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HistWar (English zone) => General discussions => Discussion démarrée par: Cpl Steiner le 22 décembre 2009, 18:21:24 pm

Titre: Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Cpl Steiner le 22 décembre 2009, 18:21:24 pm

Hi all,

I am sure the game is accurate but I'm also quite surprised by the number of airbursting cannon-rounds used by both sides in the game. I thought these had been a British invention - i.e. "Shrapnel" rounds - but in the game, they seem to be universal.

I think the term for an airbursting cannon round is a "shell", presumably because it is a hollow shell of metal filled with explosives. The airburst effect is achieved by a time-delay fuse which explodes the shell before it hits the ground, scattering jagged pieces of the casing over a wide area.

Would it therefore be fair to say that the only difference between a British "Shrapnel" round and a French or Austrian "Shell" is that the former includes musket balls packed inside for additional anti-personnel effect, whereas the latter does not?

Artillery in the game also seems to use a surprisingly high proportion of airbursting rounds as "counter-battery fire". Accounts I have read of the Peninsular War would suggest that this was generally frowned upon as a waste of ammunition because an enemy battery was a much more dispersed target than a formed body of enemy infantry or cavalry, and therefore much less likely to suffer significant casualties. Having said that, I find it is almost impossible to mount a successful attack against an enemy position in the game without first suppressing their guns with counter-battery fire. Is this ahistorical?

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Gunfreak le 22 décembre 2009, 18:45:53 pm

The high airbursts are mistakes, they aren't supose to do it, but it happed all the time, becasue of wrong timeing on the fuse, each airburst you see, is a failed shot, they have absolutly no effect that high up, hell even shrapnel would have no effect at that hight, shrapnel was supose to go off maby 10-15 meters over the heads of the troops, anyhigher and it had very little effect.

Shell has no effect unless it goes of "inside" the enemy formation.

Titre: Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Cpl Steiner le 22 décembre 2009, 19:08:37 pm

Citation de: Gunfreak le 22 décembre 2009, 18:45:53 pm

The high airbursts are mistakes, they aren't supose to do it, but it happed all the time...

Really? I never knew that. I have seen lots of films like "Waterloo" and "Gettysburg" which showed explosions going off high in the air but had always assumed that's what they were supposed to do!

Thanks for correcting my mistake. It just goes to show JMM's attention to detail to include stuff which has no effect on the enemy but is historically accurate.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: dieseltaylor le 22 décembre 2009, 19:10:30 pm

As I understand it artillerymen despite orders would commonly fire at enemy batteries. Generally a waste.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 22 décembre 2009, 19:12:15 pm

Citation de: Cpl Steiner le 22 décembre 2009, 18:21:24 pm

Would it therefore be fair to say that the only difference between a British "Shrapnel" round and a French or Austrian "Shell" is that the former includes musket balls packed inside for additional anti-personnel effect, whereas the latter does not?

Yes that would be the only difference really. The difference in actual use would be that the Spherical Case Shot (Shrapnel) achieved most of its effect if exploding in front of its target. A common shell worked better if exploding within the target.

Citer

...Having said that, I find it is almost impossible to mount a successful attack against an enemy position in the game without first suppressing their guns with counter-battery fire. Is this ahistorical?

Artillery in LG produces higher losses than they did historically (seems to be a bug) at least at long ranges. Combined with units routing after just taking 4-7% casualties, makes attacking very difficult before enemy guns have been near or completely destroyed. So there are some issues with history yes.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 22 décembre 2009, 19:32:27 pm

Citation de: CBR le 22 décembre 2009, 19:12:15 pm

Artillery in LG produces higher losses than they did historically (seems to be a bug) at least at long ranges.

How do the artillery casualties in HWLG compare with those in the Kriegsspiel rules?  I have a copy, but don't understand them well enough to say for sure.

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Gunfreak le 22 décembre 2009, 19:44:38 pm

Citation de: Cpl Steiner le 22 décembre 2009, 19:08:37 pm

Really? I never knew that. I have seen lots of films like "Waterloo" and "Gettysburg" which showed explosions going off high in the air but had always assumed that's what they were supposed to do!

Thanks for correcting my mistake. It just goes to show JMM's attention to detail to include stuff which has no effect on the enemy but is historically accurate.

