Mortars

[eddie413]

:confused: To anyone who can give me good advice, or help me to see this in a different way: Mortars in real-life are deadly and effective. To me, mortars in CM & CMBB are lame and sound like little pop-guns goin off(when they hit the ground). They never seem to contribute much to any battle. I've been playing CM since March 2001, and CMBB since it came out. I play alot, and LOVE all aspects of this great war-game....Except...Mortars..Why can't the design team upgrade the blast effect (visually and auditorally)to mirror real life like they did with [some of the ]tanks? Believe me, I WANT To use mortars in my battles, but lately, I just eliminate them when choosing units when I make my own scenarios cause I find them unrealistically lame....

[ July 24, 2003, 07:00 AM: Message edited by: eddie413 ]

[Beta1]

Then I would suggest your not using them properly.

The reason they dont sound as big as a tank shell is that they arent as big as a tank shell. While I dont want to comment on them not looking/sounding the part they have a big effect on many games I have played, both in BO and BB.

Mortars are the best weapon for use against towed guns by far, as when used indirectly with a spotter they can fire without any threat of retaliation. They provide excellent supressive fire against infantry. A battery of 2-4 81mm or equivlent mortars can easily break infantry in woods or scattered trees and even the little brit 2" mortar is effective at forcing the enemy to keep their heads down and unlike towed guns mortars can be moved easily and redeployed with ease.

[Joachim]

Don't know about RL, but my mortars work fine if used in a combined arms context. They are no huge killers vs dispersed infantry in cover, esp the small 50mm, but provide suppression.

IIRC their HE load was usually lower than a comparable gun, so their blast is lower, too.

BTW: I expect 5000 Soviet grunts attacking my (4 Inf+1HW Coy) positions, and I guess my 150 81mm round will do some killing. but what I really count on is to have the first 2 FOs (at20% ammo) to stop the spearhead of the pincer, and 3 others (plus 10 105mm rounds) to come in 2 turns later when the pinned spearhead is joined by the mass and create some carnage but massive suppression allowing me to concentrate on the other pincer (given I win the armor battle, which is now about even, though I fully expcet the Soviet crews to throw rocks at me soon if they continue to waste their 20% ammo load at the given rate. Dumb AI.)

Read: You don't have to kill with mortars. Disrupting is enough.

Gruß

Joachim

[Beta1]

Very true. In one recent PBEM I had a platoon of brit paras holding the line against a company of germans infantry late in the game. The attackers were coming through a patch of wood so I concentrated all my remaining on board mortar fire (4 3" and 4 2") on the front edges of the wood while calling down a 3" off board strike as far inside the wood as possible with LOS. The pn board guys suppressed anyone at the front of the wood long enough for the off board stuff to come in and stopped the germans breaking through. As the enemy were concentrated in the wood and it was turn 27/30 I dropped all my remaining arty onto the woods, 2 turns of 4.2 and 4.5" fire and they surrended on turn 30. Infact he managed to rout 2/3rds of my defending platoon with a 150+mm barrage but the suppression from my mortars prevented him exploiting the gap. (3/4rs of the attacking company never made it out of the wood again)

Another case of mortars saved the day

[ng cavscout]

I couldn't disagree more. I always buy as many mortars as I can. Their ability to fire directed by a hidden HQ is very valuable. The effect they have on infantry in wooded areas is incredible. They are relatively cheap. They are death to guns and open topped AFV's (if you get lucky).

Some tips I have learned.

Use them indirectly, don't direct fire if you can help it.

Use them against concentrations of troops in wooded areas, or in the open.

Don't waste rounds by firing at one squad, the only single targets you should fire at are guns, shoot them at the woodline your enemy is reforming his infantry in for the final assault on your position.

Don't forget the larger mortars have smoke capability, use it to cover your movement and withdrawals.

[tar]

Yes, the on-board mortars are a great way to deal with anti-tank guns. That, and artillery, but I usually like to save the off-board support for troop concentrations rather than have it fire at single guns.

[PiggDogg]

Eddie & Guys,

You all have made many quite cogent points about mortars. Eddie, if you follow these guys' recommendations you will get much benefit from mortars.

Indeed, I will emphasize one point in mortar use that I have seen many people not utilize: "Use mortars in large batteries." :eek:

This means use 3 inch, 81s, & 82s in batteries of at least 4 and possibly 6 tube batteries. Also, use 1/2 inch & 50s in batteries of at least 6 and up to 8 tubes.

