Artilleries & Russia

I do like Artillery but prefer to use infantry backed up by fighters or bombers for territories being traded. I tend to try and preserve my artillery for the treat of what they can attack as opposed to getting them blown away each round.

Well, if you have some artillery on the board you’re in a good position if you pick up the advance artillery tech.
It’s great that your friends are making fun  :lol:  That gives you license to make fun of them for something they do.  The best way to make them shut up is to roll over them with Russia.  Until then, be prepared for more laughing.  But don’t let their laughing discourage you from playing your game!

I build art now and then in the 42 scenario. I find them very useful in the in the first turns when the fight is confined to a few areas around Russia. Makes the German more careful and allows you to take and hold areas now and then. Some of the ppl i play make the mistake of building inf and art in a 1:1 ratio. As they let their inf die first they  end up w a lot of art alone at the front and they would have been much better of building tanks.

Art when fighting close to your industries. But build tank when you need to enter central/western Europe

Robert

Lately I’ve found artillery to be useful when trading a territory that has AA (or radar).  Don’t want to risk or use air, but don’t want to bring a tank, and if it’s only one space away, that art + 1 or 2 infantry gives you the offense you need to take over a territory with 1-2 units.  Or when you have a big stack of infantry and need a bit more offense, but you’re surrounded so don’t need the extra movement of tanks, and you have an extra IPC, and your factory is damaged so art costs 5 and infantry 4.  Then art seems to make sense.  :lol:  But otherwise?  Yeah, I think you mainly get the placebo effect.  You know, artificial confidence that you have more firepower.  :lol:

Otherwise, I think mathematically, artillery is not a very good purchase.

(And advanced artillery doesn’t help much.  How many times do you see advanced artillery get an extra hit that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, and that hit actually make a difference?  I have almost never seen it happen)  Advanced artillery should be like that artillery attacks at a 3 and still supports 1 inf.  Then it would be more useful in more situations (you wouldn’t have to have a bunch of artillery and a bunch more infantry to benefit) but as it is now, advanced artillery sucks even if you’re Germany or Russia, let alone anyone else.

Like Bigdog said, infantry, tanks, and air are more efficient.

There are times, especially late in the game against JAP or early against GER, where RUS art are extremely valuable. When an axis army gets close enough to attack with the main RUS force, RUS has to neutralize the disparity of attacking with 1s against defending 2s as much as possible. As a general rule, I try to have a 2-1 Inf to Art ratio as RUS throughout the game, and buy tanks and air to supplement as often as possible.

Only buy artillery if you have an extra IPC to buy instead by Infantry and still buy tanks because there worth 6, but are only cost 5. So yeah. Also don’t buy planes unless you have the 1941 line against the Germans.

From frood.net calculator:

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 3 Inf. v. Defender: 1 Inf.
Average battle duration: 2.5 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 89.3% D. survives: 8.6% No one survives: 2.1%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 3 Inf. v. Defender: 1 Arm.
Average battle duration: 2.4 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 80.8% D. survives: 16.1% No one survives: 3.1%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 2 Inf, 1 Art. v. Defender: 1 Inf.
Average battle duration: 1.6 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 97.8% D. survives: 1.5% No one survives: 0.7%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 2 Inf, 1 Art. v. Defender: 1 Arm.
Average battle duration: 1.6 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 95% D. survives: 3.3% No one survives: 1.8%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 2 Inf, 1 Arm. v. Defender: 1 Inf.
Average battle duration: 1.6 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 98.7% D. survives: 0.7% No one survives: 0.6%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 2 Inf, 1 Arm. v. Defender: 1 Arm.
Average battle duration: 1.5 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 96.1% D. survives: 2% No one survives: 2%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 4 Inf. v. Defender: 1 Inf.
Average battle duration: 2.1 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 97.6% D. survives: 2.1% No one survives: 0.3%

Average outcome of 10,000 battles
Attacker: 4 Inf. v. Defender: 1 Arm.
Average battle duration: 2.1 rounds of combat
–------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall %*: A. survives: 94.2% D. survives: 4.9% No one survives: 0.9%

As you can see from this, there is very little difference between the statistical results of attacks with 2 inf, 1 art (3 units with 1 upgraded to an art for 1 extra IPC) versus 2 inf, 1 arm (3 units with 1 upgraded to a tank for 2 IPCs) versus 4 whole inf (3 units plus an extra 3 IPC unit).  Since inf/art combos are about as effective statistically as inf/arm combos, I try to have 1 art per territory that I will be trading with Germany next round with Russia.  The tank combo only had about 1% over the 4 inf or 2 inf, 1 art combos (98.7% over 97.6% and 97.8% respectively).  You’ll also notice that making the defending unit a tank instead of an inf/art doesn’t change the win/loss percentages by that much (about 3%).

So mathematically in essence you are spending 1 extra IPC over infantry for 2 extra units of punch (1 extra attack for the artillery and 1 bonus attack to an infantry) with artillery, whereas with tanks you are spending 2 extra IPC for 3 extra units of punch (2 attack and 1 defense on the tank).  Now because Russia typically has no use for the extra movement value of tanks (at least in trading territories with the Germans), buying extra punch at a 2:1 punch to IPC ratio rather than a 3:2 ratio makes better economic sense, especially considering that you are most likely going to be losing the surviving pieces when the Germans attack again anyway.

