Artillery is one of the best units in Call of War. I would say they are the tactical bombers of the ground, in terms of damage dealt to damage received. Properly used, they can turn the tide of the battle in your favor, with you losing less/none troops. It is important to be able to use artillery, and also defeat it.
There are three types of artillery.
1. Regular artillery- Cheap beginning units, regular artillery is a staple early game. Opening fire from an initial distance of 60km, this unit usually fire for two hours before units reach it. While good at long range, artillery is very poor at defense and requires protection from ground forces and air attack.
2. SP (Self Propelled) Artillery - Doubling the health, speed and power of regular artillery, this speedy unit is probably the best artillery unit in the game. While costing more than regular artillery, the benefits are more than worth the extra cost. Especially powerful in plains, this mechanized artillery is a beauty to behold.
3. Railroadgun- The longest and strongest artillery unit in the game, firing at 150km away; it is not surprisingly the most expensive. While taking only 1 research level to build, it requires high level buildings and a lot of resources to produce. While the slowest unit in the game, it is more powerful than regular infantry for a long time. This unit almost always requires careful protection, and a spotting unit ahead of it. However, this unit does have a special place in attacking ships and landing naval convoys.
Build Requirements
| Artillery | Industrial Complex Level 1 | Infrastructure Level 1 |
| SP Artillery | Industrial Complex Level 1 | Infrastructure Level 1 |
| Railroadgun | Industrial Complex Level 1 | Infrastructure Level 3 |
Build Costs
| Goods | Metal | Manpower | Oil | Money |
| Artillery | 750 | 500 | 1000 | - | 1500 |
| SP Artillery | 1000 | 1250 | 500 | 500 | 2000 |
| Railroad Gun | 2000 | 3500 | 1500 | - | 5000 |
Protection
Your artillery is highly important. Unprotected, defending artillery is very easy to defeat and kill, and is like giving free kills to your enemies. Keeping artillery attacking is vital to their survival.
1. Putting troops in front of artillery
⦁ Place several units in front of the artillery, so they can be roadblocks. These can be militia for example; cheap, disposable roadblocks that will buy you a little time. You can also place large stacks in front of your artillery, and let them attack safely from behind.
2. Protecting the units themselves
⦁ Artillery are vulnerable to every unit in the game. Air attacks can wipe out unescorted artillery 5 at a whack. A fast light tank can roar in and destroy 10 units easily.
⦁ To counter this eventuality, one should place anti-tanks and anti-air with artillery. While you will almost certainly loose units if your artillery are fighting hand to hand, this may save some units and will most definitely make the enemy pay for his attack. This also helps with attacking other artillery, but I will touch on that further down.
Attacking with Artillery
Using artillery to attack units helps preserve you army for future battles. See the protection on how to guard your units.
1. Holding the enemy in place- One of the key points to using artillery is holding your enemies in place. With them unable to escape, your artillery will have a field day. There are two ways to do this.
⦁ Attack the enemy with troops. Then bring your artillery to attack while your enemies are stuck for hours.
⦁ Attack with artillery- A direct assault is not always bad, and is sometimes unavoidable. During these assults, it is best to have troops stacked with artillery, especially if there are artillery in the enemy target. This will spread the damage across all the units, and keep you firing for hours to come
⦁ Use of terrain. Sometimes it is not necessary to put troops in front of artillery. Mountainous terrain can slow units down extremely, allowing for strategically placed artillery to fire for long periods of time without being hit.
Attacking Artillery
1. Attack without being in range of artillery. - Being able to attack artillery without it being able to reach you can be highly valuable.
⦁ Tactical Bombers- Attacking artillery from the air is often a quick way to get rid of artillery. With such low health, they are easy pickings from the air.
⦁ Outranged Artillery- Use artillery that has longer range then their artillery to fire without them being able to respond. Make sure they don't move though!
2. Quick units - Sometimes it is not possible to attack at a distance. In these cases, you must make the best of things and get to the artillery ASAP.
⦁ Light Tanks or Armored Cars- Quick units, these can easily reach artillery quickly and put an end to their long range firing. Consider using forced march, the quicker you arrive, the better.
⦁ Any unit available- Simply put, once you reach the artillery they cannot fire. While the faster units are better, use whatever you have to silence the arty.
