Am I using artillery wrong?

[Hank the Cow dog]

So playing confederates, I roll up to an encamped enemy on the other side of a river,

he slightly outnumbers me so i decide theres no way i'm charging across a River into an encamped enemy, but I notice they are incredibly static, so I roll up my artillery line to soften them up and tear them to shreds before assaulting.

well 3 days of bombardment wtih 50 Cannon and they have done basically nothing to the enemy.
my setup:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2785000772


days casualties:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2785000828


So i figure surely i must be using artilery incorrectly if 3 days of bombardment have done so little to

[crono900]

I find it's better to select a unit to focus fire on. Using the bombard feature doesn't seem to do much, try using counter battery first to get rid of enemy guns, then fire at will and target the closest brigade until they crack then aim for the next one.

I also tend to mod my artillery to have a higher kill rate. Note, I said kill rate not casualty rate. The kill rate effect how many casualties die or are permanently removed from the war. I believe that if you get hit by artillery fire, or shrapnel caused by artillery, there was almost no chance of returning to action.

[balrog2sdu]

I'm guessing your artillery was probably 6-lber field guns? Guessing that because you're CSA in what appears to be Nov 1861. Generally that early on there's scarcely any 12-lber field guns or napoleons available.

Also, the Union troops are behind cover and were probably also laying down most of the time.

Furthermore, since this is early in the war and I don't see any experience stars above any of those artillery battalions - these are probably low experience units.

Therefore; small guns + low experience units + enemy in cover + enemy laying down = much lower casualty rates.

There's only two things I really expect out of early game artillery units, especially in these situations that you've commonly found yourself in here; and that is:

1. fixing enemy units under fire so they hopefully move less; and
2. Close range canister shot

If you're able to fire 2-3 rounds of canister shot from even 6lb field guns into enemy infantry they will not only take tons of casualties, they will also most likely break very quickly.

Anyway, hope this helps,

[Atheory]

Yea, there is a host of variables in play, as illustrated with the above posts.

A perfect call back, if you've ever watched the movie Gettysburg, when Lawrence was marching his regiment to little round top, he made that quip about rebel artillery over-shooting "again".

Point is, ranged artillery is never as accurate as one might like it to be.

Counter-battery is probably the most effective use of ranged artillery fire in game, in my view.

However if maximizing casualties is your goal , you gotta risk getting in close enough for canister fire, but even in the actual civil war, offensive use of this tactic was found to be too costly and seldom employed as the war went on.

[Hank the Cow dog]

Originally posted by bradfield.jason:

I'm guessing your artillery was probably 6-lber field guns? Guessing that because you're CSA in what appears to be Nov 1861. Generally that early on there's scarcely any 12-lber field guns or napoleons available.

Also, the Union troops are behind cover and were probably also laying down most of the time.

Furthermore, since this is early in the war and I don't see any experience stars above any of those artillery battalions - these are probably low experience units.

Therefore; small guns + low experience units + enemy in cover + enemy laying down = much lower casualty rates.

There's only two things I really expect out of early game artillery units, especially in these situations that you've commonly found yourself in here; and that is:

1. fixing enemy units under fire so they hopefully move less; and
2. Close range canister shot

If you're able to fire 2-3 rounds of canister shot from even 6lb field guns into enemy infantry they will not only take tons of casualties, they will also most likely break very quickly.

Anyway, hope this helps,

All that aside,

40 kills over 3 days of bombardment with 50 guns sounds a little absurd doenst it?

[A_P_Hill]

Not really.

Again given that your guns are as mentioned 6 pound guns, therefore equals smoothbore, therefore equals distance your shots can vary over a given distance +/- 20 yards.

Not to mention, the percentage of round failures. In this case, you will have to use solid shot to maintain your distance. Case/Shrapnel was available but at shorter ranges.

The yanks just had 40 unlucky guys.

[crono900]

Though The Unions morale should be low enough that you should be able to march on them with infantry and start routing them.

[Hank the Cow dog]

Originally posted by A_P_Hill:

Not really.

Again given that your guns are as mentioned 6 pound guns, therefore equals smoothbore, therefore equals distance your shots can vary over a given distance +/- 20 yards.

Not to mention, the percentage of round failures. In this case, you will have to use solid shot to maintain your distance. Case/Shrapnel was available but at shorter ranges.

The yanks just had 40 unlucky guys.