Well in Both those movies, you actualy do have shrapnel, it was commen duringthe ACW, and the british had it at waterloo, that said, most of those you see on those movies would be ineffective rounds, shrapnel should go of about 15 meters above the ground and up to 50 meters infront of what you are trying to hit, the ball explodes and the small iron balls move forward showering the unit.
The exploding effect of shell was very limited, the expotion did very little damige, it might take of ONE leg, if it went of in the middle of a formation, what killed was the 3-5 BIG iron peices of the shell that went out. and even that had limited killing power.

But I asume JMM added the airburst becasue it would be a normal sight on the battle field

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: quartermaster le 22 décembre 2009, 19:49:22 pm

Hook - in response to your query - I repeat a post from a couple of days age.

One problem with many wargames is to realise that artillery does not have the ability to fire with good effect because of small scale terrain effects.  


From the v Reisswitz 1824 Kriegsspiel we get the following casualty rates from the dice tables for a TWO minute turn for an artillery battery of 6 guns and 2 howitzers at GOOD EFFECT (good visibility of target and fall of shot and firm ground)

Small Canister – close range – 20-60 casualties average 35
Large Canister – longer range 10-40 average 26
Elevation (ie normal roundshot) 6-18 average 9.5
Random (ricochet) 3-10 average 6.2

BAD EFFECT (wet ground, limited visibility, plunging shot etc.)

Small Canister 12-30 average 20
Large Canister 8-20 average 14
Elevation 4-8 average 5.5
Random 1-4 average 2.3

Howitzers are marginally less effective for canister and more effective at longer range.

Canister and elevation are three rounds per minute whereas Random (Ricochet) is two rounds per minute.

So for the battery firing under elevation for two minutes we have 16 rounds causing 6-18 casualties – average 9.5 for good effect (roughly 1.7 rounds per casualty) but average 5.5 or 3 rounds per casualty bad effect.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 22 décembre 2009, 20:05:23 pm

Thank you, Sir.

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 22 décembre 2009, 20:42:36 pm

Citation de: Hook le 22 décembre 2009, 19:32:27 pm

How do the artillery casualties in HWLG compare with those in the Kriegsspiel rules?  I have a copy, but don't understand them well enough to say for sure.

Hook

If we look at the 1828* rules and assume best case scenario (good effect) then the two turns (4 minutes) a 12pdr battery gets to fire at an advancing 3 rank formation (from 2000 down to 1500 paces range) it will produce an average of 28 casualties total. In LG it is more like 6 times that.

*longe range artillery effect were adjusted down to about 1/3 compared to the 1824 rules.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: quartermaster le 22 décembre 2009, 21:09:38 pm

I think JMM mentioned a possible reason for artillery effect at long range being on the high side in another post a few days ago.  Hopefully I can find it later.

Just to clarify my earlier post - many games assume good effect always applies and it should not!!  The visibility measure JMM has put into the game should help keep artillery within some constraint. 

A skillful brigade commander should be able to use ground to shield his men from the worst effects of enemy artillery.

The Montebello map is rather open which may also mean most of the artillery can find good targets.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: LNDavout le 22 décembre 2009, 21:13:53 pm

well according to nafzigers Imperial Bayonets:

The only statistics available on the actual casualties that were ever inflicted on an attacking unit come from German historian Müller and are given below.

Artillery vs Cavalry

1600-800 Yds 4 Kills 2 Wounded  

800-400 Yds 6 Kills 4 Wounded

400-0 Yds 9 Kills 23 Wounded

total of 19 killed and 29 Wounded

Artillery vs Infantery

1600-800 Yds 4 Kills 4 Wounded  

800-400 Yds 8 Kills 2 Wounded

400-0 Yds 30 Kills 90 Wounded

total of 42 killed and 96 Wounded

He served in the King´s German Legion and assessed the numbers of casualties inflicted by a 6-pdr during such an attack.In addition, he used a higher rate of fire in his calculation.The average was two roundshot per minute or three canister, but Müller seems to believe that the artilleriests could reach a rate of eight rouds per minute when being charged.Unfortunatley he does not indicate the type of formation beeing fired uppon...

In his book The Face of Battle J. Keegan says that a smoothbore cannon could keep its front clear of attacking troops with its fire. B.P. Hughes, in his book Firepower supports this. There is certainly no doubt that if a single gun could maintain the rate of fire indicated above, its front would be kept clear of any attacking troops.

                                                                                              Nafziger

Because of the slow movement of the troops on muddy ground canister was even more deadly.

Titre: Re: Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: HarryInk le 22 décembre 2009, 22:42:41 pm

I think JMM acknowledged a bug where canister was firing with max effect over the max distance.  Expect the artillery in the full game and demo v.2 to be quite different, I think.

