Why is artillery barrage half as effective as before?

[Cross698]

Agreed, it's about balance. I've not played CWC, but do have the PDF - and most armies are limited to numbers of Artillery - some 3, some 9, but the odd one that did not seem to have any limit. Ultimately I suppose it is at what level you are playing - if it's a Division then yes, you might have x amount of batteries to call upon, but I suspect individual battalion commanders would be screaming for it. Having read up around SWORD BEACH and the ORNE BRIDGES for DDay, certainly on a few occasions when the Paras were able to "communicate" for atillery and naval fire, these assets were unavailable as there were other fire priorities.   

[Big Insect]

Barrages being too effective is not something I've ever heard or read. As has been pointed out, barrages tend to be little used unless firing smoke or looking for suppressions.

Yes ... I think I am not making myself clear - we appear to be in agreement that in WW2 Barrages were (generally) less effective than concentrations. That is what the changes to the Barrage rules in BKCIV does - it makes Barrages less effective, deliberately.

(NB: Ignore Ian and the 66 dice incident - it was not a barrage but a scheduled artillery strike calling down all the guns from a number of formations - and it was a CWC game - Battle of Hanover - you can see a write up on the very good Cold War Commanders blog). My Dutch CO caught an entire East German Tank Battalion on a Autobahn bridge over a river using it as a choke point as anything that survived (none) would have been suppressed and under the guns of 9 Leopard IVs at half-range ... anyway I digress).

[Big Insect]

NB: for the big Cold War Commander games - we play full ORBATS and have Divisional Reserves off-table and on limited call. Hence what seems like a large number of guns.
But my Dutch force alone was 12,000 pts on-table and another 5,000 in reserve + air and Battalion HQ assets. These are huge 2 day games, often played over multiple venues.

This year we have 3 - maybe 4 sites - 2 in the UK (Grimsby & Slimbridge) and 1 in France and another in Australia - and we are fighting 2 days of combat on the Central Front just north of Minden (Hackett WW3 country) so lots of armour - although very depleted becuase it is now the 2nd set of 2 days combat - we rotate the sections of front - last year was 2nd time around for Arctic Front in North Norway.

[Dr Dave]

...in WW2 Barrages were (generally) less effective than concentrations. That is what the changes to the Barrage rules in BKCIV does - it makes Barrages less effective, deliberately.

In WW2 there was no distinction between a barrage and a concentration. Those are terms used in the rules but did not exist in WW2 arty doctrine. The order "fire for a bit but not tooooo much" did not exist. Arty had rates of fire that they'd try to maintain. Hence a slow rate with all a bttns guns firing at one point could be construed as a weak concentration. The idea that someone found 3 dice from arty too much to bear (but 2 is fine) is a bit worrying. The poor dears (joke)  

The German "time on target" is a concentration in bkc terminology, but it could be fleeting - sometimes just a few shots per gun - due to the threat of counter battery - either from allied arty or air assets.

[sediment]

Mark, I'm trying to follow your reasoning over the barrage vs concentration and it's not working for me.  Three guns firing a barrage hit an area three times the area of a concentration, so it used to be 3 guns with, say 3 attacks hitting with 3x3 or 9 attacks on an area three times the size of a concentration, so would hit with just 3 attacks on any unit in the barrage - now it's down to 2 - not a massive difference, but why the change?  No excessive hits there, just nuisance stuff, even at 3 attacks.

Thinking about the big games, for 66 attacks, you must have been calling in up to 22 batteries (assuming 3 attacks), so surely the FAO would have been calling in with at least -7 (calling in 21 batteries) so pretty near impossible to call in within the rules.  That was always the limiting factor to massed artillery was the -1 per 3 batteries to the FAO command roll.

Cheers, Andy

[Risaldar Singh]

The 66 attacks concentration was preplanned hence no calling in roll or penalty.

[sediment]

I played in that game, still not really sure how it worked as it wasn't a scheduled strike using artillery assets, so should still have needed to be called in.  Doesn't really change the comment that barrages are already diluted by their area without halving the value of the asset firing.  Now, a player would be better off scheduling a row of concentrations on fixed targets adjacent to each other and benefit from the full attack value.

