Rubber Ball Artillery

[Leviathan]

Has anyone else noticed that any round shot fired from a fixed Mortar (may happen from other mortars as well, but I noticed it far more with the fixed position Mortars) behaves like a bouncy rubber ball when it hits the ground?

There I was, last chapter of the Americas campaign, invading England with my brand spanking new army of elite foot and eight fixed position mortar batteries. I hit Dublin, and after a few volleys of carcass shot didnt' really do too much, I decided to switch to round shot and see what happened...

Well, after my mighty volleys of cannonballs rained down from the sky they *bounced* on impact like crazy. Not just small amounts, but 'hit the ground and bounce 300yards in a random direction'. Hell, one of my artillery fired to almost the limit of the Mortar range (700yards), the ball hit the ground and bounced straight back into my own lines, destroying one of the other mortars.

Anyone else noticed this utter absurdity??

[Dead Guy]

Yup, also seen (and gaped at) it. Never had it hit my own troops though.

[Leviathan]

Yup, also seen (and gaped at) it. Never had it hit my own troops though.

Thankfully I've only hit my own troops once, but.. yay, physics, who needs them?

Incidently, anyone know why the heck round shot does more damage than explosive shot does to buildings?

[Dayve]

Possibly broken like everything else.

Wait a second... if you fire a ball at the enemy, how on earth can it bounce BACKWARDS toward your own line? It's like the earth temporarily switched to some kind of alternate dimension where everything is opposite...

Now i'm going to have to develop mortars just to see if it really happens, because i have a hard time believing it. Never used a mortar actually, never saw the point when i had mobile howitzers which essentially do the same job and can be moved around the battlefield.

[al Roumi]

i've seen this too and couldn't believe it. Thank god normal cannon don't do it is all i can say -imagine if canister shot...

It is quite insane: the mortar shot literally rebounds in the opposite direction to the one it should.:dizzy2:

[Ishmael]

Ive never had it happen in my campaign as I always use explosive shot, but in a custom battle i gave myself 20 units of mortars (80 mortars total I think) and set them to round shot. It was impressive.

[Relic]

My Cannons are very odd.
They like to kill my line infantry infront of them... :D

[Didz]

Wait a second... if you fire a ball at the enemy, how on earth can it bounce BACKWARDS toward your own line? It's like the earth temporarily switched to some kind of alternate dimension where everything is opposite...
I think the clue is in the phrase 'I hit Dublin'. It sounds like he was firing solid shot into a built up area and the balls were ricocheting off the buildings and walls. If he was close enough, there is just a chance a solid shot might bounce straight back at you if it hit a solid object, though it would still be a notable event.

Incidently, anyone know why the heck round shot does more damage than explosive shot does to buildings?
Yep!...because it did. The major difference between explosive shot (as modelled in ETW) is that in this period the explosion of common shell, spherical case or shrapnel shell was not intended to inflict casualties or damage. The aim of the explosion was merely to rupture the shell casing. The intention then was that the contents, or in the case of the common shell, the fragments of the casing itself did the damage.

This worked perfectly against soft targets where a small fragment of metal, or a musket sized ball could kill or incapacitate as effectively as a single solid 12 pound ball, and when fired into a densely populated area could actually hit more targets.

However, if fire against a solid object, such as a fortification the pelting of the stone masonry with 100's of small shell fragments would have been no more effective than firing at it with massed musketry, (e.g. pretty pointless.) So, solid shot would be fired even by mortars to cause maximum damage.

[Dead Guy]

Nah, the roundshot balls bounce off the ground at ridiculous speed. Specifically when fired from mortars.

[Didz]

Nah, the roundshot balls bounce off the ground at ridiculous speed. Specifically when fired from mortars.
Then that does sound weird. I use Howtizers all the while, due to the bugs in 'Fire At Will' for artillery but I've not noticed this so far, it must literally be a mortar thing.

[al Roumi]

They bounce like that off the ground, I don't remember it happening when they hit buildings though, then you do get that nice crunch sound...

[Ardri]

I wasn't even aware they bounced short enough to stay on the map. I thought the mortar round shot just bounced off the map they spring so hard off the ground.

[Dead Guy]

I wasn't even aware they bounced short enough to stay on the map. I thought the mortar round shot just bounced off the map they spring so hard off the ground.

Yeah it's like you're playing "scorched earth" (the mother of all games) on your old 486 with elastic walls or something!

Funny that, Didz. I use mortars in part because I seem to suffer less casualties due to friendly fire than with Howitzers :p The most dangerous thing seems to me to be orderin cannon to cease fire because they decide to shoot somewher else than straight ahead, which is often where I've moved my line to flank. But mainly mortars kick butt because of the range I guess. And they're great with fortresses =)

[Sheogorath]

Possibly broken like everything else.

Wait a second... if you fire a ball at the enemy, how on earth can it bounce BACKWARDS toward your own line? It's like the earth temporarily switched to some kind of alternate dimension where everything is opposite...

Now i'm going to have to develop mortars just to see if it really happens, because i have a hard time believing it. Never used a mortar actually, never saw the point when i had mobile howitzers which essentially do the same job and can be moved around the battlefield.

Well, that particular scenario is THEORETICALLY possible, if the ball struck a rock or some other object at just the right angle, and the rock or whatever was sufficiently hard that the ball bounced instead of shattering, of course...

It's not likely, but possible :P

[Dayve]

The ball is too heavy and the forward momentum too strong for it to bounce... Even if it hit a perfectly shaped surface for a bounce it would fall to the ground and AT MOST and roll backwards a tiny bit.

[Leviathan]

Well, thankfully there hasn't been any further casualties from my own shot rebounding, so it looks like that was an isolated incident. Plenty of rubber ball bouncing around though, it certainly looks damned impressive!

Thanks for the points on the explosive vs round shot against buildings :) Though I do find it amusing that explosive shot is specifically mentioned at being especially effective against buildings...

Only other bug that I had last night with artillery was that damned "AI fires canister shot 400 yards" bug.

[Didz]

Thanks for the points on the explosive vs round shot against buildings :) Though I do find it amusing that explosive shot is specifically mentioned at being especially effective against buildings...
Really! Where does it say that?

It never occurred to me that it would be, so I haven't even bothered to check. I fired a few case shot at a wall and noticed that it only did like 1% damage and thought 'Yeah! that makes sense' and then switched back to roundshot for demolishion purposes. I suppose you might kill a few men standing at the windows with shrapnell but as they all die anyway when the building collapses it makes more sense to pound the building to dust anyway.

[Dead Guy]

The military advisors claims explosive shot to be particularly effective against buildings, iirc. But then he also claims over and over again that artillery can't be deployed in forested areas. And that the goal is to capture the settlement intact. Ha!

[Didz]

The military advisors claims explosive shot to be particularly effective against buildings, iirc. But then he also claims over and over again that artillery can't be deployed in forested areas. And that the goal is to capture the settlement intact. Ha!
Ah! yes good old Wiggy.

I'm afraid 'Wiggy' needs a bit of reprogramming, much of the advice he gives is complete bollox. For example according to him you can fix and unfix bayonets, but I'd like to see someone actually do it.

I think its a classic case of writing the guidance notes before the game was finished. Obviously, nobody thought to go back and tell 'Wiggy' they had changed the programme. I must admit I've turned these guys off because they are just annoying.

[al Roumi]

I find "wiggy" only usefull for telling me what the AI intends to do: i.e. "the enemy are holding their ground..." oh right, good-o, saves me figuring it out then.