As for the shells having little effect, don't underestimate the effect of flying metal fragments.  A jagged spinning piece of high speed metal the size of a large coin can do enough damage to persuade someone to leave the field.  

Some examples, Wenzel Krimer's account, a surgeon with Jagow's bridge under Keist @ Leipzig:

"Our battalion was drawn up in column between two Russian batteries which we were protecting.... a shell came over from ahead of us, exploded instantly, smashed an officer and a sergeant in the chest and head, and broke the legs of twelve men in the column.  I fell backwards to the ground, convinced that I had been hit... on close inspection it transpired that a shell fragment had whizzed between my legs and, because its velocity was already much reduced, had got caught in my cloak, pulled me to the ground and stuck in the earth behind me."

It is possible that by 'shell' Krimer means a ball but then he does say 'exploded'.  Another example comes from Molostvov, an ADC to Prince Eugen @ Wachau:

"[the french] artillery had a devastating effect, for just as the Prince of Wurttemberg was standing beside a Prussian battlion, a shell landed near him, exploded, and knocked down twenty-five men."

or again, from a french soldier Karl Rohrig:

"we stood in square under a fearful hail ...  A shell landed in the middle of the square, its fuse still burning, and dug a crater in the ground.  I tucked my head down between my shoulders and waited for whatever happened next.  puff! it exploded and did not hit a single man in our company, though the second and third companies suffered heavily.  One officer had the top of this head sliced off."

All these gruesome examples are from anthony Brett-James' "Europe against Napoleon: The Leipzig Campaign, 1813, from eyewitness accounts".

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: quartermaster le 22 décembre 2009, 23:58:21 pm

One for the future when the British arrive  - spherical case shot (named after the inventor Shrapnel) which by all accounts was superior to the common shell both in terms of casualties when it burst in the right place plus a more consistent fuse mechanism which meant it burst in the right place more often.

Will we see the rockets of Whinyates battery one day?

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 03:42:39 am

Here are the pertinent sections from the British version of the rules which were taken from the 1824 version of Kriegsspiel:

Citer

To simplify the calculation for losses the results are given in terms of points. For infantry in three ranks one point equals five men, whereas for infantry in two ranks three points equals ten men.

Citer

Adjustments to the Basic Artillery Fire Results
There are, of course, a multitude of circumstances that will affect this basic result and need to be considered by the umpire. Some general guidelines are as follows:
Artillery Fire Against Columns & Second Lines
Add 25% to the effect for any of following
a) Cannon fire against columns of two battalions or more, squadrons or batteries.

Citer

Using the Artillery Fire Table
To calculate fire from artillery battery, roll a die and cross reference the result with the type of battery firing and the range. This will indicate the losses, expressed in points, inflicted on the target unit. For larger or smaller units than those specified, adjust the casualties inflicted on a pro rata basis.  For example, for a half battery firing halve the casualties that would have been inflicted by a full battery

Citer

RATE OF FIRE ASSUMED
CANISTER 3 rounds per minute
HIGH ELEVATION 2 rounds per minute
RANDOM SHOT 3 rounds per minute

Here is the original artillery fire table and some calculated expected results.  I have converted Paces from the table to Meters of range (Paces * 0.75), given the average points for all die rolls, and given the average expected casualties for troops in three ranks and column formation.  This is for 2 minutes of fire.

12lbs BATTERY Good Effect                    Meters    Avg    Cas    Cas
DICE (Column)             1  2  3  4  5  6           Points  3-rank Column
1500-2000 Random          6  6  8  9  9 12 1125-1500   8.33    42     52
1000-1500 Elevation       8  8 10 13 13 22  750-1125  12.33    62     77
0500-1000 Large Canister 13 19 25 31 31 50  375- 750  28.17   141    176
0000-0500 Small Canister 25 25 38 50 50 75    0- 375  43.83   219    274

If someone would provide the updated 1828 artillery table and note any rule changes, I'll do the calculations for those.

Citation de: CBR le 22 décembre 2009, 20:42:36 pm

If we look at the 1828* rules...
*longe range artillery effect were adjusted down to about 1/3 compared to the 1824 rules.

Just proves that nerfing artillery has a long tradition. :)

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 08:16:11 am

Let's see if this attachment thingie works...

Edit: just to add a few thoughts. I find it a bit odd when Kriegsspiel assumes same ROF for both 12 and 6pdr guns. And I think it must be lower for 12pdr and it does seem to be reflected in the tables, because with Rollschuss (random) the 6pdr is even better than the 12pdr. That seems to go hand in hand with Scharnhorsts estimate that lower caliber guns were better when the terrain was flat enough to allow for Rollschuss (because of higher ROF)

Maybe they were not that worried about getting a perfect casualty rate/time for long range shooting over time but focused on proper casualty rate/rounds fired.

