Lefh 105

does this penalty occur only when ordering the fire, or will the penalty occur when you lose vision?

Not sure, this prob can only be answered by someone who's seen the exact code.

though i can't say i've seen the code AFAIK the fow check is dynamic, i.e. if you lose vision right before a shot is fired you get the scatter penalty for that shot. it doesn't matter if you have vision when ordering the barrage, just the instant the shell is fired counts. so, ideally, you want a spotter for the whole duration of a barrage to make sure all shots hit the target with the highest possible accuracy.

edit: just tested it again and, as a general rule for all projectile-based weapons, sight is indeed only required for the moment each shot leaves the barrel (+ wind up and aim time where applicable) in order to avoid the fow scatter penalty. hence, constant recon while the arty is firing is needed for accurate barrages. a quick recon pass before dropping the barrage marker does nothing.

There is a severe Fog of War scatter penalty for every(?) arty piece iirc. Definitely true for fixed howitzers.

Ya all of em besides stuka has penalty

This is what we call bias.

The LeFH and ML-20 have the exact same scatter (accuracy) stats on the normal barrages.
They also have practically the same AOE profile, although it's slightly in favour of the ML-20 (94.1 AOE score for LeFH vs 101.5 for ML-20).

However, the ML-20 deals 200 damage on direct hits while the LeFH deals 160, giving the ML-20 a small edge in killing the other because it only needs two direct hits to kill the weapon (400 health) while the LeFH needs three.

It's the ML-20 that ultimately holds the advantage, although not by much.

Are you sure that he is the one that is biased?

The LEFH shoots two more shells per barrage. It shoots at squads that typically have more entities so it vets faster. It LOVES USF, as most every shot into the base will hit something. Also, when an ambulance is spotted, it forces a micro tax as the USF will either have to move the ambulance and Major or risk having their units randomly disappear.

I'll build a LEFH most every time I see a team with no counters to it. I build a ML20 in the rare times when I don't care if I lose and want to experiment to try to find a way to make it work.

If you're going to try to claim that the ML20 is better, post a replay where you beat someone at your level using one.

Are you sure that he is the one that is biased?

The LEFH shoots two more shells per barrage. It shoots at squads that typically have more entities so it vets faster. It LOVES USF, as most every shot into the base will hit something. Also, when an ambulance is spotted, it forces a micro tax as the USF will either have to move the ambulance and Major or risk having their units randomly disappear.

I'll build a LEFH most every time I see a team with no counters to it. I build a ML20 in the rare times when I don't care if I lose and want to experiment to try to find a way to make it work.

If you're going to try to claim that the ML20 is better, post a replay where you beat someone at your level using one.

I think you quoted Sander out of context. His post was clearly about which of the two arty pieces has a better chance of winning a direct arty duel and why, not so much which is the better investment in a game.

Also, your facts aren't up to date or free of a good dose of bias either. The LeFH has only one extra shell per barrage (and at Vet 1 the ML-20 gets an extra shell at which point both are more or less equal). I'm not sure if the difference in squad size of the targets both guns are facing even makes any difference, as most often this is offset by lower XP value per entity for larger squads. Also, with the same line of arguing you could claim the ML-20 is actually the one that vets up faster since it will deal more damage per shot vs vehicles.

ML20 no longer gets +1 shell at vet 1. That was baked in. Vet 1 is smoke barrage these days; I've never used it, but it's there. By 80 damage area per barrage, the leFH is more lethal, while the ML/20 has a larger 80 damage area outright. They are pretty darn close at this point. An arty duel would probably be pretty close, and entirely dependent on RNG. Both have GARBAGE accuracy into FOW. Use Priest or Sexton to kill enemy arty, as they have .25 instead of the .75 FoW modifier. Priests slaughter fixed positions, numerically insane.

I've found the ML/20 is a game changer vs mass OKW, as it provides a safe way to annihilate OKW forward retreat points. The ML/20 flings a LOT of damage down range. It also comes with a reasonable commander selection, with the KV-1 and field defenses one my favorite. Guards, KV-1, and ML/20 really punish most Axis cheese strats (not MG spam, that has to be fought the hard way).

Don't build more than 1, as Allied players NEED enough TDs to fight off the Armor Dive, and each ML/20 replaces 1 SU-85.

ML20 no longer gets +1 shell at vet 1. That was baked in. Vet 1 is smoke barrage these days; I've never used it, but it's there.

You're right, this was changed with the most recent patch, my bad.

