Regarding British Artillery and it's ability to observe.

Home Forums General Discussion Suggestions Regarding British Artillery and it's ability to observe.

Viewing 5 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • #10257
      ZeeDesertFox
      Participant

      I like playing as the Brit Arty, but i feel like Mr. Prince is too valuable to use as a sniper, too weak to use as an infiltration and sabotage unit, and too stationary and limited to use as a spotting tool.

      That, and it could be interesting to have the brit spotting vehicles be separate. Rather than one upgrading into the other, (replaced really), it could be instead that both vehicles are accessible at once.

      If stealth is needed, take the bren carrier. If increased bombardment, take the sexton carrier, and if map coverage is needed, take both and put them on either edge of the map.

      Finally, I think it could be asked that Counter Battery be a non-timed ability. The player would designate their desired battery as a CB battery and it wound function as such until it engages an enemy artillery unit, rather than stopping the function after X amount of seconds.

      The OKW gets mostly off map strikes and rocket based strikes, that’s their schtick.
      The Yanks get anywhere coverage with their peculiar method of doing artillery, at a high ammo cost.
      The Russians get one spotting vehicle as is expected

      and so I think the idea of having multiple spotting vehicles for the British could give that faction an interesting playstyle.

       

      Yours-
      ZDF

    • #10986
      ZeeDesertFox
      Participant

      Right, second time cause this site bullshitted me out of my first response, eating it without posting which is kinda infuriating not gonna lie so it’s going to take on a more negative tone. TLDR at the bottom.

      Let’s face it, British Artillery is garbage right now. It lacks the speed into action as the OKW artillery doctrine or the U.S. Doctrine, and while similar to the Soviet doctrine, lacks the striking power. This sucks, big time. I have the solution however. We look to what the British did to fix this troublesome issue. Was it increasing the firepower? Not really, infact 25 pounders are kinda dinkly and weak. Was it extreme accuracy? Again, not so much, more of a German thing from what I can tell. The British solution was Concentration, more later.

      The big thing for the Brits is being able to get a LOT of guns on target. The British had higher ranks as their observers who were entrusted to utilize certain code-words that when uttered, would prioritize that barrage order. Through a neat little site, I was able to find the following: “These concentrations were known as Mike (regiment), Uncle (division), Victor (corps), William (army) and Yoke (AGRA) targets and always initiated by the radio call “Mike Target, Mike Target, Mike Target” (or Uncle, etc) that galvanised CPs and guns to action.”

      I do have a suggestion if this were to play off realistically. Since any observer could call in heavy strikes, with certain strikes being represented by a major or above, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have some guns be temporarily taken away from the player. For example, If the player has 3, 25 pounder positions set up (+ the HQ base one), representing 8 guns, and they aren’t using them, then the firing animation and sound may play for 1-3 of these batteries, representing them hitting priority targets of other divisions, regiments or such. These guns would be ‘taken away’ from the player, just as guns that are recharging, in counter-battery mode, or are already fulfilling a fire-mission aren’t available. However, when the player were to call down a VICTOR target (as is already in game but dramatically under-powered!), it should be devastating after a fair delay.

      I mentioned a lot of guns and how devastating it would be, and it really was.

      In game currently, a Victor Target strike is 8, 25 pounders. However, that term has significance and does mean something. Historically, it represented far more. So rather than 8 dinkly guns firing on a Victor Target call relatively quickly, it should be instead about a 30 second pause before “… All available 216 field guns of an entire corps zeroed in on the…” target. Ideally, “with a good rate of fire, a ‘Victor’ shoot [should] literally place a thousand shells or so on a German position inside of a minute”. That’s a lot of dinkly!

      This would be a fascinating play style, yet let’s think of this through the experience of the match. Mid-game, one sets up their artillery after skirmishing with the enemy. Sets up AT mines, and does scouting with their engineer squads. After the skirmishing, the Brit player would have quite a few Generals Credit points (forgive me, I’m not sure of the proper name). Ideally if this were to go through, Victor Target would have to be doubled in terms of credit costs. Purchasing that, the player observes an enemy armour group floundering in the mines and calls a Victor strike onto that area.

      Now, since the player only has at this point the Headquarters Battery (which needs to be able to track kills by the way), that Victor Target would only be 2 guns normally. However, since it would be modified, it would be instead 216 guns.

      However, the player lacks the other batteries in this example, and for balance reasons, it would be fair to assume that the other ‘units’ off map haven’t setup quite as quickly either. Thus, with only 1 out of the possible 4 batteries available, they’d only get a 1/4 of the guns (NOT shells, just to be clear), so 54 guns firing (presumably the amount of shells they currently fire for a regular battery, I think it’s like 5-6 or something).

      Now, the battle advances. As the player gets additional batteries built, they get more of a proportion of the Corps fire plan. Thus, with one HQ battery, they get 54 guns firing.
      HQ plus an additional built battery? 108 guns.
      HQ plus two batteries? 162
      The full pull, three built batteries and the HQ? The full Corps load of 216 guns firing.

