Talk to me about Artillery

[Colt Ward]

Does anyone use PBI with Artillery tubes? Are they worth using?

Infantry are more BV-efficient spotters than BA . . . and if you are using hidden unit rules, do not have to reveal themselves to spot IIRC.  This gets even better if you are using squad rules.

Artillery Field Gun platoons are better as Sniper or Thumpers IMO.  As Toda said, with Long Toms you lose a person and the platoon is combat ineffective while Snipers need 20 effectives and Thumpers need 15.  They are also limited to a single ton of ammo per gun, so the LT would get 5 shots while the other two would get 10 & 20 respectively.  Thumper Field Gun platoons are IMO pretty effective for dropping smoke rounds in support.

[Crow]

Artillery Field Gun platoons are better as Sniper or Thumpers IMO.  As Toda said, with Long Toms you lose a person and the platoon is combat ineffective while Snipers need 20 effectives and Thumpers need 15.  They are also limited to a single ton of ammo per gun, so the LT would get 5 shots while the other two would get 10 & 20 respectively.  Thumper Field Gun platoons are IMO pretty effective for dropping smoke rounds in support.

I was more specifically thinking about infantry that came with a Sniper or Arrow IV, so I wasn't particularly worried about losing manpower and losing the gun. I guess mainly my question, is it worth using infantry and an artillery tube over an artillery vehicle like a Vali or Chaparral in terms of BV?

[Colt Ward]

The Mechanized Thumper Platoon at 2/8 is 96 BV.

The Thumper Artillery Vehicle at 2/8 is 687 BV.

Which is why I said Artillery Field Gun platoons were the most BV efficient method to get artillery on the table- as I said, I fit 3 guns in a 5k BV force.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

The big weaknesses of Artillery field guns are, of course, that they're effectively immobile targets and really can't take any sort of retaliation.  But that was obvious due to them being infantry.

[abou]

Lots of good info, guys!

The biggest take away for me is shifting expectations. Artillery is not so much to cause damage, but to corral the opponent. If a strike does cause damage, great. But if not, you've scared your opponent away from that area of the map.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

Also infantry field gun is susceptible against counter battery. That's why armored howitzer is a thing in our era.

And, if you want to threaten the enemy armor with artillery, you better consider Thumper or Arrow IV Copperhead/Homing round/missile. HE rounds can scatter and you can't make sure the opponents are move toward what your shells are land next turn exactly. But you may guess where to shoot copperhead/Homing much easier for it can hit any enemy/hex with TAGged within 8 hexes.

Arrow IV missile cause massive 20 damage per hit, so shoot six Arrow IV and successfully TAGging the enemy means the enemy may hit around five AC/20 rounds(consider its 4+ to hit), before the weapon attack phase. Although you need more than three TAGs to ensure that it hits, but if you hit the target it is surely crippled at worst.

Copperhead of Thumper is weak, sure, but there is a glitch on Thumper's Copperhead rounds. If Homing/Copperhead miss by failed to roll 4+, it hits the hex instead and cause 5 damage to all the units on the hex. If Homing/Copperhead hits the target, it cause the full damage to the target hit and cause 5 damage to the all other units on the hex. The point is, that 5 damage is fixed and all types of Copperhead/Homing rounds/missiles are cause 5 damage to the hex, and Copperhead round on Thumper cause 5 damage on a hit. Thus, you may shoot your TAG to the hex of the enemy, NOT the enemy itself, and enjoy -4 to skill roll for shoot the hex as well as 5 auto damage per one Thumper. Only block the line of sight to not allow shooting TAG to the hex prevents it. Also it happens before the weapon attack phase as well, so the enemy may fall before they had a chance to shoot.

[Colt Ward]

Also infantry field gun is susceptible against counter battery. That's why armored howitzer is a thing in our era.

And does not matter in BT b/c there is no mechanism for counterbattery.  BTU Artillery is massively nerf'd . . . Roman ballistas could more accurately predict the impact point.

Homing vs HE gets into the head game with your opponent.  I have taken a TAG VTOL that was fast (13/20?) when I had not a single Homing round for any of my artillery.  My opponent wasted time (movement and firing) trying to avoid or bring down the VTOL.  Puppy's point is valid if you are hamstringing yourself and taking a single tube.  If you take say 3 of those Thumper Field Gun platoons, it is under 300 BV for the 20 shots where the first roll is a 9- plot them as a triangle around where you want and you have better odds of 1 hitting close.  The MoF for that would be 6 hexes, more realistically 3 or 4 . . . and it will stop them bunching up.