As for the rest, this sounds like solid advice.

Do howitzer FoW penalties apply for each shell going out individually or when the barrage is cast? It can be quite difficult to hold recon planes up nowadays with how potent AA has become.

Do howitzer FoW penalties apply for each shell going out individually or when the barrage is cast? It can be quite difficult to hold recon planes up nowadays with how potent AA has become.

You'll need vision for each shell, or more precisely, the moment each shell is fired to avoid the scatter penalty. Once the shell has left the barrel it doesn't matter if the target is in the FoW again or not. The moment you cast the barrage ability doesn't matter either.

I think you quoted Sander out of context. His post was clearly about which of the two arty pieces has a better chance of winning a direct arty duel and why, not so much which is the better investment in a game.

Also, your facts aren't up to date or free of a good dose of bias either. The LeFH has only one extra shell per barrage (and at Vet 1 the ML-20 gets an extra shell at which point both are more or less equal). I'm not sure if the difference in squad size of the targets both guns are facing even makes any difference, as most often this is offset by lower XP value per entity for larger squads. Also, with the same line of arguing you could claim the ML-20 is actually the one that vets up faster since it will deal more damage per shot vs vehicles.

Not even close to being correct.

I used to test them head-to-head on two computers with two accounts. The LEFH won roughly 80% of the time. Also, your argument about vehicles is specious. In the rare case that it hits a vehicle, players simply move it. Hitting a lot of infantry does make the howitzers vet faster.

The only points in this thread that seem correct are the ones that Descolata makes. It's marginally okay against OKW when they stack their trucks.

Do howitzer FoW penalties apply for each shell going out individually or when the barrage is cast? It can be quite difficult to hold recon planes up nowadays with how potent AA has become.

I'm pretty sure that it is when the individual shell is fired, based on having used cheatmod and toggling FOW.

Not even close to being correct.

I used to test them head-to-head on two computers with two accounts. The LEFH won roughly 80% of the time. Also, your argument about vehicles is specious. In the rare case that it hits a vehicle, players simply move it. Hitting a lot of infantry does make the howitzers vet faster.

The only points in this thread that seem correct are the ones that Descolata makes. It's marginally okay against OKW when they stack their trucks.

While I don't question your test result in the slightest, I doubt you drew the right conclusions from it.
In theory, both arty pieces should have a near 50/50 chance of winning a direct duel since they are virtual carbon copies of each other in every combat-relevant stat (now even more so with the number of shots per salvo being equalized as well). Still, that's not likely what you're going to see if you test it, say, 10 times in a row. An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome. The reason is that each individual fight has a huge variance in possible outcomes due to RNG, ranging from 2-shot wipes within the first 2 shells fired to not even scratching the HP pool with a full barrage. You'd need to perform more than 100 or even 1,000 tests to get an accurate picture of the actual win chance.
The analogy would be to set up a duel between two KV-1s, for which the actual T2K should have a variance of similar magnitude. Even though the expected win chance is squarely 50%, taking the average out of 10 trials will almost certainly differ wildly from that.

Hence, unless you tested it (way) more than at least a hundred times I'd be careful to claim the leFH is way superior to the ML-20 in a direct arty duel.

While I don't question your test result in the slightest, I doubt you drew the right conclusions from it.
In theory, both arty pieces should have a near 50/50 chance of winning a direct duel since they are virtual carbon copies of each other in every combat-relevant stat (now even more so with the number of shots per salvo being equalized as well). Still, that's not likely what you see if you test it, say, 10 times in a row. An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome. The reason is that each individual fight has a huge variance in possible outcomes due to RNG, ranging from 2-shot wipes within the first 2 shells fired to not even scratching the HP pool with a full barrage. You'd need to perform more than 100 or even 1,000 tests to get an accurate picture of the actual win chance.
The analogy would be to set up a duel between two KV-1s, for which the actual T2K should have a variance of similar magnitude. Even though the expected win chance is squarely 50%, taking the average out of 10 trials will almost certainly differ wildly from that.

Hence, unless you tested it (way) more than at least a hundred times I'd be careful to claim the leFH is way superior to the ML-20 in a direct arty duel.

