The Battle of Campobasso

[Smirfy]

The Battle of Campobasso Nov 6th 1943


On Dawn of the 6th The Fighter Bombers stormed into attack to soften up the 16SS for attack. Unfortunately every Flak gunner in the 16SS was a crack shot.

[Smirfy]

Monty assembled over 1200 guns but none bothered to fire, infact the SS gun rained down death on the Allied artillery

[Smirfy]

The Allied Artillery Park

[KWG]

well lets see the combat and what your guns were doing.

[Smirfy]

Not much obviously, I ran the battle again and Flak only managed to shoot down *9* slighty more guns engaged probably about 1/4 of my total strength and pushed the Germans back at 4 to 1 exchange in their favour. The German Artillery comes in first (despite me attacking). Artillery just aint workin, Ive known it since my first game and I think I see where the heavy flak losses are coming from its those planes involved in ground support. Was looking in wrong place before. Simple solution give the Allies AGRA artillery units

[KWG]

"Not much obviously,...."

No, it only means they were having no effect. they could still be firing and even hitting. fpe and hpe in the ground combat tab. was referring to all those artillery pieces.

[KWG]

double post

[Smirfy]

Interestly as Ive said before because the game does not take into account shell usage and has the cumbersome command arrangements for the Allied artillery to go through that the never existed in real life the Germans have a clear and marked artillery superiority. Especially when you consider the turns are weekly!. In this case 1 gun to every 26 men to the Allied 1 gun to every 65 men despite the huge attachments to corps for my artillery park. I am not attacking Cassino here, the turn before the unit was a mere brigade, the 16th was not known as an elite formation. The devastation waged by the enemy artillery in comparison to my own is truly incredulous. Does counter battery fire not exist?

[Smirfy]

The figure for the whole front are interesting 1 gun for every 70 men in the Axis 1 for 130 in the Allies practically a 2 to 1 advantage and when you consider the Allies have lots of redundant flak the advantage is firmly with the Axis as their Flak actually does something *and is used in ground combat* unlike the bulk of Allied flak. Upsets against the the odds happen no doubt and one accepts that but you can run the battle of Campobasso a hundred time and you will get the same results

[Seminole]

Monty assembled over 1200 guns but

but no engineers? I see level 3 forts, but no engineering value for the attacker.
I see one battalion attached to HQ, but when assaulting level 3 fortifications I'd suggest stocking the divisions with engineer support units to knock down those forts.

[Kronolog]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

but no engineers? I see level 3 forts, but no engineering value for the attacker.
I see one battalion attached to HQ, but when assaulting level 3 fortifications I'd suggest stocking the divisions with engineer support units to knock down those forts.

Also, according to the manual, artillery needs to be "heavy" in order to effectively reduce forts. As British divisions don't have anything heavier that 25-pounders organically, and only one medium artillery regiments was committed, the number of guns might be misleading.

[Smirfy]

ORIGINAL: Seminole

Monty assembled over 1200 guns but

but no engineers? I see level 3 forts, but no engineering value for the attacker.
I see one battalion attached to HQ, but when assaulting level 3 fortifications I'd suggest stocking the divisions with engineer support units to knock down those forts.

One of the divisions has engineers attached I believe I am in work so I can't check. Some details about the background to the battle.

1/ I was playing pretty authentically resting divisions reffiting etc all the attacking divisions were basically at establishment
2/ 16SS has just gone from a brigade to a division in one turn and appears it gets its full TOE and all its gun pits dug to maintain a level 3 fort
3/ 16SS is only 6000 men strong
4/ The Flak from an division knocks out 10% of the attacking aircraft as I have stated in other threads historically the loss was 1 in 250. Every Ground support mission is a Schwienfurt or Nuremburg.
5/ There was no airbourne suppression nor artillery suppression despite an overwhelming superiority
6/ The German artillery and mortars were very effective. I lost guns to mortars!



So to recap 5 full strength fresh divisions with organic engineers with exceptional artillery support Field, Medium and Heavy not to mention air support attack a German division at 1/3 strength but at 100% artillery TOE suffer catastrophic losses everytime.

I will certainly run more tests with varying units but I'm beginning to see a pattern and the pattern is Allied artillery is useless despite killing 70% of Axis fatalities in NW Europe

[Seminole]

So to recap 5 full strength fresh divisions with organic engineers

Can you post a save? I'd like to see the combat too.
It's weird that you have engineers attached to your onmap combat units and you're not showing any engineer value on the combat screen. You should see something akin to this:

[RedLancer]

You need to read Manual section 15.4.1 - 15.4.3 on Page 126.  The devil is in the detail.
 
A BR HQ can have up to 6 SUs + 4 additional artillery units taking part in an attack on a rough hex.
 
You have 13 Arty units already (one too many) but you have committed some of the AA, AT or Engrs as part of the six SUs allowed instead.  I can see from the screen shot that 100 AA and 83 AT took two of the slots.
 
So my initial observation is that you are not employing your artillery and engineers to best effect even before you consider that artillery in defence is always more potent than that in offence - the bottom of a trench with overhead protection is always better than open ground.
 
So what - attach your Engrs, AT and SP Arty direct to the Divisions - they'll definitely take part.  Send some of the AA to Army HQ and leave yourself with no more than 10 SUs at Corps level.  Don't use ground support use air interdiction - it's better.  Make sure your HQ is close and has not moved in the turn.  Avoid attacking in Lt Mud (15.6.2.4) - another 0.8 off your CV (assuming average roads)  and rain doesn't help your aircraft either  - they fly lower and under 1000 ft things get more costly.

[Smirfy]

Thanks for the advice and taking the time for an explanation. I look forward to putting it into practice and will certainly post an update on the results and a few observations

[Smirfy]

Found my first observation US HQ's limited to 6 Support unit BR headquarters limited to 4. I cant imagine what that caveat is based on certainly not anything historical