[PuppyLikesLaserPointers]

And does not matter in BT b/c there is no mechanism for counterbattery.  BTU Artillery is massively nerf'd . . . Roman ballistas could more accurately predict the impact point.

Homing vs HE gets into the head game with your opponent.  I have taken a TAG VTOL that was fast (13/20?) when I had not a single Homing round for any of my artillery.  My opponent wasted time (movement and firing) trying to avoid or bring down the VTOL.  Puppy's point is valid if you are hamstringing yourself and taking a single tube.  If you take say 3 of those Thumper Field Gun platoons, it is under 300 BV for the 20 shots where the first roll is a 9- plot them as a triangle around where you want and you have better odds of 1 hitting close.  The MoF for that would be 6 hexes, more realistically 3 or 4 . . . and it will stop them bunching up.

Check Counter-Battery Fire, 186. TO. There IS counter-battery mechanism, that is along with artillery rules. And perhaps it is why you need to have some Long Toms anyways. Maybe it is also akin to the real world artillery; on WWII to Korean War, when small and large caliber artillery are coexist but larger one was uncommon, large caliber artillery are tend to reserve for counter-battery rather than actively participate in fire support mission. Their longer range is also a reason for this, though.

And, yeah, you need to have more guns, rather than one big gun, if you want to bring some artillery. I'd rather have a battery of Thumpers over one Long Tom.

Also... if you want to support the armored combat, I think that you need TAG-guided rounds anyways. It is not impossible to hit the HE rounds, but it is not that easy, and more importantly, it does nothing in the dogfight because you cannot avoid friendly fire in this case. But guided rounds can still supports the frontline without risking friendly fire as long as they hit the TAG. So, if I can afford both types of rounds, I will shoot the HEs on the early games, and quickly switch to TAG-guided rounds as soon as I expect med-short range combat next turn.

By the way, how many guns in a battery is common in Battletech universe? In our real worlds it seems 6 to 8 guns is common formation of a battery, though.

[truetanker]

Wish we had gotten a plain Omni tank with C3 slave pod versions.  How many UAC/2 or AC/2s could you have fit in a turret with LRMs facing front when tied into a network through a C3 slave?

Let's see here : C3 lance

Schiltron Prime
Partisan Quad RAC
Partisan Fuel Cell LRM
Ajax A

Or my favorite unit ( so far ) : Arrow of Doom!

Ajax D
Demolisher Arrow
Demolisher Arrow
Rommel Howitzer

( That's five Arrow, enough Support to see everything! And still protect... )

And the last part :

How many UAC/2 or AC/2s could you have fit in a turret with LRMs facing front when tied into a network through a C3 slave?

AC/2 Carrier C3 Slave : 5 LB-X-AC/2...

TT

[Nikas_Zekeval]

Schil is also more vulnerable being wheeled . . . and that C3i is too big a target IMO.

The artillery or LRM versions are the only ones that make sense for a C3 Master machine.  The C3M need to defend themselves but their job is command and control- not going pew pew or dakkkkkka.  Wish we had gotten a plain Omni tank with C3 slave pod versions.  How many UAC/2 or AC/2s could you have fit in a turret with LRMs facing front when tied into a network through a C3 slave?

One thing I didn't think about when I brought these two up.  The Schiltron Prime mounts the A4s in the front, the turret is too small for both.  One could fit with the self-defense lasers if you wanted a non-canon config.  So the A4 Demolisher might be slightly better at shoot and scoot, not having to turn to face downrange when it reaches a new firing position before letting fly.  Or if forced to unass the area, it can still provide some firesupport, or add its own A4 in direct fire mode at whatever fast mover got into your backfield.  Without compromising on the 'getting the hell out of Dodge'.  I know the Schiltron Prime technically has more self-defense lasers, but if those four small lasers become relevant, you have bigger issues. :o

Also IIRC C3 bonuses do not apply to artillery.  The Schilitron fits for a command tank if you expect to swap out missile firesupport for artillery depending on the situation.