Citer

Just proves that nerfing artillery has a long tradition.

yes and their 1862 rules then increased it again  :? but then seems to have made artillery a harder target by needing twice the damage to take out one gun.

We do not know how LG handles artillery. Does the engine make a difference between Rollschuss/Random and normal direct fire(elevation)?

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 08:25:07 am

Now, let's compare Holdit's excellent results with the numbers above.

Citation de: Holdit le 15 décembre 2009, 01:29:32 am

I set up a quick and dirty test this evening, just to get some idea of just how powerful artillery is against infantry. Using the Montebello map and OBs, I set up the following four contests...

(iii) In the first three examples I had the infantry form line in order to minimise casualties due to penetrating roundshot.

The fourth example doesn't give casualties at various ranges so is not included here.

Since the infantry was in line, we'll use the 3 rank casualties column from the numbers above.

Citer

1. Bavarian battery (6 x 12lb, 2 x hw) vs. Russian line infantry regiment (1920 bayonets/3 battalions).

1. Artillery opened fire at +/- 1000 metres. By the time the range was 840 metres, the infantry had taken 30 losses, and at range 600 metres the infantry had taken 100 losses in total. Then there was a large jump in losses to 235 (cannister?), at which point the infantry turned and ran. Total losses: 235 (12%)

Range: 1000-840 meters
Losses: 30
Incremental losses: 30 -- This is slightly lower than the expected 42 losses

Range: 840-600 meters
Losses: 100
Incremental losses: 70 -- This is slightly higher than the expected 62 losses

Range: less than 600 meters
Losses: 235
Incremental losses: 135 -- This is slightly lower than the expected 141 losses

Conclusion:  These casualty numbers are well within the limits of the Kriegsspiel rules.

Citer

2. French battery (6 x 12lb, 2 x hw) vs. Austrian line infantry regiment (2460 bayonets/3 battalions)

2. Artillery opened fire at +/- 1250 metres. By the time the range was 680 metres, the infantry had taken 100 losses Losses rose as far as 210 , at which point the infantry turned and ran. Total casualties: 210 (9%)

Range: 1250-680
Losses: 100
Incremental losses: 100 -- This is lower than the expected 124 losses for two turns

Range: less than 680
Losses: 210
Incremental losses: 110 -- This is lower than the expected 141 losses for this range

Conclusion:  These casualty figures are somewhat lower than expected from the Kriegsspiel rules.

Citer

3. Polish battery (8 x 12lb) vs. Prussian line infantry regiment (1965 bayonets/3 battalions)

3. Artillery opened fire at +/- 1500 metres, and the infantry were on the run by the time they were 1300 metres from the battery at which point they had suffered 155 losses (8%).

Range: 1500-1300
Losses: 155
Incremental losses: 155 -- This is much higher than the expected 42 losses for a single Kriegsspiel turn, and still much higher than the expected 84 losses for two turns.  It's even higher than the max expected from rolling two sixes which would produce 120 casualties.

Conclusion:  These casualty figures are much higher than expected from the Kriegsspiel rules.

One possible reason the casualties were so much higher in the third example was that there were 8 12 pounders rather than 6.  But the difference in number of long guns doesn't account for the difference in number of casualties.  It may be that the casualties included some canister fire from a bug mentioned by JMM.

---

So, out of 3 tests we have on hand, 2 could have been reproduced by the Kriegsspiel rules and one could not.  If anyone else has tests similar to Holdit's, post the results so we can analyze them.

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 08:31:21 am

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 08:16:11 am

Let's see if this attachment thingie works...

Interesting, thanks.  Quite a bit of difference.  Lemme massage  the numbers.

Those  say "1824"... is this the 1828 rules or the original 1824 rules?

Edit:  quick analysis:  Roundshot is 35% what it was in the 1824 rules.  Canister is 50%.  I'm wondering if artillery casualties over the entire battle would actually *increase* due to units standing under fire longer.

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:10:38 am

Citation de: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 08:31:21 am

Interesting, thanks.  Quite a bit of difference.  Lemme massage  the numbers.

Those  say "1824"... is this the 1828 rules or the original 1824 rules?

Hook

Oh don't worry about the year. The tables are actually from the 1824 ruleset I got. It just has an appendix with the 1828 supplement and that is where I copied the tables from.