Many think that 1/2s and 50s are near worthless. They are right if one penny packets 1/2 or 50 mortars with one per platoon. However, if one uses 1/2s or 50s in batteries of 6 to 8, they will supress and disrupt any enemy infantry and probably destroy any gun.

Try the advise in this thread & your mortar use will improve greatly.

Cheers, Richard

[vbfg]

One of the best pieces of tactical advice I read on these forums concerned mortars, I think it came from JasonC but I'm not sure.

Use them to get the enemy heads down on a point target like, say, a MG or a gun of some kind. When the enemy unit is pinned you can switch mortar fire elsewhere but follow it up with MG fire of your own to keep the suppression going.

I've had mortars blow their entire ammo load on a gun before without killing it but they'll keep it supressed for the few turns they keep firing. Better to save your ammo IMO and use the HMG, which can often fire for close to the duration of the battle, to keep their heads down.

[JasonC]

Yep, I call it "pursuit by fire". The idea being the HE (from mortars, guns, or tanks) gets a given enemy to pin or panic or break, and then high ammo MGs (foot teams or vehicle mounted) "pursue".

Against men in cover, MGs can't inflict enough suppression to drive them to panic on their own. But they can suppress already pinned guys as fast as they can rally, and so "lock" them in their pin state. If already panicking, the target will often get up and run, leaving good cover in the process. That lets the MG really mess them up. All without requiring any additional minutes of fire from the HE chuckers.

As for the capabilities of the mortars, the 50s are light weapons and historically weren't very effective. They had about a 30m range probably error, and a round with less explosive power than the average hand grenade (well, about as good as a German one, not as good as e.g. a British Mills bomb). It is not too surprising that throwing hand grenades 30m away from somebody is not particularly effective, since that is about how far the average man can throw one.

In CM, you will typically see about 1/3 rounds land close enough to a point target to have an effect. Sometimes 1/2, if you have a good leader directing or good crew quality, or just get lucky. That typically means 4 small or 3 larger rounds (50-60, or 76-82).

4 50mm rounds aren't going to do anything more than pin somebody. So 50s should be used 2-3 at a time against the same target. That will suppress a point target just fine, which is what you typically need from these light mortars. There proper targets are guns, MG nests, and miscellaneous small teams (FOs, snipers, infantry AT, and HQs).

Smaller units take a bigger morale hit when they lose one guy, and guns can be abandoned and therefore taken out for good by morale breaks. Full squads aren't are good a target, because they are more resilient. Also there tend to be more of them, and just pinning one rarely helps much. Which is not true for a key MG or gun holding up an advance.

The Russian 50s are more useful than many of the others because they have a particularly large ammo load, about twice what others carry. US 60s are also decent because they have twice the punch. They still work best in pairs, though. Brit 2 inches are at least fast movers and they have no minimum range, but along with the German 50s lack hitting power and ammo depth.

The 76-82 varieties hit hard enough to be used solo against point targets. Those will typically break a unit and take out a man or two in minute of fire. A pair of them is often overkill but will get the job done in a single minute.

Trenches are effective cover against the light 50-60 variety, but the bigger 76-82s can hurt even men in trenches, provided their exact location is known. That tends to be the real hold up in using them - getting someone close enough for a full ID. Once you have that, it is usually not hard to get an HQ to a spot with LOS, and then in a minute or two your mortars will take out that point target.

You have to move them up to stay within command range of the spotting HQs. You will rarely get LOS to the best targets from back in your set up zone. I find it best to maneuver a whole "overwatch group" or heavy weapons team, like a platoon. This typically has 1 heavier or 2-3 light mortars, 1-2 HMGs, and an HQ - as the essentials. Optional, useful additions are a sniper, an FO, perhaps an ATR, and a jeep or halftrack (or two) to help reposition the slowest teams. (Note however that a jeep can't "lift" a Russian 82mm, as the 7 man crew is too big).

The idea is to have a ranged weapons "toolkit" that can provide the best counter to any particular enemy target faced. They only have to be able to handle one target at a time, but they must be able to deal with it effectively and rapidly, so they can switch their fire to the next.

I keep them 200m or so behind the forward infantry (and in cover obviously), which itself tends to be 100-200m from the nearest spotted enemy. That way range pretty much protects them from most ordinary small arms fire, while all their own weapons are effective.

You do not have to use the 4-8 mortar "grand batteries" others are talking about. Those are trying to perform a mission best accomplished by FOs. I suspect those recommending them prefer the mortar hordes because they can't plan their FO barrages particularly well, and need the near zero response time of the on maps.

