Best cannons at the moment?

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Hey guys. I was just wondering which are the best at the moment and is there a way to get the stats out of the game files, especially for cannister range? I think Witworth and 20pdr Parrots are the best if you only look at the stats, but are they cost effective? Some patches ago the Napoleons were considered the most cost effective cannons, but a friend of mine noticed their cannister range seems rather short now.

[i64man]

I have read some comments here and most of them indicate that the 24 pounders are the best, especially at close range. I have only one battery of them 16 guns in total and after the battle is over, easily they rack over 2000 kills. Most of my batteries are 12 Napoleons with 14 to 16 guns per. A few howitzers batteries and 2 batteries of 10 pounder parrots with 20 guns. But the 24 pounders there is just not enough guns available.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

You mean 24pounder Howitzers? Because the parrots are "only" 20pdr, just getting a bit confused here. xD

Edited June 26, 2017 by Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf

[i64man]

There are 24 pounders smooth bore ... you get them at the armory or by expending reputation.... they are gold in color. They might be howitzers. Now you have 10 pounder parrots and 10 pounder rifle gun.  There are also some 20 pounder parrots, and I have only 6 in the armory and like 4 more to buy, not enough to fill a battery. One thing though the Napoleon and the 24 pounders are the same color.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Ah, allright. I'll take a look at them, thank you very much sir! Any further comment by any other forum members will be greatly appreciated as this is a topic a lot of people have a load of question, I think.

[GAR_Arapharzon]

I'd say the 24 pd howitzer, by far. My artillery is almost only 24 pd howitzer and napoleons.

[Col_Kelly]

24 Pdr Howitzers by far indeed, then the 10 Pdr Ordnance rifles and then the Napoleons. 20 Pdr Parrots and 12 Pdr Howitzers are decent enough. Whitworth should be avoided at all cost, big money waste. 

[Bigjku]

24 pound howitzers are great st the critical point of an action but you either have to move them a fair amount or see their effect drop a lot over range.

My favorite gun for balance is the 10 pound ordinance rifle.  It has a good long shell and canister range so it can influence a wide swath of front without having to stop firing and reposition.  It is very good at counter battery fire as well.  I generally have on or two batteries of 24 pound howitzers per corps and the remainder are 10 pound ordinance rifles.  I field 24 guns per division in my three main corps so it's about 96 guns a corps.

[Bobby Fiasco]

6 hours ago, Bigjku said:

My favorite gun for balance is the 10 pound ordinance rifle.  It has a good long shell and canister range so it can influence a wide swath of front without having to stop firing and reposition.

Hm. Mine underperform badly in terms of kills compared to 24 pounders and to Napoleons, which themselves are only half as effective as the 24 pound howitzers. Maybe I am using them wrong. Does anyone else like 10 pounders? I normally use 20 pound parrots when I can get them for long range harrassment and counter-battery fire.

 

Are the 10 Lbs worth it for affecting enemy morale?

[Bigjku]

Napoleons are fine but I have found have to be right up on the line to be effective.  I use my 10 pounders in grand batteries both on the offense and defense.  Usually I congregate 36 or more guns in close proximity and use them to hammer away at anything that comes into range.  The other side can't bring smoothbores up close without me first having a chance to drive them off.  

Offensively I will often concentrate all my ordinance rifles for a corps in one area to support my attack and their range lets them continue to provide fire effectively without me having to slacken fire and move up the guns.

Defensivley I am still pretty close up on the lines but it's so I can have over reach and prevent the AI from really organizing itself in peace.

In the big killing battles for the Union I often kill 2-3k with the Howitzers and 1,500-2,000 with the rifled cannon.  This is with batteries of 12.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

I really, really want to like 20 PDR Parrott Rifles; but they never perform as I might hope. I keep buying them, they constantly underperform. 

24 PDR Howitzers are my bread and butter. I buy all I can. After that, I split between 3" Ordnance Rifles and Napoleons, for long and short work respectively. 

For Reserve Corps, I keep a couple of batteries of Wiards/12 PDR Howitzers  and such that have fallen on the battlefield; but I'd never pay good money for them. 

