Question:

Soviet long-range artillery in Leningrad’s center hex would like to add its combat strength to a combat in an adjacent hex. The rules (14B2) are silent on whether LR artillery can defend from afar, like naval gunfire support, or if it is limited to attacking? Rule 9A2 and 9A3 list ground support, defensive air support and naval gunfire support as things that can be added to a stack’s modified combat strength, but both are silent on long-range artillery.

Answer:

With Second Front rules as written, long-range artillery may only fire at 2-hex range when attacking. So, using RAW it is not legal to have long-range artillery fire at 2-hex range in defense of a stack being attacked.

However, argument can be made that Long-Range artillery should be allowed to fire at 2-hex range in defense. After all, there is nothing that would physically prohibit it; although long-range artillery usually takes longer to fire than regular artillery so its effectiveness for defense is probably less than it is for offense. Also, you can find some examples of long-range artillery firing at 2-hex range in the defense in WWII. Three examples:

1) Heavy coast artillery guns at western end of Mannerheim Line frequently fired inland into adjacent hex of line during Winter War to help stop Soviet attacks and were accounted as being very effective when doing this. (In game terms this is a 2-0 RG=2 Siege Art III)

2) NIMAP long-range artillery unit to East of Leningrad (Soviet artillery test range where several heavy long-range guns were installed in test mounts) fired on numerous occasions in defense of Soviet positions in adjacent hexes. (in game terms this is a 2-1-0 RG=2 Heavy Siege Art II in Soviet Navy colors)

3) Krasnaya Gora long-range artillery unit at north tip of Oranienbaum pocket fired frequently in defense of Soviet positions in next hex to the SE. (In game terms this is a 3-2-0 RG=2 Heavy Siege Art II)

The above examples , are why Total War rules allow long-range artillery to fire at 2-hex range in defense. When firing in offense, long-range artillery unit uses its attack strength (or combat strength if only has one strength). When firing in defense, long-range artillery unit unses its defense strength (or combat strength if has only one strength). And, no long-range artillery unit may fire at 2-hex range to defend against an overrun; it may only fire in this manner to defend against a regular combat.

Source:

Posted by Arthur E. Goodwin on the Yahoo Europa Mailing list on 04.08.2013 22:40.