Oppinions on Puckle guns, Mortars and Rocket Launchers

[Nex Sui]

Hey, I've personally experienced that my rocket launchers and mortars are hardly any good, the only thing I use them for is to get the enamy to attack if he uses the stand out of normal cannonfire range, they're too unprecise, and do in my oppinion have a too slow reloading rate.

About the puckle guns I've found them useful, but how useful they really are I cant figure out, they seem to do fine, but their actual amount of killing compared to the regular cannons cannister shot I'm not sure which works better.

Anyways just wanted to hear your oppinions on this, and if anyone happens to know anything about the puckle guns and their effectiveness then please share it!

[daniu]

I hardly ever use mortars or rockets (playing MP mostly).
Sometimes mortars for sieges or when I suspect my opponent plans to camp because in these cases, the troops stand still so the inaccuracy doesn't matter so much.
I've seen rockets do some damage, but only in short range when they fire much more concentrated bursts; still, I haven't recruited one in ages.
Puckles are mainly defensive because they are so slow (sadly). They most of the time don't have a high kill count, but are useful due to the constant "under artillery attack" debuff they offer.

[SgtDisco]

Puckles I like for the almost constant barrage and the accordant morale hit, as mentioned above, plus they also tend to keep firing on people even when they've gone out of range. This doesn't kill many but it can keep them from re-forming and attacking my lines again. Also they sound great and add a little variety to my armies.

Mortars I sometimes have a unit of, I do like being able to harass the enemy right from the beginning of the battle. They seem to be most use when your enemy is attacking from inside a fort as that tends to mean an awful lot of troops milling about in the same area. Quite of ten though I'll forgo them for another howitzer or a unit of something interesting or faction specific like hand mortars etc.

Rockets I haven't used at all really, might give them a go as the morale hit is useful. Rocket ships I've used extensively while developing my 'Box of Rockety-Firey Doom' tactic, works well until you auto-resolve against 2 sloops and they die, I don't know what the AI does with them but it seems to think immediately scuttling them is the way to win at sea.

[MortenJessen]

Hi there.
I never uses rockets, and i rarely uses puckles (I believe that it is so, since I actually some times recruit them for the Prestige, but they usually just sits around doing nothing). Mortars are very usefull both inside and outside a fort during siegebattles. The defender gets good range, and the attacker also.
Y.S.
M. Jessen

[HMS Empire Broadsword]

Rockets i find are very innacurate except at short range, and they take ages to reload. Besides, when they do hit, they dont do much damage to infantry, odly enough.

I dont use puckle guns as they are historically innacurate. They were not used by any military, although the British briefly tested them.

Mortars i dont like so much. In a recent campaign battle against Poland, i had one unit of mortars, firing constantly at a large group of 5 units of Polish line infantry. I only had 1 direct hit during 35 minutes of firing, and tons of misses. What was really annoying though, is that i was using quicklime shells, which make a large cloud of lime envelop the enemy. The quicklime shells barely ever exploded into the lime cloud! I might have as well been firing roundshot from the mortar.
Annoyingly, Polish howitzers killed 20 Foot Guards in one quicklime shot that exploded properly.

During the whole battle, the unit of mortars only killed one enemy. Only one.

Does anyone know why the quicklime shells dont work? I have researched every technology, so its not that.

[daniu]

Does anyone know why the quicklime shells dont work? I have researched every technology, so its not that.

How do you mean, it doesn't work?
If you are confused because your howitzers have low kill counts at end of battle, that's because quicklime just casualties just aren't counted as kills there.
Otherwise, as with cannons, except when your target unit is moving it's better to manually aim at ground slightly in front of it, otherwise the shot will be aimed at the unit's flank.

[HMS Empire Broadsword]

How do you mean, it doesn't work?
If you are confused because your howitzers have low kill counts at end of battle, that's because quicklime just casualties just aren't counted as kills there.
Otherwise, as with cannons, except when your target unit is moving it's better to manually aim at ground slightly in front of it, otherwise the shot will be aimed at the unit's flank.

i mean that very few of my quicklime shells actually explode.

[daniu]

i mean that very few of my quicklime shells actually explode.

Yeah, saw your post on the other thread...
I hardly ever use mortars, so it never occurred to me you could be talking about them (even though it's the topic of this thread)

Anyway, you're right, quicklime doesn't properly works with mortars. Use percussion only.

[kosmosje1]

I have used one unit of puckle guns so far. They can be effective if you can protect them at close range. the best battle I had with them, I was able to place them behind a line infantry unit defending a bottleneck (created by some woods and a stable). The way it accidentally turned out was that you first had the line infantry volley, then the puckle gun volley on massed infantry. That one line infantry unit helt off about 6 other line infantry before I had to cycle them out for another unit.

Rockets are rarely a choice, though if you manage to get them targetted at relatively close range, they can be quite devastating (since the rockets don't go too far apart). Same with mortars. It's still something a normal canon does better, however.

[♔DoomBunny666♔]

Puckles are only really useful against cavalry as the constant fire chews threw the unit horribly, otherwise canister is better...

Mortars are kinda useless now except at sieges...

I wouldnt know about rockets becuase I replaced their impacts with that of a 24lber Percussion shell!

[Evan MF]

Mortars were primarily used for sieges. Rockets were ment to be morale killers : having flaming blades of metal dropping throught the air every now and then when you are trying to fire at and dodge enemy bullets.

Evan

[♔ brucedickenson♔]

Alright guys, just a quick heads up, there's a puckles mod here which increases their accuracy a bit

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=323662

[Lumina]

Puckles... fancy morale killers which are useless pretty much for everything because normal cannons can do it most all of it better. Puckles though do bring down fort walls and buildings very quickly though do to their sustained fire but their range makes it hard to get close enough to do it without the fort guns cutting them a part.

Rockets, fancy light show. enough said.

Morters, really... a weapon they badly need to reduce the range of, it should be for siegeing forts and for fort defenders, they should make it mobile, and shorter range than a howizter, its a bleeding morter for frap sakes it isn't ment for range but for getting over fort walls. They used to have to dig trenchs just to get morters close enough to forts to siege them properly. lol