Artillery Attack

[s&d&r&r]

I'm a Shogun vet but I just got MTW recently and would like to know the more experienced MTW abusers views on the use of cannon during attacks.
I was a bit reluctant to use several cannon during invasion attacks (not sieges) as I thought that weight of troop numbers would always be a better prospect. However I have found that cannon really throw the AI defence off even if you are attacking up the worst of hills. I was using 3 to 4 Culverins etc. and due to the AI spreading units every time a shell hit their lines they could not consolidate a strong defence and kept shifting formation. Even during custom battles I tried to balance both sides evenly but was still surprised how effective these big guns can be. It is not so much as the numbers they kill but the other side effects. I found a 50% bombard before starting to move forward pretty effective (at least 120+ enemy dead before hand to hand) the rest of my cannon ammo seemed to cause confusion and even more casualties in the as the attack pressed on.
Maybe I just got lucky.
Is this the way of things in MTW?

[MajorPain]

I once attacked with 13 culverins and 1 serpentin plus 2 swisspikemen. After the cannons were out of amu the A.I. withdrew their army. And I only took about 2-300 men out of their 900 men army.

[Jo_Beare]

Cannon work really well for attacking over bridges too.

In my first campaign I used bombards pretty extensively when attacking and defending. They can be pretty potent field weapons if used properly. I tried to cover as big an arc as possible even it would mean not having one of them being able to fire. It seemed to work pretty well. In fact maybe too well.

The best was attacking the Almohads and I placed the three bombards as far forward as I could even though it was on the back side of a hill. I was busy sorting out my attacking forces when the Almohads surprised me and came charging over the hill. All three bombards let loose and their whole army routed on the first shot. I had to hustle my cav units in order to catch a few prisoners.

JoBeare