[Col Toda]

Off board can be a mess friendly fire isn't.  Still 6 tubes due to scatter if it misses target hex completely still has  about 10 percent chance of damaging something on a standard map board .  One technique is to target a hex in which the scatter pattern is advantageous failing to see an obvious one a firing pattern targeting hexes in which the scatter covers different hexes . The only great thing about off board artillery is the phase happens before weapons phase so any knocked out weapon can't be used in weapons phase . On board is far more accurate but is simultaneous with weapons phase . Prefer mech mortar , LRM or SRM for smoke . The only good artillery smoke is anti laser Arrow IV ammo light smoke hexes over a battlefield so the Axe wielding maniacs with auto cannons do not get blown away by Clan Laser fire as they close .  Did that once ever .

As for Infantry field guns rather than Artillary the HVAC  AC rules: particularly if the unit is dug in , in light woods , with a hill behind them so the smoke generated covers their hex not the one behind them . Dug in +2 , light woods +1 , heavy smoke +2 , range upto +4 . So regular gunners have No shot at long range and poor shots at medium range  the unit is normally nearly out of ammo or is out of ammo should it get into short range . If LOS for Direct Fire is there HVAC field guns is a better damage causing tool than artillery.  HVAC 2S MIN RANGE 3 S 10 , M 20 , L 35 That is just more than 2 mapboards direct  fire  , HVAC 5s  S 8 , M 16 , L 28 , and the HVAC/10  6/12/20 .  AN Infantry platoon can handle 3 HVAC/2S AND 2 HVAC/5s or 10s . 30 shots of HVAC/2s  for a ton .  15 for HVAC/5s and 8 for HVAC/10S  . field guns are immune to exploding last I checked . 

[DoganSheridan]

Here is the thing with offboard artillery and scattering. If you set your artillery to deploy offboard in the setup lobby, then you can set pre-planned targets which always hit the hex that is pre-planned. I have used this knowing the direction the enemy is coming and the composition of the force, you can look at the map and get a pretty good idea of what path (avenue of approach) the enemy will take and how long it will take them, so you pre-plan targets along those paths and you have a better chance of hitting something.

[CarcosanDawn]

My mercs are going to be artillery company mercs and homing Arrow IV looks like the way to go

However, fitting it all into 6k BV can be hard
 I want something like 4 launchers with 4 tons of ammo each (2 or 3 tons homing, 1 ton HE, 0-1 ton flex).

How does one fit this in 6k BV *with* TAGgers? Since the TAGger goes up by 30 BV per ton of homing ammo, that's 240 to 360 extra BV (depending on whether each launcher has 2 or 3 tons of homing ammo) EACH TAGGER.

Any thoughts?

Also, maybe my mistake is trying to use a lance of 4 mechs (2 spotters, 2 launchers). Will consider alternative force constructions if I hear a good idea!

[AlphaMirage]

Have you considered a Yellow Jacket, Vali, Regulator, or Chaparral?

At a certain point it doesn't make sense to use Mechs as spotters when you have hovercraft, VTOLs, or Battle Armor. I'd expect an artillery heavy force would actually be relatively light on mechs as you don't need the mobility and firepower combined and can specialize.

[CarcosanDawn]

I would definitely consider those! I suppose I wanted mechs so I can participate in "Mechs Only" games. What would you field as the TAGger for those vics? I will look into force building with them.

EDIT:
So the yellow jacket is a vtol - not played with them yet, loathe to plan a force around a unit type I've not tried.
The Vali is extinct past the star league according to the MUL.
The Regulator is Capellan/Magistracy only (though still an option). It's over 1k BV though, for the same number of launchers it is actually cheaper to field its BV in assault mechs (LGB-8V and OBK-M10 are both cheaper than 2x Regulator (ArrwIV)).
The Chaparral is over 800 BV, meaning that purchasing 2 of them gives me as many launchers as a single LGB-8V or OBK-M10 but also costs about the same... (whilst being less capable in other areas).

[AlphaMirage]

The Zephyr, J Edgar, Beagle, and Crow are all good as are many types of Battle Armor equipped with a Light TAG although the Kage and Achileus are perhaps the best.

If you want some mech spotters I'd go with Raven, Hitman, Scarabus, or Ostscout. If you are allowed customs a TAG is easy enough to sub anywhere you have a small pulse or medium laser.

[truetanker]

Honorable mentions :

Ryuken-yon Armor
GAL-105

The above don't have official BV, but their not just there for good looks, their canon!

TT