Maneuvering artillery units playing SOWW with KS mod

Hi,

I find the KS mod quite enjoyable and realistic, except for what pertains to moving artillery units forward, even if the way and areas ahead are "clear" and deserted by enemy units. I can understand them being a little bit skittish, for instance if there are enemy units in the vicinity, but as far as I could experience, I see no good reason for not obeying my orders when the firts ennemy units are more thant 600 yards from my artillery units.

Furthermore, playing the French, I can hardly get the reserve artillery units of the Imperial Guard (Gen Desvaux de Saint Maurice) to obey my move orders: those units move back and forth, without being ordered to do so. This is rather frustrating. Can anybody help me find an explaination and solution?

Thanks

Glad to hear you are enjoying the mod.

If the enemy is ~600 yd. away, the battery commander will begin looking for a place to deploy the battery. This may well be in a spot you don't feel is appropriate. The only way to prevent that is to TC the battery commander and place the battery where you want it. In general though, the battery commander tends to do a better job in correctly siting a battery than the player.

Hi,

Thank you for this quick reply. In such cases, I do try to take command of the battery, but when it moves forward, it retreats even further than its initial position (KS mods 128 or 129).

And for Général Desvaux de St Maurice’s units, it is worse, without finding a logical explaination.

I have found that deploying artillery behind friendly troops works well, then bound them forward with "advance 100/200/300 yard" orders under the combat tab. At all times TC the battery commander until he is in a position you like, then un-TC him and issue him "all out attack" orders.

I do not know if the KS Mod's .dll file takes account of friends between a battery and an enemy but guns do seem to prefer to be supported when they are ordered to deploy and planting a heavy skirmish screen or a battalion in line a couple of hundred yards ahead of your guns seems to calm the crews nerves a bit!

Thanks Digby, I will try.

I am so used to TCing battery commanders the whole time. Habits from SoW Gettysburg carried into earlier KS mods. Will trust the AI in future. Glad the question was asked!