So for Russia (and usually Germany also) I usually divide my IPCs to spend by 3 to get the maximum number of units I can produce, then I look at what I have left over.  If I have a remainder of 1 IPC, I’ll upgrade 1 of my infantry to an artillery.  If I have 2 IPCs left over, I can either upgrade 1 of my infantry to a tank, or upgrade 2 of my infantry to artillery.  If I already have enough artillery for the territories I will need to take back from Germany the next round, I will get the tank, since overall (counting the movement which can help if you need to defend extra Russian territories) tanks are a better purchase (6 total punch value plus 2 movement points for only 5 IPCs).  However, I have found that for trading territories, artillery are a better purchase, since it allows you to extend that extra attacking power into 2 territories for the extra 2 IPCs instead of only 1 if you had purchased a tank; so I will often buy 2 artillery instead.

So let other people make fun of you for buying artillery, just play it right and you can have the satisfaction of wiping their smug smiles off their faces. :wink:

Yes go ahead and buy art, but still don’t hope for advanced artillery. Even if you had a ton of artillery, statistically the tech does next to nothing.

@Wilson2:

Yes go ahead and buy art, but still don’t hope for advanced artillery. Even if you had a ton of artillery, statistically the tech does next to nothing.

That’s almost true actually.  Replacing an infantry unit with an artillery like the small battles in my examples above increases the odds of winning by about 8-9%, which is comparable to the increase when replacing an infantry with a tank (9-10%); however, running the calculator with 4 inf, 1 art against 3 inf and comparing normal artillery to advanced artillery shows a difference range of about 3-5%.  This doesn’t seem like much when you first think about it, but considering that replacing an infantry with a normal artillery adds two 2-punch units, if you split the 8-9% increase between two units it gives you about 3-5% per 2-punch unit added; so advanced artillery in moderate size battles can increase the odds of winning by as much as 15% over just infantry.  And getting 3 extra punch for every 1 extra IPC you spend is pretty sweet.  However, in smaller battles like my original examples it is  true that it will make next to no difference because if you only have 2 infantry units with your artillery, your first casualty will be an “enhanced” infantry anyway, giving that infantry only 1 chance of getting a hit; but in larger battles it can make a bit more of a difference.

With all this said though, advanced artillery still isn’t that great a help to USSR with trading territories while Germany is building up since it’ll be small battles anyway; but it can make a little more of a difference later on when Russia might need to change body blows in bigger battles.  By then of course, Russia usually is on the defensive anyway though, so advanced artillery doesn’t help Russia by much.  Still, any help Russia can get (even if it’s only a couple %) is still valuable.  (Off the topic, rockets is probably the best tech for USSR to get since they start out with the most of any other country with 3 and it lets them have free SBR shots at Germany and Italy)

I think Darth did an analysis of Artillery several years ago and reported it in the main Anniversary section. If I recall correctly the best ratio of units was something like 2:1:1 , Infantry:Arty:Tanks. As was illustrated Arty does not do a whole lot for small battles. However if allowed to build up in Russia they can project a threat to Germans in adjacent territories. There is quite a difference in 10 INF 3 ART 3 ARM and 14 INF 3 ARM, if nothing else on the psychological scale.

I see very few players husbanding their Artillery for exploit at the proper time and this applies to all countries besides Russia.

It depends on what you’re attacking, too, bigdog.  It’s not all about how you construct your own stack.  A lot depends on how many times your artillery is giving a boost to the infantry.  If the infantry is wiped out in one round of battle, the artillery is not adding much effectiveness.  If you still have infantry and artillery in round 3 of the battle, you’ve received the boost 3 times.  I don’t think it’s as simple as coming up with some magical ratio to buy artillery in, for this reason.  It depends on what you’re attacking.

Artillery does have its uses.  Yes, some of it can be psychological - a factor that should not be overlooked.  But if you have a ton of infantry and are in a defensive position, and you are ready to start attacking neighboring territories, artillery is normally a great buy, giving a similar boost to attack power that tanks do, for a discount.

That is why the ratio is stacked heavier with infantry, you know the cannon fodder guys. I will see if I can find Darth’s post because I think it was in a thread and not posted as a thread. If I recall correctly Darth tested things several ways.

Myself I do not play AA like an accountant. One a stack hits a certain mass I like to have some Arty in it for the boost. I don’t care if it gets it bonus once, twice, or three times, I just want it to get the job done.

My main point is it is a waste to fritter away Artillery in small trade battles where they will be used once (no matter how many rounds it goes) and destroyed the next round. For Russia this normally means keeping them at home until a straffe on Germany or if things are going well when it is time to move out against Germany and take the offense, although that happens way more in '41 than '42 since a competent German player should be relaying infantry to Karelia with his Baltic fleet.

Darth’s analysis is on page two of this thread which is a good discussion on arty in general with several well supported views offered. And I was wrong as far as what I said the ratio was it was higher with Infantry, which sounds about right to me. Depending on what was attacked that should leave some infantry and arty for use the next game turn.