Well time to start buying howitzers

As often as I can

[crono900]

Artillery batteries were the only one who were given time and ammo to do practice shots. They were required to have a practice session once a month and to submit the results for inspection. So the comment that they were inaccurate with smoothbore cannons does not hold up as much. Maybe the first 2-3 shots are of 20+ feet, but after that they should be getting closer on target. The Lt. in charge of the piece was the one to aim and give the command to fire so he tended to either have experience or show promise. After a few shots at long range they would start to get hits on their target. Of course they would fire at a slow rate to remain accurate at long range, without the view blocked by smoke. They only fired as fast as they could not worrying about the smoke when they were firing canister shots at incoming units. I think bombardments would also have them firing as fast as possible to cause higher morale damage, because the target is under continuous fire.

The reason to go to 12pdr is shown in this video.
https://youtu.be/d855DmSD_28
This guy and his twin brother make ammo the same way it was made back during the civil war themselves and they supply a lot of other civil war artillery enthusiasts. he also has A LOT of pieces and has won first place in the artillery games a few times.

Rifled artillery was able to fire 1.5-2 miles max effective range, Smoothbore artillery about 1 mile max effective range. These are not the max distances they could shoot, only the chance of hitting something they intended to (hence the wording "effective range").

To cause more casualties follow my first suggestion in the first post. Bombardments were to soften up the morale of the enemy before a charge of 3-4 infantry brigades, rather than eliminating them without sending infantry in.

[Oubley]

Cannons are not WWI and def not WW2 type of artillery.
I have no data but would imagine that artillery kill ratio to shots fire wasn't that great at range.

I'd imagine it's greatest effect on "breaking up" the enemy is just that, to disorganize them and reduce their morale.

now when brigades get closer even the 6-lb field guns can be devastating. But at range they kind of crap.

even for the better guns if you have 60 long range shots, and lets say killed 3 guys per shot that still only 180 men. And you're not going to hit every shot, particularly at range.

from your screen shot it looks like the defenders are behind cover to.

so 40 kills doesn't seem so bad.

Personally for this game I prefer to target cannons with my artillery.

Howitzer guns the one I'd be doing more range stuff with early on against infantry.

Cannons I would have in position similar to yours more for defensive aka if the enemy decided to move closer or
if you were deciding to attack to help reduce the infantry morale.

Personally I kind of like it that the game doesn't have artillery shred the units at range. But even well known examples like pickets charge in real life wasn't it more the short range shots that did the brigades in?

[crono900]

I have found an article that states Pickett suffered about a 61% casualties by artillery before reaching Emmitsburg Road. This was just one part of the attack.
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/picketts-charge.html?msclkid=48499bbdad7a11ec9b18d369fc36f21b

[Hank the Cow dog]

An obvious hyperbole.


But I have heard it said "a good artillery gunner could hit a man out of his saddle at 1000 yards"

[crono900]

Originally posted by Gygax's Chosen:

An obvious hyperbole.


But I have heard it said "a good artillery gunner could hit a man out of his saddle at 1000 yards"

I heard, speaking artillery of course, " Smoothbore gun can hit a barn at a mile, rifled could hit the door."

[Oubley]

Originally posted by crono900:

I have found an article that states Pickett suffered about a 61% casualties by artillery before reaching Emmitsburg Road. This was just one part of the attack.
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/picketts-charge.html?msclkid=48499bbdad7a11ec9b18d369fc36f21b

Casualties or kills, and was that at long range or short range. They essentially started the march within range; and the Emmitsburg Road was essentially the union position.

Pickets division was like 5k or so and he only lost like 3k I believe. so I highly doubt that the artillery made 61% causalties. That would essentially mean that either the union infantry never killed anyone or that pickets division essentially ran away before even getting to the wall.

[Atheory]

attempting to tie this back to the subject a little, we must discern between offensive and defensive tactics. Union during gettysburg was defensive, and rebel artillery was mostly counter-battery while in an offensive posture.

Pickets charge was a union artillerists wet dream.....open field, flanking fire, packed rebel regiments.

It is not unreasonable to suggest some regiments, of all their casualties that up to 61% were created by artillery.

We must also take into account that of the 7k or so rebel casualties from the charge, 50-60% became prisoners....although many of these were considered "wounded". So, if we take the average that 20% casualties were from artillery, it is reasonable given the conditions that this is elevated to 30 or even 40% for this one battle.

I've not read up on gettysburg so by no means an expert, but one might say that artillery was effective enough that cohesion/morale was bad enough by the time they reached the union line, and prisoners taken was as high as it is.

[A_P_Hill]

Originally posted by Gygax's Chosen:

Well time to start buying howitzers

As often as I can

I'd be careful with that statement. While 12 pound howitzers fire a larger ball/case shot/canister, their range is highly restricted due to the reduced powder charge and therefore likely to be less effective than your 6 pounders.

The ideal guns need to be either 12 pound Napoleons, 3 Inch Ordnance, or 10 pound Parrott rifles. Due to the size of the bore the rifles will again have less impact, but you will receive a greater range from them as opposed to any smoothbore.