Citer

If anyone else has tests similar to Holdit's, post the results so we can analyze them.

I tested with Polish 12pdr battery and got similar results in all 4-5 tests I did. The enemy unit went from 2055 men down to 1880, give or take a few.

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 09:17:47 am

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:10:38 am

The tables are actually from the 1824 ruleset I got. It just has an appendix with the 1828 supplement and that is where I copied the tables from.

Thanks.

I guess we need to talk about units routing.  From my reading of the rules, casualties don't matter.  The entire unit could die to the last man and he'd still advance against the artillery.

Units under canister fire do have to take a test for whether to stand/advance or retire 250 paces.  This is rolled on the 3:2 dice in favor of the artillery.  So there's either a 2/5 or 3/5 chance that an infantry advancing through canister fire would be forced to retreat.  Any idea what that number should be?

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 09:19:25 am

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:10:38 am

I tested with Polish 12pdr battery and got similar results in all 4-5 tests I did. The enemy unit went from 2055 men down to 1880, give or take a few.

I read about your test, but you didn't give casualties at ranges.  Do you have those handy?

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:22:35 am

Citation de: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 08:31:21 am

I'm wondering if artillery casualties over the entire battle would actually *increase* due to units standing under fire longer.

Kriegsspiel only has actual morale effect from artillery when within canister/low elevation range. It is fair to say that artillery would have enough ammo to produce considerable casualties because there is no easy routing as in LG.


CBR

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:25:57 am

Citation de: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 09:19:25 am

I read about your test, but you didn't give casualties at ranges.  Do you have those handy?

I did provide a number. The infantry routed at about 1200 meters distance in all the tests. And the battery expended 7 rounds of ammo. The the bug appeared and delivered canister fire and produced extra losses. But if the ammo counter is correct then all casualties up to the routing point were coming from round shot

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 09:45:10 am

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:25:57 am

I did provide a number. The infantry routed at about 1200 meters distance in all the tests. And the battery expended 7 rounds of ammo. The the bug appeared and delivered canister fire and produced extra losses. But if the ammo counter is correct then all casualties up to the routing point were coming from round shot

Ok, I'm calculating that as 175 casualties over 2 turns.  Higher than it should be, and similar to but even higher than what Holdit got with the same battery.  There may be another bug at work here with that battery.  Have to wait for JMM to update the code to test it.  I'll check that one in the beta when I get the next update.

If you run that test again, look in the Tracking folder for the analyse.kia file which has casualties caused by each action.  Grab this file right after the battle, because if you watch a replay it will clear out the file.  Maybe it'll help us figure out what's going on.

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 09:56:16 am

I sent my save files to JMM. He did notice the canister bug and talked of a problem with accuracy over distance. So maybe round shot hit rate also goes down after it is corrected. Thx for the info about .kia file. I'll be sure to check that in the future.

Titre: Re: Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: HarryInk le 23 décembre 2009, 11:32:40 am

Impressive work, fellas.  Ta

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 15:33:48 pm

Ok then...

Did another test and checked out the .kia and .ana file (.ana gives range of shots it seems)

I made sure the battery was fully deployed and it fired 8 salvoes with each salvo producing 4 hits and each hit producing 4 casualties. So 16 casualties in each salvo for a total of 128 (the regiment reached 5% losses in that last salvo)

The battery started firing at 1472 meters and the last salvo was at 1204 meters.

I doubt my earlier tests really produced 160-170 casualties as the F2 map simply did not update properly, and might have added something from the canister even though the ammo counter did not show it.

If we compare the firepower from a 12pdr battery in Kriegsspiel for the 1500-2000 paces range band against an advancing infantry unit (we have to add one if not two salvoes in LG but I'll be nice and add just one)

LG: 144 casualties
1824: 83
1828: 28

If we then compare ammo consumption instead, then the 1824/1828 artillery require 2.3 or 6.8 times more rounds to produce a casualty compared to LG. Although I must admit I do not understand why Kriegsspiel allows so high ROF for 12pdrs. Can't find the original German version so cannot check if anything was left out in the translation. But eh, I'll stop rambling now  :oops:


CBR

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 17:35:55 pm

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 15:33:48 pm

I doubt my earlier tests really produced 160-170 casualties as the F2 map simply did not update properly, and might have added something from the canister even though the ammo counter did not show it.