I believe I heard that the ratio decided upon was 4:1:1 - inf:art:tanks.

@SAS:

I believe I heard that the ratio decided upon was 4:1:1 - inf:art:tanks.

I still say there is no magical optimal ratio, because there are other factors involved that affect it.  How much air support do you have in attacking?  How large, and what is the makeup of the forces you are attacking?  What can they attack your surviving stack with?

I am sure there are situations where 4:1:1 or any other ratio has too many art, and others where it is not enough.

And then there are the tanks in this ratio.  Why 1/4 as many tanks as infantry?  The ideal makeup of your army is largely dependent on your situation and strategy.  There’s no such thing as an optimal ratio of units for all situations.  Some players just don’t want to think, I guess, they just want to have some target optimal ratio so they don’t have to think about what to buy?

@gamerman01:

@SAS:

I believe I heard that the ratio decided upon was 4:1:1 - inf:art:tanks.

I still say there is no magical optimal ratio, because there are other factors involved that affect it.  How much air support do you have in attacking?  How large, and what is the makeup of the forces you are attacking?  What can they attack your surviving stack with?

I am sure there are situations where 4:1:1 or any other ratio has too many art, and others where it is not enough.

And then there are the tanks in this ratio.  Why 1/4 as many tanks as infantry?  The ideal makeup of your army is largely dependent on your situation and strategy.  There’s no such thing as an optimal ratio of units for all situations.  Some players just don’t want to think, I guess, they just want to have some target optimal ratio so they don’t have to think about what to buy?

I agree, I think your purchases should reflect your needs at the time and is an important part of the strategy involved, as I tried to convey in my original post.  I only supplied the ratio I remembered reading about because others brought it up.

Russia almost always needs as many units as possible, which means mostly infantry, but what do you do with the extra IPCs you sometimes have left over?  Lots of people say buy tanks when you can, but never artillery; my point was to show that (at least for Russia with trading territories in small battles) artillery can be at least as good, if not better, as tanks.  The math was just to show that tanks are not as vastly superior to artillery as many people will lead you to believe, not to submit a “optimal” or “magic” or whatever mathematical ratio.

Infantry cost 3 IPCs, give you 3 units of punch, and have 1 movement; artillery cost 4 IPCs, have 4 units of punch on their own, plus 1 bonus punch unit to an infantry, and also have 1 movement; tanks cost 5 IPCs, give you 6 units of punch, and have an extra movement point.  Overall, that suggests that tanks are the best value with the punch and movement bonuses when comparing the units directly, but in special circumstances, like Russia’s, it may actually be better to use artillery if you aren’t going to be taking full advantage of the tank’s bonus capabilities anyway; which in essence supports your suggestion that it is better to purchase the units that are most effective for your situation rather than arbitrarily following a formula (whether that formula is 4:1:1 or tank supplements only or whatever else it might be).

@SAS:

so advanced artillery in moderate size battles can increase the odds of winning by as much as 15% over just infantry.  And getting 3 extra punch for every 1 extra IPC you spend is pretty sweet.

The problem with your calculations is that you are assuming that the person will buy the same amount of artillery if they have advanced artillery and if they don’t
In big battles especially is where you can see the problem with advanced artillery. For 20 IPCs and advanced artillery, you could buy 4 inf and 2 art all attacking @2. For 21 IPCs without advanced artillery, you could buy 3 inf, 3 art all attacking @2. As you can see, as the numbers get larger, advanced artillery only saves you 1 IPC for every 21 you spend. Even for a monster Japan at 60 IPCs war bonds would be better (3 1/2 IPCs vs 3 IPCs) And war bonds is probably the worst tech out there besides advanced artillery.

@Wilson2:

@SAS:

so advanced artillery in moderate size battles can increase the odds of winning by as much as 15% over just infantry.  And getting 3 extra punch for every 1 extra IPC you spend is pretty sweet.

The problem with your calculations is that you are assuming that the person will buy the same amount of artillery if they have advanced artillery and if they don’t
In big battles especially is where you can see the problem with advanced artillery. For 20 IPCs and advanced artillery, you could buy 4 inf and 2 art all attacking @2. For 21 IPCs without advanced artillery, you could buy 3 inf, 3 art all attacking @2. As you can see, as the numbers get larger, advanced artillery only saves you 1 IPC for every 21 you spend. Even for a monster Japan at 60 IPCs war bonds would be better (3 1/2 IPCs vs 3 IPCs) And war bonds is probably the worst tech out there besides advanced artillery.

I’m not going to be celebrating if I roll advanced artillery even with Russia, I admit that; however, I assumed purchasing the same number of artillery with or without advanced because of the way that I use artillery to Russia’s advantage.  If you’re buying that many artillery anyway, you’re still wasting your money even without the tech, so I understand the math, and I’m not arguing that advanced artillery is actually secretly a great tech, I’m just saying it is worth a little something.  One of the few ways artillery are worthwhile at all is by using them the way I outlined above, so it seems to be a moot point regardless.