[Draluigi]

24 Pounders are the best per unit, however I feel like the cost effectiveness of the napoleons and 10 pdr ordnance is worth it again. I just fought antietam and my 7 gun batteries of 10 pdrs and napoleons have around the same kill numbers as 4-gun batteries of 24 pdrs

[Bobby Fiasco]

8 hours ago, Draluigi said:

24 Pounders are the best per unit, however I feel like the cost effectiveness of the napoleons and 10 pdr ordnance is worth it again. I just fought antietam and my 7 gun batteries of 10 pdrs and napoleons have around the same kill numbers as 4-gun batteries of 24 pdrs

Ah. But what if you concentrate your 24 pounders more? My batteries of 10 or even 12 can get 3,000 kills in a defensive battle.

[Draluigi]

That's why I spoke of cost effectiveness. A battery of 12 24-pdrs will outperform any other 12 gun battery. But 50 000 $ worth of napoleons or 10 inch rifles will yield you a slightly better result than 50 000$ of 24 pdrs i think.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

I have noticed that my 10pdr Ordnance are shooting shrapnel shells on medium range, something the smoothbore Napoleons don't seem to be capable of. While I had to keep my smoothbores close to the front to get effective fire the rifled guns were doing a lot of damage without needing to be moved every few seconds. Is this impression correct?

[Draluigi]

Yes. Napoleons catch up when in canister range

[A. P. Hill]

Any cannon is better than no cannons.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Well, I just tried Shilo a few times and especially in this scenario my 10pdr Ordnance were far more useful then the Napoleons, of which one unit got overrun because they had to be placed close to the frontline and couldn't outrun the rebels as I had to retreat, and the other almost cost me an infantry brigade as I let it hold the position to get the artillery out. I think rifled cannons are more to my liking, though I will keep a 24 guns strong unit of 24pdr howitzers for occasions where a point has to be held at all costs.

[Bigjku]

1 hour ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

Well, I just tried Shilo a few times and especially in this scenario my 10pdr Ordnance were far more useful then the Napoleons, of which one unit got overrun because they had to be placed close to the frontline and couldn't outrun the rebels as I had to retreat, and the other almost cost me an infantry brigade as I let it hold the position to get the artillery out. I think rifled cannons are more to my liking, though I will keep a 24 guns strong unit of 24pdr howitzers for occasions where a point has to be held at all costs.

I would split the 24 pounders into 12 gun units.  Lets you spread them around more.

I always like the ordinance rifles.  They have enough range to cover a good front and to allow you to mass them in packs so you can do good damage on any charging units over range.

Napoleons have to be close and can be isolated or swept up in melee.

[Silas Gilpatrick]

It seems like I have settled into a pattern of 12 guns per division, until I pick up a 4th division.  In the first three I use Napoleons and 10lb ordnance. That keeps generally in line with what the Union artillery used. In the 4th division I add a heavy battery of either 24 lb howitzers or 20 lb Parrots. The 4th division usually doesn't come into play until the larger battles and the heavier guns have less mobility. I have considered Wiards or Whitworths to experiment on how well they do, but have not tried them out yet.

[Andre Bolkonsky]

15 hours ago, Silas Gilpatrick said:

It seems like I have settled into a pattern of 12 guns per division, until I pick up a 4th division.  In the first three I use Napoleons and 10lb ordnance. That keeps generally in line with what the Union artillery used. In the 4th division I add a heavy battery of either 24 lb howitzers or 20 lb Parrots. The 4th division usually doesn't come into play until the larger battles and the heavier guns have less mobility. I have considered Wiards or Whitworths to experiment on how well they do, but have not tried them out yet.

I like your idea, but 24 pournders are worth their weight in gold; the best cannon in the game. 

[Col_Kelly]

Whitworths are terrible, probalby the least cost effective gun in the entire game. Don't bother

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

I've settled with 16x 10pdr Ordnance and 12x 24pdr Howitzers for the moment. I still prefer the 10pdr though, cause my complete first division is now armed with either harpers ferry or M1855 Springfield, and their firepower in the last two battles was enough to route the enemy before he got in canister range. So the 24pdr Howitzers didn't do that good compared to the much cheaper 10pdr Ordnance.

[william1993]

What I usually do is have maybe 5 batteries total in each corps of 12 guns each.  I run with usually  1 of 24s and 3 of Napoleons, and one battery of ordnance rifles for counterbattery.

The 24s are the best.  They can kill anything.  Like shotguns on crack

[i64man]

I agreed with William1993, on my CS campaign, on the battle for Mayers heigths, my central battery defending the victory point was composed of 14x 24pdr.... at the end of the fight, this unit along had over 2000+ kills..