artillery divs

[Linstock]

I've been seeing posts alluding to artillery divisions, and want to know more. Weren't such things pointless in the original AACW? If they work now, what's the mechanic that allows them? They seem unrealistic to me. Also, does this mean that the usual 4 or so art units per division not make sense? I guess I'm playing with the older mechanics in mind....

[DrPostman]

Just remember that batteries of artillery were not right up on the line, and that
an artillery division represents this. There were large batteries at several battles
and this method represents that, so that you don't take the huge losses you do
in a regular division. The following thread has a lot of discussion about it:
http://www.ageod-forum.com/showthread.php?38510-Use-of-artillery-and-cavalry-reserves-in-Army-stack-supporting-separate-corps&highlight=artillery+division

[FightingBuckeye]

Unrealistic how? Historically, both the Union and Confederates massed their artillery. Although the Union was a lot slower off the mark in this area.

All arty divisions should never be by themselves as they don't fight at 0 range. But they work pretty good within a corps or army structure when you have 2+ infantry divisions to act as the meat shield. When a battle takes place, artillery support can come from any battery within a stack, regardless of which unit is engaged by or engages the enemy. Since artillery from anywhere within a stack will fill in the support role, you can put them in a separate division and know that you'll still get the same artillery support as if each division had its own organic batteries. Without artillery taking up space within your infantry divisions, you're now able to put more infantry into your divisions. I still use a pretty traditional 4 battery/division setup for any independent divisions and I know many others do the same thing.

1. Since they don't have infantry/cavalry, they typically don't sustain (m)any hits. Artillery replacements can be expensive to replace vs infantry/cavalry.
2. Due to the lower casualties, artillery divisions can be a good way to groom future corps or army commanders since they'll deal out damage and not receive much if anything in return as long as you keep a meat shield in front of them. Quicker seniority climbing leads to promotions and experience boost probable already good/great stats.
3. With no artillery in your infantry divisions, those divisions tend to perform better at their task. They can take more damage and still remain combat effective and they're better during the assault phase where artillery wouldn't participate.

You're still probably going to have some organic artillery within your all infantry divisions simply because the North comes with a bunch of brigades with 6lbers and the South also comes with mixed brigades and their force pool prevents them from building too many pure infantry divisions without building some mixed brigades.

[kc87]

I've been seeing posts alluding to artillery divisions, and want to know more. Weren't such things pointless in the original AACW? If they work now, what's the mechanic that allows them? They seem unrealistic to me. Also, does this mean that the usual 4 or so art units per division not make sense? I guess I'm playing with the older mechanics in mind....

They were not called divisions but reserves. They would be attached and unattached from Corps and divisions as needed, or massed for effect. The Army of the Potomac had so much Artillery that they eventually created an Artillery Reserve Corps. The highest rank given in the Artillery was Brigadier General which caused some problems, alot of good Artillery officers wanted transfer to the infantry so they could keep receiving promotions. Artillery organization was unique because they were subordinate to almost all levels of infantry command plus the Chief of Artillery. An Artillery division in game would essentially be your Artillery Reserve from what I see, and the mechanics seem to support it. As far as I know the Artillery assigned to divisions in game will always support the Infantry in the division they are attached, and the Artillery division or loose batteries will support more randomly ( possibly the first engaged?? ) based on their strategic rating and leaders stats/traits, not positive about that though.

[BattleVonWar]

Interesting points I think there is a new one brought up 3 times daily on these forums.

The game and units are abstractly representing history. The best and most historical, maybe not? The most powerful in game, I think discovered by practice. A lot of Generals in game were actually very well trained in Artillery but there is no such bonus or advantage represented. Again very abstractly presented. I am not sure if an Artillery Division becomes a little bit too mysterious with the lack of counter battery fire.

They were not called divisions but reserves. They would be attached and unattached from Corps and divisions as needed, or massed for effect. The Army of the Potomac had so much Artillery that they eventually created an Artillery Reserve Corps. The highest rank given in the Artillery was Brigadier General which caused some problems, alot of good Artillery officers wanted transfer to the infantry so they could keep receiving promotions. Artillery organization was unique because they were subordinate to almost all levels of infantry command plus the Chief of Artillery. An Artillery division in game would essentially be your Artillery Reserve from what I see, and the mechanics seem to support it. As far as I know the Artillery assigned to divisions in game will always support the Infantry in the division they are attached, and the Artillery division or loose batteries will support more randomly ( possibly the first engaged?? ) based on their strategic rating and leaders stats/traits, not positive about that though.