Agreed. You really need a lot of tests to get some sort of a statistical distribution. Heck, even on the first year of physics, when you have to measure something as simple as a period, you are told to measure at least 50 times and then do the classical least square method, etc.
The only real advantage the LeFH has over ML20 is the base they are shooting at:

ML20 shooting at an OKW heal truck won't get many wipes as the truck is 360 large AOE reinforce/heal and it's easy to dodge or just retreat to your HQ.
ML20 shooting at a Wehr base is the same deal. Lots of buildings to damage but chances are you won't hit a lot of infantry that has retreated. + Wehr has bunker forward heal so you can run out of HQ.

LeFH shooting at a Soviet base is the same things as ML20 shooting at the Wehr base, with the exception that technically Wehr has forward heal so they can run out of the base

This is where it gets spicy. LeFH shooting at a USF base is a guaranteed wipe on something as the base is designed with lots of obstacles and tight spaces. There is also the famous "infinite" retreat as a squad can get stuck entering the base circle, retreating in place for up to 10 seconds. It's quite easy to target the end of the retreat path. If you're firing into FoW at the USF base, then nobody is safe. Heck I remember when I retreated the ambo and a couple of squads to the very edge of the map and a scatter shot took them all out there.

LeFH shooting at the brits is a bit less harsh because it's an open base and you can dodge. Also brits have forward heal so they can run out.

That's the only real difference between ML20 and LeFH. Well, ML20 shoots at squads with less models so it doesn't induce as much of a bleed but still, head to head they are identical.

While I don't question your test result in the slightest, I doubt you drew the right conclusions from it.
In theory, both arty pieces should have a near 50/50 chance of winning a direct duel since they are virtual carbon copies of each other in every combat-relevant stat (now even more so with the number of shots per salvo being equalized as well). Still, that's not likely what you're going to see if you test it, say, 10 times in a row. An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome. The reason is that each individual fight has a huge variance in possible outcomes due to RNG, ranging from 2-shot wipes within the first 2 shells fired to not even scratching the HP pool with a full barrage. You'd need to perform more than 100 or even 1,000 tests to get an accurate picture of the actual win chance.
The analogy would be to set up a duel between two KV-1s, for which the actual T2K should have a variance of similar magnitude. Even though the expected win chance is squarely 50%, taking the average out of 10 trials will almost certainly differ wildly from that.

Hence, unless you tested it (way) more than at least a hundred times I'd be careful to claim the leFH is way superior to the ML-20 in a direct arty duel.

You're still wrong. The ML-20 always fires less, it just isn't as bad as it was before. The ML-20 always fires 9 now instead of starting at 8. The LEFH fires 10. The last test I did was several patches ago so it wouldn't be quite as bad on an artillery duel, but all the other points remain the same. The LEFH vets faster, particularly if you can set it up within range of the USF base. Also, nobody builds arty to counter other arty. Arty is at best a soft counter to other arty so talking about an arty duel is just a red herring.

As for your comment An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome., all you did was tell everyone that you've never taken a statistics class. Binomial distributions are covered in the first couple weeks. The probability of 80% for one side is 4.4% versus 24.6% for a 50/50 split. Those two numbers really aren't about the same.

You're still wrong. The ML-20 always fires less, it just isn't as bad as it was before. The ML-20 always fires 9 now instead of starting at 8. The LEFH fires 10. The last test I did was several patches ago so it wouldn't be quite as bad on an artillery duel, but all the other points remain the same. The LEFH vets faster, particularly if you can set it up within range of the USF base. Also, nobody builds arty to counter other arty. Arty is at best a soft counter to other arty so talking about an arty duel is just a red herring.

As for your comment An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome., all you did was tell everyone that you've never taken a statistics class. Binomial distributions are covered in the first couple weeks. The probability of 80% for one side is 4.4% versus 24.6% for a 50/50 split. Those two numbers really aren't about the same.

You're right about the shell count. For some reason I was under the assumption that the latest patch equalized both arty pieces, I should probably have used common sense and checked this quickly before posting. My apologies! In any case, this should of course tilt the probability slightly in favor of the leFH.

As to the second part, this comes down to the question if this can be broken down into a simple binomial distribution (A beats B) instead of two nested distributions that each have their own variance (A beats B before B beats A). After giving this some thought I think you are correct and this case is much more straightforward than I assumed. 8/10 should indeed be quite a bit more unlikely given a 50/50 chance and 10 trials. Good points overall and a healthy reminder to double-check one's assumptions every now and then.

You're right about the shell count. For some reason I was under the assumption that the latest patch equalized both arty pieces, I should probably have used common sense and checked this quickly before posting. My apologies! In any case, this should of course tilt the probability slightly in favor of the leFH.

