Ground combat

[Thrake (OP)]

What is long range bombardment? I didn't see it mentionned in Steve's posts, and it simply looks like a bigger (worst!) medium range bombardment component.

Also, is there any point to mix and match multipurpose units in formations? I'm thinking of, for exemple, something like infantry with close range combat mixed with artillery and all that in support or rear echelon. My understanding is that if that formation is targetted, it will get shot no matter what and the infantry won't even retaliate somehow since it's in support echelon, or draw the fire instead of artillery. As targetting is based on total size and presumably my artillery formations will be mostly artillery, from a statistical point of view the infantry should sit iddle when the infantry is targeted. Yet, it seems like there should be a point at it, I think I've seen exemple of such formations.

[xenoscepter]

Adding infantry, static units and even vehicles to Support Formations is good if the enemy gets a breakthrough. That allows non-artillery units to attack them and thus the infantry and such could, would and will fire back. During bombardment... they're meat shields. A few PWL w/ the Non-Combat box ticked can be helpful if you can get them fortified. Maybe an MG Nest (CAP-Static) or tow as well, with some infantry. Throw a couple of APCs (CAP-Light Vehicle) for the armor bonus and they should be fairly well protected. Don't spend too much on them though.

As for Long Range Bombardment. It's basically a bigger Medium Bombardment, yes. However, Medium Bombardment can only hit Support or Front Line formations, while Long range can hit those and Rear Formations too. So it's less of a bigger Medium Bombardment and more of a Medium Bombardment with Heavy Bombardment range for less weight than a Heavy Bombardment.

Putting Bombardment in the Front Line is as such:

Light Bombardment, as I understand it will not benefit at all, at least not as bombardment weapons. They'll just attack as any other unit. Any AA weapon does this as well, but also functions as an AA in addition to it.

Medium Bombardment can conduct counter battery fire during the bombardment phase and attack during the main combat phase which precedes it. That is my understanding at least.

The same holds true for LR and Heavy versions, just with better range.

YMMV, and I have not thoroughly tested it yet to confirm.

[Ulzgoroth]

As best I can tell from the lore, counterbattery fire is something that is done by supporting formations. Putting bombardment weapons in front-line formations serves no purpose that I can discern. (Putting some 'front line' elements in the bombardment formation might be helpful in some circumstances - though it doesn't help against counter-battery fire, which specifically targets the bombardment elements that provoked it.)


Long range or heavy bombardment weapons have a double-edged advantage. They can provide support from the rear echelon rather than the support position, and they can fire into the enemy rear echelon. So if your enemy uses medium bombardment and you use long-range or heavy bombardment, they won't be able to make counter-battery attacks.

[xenoscepter]

Negative. Counterbattery fire is conducted as part of the bombardment phase regardless of the position of the bombardment units in question. If your Medium Bombardment is in a support position and it fires on my Medium Bombardment in a Front Line position my unit will counter fire back at it. If your LR Bombardment shoots my LR from the Rear Position and I have it in the Front Line position it will fire back.

However, the caveat is that this will only happen if that enemy bombardment element targets the formation that my bombardment element is a part of. So during the bombardment phase, if nothing targets the formations containing my Mediums, LRs or Heavies, they won't engage in counter battery fire at all. They also won't engage in normal bombardment either, so they sit idle during that phase unless their formation is shot at.

Putting them in Support or Rear formation let's them engage during bombardment. I don't remember if it affects counter-battery fire or not, I think you need to assign them to direct support to do that, but I'm not entirely sure of it. What I am sure of is that if you put Medium Bombardment or higher in a Front Line formation it can partake in counter-battery fire, but only in a very specific capacity.

[Ulzgoroth]

Negative. Counterbattery fire is conducted as part of the bombardment phase regardless of the position of the bombardment units in question. If your Medium Bombardment is in a support position and it fires on my Medium Bombardment in a Front Line position my unit will counter fire back at it. If your LR Bombardment shoots my LR from the Rear Position and I have it in the Front Line position it will fire back.

However, the caveat is that this will only happen if that enemy bombardment element targets the formation that my bombardment element is a part of. So during the bombardment phase, if nothing targets the formations containing my Mediums, LRs or Heavies, they won't engage in counter battery fire at all. They also won't engage in normal bombardment either, so they sit idle during that phase unless their formation is shot at.

Putting them in Support or Rear formation let's them engage during bombardment. I don't remember if it affects counter-battery fire or not, I think you need to assign them to direct support to do that, but I'm not entirely sure of it. What I am sure of is that if you put Medium Bombardment or higher in a Front Line formation it can partake in counter-battery fire, but only in a very specific capacity.

Do you have any citations for this, or is this from gameplay observation? Because that is definitely not how the wiki's quotes talk about counterbattery fire working.

"Once all front line attacks have been concluded, each unit in each element providing supporting bombardment will engage either the hostile formation being targeted by the friendly formation they are supporting, or one of the hostile formation's own supporting elements (counter-battery fire). If the hostile formation is targeted, each unit in the supporting artillery element engages a random element in the hostile formation, with the randomisation based on the relative size of the hostile formation elements (the same as front-line vs front-line). If a hostile supporting element is targeted, all fire is directed against that element. This represents the difference between providing supporting fire in a combined arms front-line battle and targeting specific hostile artillery for counter-battery fire. The decision to target the hostile front-line formation vs hostile support elements is based on the relative sizes."

[xenoscepter]

Took forever to find it:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10764.msg126406#msg126406

Maybe the wiki is right, I haven't done testing of it personally, so there's that.