Mortars ain't no AT weapons!

[Kraut]

Ahhh ... the soothing words of the lead programmer/guru.

Thanks Charles!

MK

[civdiv]

Having played a grand total of 2 scenarios with the release version (1-1.02 and 1-1.03), I can't say I have a great deal of experience here. But based on the concurrence of the majority of the replies, I would say the light mortars are much to accurate. Putting a round into a 4-6 sq m area with a light mortar is a shot in a million, regardless of range. The high arc of the projectile only makes it more difficult. I know people who could put a M203 (40mm grenade launcher) round into that area reliably, given 2 or 3 shots from 200-300 meters. While similar, the 203 has a flatter trajectory making it quite a bit easier. I'm glad BTS is taking a look at this issue.

civdiv

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by civdiv:

Putting a round into a 4-6 sq m area with a light mortar is a shot in a million, regardless of range.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've never fired a mortar, myself. But I do remember reading not too long ago (I think it was in one of Ambrose's oral compilations, but I'm not sure) about an engagement where Germans were dug in along hedgerows pouring enfilading fire into a US force, when a mortarman grabbed a light mortar and proceeded to drop mortar bombs into the German holes one by one.

It's only one report, and maybe this guy was the Davy Crockett of mortars, and there was no wind, and the Germans had huge magnets in the bottoms of their foxholes. But it seems to me that an expert user with LOS to the target, allowed a couple shots to "get the windage," might be able to put some shells pretty much right on target. FWIW, in a couple of recent games I've had occasion to watch my mortar teams fire and pay attention to where each shell lands (not much else going on at the time); the first couple rounds are often EXTREMELY long or short, but soon they start dropping in right on the target point, whether it be a building, foxhole or stationary vehicle.

If I remember I'll try to dig this story up tonight and provide a reference.

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Leland J. Tankersley

[L.Tankersley]

Hmmm, well, I found it but it's somewhat less dramatic than I remembered.

From Ambrose's Band of Brothers (p.86):

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>German machine-gun fire from the hedgerow across the road from Brecourt Manor was building up. Winters put his machine-gunners to answering with some harassing fire of their own. Malarkey found his mortar tube, but not the base plate or tripod. Setting the tube on the ground, he fired a dozen rounds towards the manor. Guarnere joined him, working another mortar tube. They discovered later that every round hit the target. "That kind of expertise you don't teach," Winters commented. "It's a God-given touch." When Malarkey ran out of mortar rounds, his tube was almost completely buried. An old French farmer got a shovel to help him dig it out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No hard info on range to target, or target size. Still, it lends some credence to the notion that at least some mortar gunners could develop considerable expertise with their weapon. I think what we really need is some CEP data for mortars of the period. Anybody have that handy?

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Leland J. Tankersley

[Ash]

I read another story in Citizen Soldiers about a Mortar crew with only one round left dropped a single round 10 feet from target after figuring out the coordinates

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The names Ash, Housewares

[PzKpfw 1]

I know Charles is going to look into this, just wanted to add some comments.

My problem with mortars is that they are being used as AT weapons in CM, an mortar crew will drop any target they have to shoot at an AFV. I,e I had a whole British Co attacking the zug the mortar was attached to, this is at 80 - 100ms Brit Inf chargeing cross open ground.

At this vital time, my mortar decides to switch targets from the Inf to an Dalimar AV 617ms away. Its the same in all my games where I have on board Mortars, the AI uses them the same way, I watched an AI march a Brit mortar team to 100ms of a Stug yesterday fire and take out the Stug, in a city battle QB.

And if you realy want to see carnage to HTs (even on fast move) set up say 7 or 8 mortar teams with LOS on the line of march & at the end check the mortar teams kill records it's impressive. 1 Brit reg, mortar took out 8, 251's, another had 6 etc, all scored at long range on 'fast moveing' 251s.

Mortar crews can accuratly put an HE round into an HT at 10 - 30ms away from the team, While the HTs are moveing at top speed Ie, I drove 3 hts up to an 3in mortar position, the mortar took 2 of them out in 2 shots, 1 was 10ms & the other 30, the 3rd HT took out the mortar from below 10ms but recieved an track hit and was imobed, as the 3in got off 1 last round.

Artilley of which mortars are part rarely killed AFV's in WW2. One of the problems IMO is the crews think their an AT crew, after watching how rabidly they will attack AFVs repeatedly in scenerios, IMHO on board mortar crews should have AFVs wiped from their target priority lists completely. So they can do the job they were designed to , supt the Inf, their attached to with HE & Smoke vs Inf targets, instead of haveing long range duals with tanks, HT's, AC's, etc.