Me, if I want to break a large infantry target I use heavier stuff than the on map mortars. The mortars are for point targets so small it would be a waste to hit them with a full barrage, and especially for guns and MGs currently engaging friendlies, that must be suppressed instantly to save threatened men.

One other thing about them is that they are not as effective against buildings as flat trajectory guns. Buildings provide good cover against near misses that don't actually strike the building. A 75-76mm on map gun will put round after round into the building and break anyone there, while most mortar rounds will miss outright. Mortars are best against targets in woods, because of treebursts.

I hope this helps.

[Freyland]

In a recent QB, I placed an 88 Flak in a foxhole, just behind a ridge. He took out 7 vehicles, while under fire, because between the angle of fire and possible the foxhole, no one could hit him (this pleased me greatly, since my 75mm pillbox was taken in out in 1 hit within the first 2 turns). However, a British 2 inch mortar started unloading on me, and the eighth round clearly landed smack in the fox hole, and my crew lost one member and abandoned the gun. I was starting to feel like the game would be won by that gun alone, until the mortars came.

Jonathan

[Nippy]

They are death to guns and open topped AFV's (if you get lucky).

Shosties4th learned this the hard way in our PBEM. He had some SU-76s lurking about in scattered tree. I had an On map 81mm mortar target the space in between two parked tanks. One turn and a great many tree bursts later both tanks were knocked out.

I do remember VT (Bursts above ground) ammo was really popular in CMBO for taking out half tracks.

On the flip side, early war armor can be taken out with light artillary even if buttoned up. The T-26 and BT-5/7 series dies very easily to 75mm and 76.2mm*. Then again, if the tank commander coughs too hard the tank brews up too.

*AI with Uber-Finn troops call a turn one strike on my mass of T-26s. The result wasn't pretty.

[Code13]

I have to agree with those of you that group you smaller on-map mortars into batteries.

This to me is the single most effective way of utilising these small but massivly flexible weapons.

The number of times I have broken up large attacks of infantry using even 2" motars in batteries is excellent, they can even work on digging out units in buildings if enough are used.

A battery of 3" mortars on a reverse slope spotted by an FO can control any part of the battlefield in thier range.

[eddie413]

Well guys, I certainly got some good advice, and I thank you all. I now "see" mortars in a better way. I failed to clarify in my original topic that I was mostly referring to the 60mm single mortar-teams. {The 81mm artillery has always been a big help}....Anyway, the 60mm mortar teams and the 2" british version now are used by me in a better way. Thanks again!....

[Tank Ace]

81mm spotter can stop inf assaults cold and smoke cover for inf attacks.

[McEvilly]

We employ them in the US Army in litle two gun mini batterys ( you get three witha '44 US rifle company). Hook them up w/ a company commander and turn them loose. Artillery massess by fire!

[Siege]

I defintely have to agree with the majority of the mortar tactics I have seen in this thread. After struggling to employ 60mm and other smaller mortars individually, I eventually started using them in a type of "Grand Battery" also (funny, I was using that name even before reading this thread. Damn Sci-Fi books). Normally the Mortars will either be on the back side of a hill, or in cover, using the highest rated command squad available as a spotter. The high command rating allows the mortars to be further from the spotter and also more distributed to lessen counter-battery damage.

If the terrain is good enough, also try to use them in conjunction with a number of HMG's. However I tend not to co-locate the MG's with the mortars to again try and limit damage from any counter-battery fire, and many times even draw fire away from the hidden mortars.

A recent meeting engagement was VERY successful with this tactic in CMBO, using a small battery of 3-60mm mortars, 1-82mm spotter and a half-dozen M1919's and .50 cal MG's on good hilltops. After catching two companies of infantry in the open with that much firepower simulatiously (the mortar barrage was amazing to watch), they lost composure and were unable to make any response to the suppression fire. As they regained cohesion in bits and pieces, my actual line infantry had very little trouble eliminating the sporadic squads that finally did advance.

If you are able to use them, TRP's can make a huge difference in the accuracy of any mortar fire, and speed up the wait for off-map fire too, so for the few points they cost the results are well worth it.

-Hans

-Hans

[xerxes]

For defensive purposes, onboard mortars and TRPs allow you to target totally obscured areas with extremely accurate fast response firepower. Any mortar that doesn't move can fire on any TRP without LOS to the TRP.

Ideally the most effective location of onboard mortars is lateral to expected enemy line of advance. Firing "sideways" allows the spread of the mortar rounds to hit multiple enemy squads. If you combine this with wire, well, no enemy infantry is going to make it across until you run out of mortar shells.