If we compare the firepower from a 12pdr battery in Kriegsspiel for the 1500-2000 paces range band against an advancing infantry unit (we have to add one if not two salvoes in LG but I'll be nice and add just one)

LG: 144 casualties
1824: 83
1828: 28

You also have to make sure information is set to Precise instead of Vague.  Vague produces weird things sometimes.  For example, I'm looking directly at a howitzer model in 3D and the unit card says the battery has no howitzers.  Changing to Precise fixed that.  It's not a bug though.

Kriegsspiel's idea of what a battery consists of is different from what that one artillery battery is.  The tests from Holdit used a closer model on two runs and produced closer results.  I suspect a bug of some sort.  The problem isn't all artillery, but that one battery and probably others like it.  Try going after a 6*12pdr 2*HW and see if you get results consistent with the 1824 rules.

What command were you giving the infantry?  Was it a "move to" command, basically a forced march directly into the cannons, or was it an attack order?

What do you have to roll on the 3:2 dice to allow infantry to advance in canister range?  Is it one of the 3 spots, or one of the 2 spots?

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 18:40:27 pm

Information is set to precise. It might have something to do with running it at 1:10 speed, at least I remember seeing fewer or delayed updates when running at higher speed in my earlier tests.

I just tried a mixed battery like you suggested and got same result of 4 hits per salvo. Did Holdit not test all 4 batteries at the same time? Then there might be LOS or elevation issues.

I have tried both attack and move command and I see no difference.

One thing though is that in the tests I did right now I see artillery fire a bit at a distance that must have been beyond 1500 meters. But the .ana file does not report the distance until it reaches below 1500 meters.

The dice gives artillery 60% chance of forcing a battalion back.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 19:59:05 pm

Citation de: CBR le 23 décembre 2009, 18:40:27 pm

Information is set to precise. It might have something to do with running it at 1:10 speed, at least I remember seeing fewer or delayed updates when running at higher speed in my earlier tests.

I run everything at 20/60.  It wouldn't surprise me if the displayed statistics weren't updated quickly enough at 6/60, although the game engine would keep track properly.

Citer

I just tried a mixed battery like you suggested and got same result of 4 hits per salvo. Did Holdit not test all 4 batteries at the same time? Then there might be LOS or elevation issues.

That won't help me much, as I'm looking for specific casualties at specific ranges, not the number of casualties produced by one salvo.  With a mixed battery of guns and howitzers, it's going to be hard to figure out which guns did what, and calculate how many casualties one shot from one cannon would produce.

It's odd to see in the 7pdr Howitzers table "Rollschuss", "Full Charge" and "Smaller Charge (Shell)" as if the howitzers were firing roundshot.

Citer

I have tried both attack and move command and I see no difference.

Ok.  I wasn't sure if giving an attack unit order would produce different tactics and a different approach.

Citer

The dice gives artillery 60% chance of forcing a battalion back.

Wowsers... that means a 40% chance of being able to advance.  Here's what this really means:

If a unit advances on artillery, if it takes one turn of canister, it has a 40% chance of reaching the artillery.  Two in five will make it.

If it takes 2 turns of canister, it has (0.4*0.4) or a 16% chance of reaching the artillery.  One is six will make it.

If it takes 3 turns of canister, the chance is (0.4*0.4*0.4) or about a 6.5% chance of reaching the artillery.  One in 15 or 16 will make it.  Not a lot of chance there.

Hook

Titre: Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 24 décembre 2009, 04:41:54 am

Citation de: Hook le 23 décembre 2009, 19:59:05 pm

That won't help me much, as I'm looking for specific casualties at specific ranges, not the number of casualties produced by one salvo.  With a mixed battery of guns and howitzers, it's going to be hard to figure out which guns did what, and calculate how many casualties one shot from one cannon would produce.

There was no difference. Distance were the same, casualties per salvo/minute were the same (16) and a total of 8 salvoes(minutes) of fire.

I just checked 8pdrs. Three batteries of 8x8pdrs, 8x8pdrs+2hw and 6x8pdrs+2hw. Strangely enough the 8x8pdr+2hw were the same as the smaller batteries. They all fired 10 minutes of 12 casualties each and started firing at a little less than 1400 meters and stopped firing at around 960-980 meters.

It seems as if howitzers merely count as an ordinary guns. Odd.

Citer

If a unit advances on artillery, if it takes one turn of canister, it has a 40% chance of reaching the artillery.  Two in five will make it.

If it takes 2 turns of canister, it has (0.4*0.4) or a 16% chance of reaching the artillery.  One is six will make it.

If it takes 3 turns of canister, the chance is (0.4*0.4*0.4) or about a 6.5% chance of reaching the artillery.  One in 15 or 16 will make it.  Not a lot of chance there.

