What ordonnance for what situation?

**Tillan** · 07-15-2009, 09:43

Explosive Ive found to work relatively well (certainly better then round against troops) The problems with Howitzers is they arnt very accurate at extreme range, and there even more inaccurate at close range.
Mortars I havnt really used, same with percussive and explosive ammunition, so I cant really comment on them, but the key to getting use out of your howitzers is positioning, so that you can keep them firing as long as possible at the best range. You cant throw them to far back behind your line, otherwise enemy troops coming towards you will only be in best firing range for a brief amount of time, at the same time you cant stick them to close to your front line for the same reason.
Just think about the kind of battle your expecting, and where you expect the enemy to stick around the longest.

But yes, in a field battle, with direct fire I switch on round shot at the beginning, making sure i know the limits of shrapnel, and switch over to shrapnel asap. For my howitzers, typically i leave them on explosive (but as I say, I havnt unlocked the other types yet)

**Slaists** · 07-15-2009, 14:22

Originally Posted by Tillan

But yes, in a field battle, with direct fire I switch on round shot at the beginning, making sure i know the limits of shrapnel, and switch over to shrapnel asap. For my howitzers, typically i leave them on explosive (but as I say, I havnt unlocked the other types yet)

Just curious, playing 2 turns per year, by what year do you have shrapnel?

**Tillan** · 07-15-2009, 16:08

That was my mistake, meant to say Cannister. I havnt got shrapnel yet in my current campaign (between 1730 and 1740ish in a swedish campaign) Though i would bet the same holds true for Shrapnel.
This is a Grand Campaign, and is for all intents and purposes over (hold 25-30 regions, have broken the Russian, polish and Austrian armys that will allow me to take the rest of their territory's within the next 5 or so years (probably giving me 35-40 regions - N/N) and have done the same in india with the maratha (sp? - Mughal were already wiped out and Mysore are my protectorate - and causing plenty of problems for Maratha themselves).

I tend to put individual cannon advancements on a low priority, getting them as the last thing on the tech level. But Ive also put a high priority on the soldier side techs in general (fire by rank, square formation etc) so im not sure how much that balances things out. Anyway, its pretty certain I wont be getting shrapnel/quicklime or percussive before the game is so far finished that it would take a tactical genius to stop me (as opposed to the AI)

**Prussian to the Iron** · 07-15-2009, 17:39

i love shrpanel, but for some reason i can never visually aproximate the terrain (which means that my cannons firing shrapnel always hit right in front of them in the ground)

**Fisherking** · 07-15-2009, 17:43

Don’t waist money on Mortars anymore.

They have great difficulty hitting the battlefield. They need a target a bit larger than a fort!

What a load of dung that is!

**Prussian to the Iron** · 07-15-2009, 21:40

lusted said they are increasing the accuracy, but im sure it wont be satisfactory. i liked it fine in 1.2.

btw: if you are using the Additional Units Add-on Mod (TWC), then you can mod the 8-inch european mortars to be as accurate as you want, without those pesky updates screwing it up.

**Slaists** · 07-16-2009, 15:25

Originally Posted by Fisherking

Don’t waist money on Mortars anymore.

They have great difficulty hitting the battlefield. They need a target a bit larger than a fort!

What a load of dung that is!

As I said somewhere else, the mortar/howitzer accuracy changes drastically (for the better) as one increases the unit size they play with. With ultra size units howitzers become quite deadly. Once that field is swarming with soldiers, the howitzer shot is likely to hit SOMEONE even if that someone is not the original target. On smaller unit sizes though, there is "too much empty space" and the efficiency of indirect guns goes down quite a bit. I do not play on ultra size btw, so I rarely use indirect guns.

On a different note, howitzers and mortars are quite useful despite their low accuracy (which is historically accurate, btw). I use them to 'squeeze' AI's flanks (by bombarding ground on the flanks) so the AI bunches up their troops in the middle where my direct guns can have a ball...