[Dr Dave]

3x batteries firing a barrage. Say 3 attacks each. Area is 20x60 (3 zones, 1 per battery). Average per battery is 3, then half and round up = 2 attacks per target

If this was a creeping barrage the attacks are not halved and the template and the effect stays on - so creeping is better than standing

3x batteries firing a concentration, area is 20cm diameter, but the attacks are stacked = 9 attacks per target

[Cross698]

3x batteries firing a barrage. Say 3 attacks each. Area is 20x60 (3 zones, 1 per battery). Average per battery is 3, then half and round up = 2 attacks per target

If this was a creeping barrage the attacks are not halved and the template and the effect stays on - so creeping is better than standing

3x batteries firing a concentration, area is 20cm diameter, but the attacks are stacked = 9 attacks per target

Although not stated in v4, but eventually clarified in v2 was that each concentration should still each roll for deviation seperately. Anyway, I wanted the rational reasoning for the change and I think in relation to off table I'll stick to v2 regarding barrages.

[Dr Dave]

I think in relation to off table I'll stick to v2 regarding barrages.

[fred.]

but eventually clarified in v2 was that each concentration should still each roll for deviation seperately.

I didn't know that.

It sounds really fiddly, as if you have 3 guns firing you are likely to end up with some units under 3 templates, some under 2 and plenty under 1.

I can see the reason to cap the number of dice for a concentration. After a certain point more shells don't really help. You are either dead from the early stuff, or hidden in good cover. WWI was a very good example of this, where barrages went from very long, to much shorter.

I'm not really sure what the new rules for barrages do, as noted above the typical result is to go from 3 dice to 2 dice, which is fairly minor. All at the cost of some awkward maths if you are firing a mix of guns.

[Dr Dave]

We've never played it that way. But we do arty differently. The SP guns being easier to call in since bkc1 is a fantasy that Pete acknowledged was only there to make SP different to towed arty. So we ignore that modifier completely.

It's worth noting that arty doesn't get more accurate for consecutive turns of requested firing at the same stationary target / point. I've always thought that a real oddity. The FAO can't correct fire. All it takes is -1 deviation dice per consecutive turn down to a minimum of 1.

[Risaldar Singh]

Never played it that way either. It's always been one fire mission, one request roll, one deviation roll (if applicable).

[Dr Dave]

Yes, I've never seen any logic in the SP argument at all. Even Pete conceded it was nonsense.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Particularly since the Grimsby group apply it to MRL's

[Dr Dave]

Particularly since the Grimsby group apply it to MRL's

really? They need to watch the survey team and met teams required for a set up.

It seems so odd that the rules have always assumed that all arty is in a state of perpetual motion and never ready to fire. Even if they do fire the rules then assume that they up sticks and start moving again!

[Risaldar Singh]

It seems so odd that the rules have always assumed that all arty is in a state of perpetual motion and never ready to fire. Even if they do fire the rules then assume that they up sticks and start moving again!

Ultrmodern shoot-and-scoot on steroids! 

[Dr Dave]

I guess the only real difference is that SP arty is invariably armoured, but open topped.

In How's book "Hill 112" one of the Infantry chaps describes walking back to the rear and passing fields full of 25 pdrs deployed and ready.

I can see the SP modifier being of some merit in a pursuit type game where your forces are strung out or moving up, but only until the FAO's request is successful, after that the guns are in position and ready.

[Cross698]

Personally SP should only count against counter artillery in my opinion - more difficult to hit.

Deviation
http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/Content/Forum/Topic.aspx?CategoryID=2&ForumID=5&TopicID=9921&ForumPage=1
and
http://www.blitzkrieg-commander.com/Content/Forum/Topic.aspx?CategoryID=2&ForumID=58&TopicID=14155&ForumPage=1

If you have plenty of transparent 20cm templates it isn't really a problem - we put a marker where the deviation points are and then if the unit is 50% under the template and put that number of dice next to the unit, then check out the next template and if the same units fall under this then place additional dice next to the unit and so on. So some units may well have 3 dice against it, some 6 or even 9, depending on calibre. We find it works and in most cases apart from smoke, players use concentrations rather than barrages, as the effect is reduced, hence my surprise that barrages have been made less effective and concentrations remain the same!

If you don't deviate multiple concentrations, then what is the point of barrages?
Also rockets always deviate in v2 even for scheduled 3D6.
Deviation in V4 does not clarify that each concentration is deviated seperately and only states that rockets are inaccurate, so rolls double the deviation dice.
:-

[Dr Dave]

If you don't deviate multiple concentrations, then what is the point of barrages?

Not sure what you're getting at.

A concentration of three batteries: we play as 3 templates on top of each other so triple the number of single battery attacks, but they all deviate together.

A barrage is three templates side by side. So only the single battery attacks in each template.

That's how we've always done it.