Mortar halftracks still fire too slowly

[Bulletpoint]

I had hoped this bug had been fixed in the 4.01 patch, but mortar teams mounted in halftracks still fire at a very slow rate of fire when given indirect fire orders.

[Bulletpoint]

Also mounted mortars still stop firing even though they have plenty of ammo left.

 

Both these bugs can be easily reproduced in the first mission of Kampfgruppe Peiper (Die Spitze)

[Bulletpoint]

Could any beta testers please confirm if these two issues have been logged? @IanL do you know if it's on the BF radar?

[Heirloom_Tomato]

What is the current rate of fire and what should it be according to your sources?

How many rounds are expended before the mortar crews cease fire?

Edited June 14, 2019 by Heirloom_Tomato

[A Canadian Cat]

I see no sign of this as a logged issue. So, we should get the details...

In addition to what @Heirloom_Tomato asks in what context do you see the slow rate of fire? Direct targeting, direct target light, indirect at some specific requested fire rate?

[RockinHarry]

On 6/4/2019 at 2:42 PM, Bulletpoint said:

Also mounted mortars still stop firing even though they have plenty of ammo left.

 

Both these bugs can be easily reproduced in the first mission of Kampfgruppe Peiper (Die Spitze)

just could guess on that (never used HT based mortars til now). When they stop firing temporiliy, then for a possible readjust in a line.area fire mission. Other then that the game keeps a reserve for further fire missions, even if there´s plenty of ammo left . But one needs to distinguish between on hand ammo and overall ammo from share with a neighbor maybe. Also thinkable is that Panzergrenadier Hvy weapons have bits of a different ammo expenditure doctrine so a regular fire mission is somewhat different from normal mortar units. At last.... I don´t know if this a "bug" or rather elaborated thing.

[Bulletpoint]

@IanL

How to test:

Open up Kampfgruppe Peiper campaign, first mission.

You have 2 halftrack mounted mortars.

Deploy one outside its halftrack, keep the other mounted. Keep distance so they cannot share ammo.

Plot a fire mission for each mortar during the setup phase. Distance 300m straight ahead.

Parametres: Point mission, Heavy Rate of Fire, Maximum duration.

Both mortars start with 90 HE rounds. Both are in C2.

 

Results:

After 1 minute, the mounted mortar has fired 6 rounds. ROF: 0,1/sec. The unmounted mortar has fired 23 rounds. ROF= 0,38/sec.

After some turns, the mounted mortar stops firing while it has still 57 rounds left out of initial 90 rounds. The mortar in the open fires all HE rounds as expected for a "maximum" duration fire mission.

Conclusion:

Dismounted 81mm mortars fire roughly four times faster when deployed outside the halftrack as when firing mounted.

Mounted mortars stop firing after expending less than half their ammo, even when given a "maxium duration" order that for all other artillery types fires all available ammo.

 

Edited June 14, 2019 by Bulletpoint

[RockinHarry]

another nice "theory". Ammo stores for mounted (HT) mortars is not that readily accessible for quick and long lasting operation of the mortar. Something else to consider maybe as well: limited space in a HT, the more if it´s a tiny 250 type. Could hinder fastest possible like deoployed in open operation too I´d guess. But...just BFC can tell.

[Swant]

Ops wrong thread

Edited June 19, 2019 by Swant

[Bulletpoint]

On 6/14/2019 at 6:39 PM, RockinHarry said:

But...just BFC can tell.

Yep, that's why I posted... @IanL should I stop pestering you now?

[A Canadian Cat]

7 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

@IanL should I stop pestering you now?

Nah I'll get there. Someday.

[A Canadian Cat]

I did some playing around. Started with @Bulletpoint's scenario and then created a QB with US and German HT mounted mortars.

I didn't look for German docs but I found these about US ones:

US Half track could fire up to 30-35 rounds per minute with a "normal" rate of 18 rounds per minute
https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/FM/PDFs/FM17-27.PDF

Wikipedia has the same numbers for the dismounted 81mm mortar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_mortar

However this more recent document is also interesting (section 2-24 says that the maximum of 20-30 could only be done for 1 or 2 minutes while the sustained rate of fire was 4 - 15):
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-91/ch2.htm#p24

Here is what I found from playing the turns (indirect call mission Heavy Maximum):

                 1                 2                    3                    4

US 81    20                 5                   4                     5

US 81     4                   4                  5                      4
in HT

Ger 81    19                 4                  29                   12 (empty before the minute was up)

Ger 81    4                  4                     4                     5
in HT

So the numbers for the HT mounted stays at the sustained rate while the round mounted seem to fire full bore and then slow down. I think there will need to be some more research but the in HT numbers seem low for the high rate of fire.