up quickly and you lose their valuable punch. TARGETS Targets should be selected in the following order. 1 Headquarters 2 Artillery Pieces 3 Anti-Tank Pieces 4 Engineers, SMG Platoons, and other high assault factor units 5 Machine Gun Units 6 Other infantry 7 Armored Vehicles Armored vehicles, as a rule, should be avoided as targets. The amount of fire needed to produce positive results is not worth the waste of fire. The only exception should be when you have a high power artillery piece and a armored unit in close range over open sites. Again consult the Campaign CD manual in the Unit roster to find out when this is effective and when it is not. Primary targets are HQ's and other artillery pieces to cripple the other side's ability to wage effective war. With destroyed HQ's, other units are in lower supply. If you take out the other artillery units it will ultimately protect your units on the field. Next in line being Anti-Tank units as they are easy to take out and will help defend your armored units. If you do not have many armored units this target can be forgone. When attacking infantry you always want to go for the units will high assaulting values particularly Russian SMG platoons and German Engineers. Russian engineers are also good to help them avoid clearing any mine fields. This will save any bunkers and pillboxes from these heavy attackers. Machine-gun units come next in line, as they tend to be the biggest destroyer of your own infantry units. INDIRECT FIRE AND DIRECT FIRE I do not recommend indirect fire per se. I always prefer to fire at targets that are spotted by some unit of mine. I have found that the most artillery fire is wasted when trying to fire on a hex that is not spotted. When on defense and enemy units are trying to fire on my artillery pieces that they have not spotted, I have seen them hit my artillery 1 in 20-25 artillery attacks. This is a waste of good artillery power. Again fire on targets that you can spot. The only time I will use indirect fire is in an area where I know there are allot of enemy units. For example, I have played Fortress in the Snow as the Russians and I broke into the western end of the city. For about 2-4 turns I have at least a regiment of infantry stacked three to four high in nearly ever hex in that part of the city. My opponent failed to, but if he had lain down some direct fire from his artillery is would have pounded the hell out of my infantry. ATTACK Targets should be selected in the following priority list. 1 Open, unimproved positions 2 Improved positions 3 Trenches 4 Bunkers 5 Pillboxes Basically put you should use your artillery where it is effective. Firing on bunkers and pillboxes almost always is a total waste of firepower. I have often hit a bunker with three units, with 15 different artillery strikes of all caliber's and at best only come away with the disruption of one of the units. My artillery can be more effective elsewhere. If there are units in the open I give them a good pounding, I also chose units in improved positions as opposed to trenches. Fire on trenches tends to be not quite as effective. Generally by clearing units that are in open and improved positions, I can often force the defender to start hiding units, moving units to cover places that where just vacated, etc. This caused one of two things frequently to happen. Either they will thin out there lines to defend everything, or they will create holes that I can go through in order to save their units in the better defended terrain. Bunkers and pillboxes can always be hit with a cover of smoke and then I will bring up the infantry to take them out. A key here as well is proper reconnaissance. If I can get some mobile recon units in my opponent's rear, I will hunt out and try and spot HQ's and Artillery pieces. This will allow me to bring down effective artillery fire on these valuable, yet vulnerable units. When on the attack with mobile recon units, I always make this a primary mission for them. Crushing an opponent's command structure and artillery support will go a long way towards helping me win a scenario. DEFENSE The key thing in defense is this. Do not fire WHERE YOU SEE enemy units. I have played a number of games where my opponents plotted artillery fire right on top of units they say moving in for the attack. By the next turn when the artillery fire can, those units where 2-3 hexes away and suffered no damage. I however plotted what I call, anticipatory artillery fire. I watch where his units where moving to, and I kept track of main avenues of approach. I plot my artillery fire to where I think the enemy units are going to go the next turn. I definitely am not always right, but I do tell you. I am more accurate than many of my opponents who do not do this. If I see a unit sit in the same hex for two or more turns, then I will plot the artillery fire on that unit and hopefully get him to move after a few loses and disruptions. Second thing to note if possible. Move artillery forward and into bunkers and pillboxes that are out of immediate site of enemy units. If they are in bunkers be sure and stack them with and infantry platoon or two to help defend them against assaults. But this way it will save them from counter-battery fire, easy assaults, and long range pop shots from tanks or something else. In defense I also usually try and target HQ's trucks or transport units, high assault value units, and the like. I pretty much ignore the Armor and leave that for units' better equipped to deal with them. FINAL NOTES Well I think that about covers all I need to say on using Artillery. Please keep in mind that these are only my thoughts when fighting battles where the defender is defending at least a partial defensive line with semi-static artillery. In a fully mobile battle the rules are a bit different. So watch out for that.. Panzermeyer |