8O hi,
There has been some talk after todays SB about arti teamwork, training, platoon ect. Great. Anytime I am online i would be most happy to platoon with other arti (Apart from that noob Ugly if he carries out his threat and buys one). Big arti is very different from other tanks , not only with our 'God like' view, but also our long reloading time(20-35 seconds on t7or8) and how much terrain, builings ect can effect what can be hit. I would like very much to see an orginised, regular and committed arti group. A well orginised group of 3 or 4 big arti can destroy an is7 in a couple of seconds, and 30 seconds later do it again. There must be a way of doing this more often, becoming more effective.
Maybe we need a radical rethink, an arti leader perhaps, arti talking to each other on Team Speak and only using in game chat to listen for messages and pass vital information, or anything else we can think of. (by the way i'm not trying to tell blue his job or become 'Artilary Sergent ShockValue' I'm just throwing ideas into the forum for disscussion) I do have to say though that it would be constructive if advice from arti like 'don't go any further round that corner or you'll get blown to bit' was taken seriously. I feel personally that all tankers would benifit from trying big arti. I hope this can happen at the meeting in november, if not before.
I say again that the oppions expressed here are mearly my own oppions, i have put them here to be discussed, ignored, or shot down in flames. Please feel free to do so, I am quite hard to offend
Due to my work I will not be at any SB tonight(28/7) or saturaday(30/7) but i wish you all good luck. please mention this to chip or amyofone.
8O ShockValue 8O
Yep , we all like to flame the arty's in "normal" games..but when playing SB's and TC's we all shout for support...
I like the idea of an arty leader, Â 1 arty leader deciding where to concentrate arty fire.
The rest of the arty's have to follow the arty leader his instructions and "tankers" do arty requests to the SB leader.
The SB leader and Arty leader are on TS in a closed channel where the SB leader communicates the Arty requests with the arty leader.
The arty leader then communicates back to the Arty team via voice chat where to concentrate the arty and all SB members are at the same time informed.
This reduces the arty requests from the players, becuz all players know then where the arty is going.
When 4 players are at 1 side of a map and a arty request is done, the other 3 players can be silent then since its being discussed by arty leader and SB leader.
So instead of 4 players shouting for arty suppport the request is done 1 time and the awnser will be quick if its granted or not.
This approach requires a change in the way of thinking from the players, but after a few SB battles i think it could work.
**Shocky tip**
Hit enter after a sentence.... it makes it better readable.
This sounds like a pretty good idea. *hits enter to make it more readable 😃*
Blue usually singles me out as the arty leader, not sure why, but i know that my "language skills" and ability to readily understand English no matter how "mutilated" and butchered it has been is probably helpful. 🙂 I'm also on the voice chat alot. (you know, like bubrek and tvich and the other noobs that we are 😛 )
as an artillery i get requests all the time. but sometimes i have to make the hard decision and say no. it may be because i have foreknowledge of my inability to hit the target im being called to shoot, or perhaps i am loaded, full accuracy, and just waiting on the ausf B to get spotted again so i can shoot him.
another thing about focus fire, i have sometimes called all the artillery to focus on a target and then given a firing countdown, usually HOPING at least one other person is reloaded 🙂 this is an EXTREMELY important thing to work on. not only can it mean an instant kill, but it can also almost ENSURE the target gets tracked. which means anyone "late to the party" (still reloading/not full accuracy) can still get their shot in. this is an ability which, if utilized, can score instant kills and make us even more effective. a 10% enemy is nothing compared to a dead enemy.
having "side leaders" might also be a good idea, they dont need to be in the leader/arty room, they need to be in their own little "group" room, so they can coordinate each other. bubrek, puni, and ugly for example could coordinate a is7 "combined shot"(everyone pokes out and shoots simultaneously) without bothering EVERYONE else. the leader IS responsible for giving updates to main leader.
if one side of the map is aware of the fact that artillery is focused on the other side of the map, they will know that poking out to painfully scout the targets is WORTHLESS since there isn't any arty to shoot at said targets.
while the side without arty might feel a little naked and left to fend for themselves, they can call if the enemy rushes, or is getting "adventurous" and THEN the request can come "under review" by the "board of directors of battle oversight"(AKA leaders 😃)
if blue is in the TS with the arty leader, it might make sense to put all of the arty in that channel, just only say something if it's REALLY important, like you're being asked about your reload/accuracy.
just a shoutout to tvich here: ARTY SLEEPING!!11!!11!1! 😆 😆 😆
An artillery controller is a good idea. Not just to say, 'you go left, you go right etc' but someone who co-ordinates fire.
As you know I play Tier 7 Arty. I quite like it, but I prefer tanks. The main reason I have taken arty so far (although now I'm seeing some very nice credits I have to say!) is so I can understand how to be a better tank driver. If you know the most favourite arty firing points, you can guess where is safe and where is not. And you can't be told that - you need to see it for yourself, especially with splash damage on big arties.
Without going into too much detail, I have some experience of the Military, including how the real Artillery support ground forces. They use a FCO, or Fire Control Officer, who is with the forward troops and calls in artillery and other support on targets. The principle is the same for this game I think; one person controlling not just targets but rate of fire. Sometimes you need all 4 guns on one target right now. Sometimes you don't but if all 4 fire there is then a gap in your arty support of about 30 secs. So, control of this fire is important and requires discipline. A sustained rate of fire )1 gun every 15 seconds would equate to a constant artillery barrage. do that with 3 guns and keep the 4th for opportunity targets. There are many tactics to evolve, but they can't be left to arty alone to decide and must be discussed in conjunction with tankers to work out a good strategy as well as tactics.
Sorry if all that sounds heavy, but if we're going to do this, lets do it right
I agree on army being the leader for the artys because he has no problem on giving good, clear and fast commands in pure english, for my it's still a big hassle and I have to think before I speak so it takes too much time and my pronounciation is poor. So my vote goes deffenetly to army on that.
I know arty makes lots of difference on battlefield but you have to understand that we have huge reload times (Blue when you got the T30 you complained about its reload 3.64 rounds per minute, GW tiger's big gun has 1.76) not to mention the aiming time + if the enemy is moving we often have to reaim twice or even more cause we need to turn the hull.
So firing at enemys from different sides of the map does exactly that, we have to turn the machine and because of that it takes so long for us to get decent aim. So we probably need to split artys on subteams so few spg's are covering one side of map and others opposite. And the artys shoud use "T" to give other know who they are aiming.
+ the last patch they decreased the aiming time on all the SPG's when they move their hull. because of all the arty (being too accurate) flame on their forums.