Help Using Hq's To Spot Please

[markl]

Hi,

I have read a few old articles on using HQ's to spot for mortar's etc, but so far I am not having much luck. I get the Hq to get A LOS when the Mortar has not, but I can not get the mortar to fire on the target.

Could someone run an article on indirect spotting using forward observers and HQ's as I have not seen a recent one in the forum.

This is one aspect that would inprove my game no end. Any help from experienced players would be appreciated.

Thanks, MarkL

[WWB]

HQ cannot be hidden to spot for mortars. That is the likely culpert. Also, it will not target as a tank would, but you instead will area fire.

WWB

[YankeeDog]

A few quick points for Newbies on indirect fire with on-board mortars:

1) The HQ must have a maroon "In command" line to the mortar being spotted for. No command line, no indirect spotting. Remember that a given mortar can be "In command" of only one HQ at at time - even if there are two HQs that are technically close enough to command the mortar, the game engine will assign the mortar to one or the other.

2) The HQ must have a Blue LOS line to the spot being targeted. you CANNOT directly target an enemy unit this way. You can ONLY indirect fire with on-board mortars at a terrain point (i.e., "area fire"). If you target an enemy unit directly, the mortar will wait for the enemy unit to move into LOS before firing. You can tell if you've done this by accident because the targetting line will be a red "direct fire" line rather than a gold "area fire" line. If you want to hit an enemy unit with indirect on-board mortar fire, target the ground immediately adjacent to the enemy unit.

3) In CMBB, the spotting HQ unit cannot be hidden and spot for a mortar. Conversely, in CMBO, the spotter can be hidden and still spot.

4) In CMBB, HQs CAN spot for mortar HTs. In CMBO, they can't (which makes mortar HTs of pretty marginal use in CMBO).

4) Finally, keep in mind that if your target is even 1m out of the LOS of the spotting HQ, the indirect targeting line won't 'stick'. Sometimes when you're plotting right on the edge of the HQ's LOS, it takes several tries to get the targetting line to 'stick'.

Those are some common mistakes/misperceptions I can think of. Hope this helps.

Cheers,

YD

[markl]

Thanks for the reply,

It pick up on one bad mistake I was making.

cheers

[Cogust]

A useful trick is to select both the mortar and the HQ (with the HQ as the main selected unit) and then use the fire command to aim where you want (it will be the HQ's LOS that counts as that's the main selected unit) and click to put two area fire lines to the target. Then you just select the HQ and cancel it's area fire line, that way you'll get the mortar to shoot where you want without having to make several tries (this won't work on very long ranges where the firepower of the HQ is 0 as it will be considered 'out of range').