How to avoid direct mortar fire

[Lacroix]

when i am defending i get raped by light or medium mortars (direct fire), it can really desintegrate my lines and force me into half chaotic retreat.

any uber gamey mechanics/tactics to stop that ? (multiplayer)

[Erwin]

When defending, you never want to place troops in lines like WW1 era trench lines where they can be easily spotted and raked by any kind of fire.

Try placing defenders on flanks where it's impossible for an attacker to get LOS to them unless the attackers are in the open, or already so close you get to kill em b4 withdrawing to your fallback positions which you carefully created earlier.

[Lt Belenko]

Spread out.

[John Kettler]

Lacroix,

If you're not running 2.12, no idea either way, then you're screwing yourself, since it incorporates the most realistic limitations on DF mortars, which were pretty much out of control in the beginning. Troops tend to herd in battle, but you should and must disperse. This is a damage limiting tactic. If the foe's using a mortar in DF, then it necessarily follows that a man or men must be exposed to work it. Be sure you have people who can make this experience at the very least unpleasant, hence, accuracy degrading, but better yet, lethal. This will greatly help you and gall your opponent, since mortars are fairly scarce and are great casualty creators.

The waggish answer? Don't be in the impact zone!

Regards,

John Kettler

[slysniper]

The best tactic is learning to not be where the enemy is going to drop his mortars.

The real world tactic is to select positions that allow you to withdrawl and to relocate to alternate positions.

Anytime you have done any action that might reveal your position, then its likely time to move if the enemy has or likely has mortars out there. Nothing better than sneaking into a new position a few action spots away as you watch the enemy waste their rounds on that spot you were just at a minute or two ago.

[womble]

As John Kettler says, pre-v2, DF mortars were the most deadly weapon system in game because of two factors: first, setup times were not implemented, so a mortar, once arriving in a shooting position became ready to fire instantly; second, a given mortar only had to be "zeroed in" to a target once, with subsequent missions going instantly to FFE.

Some points which help mitigate:

Maintain your situational awareness: watch for the "spotting" rounds and consider evasive maneuver. It depends when you've seen the round, but you've got 20s or so between the spotting rounds to scram, and it usually takes one "over" and one "under" round to get the mortar homed in. If you can bug out, consider "Fast". It's not such a good idea sometimes to stand up and run away; you get cut down by MGs and rifle fire instead of the mortars you were trying to avoid, but one guy shot is better than 4 made into pate. If your troops are tired or pinned, there's the "Evade" button which will get them moving fast. Again, most useful in v2 since you can drag the waypoint around to somewhere sensible. Even Slow away from the impact zone can help: it keeps their heads down, and spreads the team out a bit more. Whichever you use, give a "Hide" order at the end, or have them continue crawling for a couple of AS to really keep them down; you can always cancel the order when the rain stops.

If you can't (or can't bear to) leave the place you are in, hugging the dirt is relatively effective. Give the targets Hide orders and a short TA so they are disinclined to present a large cross section to the mortar fragments. You could consider this "pre-emptive self-suppression", but if you don't do it, you'll be involuntarily suppressed in short order anyway, and will have suffered more casualties getting that way. You might also force the mortar to lose its spot on you and therefore stop firing if it isn't being used in area mode, though that's by no means guaranteed.

As has been said, but it bears emphasis: spread out. Split your squads into teams and have a good spacing between them. DF shoots at close ranges don't have a wide scatter (one of the reasons they're so murderous), so if you have a couple of AS between your teams, it's less likely the squad will be eviscerated by a single mission, and the morale hit is more compartmentalised: if you lose 4 men from a squad, apart from having gotten off lightly, that squad will all be in poor morale state: Rattled, maybe even Shaken. If you lose an entire split team of 4, the rest of the squad might only drop to Nervous.

Be in C2: the mitigation of the morale hit is considerable if the platoon's HQ has good strong links to its subordinate teams.

If your opponent is canny in their use of mortars, return fire may be impossible from the target position. Well-sited defenses have eyes from different angles on locations that provide firing positions, so that there's more chance of having someone who can spot the shooter and bring suppression to bear.

Being able and willing to bug out is probably the best defense. You dont necessarily have to go very far, especially if you hit the ground and stay there. Which makes dashing back to your firing step before the follow up assault teams reach grenade range relatively achieveable. One of the Armchair General videos shows this sort of movement in action to deadly effect.

[slysniper]

Womble just gave you pretty much everything you need to know, good post, that one should be added to one of them training sites that are out there.

[Pak40]

Well, if you have no choice but to defend certain areas and you have access to foxholes, then use them. You'll need to split up your squads to use them properly but they definitely help reduce casualties.

[Erwin]

One new order feature that would be useful would be "SKIRMISH" to increase separation between individuals.

[Bulletpoint]

If your troops are tired or pinned, there's the "Evade" button which will get them moving fast. Again, most useful in v2 since you can drag the waypoint around to somewhere sensible.

What is this EVADE button you speak of? I've been playing for quite some time now, and I can't remember ever seeing that..

[Baneman]

What is this EVADE button you speak of? I've been playing for quite some time now, and I can't remember ever seeing that..

Here you go. See also page 55-56 of the Pdf CMBN Game Engine manual version 2.0

Page 92 of the original manual or actual physical booklet under "Instant Commands"

This is particularly useful since it will "unpin" troops - although only to run away from the bad place.

[Bulletpoint]

Here you go. See also page 55-56 of the Pdf CMBN Game Engine manual version 2.0

Page 92 of the original manual or actual physical booklet under "Instant Commands"

This is particularly useful since it will "unpin" troops - although only to run away from the bad place.

Thank you very much, I never knew that existed, even though I thought I had read the entire manual from end to end Probably I skipped that part because I assumed it were only for real-time players.

And to think that in so many situations, I have been playing and wishing that there would be a button that could un-pin a squad and have it pull back, never realising that it was there in front of my nose the whole time...