How to deal with armored artillery?

[[OTS]EchoZenLogos]

As in the topic.

I just had a multiplayer game where off-map artillery combine with armored artillery basically pushed me back consistently until our inevitable defeat. I had about 2700 points in kills to 3300 in losses, but probably only had about 40% of my end of the map in the end (conquest 10v10).

I was playing as the 2nd Infantry, with great artillery. However, armored artillery cannot be killed with counter-batteries, so my unarmored artillery basically was unable to do anything to stop them.

I could not advance tanks or anti-armor units, as I had inferior armor to my enemy.

So with enemy armor being superior, and their artillery being far more resistant in an artillery vs artillery fight, how do you counter them?

Should I have focused more on air? I don't get much air that can consistently hurt things like armored mortars, however. Also, air is expensive, and it's hard to call in a lot of it when I'm trying to hold a front line against massed infantry, armor, and artillery spam.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I admit that I have very little experience in playing with 2nd Infantry, so I could just have missed the obvious strategy. Probably have played them about three times so far.

[Алзксі Венс]

In a 10v10 everything goes out the window balancewise.

[Thork]

Guess I was in that game... Yes, I also think it's OP but ppl tell me "git gud" so I just played that style for 10 matches now... 9/10 wins.
edit:
Had a crash on my 10/11 - but was a steamroll anyway. Doubt they lost without me ;)
Btw. it would be great to have a reconnect option.

[[OTS]EchoZenLogos]

Originally posted by Thork:

Guess I was in that game... Yes, I also think it's OP but ppl tell me "git gud" so I just played that style for 10 matches now... 9/10 wins.
edit:
Had a crash on my 10/11 - but was a steamroll anyway. Doubt they lost without me ;)
Btw. it would be great to have a reconnect option.

Yeah, you were in that game. I haven't done many 10v10 matches, and 2nd Infantry is my least played one, so I could have certainly done better. But I really feel like I was getting overrun a bit much.

Of course, I think we were the two on our team (if I recall) that actually had lost tons of our army trying to hold out against superior enemy numbers (we both had something like 2500 kill points to 3500 loss, nobody else on our team had nearly as many of either), while most of our team had barely any losses and were just camped back unable to even try to make a good fight of it. It wasn't until near the very end of the game that I finally got pushed off of the town and the 50% mark by it, and that was due to being basically surrounded by enemies.

It seems that armored artillery needs to simply be countered by having more "regular" artillery on the cheap, and being willing to lose some of them in counter-fire (they are cheaper I suppose). I also need to invest a bit more in air, and do my best to create windows to advance with my infantry if using a group like second infantry. Being unable to take that town because artillery kept my infantry pinned or dead every time I tried to advance really screwed me over (plus the buildings on my half of the town were all destroyed).

I should have advanced with infantry after using my rocket artillery to suppress enemy artillery, for example, but neglected to do so, or got too easily pinned down. I'm not saying I couldn't have done anything to counter them, but it was difficult.

[Thodin]

10 vs. 10 games usually attract players who just max out their support decks. This means they spam ALOT planes and artillery, rather than taking part in frontline combat.

[meanderthal]

Towed artillery is always going to be at a disadvantage against Self Propelled Armoured Artillery.

It's difficult to shoot and scoot with towed arty, whereas SPG's can.

Towed arty can certainly stun Armoured SPG's and cause a fall back but they soon recover.

SPG's can be killed by towed arty but it takes several salvo's and a little bit of luck.

One option is to send an Armoured OP tank to target them with large calibre off map artillery but getting close enough to do so can be risky, depending on the terrain, and even then there is little guarantee of a kill shot.

The only realistic choice you have to take them out is an air strike with multiple aircraft, preferably a mix of bombs and rocket armed aircraft.

I use a minimum of four air per target to good effect.
Usually a bomb armed P-38 Lightening, two bomb armed P-47 Thunderbolts and a P-47 with rockets.

If the SPG's are supported by an effective AA screen then i use six aircraft.

Expensive in terms of points but then a tank rush can also be a pricey option too in terms of purchase cost and also potential losses if the arty is well supported by ground units.

Maybe it would be possible to co-ordinate an air attack with a fellow team member, tricky to micro manage unless you are on T/S or Skype.

The only other solution to this problem is to fall back and minimise your losses whilst sending your recon out to scout for a possible flank attack opportunity.

[Thork]

I pretty much never use regular art unless it has very superior range and im in the defense.
Otherwise just play fully zoomed out - get some mech-art yourself and always keep an eye out for every counter-art opportunity you get. Second priority would be AA. Same for your planes ones you got them.
I'd much rather use less of these units but it never worked for me. Ofc. It also depends on nr. of players etc. Anyway, I rarely go all in for art/planes either.. It can work but is not my style. I'll try to push early and plan from there.

Even though I'm still a noob, I'm slowly getting used to the gameplay and am OK with my APM by now.
Anyway, Art in general seems too good. You should be able to outflank with fast armor but that rarely works cause a single art piece can suppress and hold many tanks basically forever if not spread. If spread you can pick them off with other units.

As for Infantry. I rarely use them and mostly single units. Decent reccon squads do basically the same job and even more ;)

[Stevoe]

I find that in all the games i play everyone artillery spams like crazy. Its annoying because it forces you to do the same.

It would be nice to be able to play this game without using alot of artillery in order to win. I know that using planes is a good counter but i find that it doesnt always work.

They need a balance on artillery to force people to focus on frontline units in my opinion because that is where this game is at its best.

[WhjiteWolf]

Smoke

[[OTS]EchoZenLogos]

Originally posted by ExploitNZ:

Smoke

Smoke doesn't do anything to stop artillery. At all. All it does it help hide your units after a fight has begun.

Which doesn't help since artillery fire indirectly.

Sure, if you block lines of sight from scouts and such, the artillery might be inaccurate enough that you can advance. So this is something that might be helpful. However, smoke is very easily spotted, and judging where enemy units are from where smoke is deployed typically is not very difficult.

Perhaps smoke could be used to make the enemy think your units are somewhere they are not? That might work. Though you don't get all that many smoke mortars compared to regular ones, so you really would need to make it count.