[Linstock]

Got it, thanks for the replies. My principle confusion was whether or not all the guns in an arty "division" would have a chance of actually engaging an enemy. I guess the answer is yes, which means I have a lot of reshuffling to do!

[Gray Fox]

Ditto everything.

There's a post somewhere of a game with the latest patch and in a pic, Athena had used an all artillery Division.

[Keeler]

In my most recent game (1.06) I've tried all-artillery divisions for the first time. It's now 1864, and I've lost 4-5 generals KIA and 4 of them have been in command of artillery divisions. So I am wondering if this is observation bias or if artillery division commanders are more likely to take hits, especially since these artillery divisions aren't full and are running about 6-10 artillery units apiece. On the other hand, these artillery divisions are all within corps stacks that have at least 2 full divisions of line elements.

[Gray Fox]

From the AGEOD Wiki:

http://www.ageod.net/agewiki/Leader_death_and_recovery_parameters

A leader has a chance per round of combat to be killed. The artillery fires from max range, so that would statistically be one or two rounds more than the other Division commanders (say 33% more perhaps). In addition, with two infantry Divisions in the stack one or the other would be in combat each round, but the artillery would be firing support every round, so twice as much combat there. Thus, the arty commander might suffer more "kill" checks than the other commanders. He also gets more experience though, because his Division inflicts hits but doesn't take (m)any. So the leader aspect has both pro and con points. However, the all artillery formation is historically correct and works really well in the game, as it should.

[Mickey3D]

A lot of Generals in game were actually very well trained in Artillery but there is no such bonus or advantage represented.

There is an "Artillerist" special ability for the outstanding artillery commanders (e.g. Gibbon, Hunt, Alexander, ...)

[kc87]

Interesting points I think there is a new one brought up 3 times daily on these forums.

The game and units are abstractly representing history. The best and most historical, maybe not? The most powerful in game, I think discovered by practice. A lot of Generals in game were actually very well trained in Artillery but there is no such bonus or advantage represented. Again very abstractly presented. I am not sure if an Artillery Division becomes a little bit too mysterious with the lack of counter battery fire.

The idea of an Artillery division representing a reserve is as abstract as it's efficiency was. There was a reason Artillery was attached to Corps and Divisions, because it was more efficient logistically and on the battlefield. Not directly attaching Artillery to Corps and Divisions would have been disastrous for any Army.

For the AOTP it was a necessity to keep a large artillery corps reserve to not impede the movement of the Army's Corps by overflooding the roads with batteries, this also allowed them to refit batteries in between fighting, and swap out batteries if time permitted example in the 3 day battle of Gettysburg this had a big impact on the battle. The AONV's lack of Artillery made it much more efficient to keep only a small reserve and attach them to Corps command before a campaign like at Gettysburg.

[Gray Fox]

The Union eventually formed artillery brigades and the South had artillery battalions each with a number of gun batteries supporting a Corps or Army. Since the time of Napoleon, massed artillery focused on the point of decision in the enemy's line would fascilitate a break-through. These formations are what the artillery Division represents. As such, the field commander had control over these assets and could send them to support the attack or stiffen the defense where the rubber meets the road. This is reflected in the fact that the game engine uses the artillery Division's guns to support the battle each round. So the Artillery Division is not a reserve. It is an actual tactical combat formation. If you have lots of 6-lbers in your Divisions and 20-lbers in your artillery Division as a "reserve", then most of the time the light guns will be randomly chosen to fire and the expensive heavy guns will sit idle. Heavy guns do more cohesion damage than light guns. The artillery Division with up to 15 batteries of the best guns you can afford should have the only cannon you will need for your Corps/Army.

[FightingBuckeye]

I usually cap my artillery divisions at about 8 pieces. Sometimes I'll have more in there simply because I don't have other formations to split them amongst, but 8 seems pretty cost effective. As long as you have at least 1 supporting corps/army stack in range to MTSG, you should be able to cover just about every battlefield support maximum out there with 8 batteries per corps/army stack. And like GF said, having expensive guns sit idle is bad.

[Gray Fox]

Spengler: It would be bad.
Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Ghostbusters

[FightingBuckeye]

[video=youtube;JOIcnlB1DCM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOIcnlB1DCM[/video]