render link Hi, friends. It's strange that haven’t talked about mobile artillery for so long. After all, it’s the only thing that unites the realms of tankmen and artillerymen. They both recognize SPG as their own, and even the infantry has to admit that there is something in mobile artillery.

Pimp my cannon

The history of self-propelled artillery originates during the Thirty Years' War in the 17th century, and according to some sources even during the Hundred Years War in the 15th century. But they used to call it Horse artillery those days. But there was an evident problem that had to be solved- insufficient mobility for artillery. This could be approached by installing the gun on a movable base, whether it is the chassis of a tank, a cart or a camel’s back - it follows the same principle. photo link As you can see from the photo with the Zamburak (and his rider), artillerymen of those different times did not like to sit on the ground in anticipation of a counterstrike and tried their best to keep up with the advancing allies. The main role of an SPG is to provide direct fire support for tanks and infantry in the battle, and they have enough equipment for this job, because the self-propelled guns picked the best bits from artillery and tanks. The majority of SPGs have a gun more powerful than an equivalent main battle tank’s one, due to the longer barrel and more sophisticated targeting and sighting equipment, and it’s also able to perform indirect fire, while tanks are forced to restrict themselves to direct fire only. Unlike towed artillery, SPGs are able to accompany allied forces during deep breakthroughs of the enemy defenses, and can also quickly retreat from the firing positions before the enemy can detect it. Thus, mobile artillery are much more effective in the artillery offensive actions, for which the “Infantry tactical manual of the Red Army (1942 edition)” defines: ‘The artillery offense consists in the continuous support of the infantry with a massive artillery and mortar fire during the entire period of the offensive. Artillery and mortar fire must lead the infantry and tanks in the attack from one object of defense to another.’ These qualities can often become decisive when choosing a favorite commander. However, one must also remember the disadvantages: support for the allies in the offensive does not mean an offensive solely on your own, your armour doesn’t stack up against a similar tank’s one, but the cost is no longer the cost of artillery.

An artilleryman who doesn't want to be a self-propelled artilleryman is a bad artilleryman.

In the game, we try to reflect the entire diversity of the SPGs of WW2 and their strengths and weaknesses. The gun of the mobile artillery has greater armor piercing capabilities and an effective range of fire compared to a similar tank’s one. Some of the units in this category also have very good armor. No doubt, the SU-152 or Jagdpanther, even from afar, do not resemble a ‘day-off’ car with an open top. While the crew of a cannon has to go guns blazing upon the sight of enemy infantry to make sure they can deal as much damage as they can, while they can, the SPG crew can retreat or respond with fire themselves (although it is still more reliable to retreat). The self-propelled guns do not depend on tractors for towing, and the time of their combat deployment is much lower, plus they do not start to be visible after the first shot, like tanks. So if you have all the advantages of artillery invisibility and tank armor, you can destroy tanks with armor-piercing shells, and enemy howitzers with HE-shells, while being relatively safe. And you can be greedy, shooting in plain sight and hoping for luck, which smiles much more often to mobile artillery than to the rest. Most likely you will manage to survive most of the high-explosive shells and some armor-piercing, and with a high probability you will win in a counterbattery duel. But do not consider the SPG as the solution of all problems. Armor of the majority of these units (except for the late-war and especially expensive ones) are only sufficient to stop rifle-caliber bullets, and the open-top does may not even be able to stand up to that. And no matter how good you are at killing the enemy, it is unlikely you will go much deeper into his territory. Attacking without the support of an ally-infantryman is plain suicide. The grenade launchers will very quickly lecture you on why advancing head-on is a bad idea, especially so since you have disappointing circular viewports and often lacking machine guns. And indeed we can say that the thickness of your armor really is not a matter of concern for those geeses. screenshot link Every unit in the game has it’s own role, and if you are given tracks and invisibility - use both of them! The rest of the artillery commanders emphasize strengthening their positions, but the SPG commander needs to be mobile and constantly change location. You found a target, made several shots, began to spawn circles - step back. You saw that there is an incoming plane with paratroopers - step back. You saw that you almost got into the enemy's viewport - step back immediately! The choice of targets is no less important than the choice of position, and the commander of self-propelled guns can be created in different ways. You can focus on the AT-SPG and have the ability to fire 'from the fog' and destroy even the heaviest, expensive and seemingly invincible enemy tank. Or focus on assault SPGs and be a worst nightmare of infantry and artillery. Or take a little bit of everything and ... well, at least you can ride some. However, who knows? Soldiers: Arena is still a team game and such a universal commander can be the right addition for your clan super-duper strategy. Sometimes it happens that a couple of destroyed machine guns and AT-cannons far beyond the front line can help the ally to a larger extent than killing the most expensive enemy unit. In the end, what can such clumsy tanks do when surrounded? Earlier we already wrote that we are not trying to mirror the units, and we are doing our best to make the game for one commander very different depending on from the chosen faction. We believe that this will be both more realistic and interesting. For example, Soviet mobile artillery are almost always an assault or direct support cannon, with the most powerful frontal armor, and an gun more powerful than that of an enemy of the same class, but almost always without machine guns. While almost every SPG of the Allies is equipped with a 50-caliber machine gun and has a rotating but open-top tower. In addition, playing for the Allies in the early game you don't need to be afraid of the counterstrike of artillery and howitzers, thanks to the M8 Scott’s armor. And Germany has a self-propelled gun of any weight and form for almost every task, in the early game you can rely on Sturmpanzer and Wespe, and in late on Jagdtiger and Sturmtiger assault gun. This is all for today. As always, do not hesitate to write in the comments, which units from the category under discussion you are waiting for. It may be that they will appear in the game. Still wish you all the best of luck!

[ 2017-12-07 19:28:33 CET ] [ Original post ]