Range
Artillery has four ranges. 60km, 70km but 80km and 150km are specialty ranges. Standard artillery starts off at 60km, but can be upgraded to 70km at day 16. This gives a special strategic advantage, especially if your opponent has artillery. While your artillery fires away, his cannot respond unless he travels the extra 10km to fire.
80km for regular artillery can only be achieve at lvl 7 with blueprints. Very special, almost none have all those blueprints. Having that long a range almost guarantees enemy artillery cannot respond.
150km is the fixed point for railroadgun, which the whole reason to build a railroadgun.
I hope you all have found this guide useful, if I have made some mistakes, please let me know.
-General Nightman, intelligence
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Anti-air still fires at planes, even if it is engaged in a ground battle.
Protecting your artillery is vital: Anti-aircraft, fighters, and ground forces all work together to keep artillery safe.
Artillery has less use as you fight high level/skilled players, but it still has it's place.
First off: good guide!General Nightman wrote:
Artillery has less use as you fight high level/skilled players, but it still has it's place.
But I beg to differ concerning you statement above...
Artillery, especially SP-A, is the the most versatile and effective weapon. I prefer it over Tacs; anytime.
Ofc you do need to mix in other troops, since no single type of unit is strong against the right answer.
My current weapon of choice is groups of 6 SP-A accompanied by 6 ACs and 6 SP-AA. When you have multiple groups operating simultaneously you cut through any country like a hot knife through butter.
No bomber fleet of whatever size has beaten my mechanized ground troops yet.
No tank army ever made it to my mech-groups (50kmh), while I do a fighting retreat, annihilating them before they even pose a real threat.
SP-A is king!
Ofc you can achieve the same thing with infantry class: up to 8 arty + 8 AA and some ACs to speed things up (capturing province centres fast, so your troops move 2x faster than through enemy territory). It is just slower than mech-groups.
Ofc I do also use airforce, but SP-A is bombers on wheels with all the advantages of that; i.e. no need for airfields; or try taking a country with bombers...
Since the August 28 update last year, my SP-A use has soared while my tac use is dwindling.
It must be said though, if you do not have HC and miss out on the extra command options for ranged weapons, SP-A use requires attention. But then again, so do air fleets.
Heck, I don't even build tanks anymore 
)
Ozzone, one single squad of 20 tacs? Ever heard of SBDE?Ozzone wrote:
A single squad of about 20 tactical bombers
Besides, any enemy building lots of Arty or SPA w/o protection, so that they can be easily wiped out by a few bombers, is no real threat from the onset.
I fear you have to worry more about the enemies that are building lots of arty/SPA and do know how to protect them....
Same! I think the SP artillery is the most spamable unit at the moment. This is due low oil upkeep and a good over all spread of costs AND low manpower cost initially._Pontus_ wrote:
Artillery, especially SP-A, is the the most versatile and effective weapon. I prefer it over Tacs; anytime.Ofc you do need to mix in other troops, since no single type of unit is strong against the right answer.
Since the August 28 update last year, my SP-A use has soared while my tac use is dwindling.
Depending on my enemy I like to use a lot of them. Sometimes I put 12 SP arty in a group with 6 SP AA. I seperate them when they fire to be on their max 6 SBDE eficiency. I do this when I am shorter on metal or manpower for adequate AA support.
I like to use them with tank destroyers and meduim tanks. Or if I really need speed: mechanized infantry, moto inf and light or Medium tanks (mind the level of the MT in that case).
Also, if you stay on your own territory as much as possible, even forced march has trouble catching up to your units. If they do manage to get close, sacrifice a few TD/MT and keep firing.
Love SP arty!
_Pontus_ wrote:
I fear you have to worry more about the enemies that are building lots of arty/SPA and do know how to protect them....
I know. I'm talking about the tons of players that don't. I'm not going to send 20 bombers in to get slaughtered if they have good anti-air. It's just fun to go in and wipe out groups of armor/troops without taking a single hit for those dumb enough to not provide defense.
All the SP units are good in my opinion: low oil, fast to produce and good speed.
While were on the subject of SBDE, one of the tactics I use is to stack 8 regular artillery with 8 SP Arty, for max damage. I do the same with anti-air.
Speed does sometimes take precedence though.