Regards, John Waters

[This message has been edited by PzKpfw 1 (edited 08-02-2000).]

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

Mortar crews can accuratly put an HE round into an HT at 10 - 30ms away from the team, While the HTs are moveing at top speed Ie, I drove 3 hts up to an 3in mortar position, the mortar took 2 of them out in 2 shots, 1 was 10ms & the other 30, the 3rd HT took out the mortar from below 10ms but recieved an track hit and was imobed, as the 3in got off 1 last round. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure I understand the above -- isn't 10-30 meters under the minimum range for mortars? I know the US 60mm has a 100m minimum range.

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Leland J. Tankersley

[PzKpfw 1]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L.Tankersley:

I'm not sure I understand the above -- isn't 10-30 meters under the minimum range for mortars? I know the US 60mm has a 100m minimum range.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I watched it fire the shells, they went up & came straight down on top of the 251's & they went boom . Also saw a 2inc poof away at inf at the same ranges.

Regards, John Waters

[Bullethead]

PzKfw 1 said:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My problem with mortars is that they are being used as AT weapons in CM, an mortar crew will drop any target they have to shoot at an AFV<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am coming to the same conclusion. Mortars, even 2", should be able to kill or maim vehicles if they hit them. And they should be able to hit them fairly easily if they are moving slow or are stationary (up to a point--bipod mortars would either have to free-tube or shift legs to track them if they moved very far). But the AI's obsessiveness for using mortars as AT weapons is a bit much, IMHO.

I too have observed the AI pulling mortars off of grunt targets I have given them and switching to AFVs further distance away. This is almost always the result; hence, when fighting a highly mechanized enemy, I cannot rely on my mortars to support grunt vs. grunt actions. They are instead freelance AT weapons and I have to deal with that

The other issue I mentioned above is the ability of mortars to track moving targets. This was a big issue in the original beta demo, where the German tracks in the LD scenario just were 60mm mortar fodder. There was a discussion on the subject of free-tubing and shifting bipods, and the result was we were told that mortars would only be able to track a moving target a few degrees, then have to stop firing for a while to adjust the bipod. I was unable to verify whether this actually got implemented in the Gold demo, however, because its scenarios didn't raise the issue.

Now that I have the full game, it does look like at least 2" mortars can track moving targets without restriction. Of course, these things didn't have bipods so didn't have "traverse limits" like bipod mortars. But target speed doesn't seem to be a factor affecting accuracy. Regardless of vehicle speed, the 2" mortar bursts keep pace and eventually there's a hit.

Of course, given the lack of Allied squad-level AT weapons, I'm very grateful for every 2" mortar. They don't do much good against dug-in grunts, but they sure are Hell on light armor . But I do think that they are too accurate vs. high speed vehicles, and I wish the AI wouldn't commandeer them for AT use when I have other plans for them.

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-Bullethead

It was a common custom at that time, in the more romantic females, to see their soldier husbands and sweethearts as Greek heroes, instead of the whoremongering, drunken clowns most of them were. However, the Greek heroes were probably no better, so it was not so far off the mark--Flashman

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by PzKpfw 1:

I watched it fire the shells, they went up & came straight down on top of the 251's & they went boom . Also saw a 2inc poof away at inf at the same ranges.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting. I know that the interface won't let you assign a target closer than the minimum range, but maybe there's a logic hole that allows the TacAI to do this.

At 10 meters, seems like it would be a lot less work to just throw a grenade, wouldn't you say?

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Leland J. Tankersley

[L.Tankersley]

Then again, there's MY typical CM experience, where I order a mortar team to target an AFV and they shoot one round and then go back to sleep. This happened for four consecutive turns one time (fire one round, then targeting line goes away).

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Leland J. Tankersley

[dNorwood]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L.Tankersley:

Then again, there's MY typical CM experience, where I order a mortar team to target an AFV and they shoot one round and then go back to sleep. This happened for four consecutive turns one time (fire one round, then targeting line goes away).

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Me too. In fact, I practically have to put a gun to their heads to get them to target armor. And I've gotten hits - no effect.

[OSCAR]

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Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of

our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?

blackadder, goes forth eh? ...has to be the quote of the year!!!

[This message has been edited by OSCAR (edited 08-02-2000).]