Yes. Of course that is for one battalion. A failed check means it is forced to pull back 250 paces so it does not rout as seen in LG. Now throw in 3 or 4 battalions and it is no longer that difficult for infantry to close in for an attack. Also the artillery can only do it as long as its not under canister fire. So an attacker can cancel out the effect by using artillery in support.

Citer

It's odd to see in the 7pdr Howitzers table "Rollschuss", "Full Charge" and "Smaller Charge (Shell)" as if the howitzers were firing roundshot.

AFAIK Rollschuss were used with the shells.


CBR

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 24 décembre 2009, 18:49:51 pm

Citation de: CBR le 24 décembre 2009, 04:41:54 am

There was no difference. Distance were the same, casualties per salvo/minute were the same (16) and a total of 8 salvoes(minutes) of fire.

Fill in this form:

Range: ___-___ meters
Total Losses: ___
Incremental losses: ___

Range: ___-___ meters
Total Losses: ___
Incremental losses: ___

I'm not interested in the number of casualties per shot, and in any case the casualties per shot will be much higher for a battery defending itself against a frontal assault than for all shots fired during a battle.

Citer

Yes. Of course that is for one battalion. A failed check means it is forced to pull back 250 paces so it does not rout as seen in LG. Now throw in 3 or 4 battalions and it is no longer that difficult for infantry to close in for an attack. Also the artillery can only do it as long as its not under canister fire. So an attacker can cancel out the effect by using artillery in support.

You have just given the way to successfully attack a battery.  Same concept in both games, different implementation.

Citer

It cannot be assumed that the troops will remain still for long under effective canister fire or low elevation range fire without either going forwards or back. There can be very few exceptions to this.

If, therefore, a half battery is firing against 1 battalion or two squadrons in canister range, under conditions which will give good effect, and without itself coming under canister fire from an enemy battery, Die 2 is rolled after each move to the advantage of the battery to decide whether they troops can remain in position or retire.

The smallest individual infantry unit in HWLG is the regiment.  This would appear to cause problems because the Kriegsspiel rules talk about battalions.  But those rules also talk about half batteries.  In any given turn with the situation we're modeling, there will be two half batteries firing against two battalions, and one  battalion not being fired upon until the original target battalions have retired.  So the level of abstraction between the two games is not that different.

JMM is modeling things in HWLG that would be impossible in Kriegsspiel, or would have to be abstracted into the rules somehow.  Visibility for the artillery, for example, or fatigue, or morale.  Things that would affect the rates of fire and possibly the number of casualties.  JMM even models the fact that artillery won't hit the target with the first shot.  

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 26 décembre 2009, 02:27:58 am

Ok, I finally set up the test myself.  Dobl, the Bavarian FussBatterie with 6*12pdr and 2*HW on one side, Albychev, the 1920 man Russian line infantry regiment on the other.  Everyone else moved to the far edges of the map.

The first thing I noticed was that there was no flat ground for the infantry to attack across.  I set the units up in the northern part of the map with the infantry on higher ground and they'd advance downhill.  The artillery was on flat ground.  This may have affected the opening range if the artillery couldn't get a good line of sight until the infantry was closer.

I commanded both sides.  I gave the artillery unlimber orders and the infantry orders to attack the artillery.  The infantry advanced a bit, then formed line, then later reformed into a disordered formation of some kind, with cohesion 80 by that time, to advance on the artillery.

I didn't try to measure distances on the map, which is problematical at best. I used the numbers from the tracking files.

The artillery opened fire at 928 meters.  The infantry advanced to 617 meters before they had the status "Unit: flight", which shortly changed to Rout.  At this point they were down from 1920 men to 1793.

Range: 928-617 meters
Total Losses: 127
Incremental losses: 127

This corresponds to one turn of Elevation fire for 62 casualties, one turn of Large Canister fire for 141 casualties.  Somewhat under the 203 casualties expected from the Kriegsspiel rules.

Breaking it down further we have:

Range: 928-759 meters (Elevation)
Total Losses: 56
Incremental losses: 56

Slightly under the 62 expected.

Range: 759-617 meters (Large Canister)
Total Losses: 127
Incremental losses: 71

Somewhat under the 141 expected but over the 65 minimum for Large Canister.

Conclusion:  casualties are within Kriegsspiel limits.

Note:  edited because I was reading the wrong ranges from the table.

