Guns per battery

[casacerian]

As of the final patch to the game, is the 14 gun battery still optimal?

 

Looking at all the parrots and 3 inches I captured in Gettysburg on my first play through.

[The Soldier]

Refer to my guide. No, 12 guns have always been optimal.  I misunderstood some buffs and misconstrued some of my tests previously after a patch.  Changed that in my guide about a month ago to properly reflect results.

[Mukremin]

12? Hmm, i have them at 14 and one battery at 15. Cant change it now without disbanding the unit or suffering casualties.

[LAVA]

Disbanding your batteries and reconstructing them is not a bad alternative. You just need to have your replacements down to 0 first before you do it so that all the folks that get disbanded take their experience with them into the recruitment pool.

[Gael]

14 hours ago, casacerian said:

As of the final patch to the game, is the 14 gun battery still optimal?

 

Looking at all the parrots and 3 inches I captured in Gettysburg on my first play through.

Casacerian,

As to an optimal number of guns, I have never calculated this out.  In my mind it has always been 2 guns in a section, 4 to 6 guns in a battery, and about 24 in an artillery battalion.

In my CSA battalions, I always attempt to build them up to 24 so I match or outnumber the guns in the Federal units, and have massed fire capability in case of attack by the Federal units.

Early in a campaign, I form one battalion per division of 2, 3, or 4 brigades of infantry.  But, as a campaign wears on, I start building a 2nd (and sometimes a third) artillery battalion so I can hold off those huge mass-attacks that come at me at Cold Harbor and at Washington, DC.   When one has less-capable or less-in-number troops than the foe, one must increase firepower by increasing the number of guns, as per one of Napoleon's dictums ~1813-1814 after he had lost huge numbers of experienced troops during the retreat from Russia.  The double battalions also provide enough firepower to help clear the way when the inferior numbers of CSA troops launch their own attacks, such as by the artillery knocking the Federal units off the ramparts of the DC forts.

See:

Good luck!

                  --Gael

[The Soldier]

@Gael

It's not so much about historical accuracy, but that the game (for some reason) makes artillery brigades of more than 12 guns perform worse, every other variable being kept the same.

[Fred Sanford]

I wonder if the 'rotation speed' buff is important for larger arty units?  @The Soldier, have you checked whether this matters more for larger units?  My thinking is that all other things equal, a large unit firing on a target NOT directly ahead will take longer to rotate into position than a small arty unit, thus having a lower effective rate of fire, thus lower lethality.  Even a small rotation could end up having significant delay.

[The Soldier]

Yes, larger batteries take longer to rotate.  But that was taken into consideration well in advance of my tests, and for every test I've done.  There were two types of results, per-volley effectiveness and overall effectiveness.  Batteries larger than 12 guns still performed worse.

[Hitorishizuka]

Not only do they inexplicably perform worse, but they suck up ammo like nothing else. Double hit to effectiveness.

[casacerian]

I appreciate all the replies.

 

Re stared campaign. Bumped it to MG as the CSA, and am building my artillery to the 12 gun gold standard.

Probably going to be posting more questions as the days roll on. Thanks again!