As to the second part, this comes down to the question if this can be broken down into a simple binomial distribution (A beats B) instead of two nested distributions that each have their own variance (A beats B before B beats A). After giving this some thought I think you are correct and this case is much more straightforward than I assumed. 8/10 should indeed be quite a bit more unlikely given a 50/50 chance and 10 trials. Good points overall and a healthy reminder to double-check one's assumptions every now and then.

Mistakes on patch notes and effects happen. I've done that myself a couple times. Have a nice day

You're still wrong. The ML-20 always fires less, it just isn't as bad as it was before. The ML-20 always fires 9 now instead of starting at 8. The LEFH fires 10. The last test I did was several patches ago so it wouldn't be quite as bad on an artillery duel, but all the other points remain the same. The LEFH vets faster, particularly if you can set it up within range of the USF base. Also, nobody builds arty to counter other arty. Arty is at best a soft counter to other arty so talking about an arty duel is just a red herring.

As for your comment An 80% dominance for either side out of 10 trials isn't much more unlikely than getting the expected 50/50 outcome., all you did was tell everyone that you've never taken a statistics class. Binomial distributions are covered in the first couple weeks. The probability of 80% for one side is 4.4% versus 24.6% for a 50/50 split. Those two numbers really aren't about the same.

Ml 20 has the same XP value as LeFH 105 and is one of best counter of OKW truck which in general is easier to get in range than USF base.

Generally speaking soviet entities has lesser XP value than axis ones so I can;t say that can agree that Lefh vet faster.

Generally speaking soviet entities has lesser XP value than axis ones so I can;t say that can agree that Lefh vet faster.

Isn't the XP value coupled to cost (either directly or manually as a trend?).

Soviet squads also have more models that can be hit and give XP, so it is more of a question of how large the XP difference actually is. Basically is e.g. 6*Conscript XP similar to 4*Grenadier XP?
I don't know those values to be honest, but as long as the Grenadier XP value is roughly 1,5 times larger than the Conscript one, they vet similarly.

Also, the LeFH does not only shoot at Soviets. UKF emplacements are prime targets as well, and UKF and USF infantry are worth a lot more.

You're still wrong. The ML-20 always fires less, it just isn't as bad as it was before. The ML-20 always fires 9 now instead of starting at 8. The LEFH fires 10. The last test I did was several patches ago so it wouldn't be quite as bad on an artillery duel, but all the other points remain the same. The LEFH vets faster, particularly if you can set it up within range of the USF base. Also, nobody builds arty to counter other arty. Arty is at best a soft counter to other arty so talking about an arty duel is just a red herring.

The LeFH being dominant over the ML20 was one of the main reasons why you could see the LeFH in team games, but rarely the ML20. If you build an ML20, you usually got counter artied and lost the duel, feeding even more XP to the LeFH.

Pre-patch, CB was playing into this as well, as well as the Elefant being in the same doctrine as the Stuka dive bomb. However, if those were not available, counter arty is not just a soft counter, but the only counter you have. Especially on some maps like Essen, Hamburg and Angermunde which are hard to flank and go into the backline of your opponent.
Also these static howitzers are cheap and sturdy enough that sacrificing a medium for them is not really worth it if it is enough in the first place.

Isn't the XP value coupled to cost (either directly or manually as a trend?).

XP used to be directly tied to cost.

Most patches that change the cost of unit did not change the XP values accordingly while some units had the XP changed so currently XP value are mess.

Soviet squads also have more models that can be hit and give XP, so it is more of a question of how large the XP difference actually is. Basically is e.g. 6*Conscript XP similar to 4*Grenadier XP?
I don't know those values to be honest, but as long as the Grenadier XP value is roughly 1,5 times larger than the Conscript one, they vet similarly.

Also, the LeFH does not only shoot at Soviets. UKF emplacements are prime targets as well, and UKF and USF infantry are worth a lot more.

XP values of entities

Grenadier 60
Riflemen 56
IS 54
VG 50
Conscripts 40

XP value of entity itself is enough to determine only in wipes. In the case that squad survives one has to take into the total damage dealt multiplied XP so a weapon firing on conscripts squad probably has to deal 1.5X damage to gain the same veterancy as firing on grenadier squad.

But what I did not claim that ML-20 vet faster , I simply pointed out that I see no reason why LeFH would vet faster.

From my experience OKW trucks are a prime target for ML-20/120mm mortar since the are big and have high XP value and if one want to gain veterancy one should aim for them.