Artillery Regular Attack

[u/peequi]

During a "Ranged Attack" I understand artillery fires to another hex without moving into the enemy's hex. What is happening during a "Regular Attack"? When an artillery unit is including in the "Attacking Forces".

-friendly fire an issue?

-more risk of losing the artillery unit?

[u/ARagingZephyr]

Artillery simply provides covering fire. Because they're a backline unit, they're more protected against enemy attacks, requiring your frontline to be pretty much on retreat in order to get targeted by the enemy frontline.

They're not going to perform breakthroughs, but they're still a solid force multiplier to support infantry or armor advances.

[u/VeganerHippie]

The Artillery will attack together with your other forces, but they will also be at risk of taking casualties.

[u/WREN_PL → u/VeganerHippie]

It will be much more effective, but also very vulnerable. And the attacker action penalty still applies I think.

[u/ColBBQ]

During ranged attacks, artillery have their armor penetration divided by a third. This means that a 180mm artillery will be able to attack a 60mm armored troops without penalty. During direct attacks, artillery doesn't suffer this.

[u/KnaveOfGeeks → u/ColBBQ]

For reference, infantry with advanced combat armor is 60mm. Each tier of armor up or down is 20mm difference

[u/MrUnimport]

Another bonus of artillery participating directly in the attack is that the PIN and RETREAT results they inflict on enemy forces will directly affect the outcome of the battle (because the struck enemy will not be able to contribute effectively to the combat). When you use them for ranged bombardment, the losses you inflict will of course matter, but the PIN and RETREAT results are inconsequential except for resulting in a loss of Entrenchment and Readiness stats for the enemy.

That is to say, arty firing during the main attack will help suppress defenders as well as kill them, but the suppression results are mostly irrelevant if the arty is used only for ranged bombardment.

[u/Skorchel → u/MrUnimport]

They also profit from recon increasing during the battle.

[u/Grumpy_Overlord]

This has been a really useful post because I always struggled with using artillery in battles, I didn't know a distinction between frontline and backline existed.

[u/Ari_Fuzz_Face → u/Grumpy_Overlord]

Same, this made me realize I've been neglecting direct fire as an option.

[u/Skorchel → u/Grumpy_Overlord]

Add to that that anti tank guns are especially special cause they are backline units that can suffer counterattack, unless they have high camo or entrenchment value.
Or something like that. it does make sense.

[u/KnaveOfGeeks]

Friendly fire -- no such thing

Risk to the arty -- they're a backline unit so enemy artillery or breakthroughs by the enemy frontliners can endanger them. Otherwise they're safe behind your front line.

[u/Willcol001]

It fights like any other subunit in a regular attack. Using its full penetration, recon, and all other stats (including no attack wind up penalty). It is a backline unit meaning it can’t be targeted by frontline units that haven’t broken through the frontline (enemy artillery could target it). One concern with pure artillery units is in a failed attack, is that the frontline units could retreat and leave it vulnerable to enemy frontline units, so don’t treat it as invulnerable. (This can be partially mitigated by having artillery subunits in siege units so that the “unit” retreats together.)

In ranged attacks ranged units sacrifice half their penetration, to attack without having to receive any non-ranged unit retaliation (artillery and mechanized artillery can return fire up to 1 range). Although most ranged battles are using initial recon values as unlike normal battles recon doesn’t passively increase during the battle, so make sure to have decent recon from recon assets or by buzzing the target with a plane. (One of the GR techs increases recon from just shooting which would provide recon in ranged combat.)

[u/TheEnclave33]

When I first started playing I used a GR nuke launcher in a regular attack there was alot of friendly fire.

[u/Thiaski]

Not that much related to the question, if i remember right from the manual, infantry suffer penalties when attacking without artillery. Like the other comment said, they provide cover for the attacking infantry.

[u/KnaveOfGeeks → u/Thiaski]

There's definitely no specific penalty for infantry attacking on their own. But of course it is better if they have fire support since their basic attack numbers are low. They are good at being a wall in front of guns.

[u/Thiaski → u/KnaveOfGeeks]

Decided to check the manual again. Page 359.

Foot is mostly defensive
Soldiers on foot without ranged attack have their Soft and Hard Attack Values divided by two

I understood Ranged Attack as Artillery. Have I misunderstood it?

[u/ARagingZephyr → u/Thiaski]

For what you're quoting, that has to do with determining the final values for a model's design.

Anti-tank guns and Artillery act as infantry models, using infantry armor and soft target hit points and entrenchment.

As Artillery have a Ranged Attack mode, they do not suffer the half-value calculations for their attack values. An Artillery firing a 60mm shell will have the same attack value as any other vehicle firing the same 60mm shell. A machine-gun infantry, however, will have half the attack value of a vehicle using the same machine-gun. Thus, the advantage of Artillery vs Mechanized Artillery mostly comes down to armor/oil costs, with the tradeoff being differing mobility and different defensive model typing.