Counter Battery fire.

[Gunner24]

Does anyone else think that counter battery fire is a little too good, there are a lot of cannons lost (to arty fire) in all the battles I've taken part in.

[Uxbridge]

I agree that any prolonged duel between two batteries results in most of the guns up in smoke - but I don't know how realistic this is - I suspect that in reality once a battery lost a gun or two then it would pull back unless specifically ordered to hold.

[Gunner24]

Same here, I'm not saying it's right ot wrong, I'm not too sure, it does feel like too many cannons are being hit from what I've read in books - but I'm far from certain about that.

If you check the F7 stats page you will see cannons are being destroyed quickly as soon as they come into contact with each other, I'd prefer to see this "attrition" a bit slower and perhaps a rout being seen instead - like Inf and Cav Regiments....rout and re-form further back.

[spec10]

For the French I know some real life facts about counter battery:

Artillery officer Jean du Teil published a treatise on the use of artillery in 1778, which greatly influenced Napoleon, since he served with du Teil in the same artillery regiment under Jean du Teil's older brother Joseph, who became one of Napoleons chief patrons.

French Artillery was made shorter, therefore lighter and therefore better to handle when General Gribeauval was inspector general of the french artillery. With those improvements du Teil's opinion was that artillery should be more agressively used than before.  When casualties occured, a fresh battery should come forward as fast as possible, to relieve the weakened unit and keep the firepower up.

Another thing du Teil's reforms brought, and this is why I started to write here in the first place , is that he argued against counter battery fire. In his opinion it was a waste of resources and fire should instead be concentrated primarily on enemy troops and only fire on artillery when there was no other target, or the enemy artillery was causing too much trouble.

So for the french, I think we can say, counter battery fire in real life was not the primary use of artillery, like in other armies.

[Gunner24]

A short quote from : http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/artillery_tactics.htm#_artillery_combat

Target selection was a very important thing in artillery. The primary target were enemy's infantry and cavalry and not artillery. The counter-battery fire was recommended only there were no other targets as its fire was considered as a waste of ammuntion.

Much, much more info there.

[spec10]

Very nice, I only knew of the French view on the issue, nice to know that many others thought the same.

[Hook]

And yet, when you read accounts of actual battles, you find out they did it anyway, even when under strict orders not to and under threat of punishment.  And not just when they were being fired upon themselves. 

You just can't make people act totally against their nature.

Hook

[AJ]

That's the beauty of HLG, you can't make it act against the nature of the period tactics (at least when AI bugs have been fine tuned)

[GrosPaul]

Due to his immense erudition, I trust blindly JMM try, as much as it is possible, to reproduce the acts of this era.

Thus, logical with myself, blindily I modified the doctrine in the way to fire first cavalry then infantry.

But, now, mates, I am beginning to doubt. Is it possible JMM ignore what is reported by Spec10 and I read something like that from other reliable source.
"If other targets are availables, counter-battery is a waste of munition, because the guns were not sufficiently accurated".

[spec10]

I forgot to add the source to my information. What I wrote about in my post comes from a book called

"Fighting Techniques Of The Napoleonic Age 1792 - 1815 Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics"

by Robert B. Bruce, Iain Dickie, Kevin Kiley, Michael F. Pakovic, Frederick C. Schneid


And of course artillerymen didn't always act according to the rulebooks, war is chaotic, but I just wanted to point out what the (French) Officer Corps of that time thought about the issue, that's all.

[Gunner24]

I tried my doctrine with a first target choice NOT at artillery and it was a disaster, the enemy will destroy your guns by counter battery fire before they have time to do enough damage to the enemy Inf and Cav.

I have no objection with CBF - but it might be better if it were less deadly !.

[Hook]

I tried my doctrine with a first target choice NOT at artillery and it was a disaster, the enemy will destroy your guns by counter battery fire before they have time to do enough damage to the enemy Inf and Cav.

Talk to Mercer about how deadly counterbattery fire can be.  Journal of the Waterloo Campaign.

Hook

[AJ]

No Hook, talk to Gunner24, I just took out 200 of his guns at Borodino.  It's looking black for him now, it's about time though he kicked my **** at Marengo

[Hook]

Artillery fire is always too deadly when you're on the receiving end.    I've never heard anyone complain that their own artillery was too powerful.

Hook

[AJ]

Not me, my friend, not me