      Now, to be fair, some may call this overpowered.
      I would disagree.

      No 1. 
      It takes a helluva long time to setup and it would be proportionally expensive, being double both in cost of the required generals credits as well as the ammo usage.

      No 2.
      As the British placed pride of place to fire-rate rather than accuracy, the spread on this would be <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>fairly large</span>, although it would be timely.

      TLDR
      The Victor Target Barrage in game is only 8 guns when it should be 216. Fix that so this doctrine isn’t a chore to play in comparison to the OKW Rocke- pardon, their Artillery doctrine.

      • This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by ZeeDesertFox. Reason: Site ate my first response
    • #11136
      TankDoc_1985
      Participant

      I agree with giving both observers to the player for the reasons that you wrote.

      That other stuff, multiplying batteries is just too much meta and would be also too op. Maybe increase the number of shells to 1,5 or 2 times is fine, but that’s all. 3 batteries are fine right now, they stun tanks, even the heaviests and kills infantry also ROF can ben be high if you have the ammo for it because you can call in A battery, then B battery then C, and when C finishes you can call in again A battery.

      Realism is important, but gameplay is more important because this is a game after all 🙂

      • #11276
        ZeeDesertFox
        Participant

        Right, I’ve come to the conclusion that this would be difficult to implement as I outlined above.

        Perhaps the Victor Target Ability could be changed to being the following:
        Requires all 8 guns (3 batteries + HQ battery).
        Needs 500 Ammo.
        Wide area of effect, utilizes the correct number of 216 guns with 5-6 shells each.

        I’ve found the British Arty to be under-powered in comparison to other arty doctrines, particularly the US and OKW arty doctrines. This would both boost this faction, as well as being realistic.

    • #12201
      ZeeDesertFox
      Participant

      After some more experience with the game, I’ve found that by the time the player has already gotten to the Company Command Post, and built their 3 batteries, every other artillery doctrine has already been calling in strikes that feature more volume of fire (OKW artillery), more power (Wehrmacht defence or Soviet), or more versatility (USA Artillery), or all three, than the British Artillery.
      This is before the difference between say a Land Mattress or Calliope strike is taken into account versus that of conventional gun artillery.

      Even taking the 5.5 inch gun option of the Sexton Spotting vehicle into account, the British lack a strong force to really clear gaps in the enemy line, unlike the Karl Mortar, or B-5 gun. Via Victor Target, they in theory try to make up for it in volume of fire, but this fails to pay respects on the battlefield in terms of performance, or to history via what I’ve written above.

      TLDR: For a so called artillery doctrine, (and this is my opinion, I may be off admittedly) it doesn’t hold a candle to the other artillery doctrines, or even any doctrine that can get a rocket type system such as a Nebelwerfer call in or a Land-Mattress.

    • #12213
      Death_Kitty
      Moderator

      The strength in British arty is not in its barrage. You want a strong barrages, any of the doctrines you named above will work. The strength in brit arty is the frequency. Brit arty is the only doctrine that can launch barrages non-stop, one after another, until the end of the game. Want to clear gaps? Uncle barrage from the GPO.

      Also, unlike all the other doctrines, you get those HQ batteries at tier 2. for 50 muni. that is the cost of 2 nades. less than a bren (70)

      once they get set up, with all 4 batteries, and the muni dump, plus one muni cache, you can keep up your barrages until the end of time. these will still stun tanks, force infantry to retreat and move. It is the most annoying doctrine to play against in the game, once it gets set up. the early game is mediocre, like most brit docs, but the double Stuart call in lets you push fairly hard at tier 2.

      US arty is versatile, but it also features massive cool-downs, a very weak tank game, and priests eat CP and muni.

      Soviet artillery is broken and needs a nerf. their 76 ZiS is just too good for what it is and is spammable to all hell.

      SS arty is… better, ill give you that. their flame mortar is annoying, as are their infiltration troops, and their arty is dirt cheap and requires no setup what-so ever.  So yeah. this is not a good thing.

      the arty in lowlands is impractical: the land mattress is good, but the sextons require far to much MP to use.

      Victor target would crash the game with 216 guns. it would be a nuke. no. just no.

      What I do agree with:

      -Tommy Prince is way too weak.

      -victor target is weak, ill give it that. it could be more accurate.

      -I wish many of the arty upgrade did more (sound ranging microphones, over watch)

      • overwatch should be applied from an individual batter, not from the GPO. I.E. you could have 1 battery over watching a certain sector, while everything else fires barrages.
      • Ranging microphones should work on axis heavy mortars (the halftracks)

       

       

       

      • #12256
        ZeeDesertFox
        Participant

        The victor target needs far more guns firing on it to be both realistic and effective.

        There’s precedence for this too as I’m quite sure the all guns target ability for the soviet infantry mortar spotters has more shells dropping than just the 1 massive mortar and the 2 little mortars can provide at one time.