I don't think it's going to be possible to do a frontal assault on an artillery battery with a single infantry regiment.  Add another regiment or two, suppress the artillery with counterbattery fire, get the corps or army commander involved, whatever.

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 26 décembre 2009, 03:46:49 am

As long as a Line regiment takes losses every minute it will break at slightly above 5.5% so both battery types will end up producing similar casualties before a rout. In the tests I did that meant from 120 to 128 casualties against a 2055 man regiment.

Citer

I'm not interested in the number of casualties per shot, and in any case the casualties per shot will be much higher for a battery defending itself against a frontal assault than for all shots fired during a battle.

Maybe you should be interested:

8x12pdr battery:
At nearly 1500 meters
At nearly 500 meters
Against 2 battalion regiment
Against 4 battalion regiment (should be a two line target)
Firing into the flank of a regiment
Firing uphill or downhill

All these scenarios produce the same rate of 4 hits (16 casualties) every minute.

Titre: Re : Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 26 décembre 2009, 04:50:07 am

Citation de: CBR le 26 décembre 2009, 03:46:49 am

All these scenarios produce the same rate of 4 hits (16 casualties) every minute.

That one's interesting.  Thanks.

I did see as few as 4 casualties per minute and as high as 21, and a couple of 18s, but mostly it was 16 casualties per minute.  The in-game display rounded the number to the nearest 5 most of the time.

I also saw a number of misses.  These would lower the average of casualties per shots fired and are not recorded in the file, far as I know.

Having looked closer at the numbers, I'm beginning to doubt the model was intended to be scrutinized this closely.  At some point, things break down.  People are relying on an artificial test involving only two units, and although the final outcome is about what you'd predict from all the parameters used, the mechanism isn't as elegant as it could be.  It's a bit like gazing at soulful eyes through a microscope.

If there's still a problem, it seems to be that the infantry advances very slowly, about 40 meters per minute (a 26 inch step, 60 per minute,  pas de deux pieds at pas ordinaire).  This means it takes more shots from the artillery.  With each shot their ability to continue to advance goes down.  Eventually they retreat, then rout.  It may be that their morale drops too fast.

It is still possible to attack a corps supported by artillery and win. Given the 1 vs 1 tests you'd think it would be impossible.  I'm more interested in why it's still possible than why a 1 vs 1 is not.

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: CBR le 26 décembre 2009, 05:35:18 am

In the few bigger tests I have done, I have seen 3 regiment attacks both succeed and fail. When checking out the .kia file one can see how the canister bug is actually causing a lot of trouble for the battery: The battle I just tried it spent 9 minutes firing on the first routing regiment although there were two other regiments getting closer.

So at least that one bug might be part of the reason as to why it is possible.

edit: and yes, movement rate does seem rather slow.

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Cameronian le 26 décembre 2009, 15:25:41 pm

Would it therefore be fair to say that the only difference between a British "Shrapnel" round and a French or Austrian "Shell" is that the former includes musket balls packed inside for additional anti-personnel effect, whereas the latter does not?

Well not really. Shell comprised a THICK cast iron outer crust containing a large charge of black powder. When the fuze ignited the charge exploded, because the crust was thick and the explosion therefore 'contained' the blast was considerable. Damage/casualties were caused by blast, fire (buildings) and shell fragments.
The ferocity of the explosion was such that only howitzers would fire shell (short, stubby, extra thick barrels) normal cannon would suffer a burst barrel if the shell ignited prematurely, a howitzer wouldn't
(pressure > exponentially as the round travels up the barrel, the > in pressure makes a 'blow in' of the fuze or an opening crack in the crust more likely and thus > the risk of a premature explosion).

Spherical case (Shrapnel) comprised a THIN outer crust packed with balls with a relatively SMALL charge in the middle. The round would be fuzed to burst in front of an enemy column, the charge would be sufficient only to burst the thin crust and scatter the balls, the 'killing momentum' of the balls were a function of the propellant charge ie they were already travelling at a lethal velocity. Spherical case could burst in the barrel of a normal gun without bursting it (thin crust) but it wouldn't be popular with infantry standing to its front!

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Hook le 26 décembre 2009, 19:06:50 pm

Great seeing you again, Cameronian!

Is my memory correct that you were in the British horse artillery?

Hook

Titre: Re : Types of Artillery Round and their use
Posté par: Cameronian le 26 décembre 2009, 22:14:06 pm

'Royal' Horse Artillery, old boy, 'Royal' Horse Artillery!

 :D Great to hear from you after all this time Hooky, I'm guessing that if you're involved then the arty logistics will be nicely modelled.

Cam