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Great stuff my friend. This is well thought out like the whole project
With your game, the issue does not arise because (just like really unbalanced force sizes) the artillery heavy battles can just be auto-resolved (or not, sometimes the forlorn hope can be fun to play!)
There is also a few persistent national myths that just wont lie down (Soviet massive artillery use without the huge lack of flexibility, German responsive artillery without the rigid allocations, and, my favourite, inaccurate British artillery).I don't any primary sources, but I find the two sites below a good starting point.http://www.fireandfury.com/artillerytutorial/artytut.shtmlhttp://nigelef.tripod.com/maindoc.htmObviously the first iink breaks the golden rule of not using games as sources!
Thanks for your reply, it is really everything I could wish for. I have no beef with the RA (British Army artillery) being a little further out on spotting rounds in a tactical game, but this is often taken to mean their artillery was less effective.
I have also seen the 25pdr described as too small for FA work
Off immediate topic but my favourite example of this is the much quoted comment (usually allegedly from German sources) that the British "were predictable", taken to mean were easily countered. Whereas in fact the predictability was more a symptom of being thorough and systematic - going the safer 'average' result rather than the 'Hail Mary' win big or lose big option (as British losses in WW1 could not be repeated). This predictablity didn't enable the Germans to do any better against them.
Anyway, back on topic: I don't think you need to think of the artillery allocation problem in response to combat as a "game" problem; it is of course a RL problem too. The artillery commanders have exactly this problem. The solution is to use similar strategies to RL. The AI needs to work out the main point of attack, and give a higher % chance of the artillery going there. I am not sure how, of course . The other criterion is which battle the AI would least like to lose based on some scoring system..
Completely agree - you seem to have thought about all this very well.
In actual fact the Mortain example is a classic test case of an extreme point in the spectrum. The circumstances where a side could afford to dedicate that much support to one Btn and sustain supply are the subject of scenario design.. in other words make sure the system can (not always does!) reproduce that effect then avoid scenarios where it makes sense to do it!
The point with the 25pdr is that it was designed to suppress/neutralise not destroy... as long as the advantages and disadvantages are caught in game (targets get relatively more suppressing effect, but recover after a while). It comes down to what happens to combat with a unit after a rolling barrage has gone across it! According to Evans, you only need 2/3 the weight of 25pdr fire to get the effect of 155mm against troops in the open/foxholes - although the latter would cause more losses when troops have fortified positions with top cover...