        As for death kitty’s idea of the 2 Stuarts making the Brit arty competitive, that would simply mean that you’re denied until later before you can be effective with your arty guns due to manpower constraints. Your point on the frequency is a valid one though, I’ll give you that.

        Yes, while having 216 guns may result in an issue of crashing as it is Company of Heroes 2 after all, an increase of guns (perhaps only 108, or even a quarter of that like 54) would allow for the Victor Target Barrage to be the British equivilant of the B-4 artillery (Soviet), or the Karl Mortar (Whermacht) or Black Dragons (US) or V-1 (OKW), thus making up for in volume of fire rather than outright power.

        Discussing more on Victor Target, I would argue that it’s lack of accuracy is a boon, it simply requires additional guns from off map to assist to represent other units firing on an urgent request (although what that would be is up to the developers, since we both agree that 216, while realistic would just crash Company, and I believe the current volume of guns is far too little). Unlike other strikes, Victor Target allows you to have some decent map coverage, while still (ideally) maintaining a wallop.
        I’d be right fine for seeing a Victor Target increase from 200 ammo points to 300, or even 450 if it saw a more useful strike.

        The solution to the poor HE power of the 25 pounder isn’t making the barrage artificially more accurate, it’s representing the realistic massing of the guns that was seen in almost all British (European) theaters.

         

    • #13020
      ZeeDesertFox
      Participant

      Right then.

      So having read through The Guns of Normandy, and now currently more than half way through The Guns of Victory, I’ve got some more input for the British Artillery doctrine.

      As we’ve seen from the above posts, we’ve established that the game right now only has a single battery (of eight 25-pounders) firing to represent a Victor Target type target as provided by the doctrine.

      This frankly is not correct. A Victor target would involve “all 216 field guns of [a]… Corps”, which is far more than the 8 measly guns provided (Blackburn, 1997, P. xii). Now frankly, some say that that’s unacceptable for balance and due to the limitations of the game engine. However, time and time again, junior observers, as detailed in this work, from forward ops were “bringing down ‘Mike Targets’ (fire from all its twenty-four guns)”, as well as having “regularly participated in impromptu shoots on ‘Uncle targets’ (involving all seventy-two guns of the division)” (Blackburn, 1997, P. xii).

      The question arises as to fire-rate would be appropriate.  Having read both (3/4ths through the second one) works by Mr. Blackburn an observation that can be made is that the most common scale (or number of rounds fired per gun) on an impromptu target (Mike, Uncle, or Victor) is that of a “Scale 5”, or five rounds per gun. (Blackburn, 1997, P. 45, 58, 295, 298, 315, other’s not listed cause I can’t CTRL+F a physical book sadly).

      Thus, if it were a Mike Target, the area would be saturated with (24 x 5= 120) shells. Were it an Uncle target, then (72 x 5= 360) shells. And finally, were it a Victor Target, as is depicted in game, it would realistically be (216 x 5= 1080) shells.

      The inquisitive observer may wonder as to if this proposed fire-rate was realistic. While the ‘Gunfire’ order (in which shells would be fired as soon as possible as they were loaded, unless an interval was required) was intensive on first glance, it should be noted that the drop-off  or wear of old tubes (barrels of artillery guns) “is astonishingly slight… during the past four months, have fired an average of 10,128 rounds each, including occasions in Normandy when they glowed red-hot and, which by all logic, should have caused severe wear” (Blackburn, 1997, P. 172). “For the reliability of the 25-pounder to be fully appreciated, it must be compared to other formidable weapons … – the 5.5 inch medium gun and the 40mm Bofors ack-ack gun… [with the] 5.5 inch barrels generally…ending life at 2,400 [rounds] And bofors barrels [being] inclined to bulge when furious firing rates were sustained” (Blackburn, 1997, P. 173). In effect, the guns could and would be able to take the type of punishment I’ve described thus far.

      Thus, we must now come to the question of balance. From chatting with friends, the occasional dev, and other wikinger players, it’s been generally accepted that Wikinger’s Company of Heroes 2 would probably crash were a Victor Target properly portrayed (as much as I would like to see it).

      This is why I propose a changing of the Victor Target to either an Uncle Target (72 guns, 360 shells), or a Mike target (24 guns, 120 shells). I know there’s a precedent for adding shells from off map guns into a barrage, what with the soviet infantry doctrine’s mortar observer barrage, so I don’t believe this would be groundbreaking.

      This change would allow for the Royal Artillery doctrine to be competitive in my opinion, as time and time again in real life, enemy attacks were broken on the backs and efforts of the guns, and this should be represented in game.

      Finally, when compared to some of the other changes suggested here, I don’t believe that it would be that hard to implement (of course, I’m not a dev). No new models or existing model configurations are required, a simple name/text change and number of shells dropped (plus ideally the sound of other battery’s firing from off map) would suffice.

      Thanks for reading.

      • This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by ZeeDesertFox.
Viewing 5 reply threads
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.