.
The literature (including field manuals) usually discerns three kinds of artillery fires for lethal munitions*:
Destructive fires, neutralising fires, suppressive fires
The required munitions are the greatest for destructive fires, somewhat less** for neutralising fires (though the fire mission for this has to last quite long) and smallest for suppressive fires.
The usual literature approach is to pretend the target is infantry that has dug in or has some other cover.
Suppressive fires shall scare enough to make them combat ineffective during the suppressive fires, while neutralising fires are meant to shell-shock them into combat ineffectiveness that lasts long enough to complete an assault on the position after the artillery fires ceased.
This thinking about infantry targets with cover fits WWI thinking, but it's not very realistic even in modern trench war IMO.
The use of artillery differs greatly between high force density and low force density battle. High force density battles (such as WW2 Eastern Front) put a premium on the shelling of marshalling areas in which troops prepare for an assault. To shell such areas was reported to have caused more harm than the artillery actions during the by comparison very brief assault. Furthermore, it was reported from WW2 experience that most failed infantry attacks failed before they got into small arms range; so most successful positional defences were entirely carried by artillery and mortars (air power played a negligible role).
So for low force density conflicts, I'd say
- destructive fires on point targets of justifying value
- ad hoc firing missions on moving or briefly halting forces, trying to achieve whatever best effect can be achieved in the brief time available to hit them
- obscuration for force protection
- (IR) illumination to enhance friendly forces' vision at night and possibly to damage the enemy's night vision tech
Whereas for high force density, I'd additionally say
- destructive fires of heavy munitions (100+ kg or FAE rather than 155 mm shells) on known enemy point positions
- destructive fires on area targets if the enemy is expected to largely lack cover and hardening
- neutralising fires on known but somewhat dispersed positions (such as a platoon spread out on 1+ km of trenches or scattered 3-men positions)
- suppressive fires on suspected enemy positions while friendly are in field or view or about to enter it
I suppose this is roughly similar to the actual opinions in the Western artillery communities.
You can see that low force density battle such as fighting Taleban in Afghanistan emphasises accuracy and small dispersion - essentially precision guided munitions.
A high density conventional warfare on the other hand has good use for very destructive munitions (up to very heavy bombs) and a large quantity of dumb lethal munitions such as 155 mm HE shells.
155 mm DPICM shells are vastly more lethal on paper, but not so when fired into forests with a high tree canopy. This happens to be the most typical kind of marshalling ground for massing forces for and before an assault, though. The second most-typical one is for all I know villages - and DPICM isn't known for great lethality through roofs, while 155 mm HE has quite a reputation for ruining homes.
S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de
*: Other artillery purposes include propaganda (leaflet) munition delivery, illumination, obscuration (smoke) and some shots to measure the weather (multiple rocket launcher batteries used to shoot one rocket, sense its wind drift by radar until the rocket's self-destruction in the air, then compensate the aim for the real salvo). Lethal (high explosive) munitions can also be used for demolition, mostly demolition of buildings including bridges and intentional cratering of routes.
**:Whether the used amount was enough will only be known once line of sight combat troops are in contact.
.
