Who assigns AI's artillery?
 

in other words, who do I need to kill to slow down/ remove the responsiveness of AI arty?

Is it the HQ, observer units or is AI arty assigned by "AI"?

Re: Who assigns AI's artillery?
 

I would say any platoon commander with a radio ;) Why make it too easy for the human player by letting the AI to use just these "specials"? ;)

Re: Who assigns AI's artillery?
 

The HQ, plus any arty observer units present, or formation HQs with a radio just like for you. So to stop all calls for fires, you need to eliminate all of these, or at least have them all in retreat state.

One available observer can call all available arty. So it is usually more practical to eliminate or make retreat all his (fewer) arty assets, not his many observation assets.

If you want to fire counter battery off-map, then you need to have off-map batteries with an equal or preferably longer range than his and with average or better experience (65 or less bad, 80 plus better). Just leave them idle for a while and they will have counter battery opportunities on his firing batteries, especially later in the game when the enemy batteries have fired more often.

Hits on off map batteries tend to put them into retreat mode at least for a while, especially poor-quality armies ones which may take a long time to rally. CB hits can dismount guns, or even kill the battery as well. Easier to kill off map arty with bigger tubes (76mm CB fire may suppress and kill 1 or 2 crew, a 203mm will kill way more gunners, leading to destruction if crew goes down to 0).

To fire CB onto on-map assets, look for the smoke clouds that arty that fires too often from the same spot leave (or MRL which are very easily spotted), or pieces that become spotted due to your off-map counter-battery organisation detecting them. Then drop some presents of your own on their positions, assuming they stick around. Human players may play shoot and scoot - the AI rarely (it sometimes will relocate SPA or SPM or SP-SAM units).

If a spotted enemy mortar or towed gun gets abandoned - then adjust a couple of hexes behind to kill or chivvy the crew further to the rear - they may run off the map, and thus that piece is out of the game. Human player like to have ammo units near or (stupidly) right beside arty assets - these make nice big bonus bangs :)!. Assume a human has these nearby, and so search fires around his gun positions on the off-chance of secondary explosions.

Counter-battery fire should be a prime consideration of your artillery fire plan. Try to neutralise his arty assets, as it will make your task much easier. I usually allow all my core off-map batteries (high experience, high chance of firing off-map CBF), and half of any on-map core arty with range that will fire across the table (120mm mortars, SPA, MLRS) for CBF tasking for the first half of the game at least and only use them in direct support roles once his arty threat is eliminated, or if there is an immediate critical need for an "all-tubes" fire-blow.

If you have air assets, then AAA and SAM are CBF targets too. Send a singleton plane over to find these or use scout helos to trigger AA, and reserve your remaining air assets until the arty has pounded the revealed anti-air assets to scrap (or if no radar, smoking them off can work too).

Cheers
Andy

Re: Who assigns AI's artillery?
 

Thanks, the CBF lecture pretty much summed up my SOP :)

I just thought if it's just HQ, then some para scouts/sniper dropped behind lines is a good trade vs whole CBF batteries.

Re: Who assigns AI's artillery?
 

if you can go after the HQ still do it,i find without HQ the enemy tends to run alot more :)