I agree with that set-up with 1 exception: 8 regular + 6 SPA 
When the game progresses, distances increase and maintaining speed becomes of essence. My regular arty and inf-class troops then go on defense or are assigned to densely populated fronts with smaller distances, while the mech-groups do the large stretches.
The enemy could counter this with 10 lv3 inter,lv1 fortress, some melee units around the artys, and a lot of regular/sp artys near the province point. I notice that lv1 fortification alone brings down 55% damage, higher than 38% in the past. Arty is good because it shoots for a long time without taking damage from large stacks. Probably the ammunition update mentioned in another post (if it happens) will end arty's supremacy.Ozzone wrote:
I love it when an enemy makes tons of artillery. A single squad of about 20 tactical bombers will wipe them all out without taking any damage to the planes. If they don't protect them, they will all disappear very quickly.If they have anti-tank and anti-air support, I send in a bunch of tanks to engage the anti-air units right before the bombers hit the artillery units.
when i examined a lvevel one fort it did say 55% but when i built i got 38%warplas wrote:
I notice that lv1 fortification alone brings down 55% damage, higher than 38% in the past.
i reprted it as a bug
How about a few AA?? Would that not be the best answer to an areal threat?warplas wrote:
The enemy could counter this with 10 lv3 inter,lv1 fortress, some melee units around the artys, and a lot of regular/sp artys near the province point. I notice that lv1 fortification alone brings down 55% damage, higher than 38% in the past.
A stack of 20 Tacs does damage like 7 or 8 Tacs.
While even level 1 regular does more damage than pretty far upgraded Tacs.
With say 10 AA mingled with the mentioned arty and some other troops that all have some AA capacity and add lots of HP, the Tacs will have quite a problem.
Tacs are so 2018
Nevertheless, arty (whether regular or SP) should never travel with AA/SPAA.
Railroadguns are one of my favourite units in the game. I feel like artillery as a whole is very underrated
Try not to overuse them! I did it once and I basically have to be one province away to actually attack troops!KrestelGaming wrote:
Railroadguns are one of my favourite units in the game. I feel like artillery as a whole is very underrated
Artillery can be closer than the max range. I do it all the time.Ryan04px2025 wrote:
I did it once and I basically have to be one province away to actually attack troops!
A railroad gun can be, say 30 km from the fronlines, and it will still do the same amount of damage.
I just wouldn't use RR guns anways: too slow, and too expensive.
I know, but if the enemies go to close, arty defend will not be helping
You always need to put a small stack of infantry, AT, AA and or LT in front of your artillery to protect them. Always accompany your arty!! Protect them well and they last all game. The enemy is forced to retreat, attack or die in the bombardement. When he attacks you always have the advantage of the stronger defense with your meatshield.
I understand your rationale. Not only they are too slow and expensive, but very fragile to air attacks (need at least an AA to go with them). But a RR gun comes in handy to cause havoc beyond the enemy's frontline and they can support your navy engaging the enemy's in narrow bodies of waters- like the Gibraltar Straits, the English Channel and the Baltic Sea ...General Nightman wrote:
A railroad gun can be, say 30 km from the fronlines, and it will still do the same amount of damage.I just wouldn't use RR guns anways: too slow, and too expensive.
One main problem is that one of my enemies uses loads of artillery and he is very crafty with it. It is especially hard to deal with artillery when I am offline. They can just destroy my defending units and when I come back my troops are gone. How should this be dealt with? Fortifications? Even when I am on, units sent to attack artillery can be destroyed because of terrain disadvantage or slow movement. What is a good solution to this problem?
Know what you mean bro! My solution would be other artillery, patrolling aircraft and gunships. And fortifications help reduce damage to defending unit ...Messerschmitt Plane wrote:
What is a good solution to this problem?
one way to attack artillery is to send one unit to draw fire while sending other units from a different direction, to attack it, it cannot attack more than one unit at a time
Sometimes my arty last too long and I get too much of them. I have to get rid of them for SP artillery to replace them because they are slowBMfox wrote:
You always need to put a small stack of infantry, AT, AA and or LT in front of your artillery to protect them. Always accompany your arty!! Protect them well and they last all game. The enemy is forced to retreat, attack or die in the bombardement. When he attacks you always have the advantage of the stronger defense with your meatshield.
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