Mortars Against Hard(er) Targets?

[PzTwt]

BTW, the most effective way to use the small 'meatball chuckers' - especially the crap British ones with limited ammo - is to get them all together under the leadership of your best Coy HQ (circumstances permitting).

Concentrated fire on the same target from 3 or more of these small caliber weapons can throw up some very unexpected results. Get half-a-dozen together and it can be as effective as low-grade OBA, especially with the US or Russian MTRs.

Keep them out of sight and get those lovely chaps in the HQ to do the donkey work of spotting for them and you're in business.

OK, I've never managed to KO a Tiger using this method, but I've taken out many a troublesome PzIII, not to mention numerous entrenched arty pieces...

[Leopard_2]

I started some googling on the subject, looking for references of mortars vs. tanks. I found some "funny" stuff at Road Warriors, about Iraq:

Perez said the T-55 is an old model Soviet-era tank and no match for the M1.

The same goes for the later model T-72, which the Marines expect to encounter in Baghdad.

"This tank can get hit by a 500-pound bomb, and the crew won't necessarily get hurt," said Perez.

Now that's what I call an optimist. :-D Sorry, but I seriously doubt that. A WWII tank withstanding a mortar round is one thing, but this... let's just hope it never gets field-tested.

The Iraqi tank crews who face the M1, he said, are either very gutsy or are true believers in their cause.

Or have studied history and know that the best tank isn't impervious to a side or rear shot... and were about as optimistic about their training and equipment as the US tank driver believing in his chances vs. a quarter-ton bomb...

[Cannon-fodder]

I think that the only realistic purpose for using mortars against non-open top tanks is getting them to take cover. As for open tops, I suppose you could try, but it seems a bit pointless to me, unless you really have no other AT assets. There's a reason for Panzers, Zooks and the like:D

Leopard_2, I think that the US Tankers have been fed too much propaganda:D Having said that, it all depends on what the bomb is made of... I don't think fertiliser would do the trick;)

As for the tanks being vulnerable from the side and rear, I really don't think this is an issue. As far as I know, Iraqis would be relying on street fighting, geurilla warfare tactics - no targeting of tanks. If we look at cases such as Isreal, I can't think of a single case where a tank has been destroyed by Palestinian forces. It may have happened, but certainly its very rare... Has anyone else heard of such a case?

[flamingknives]

Yes. Sufficiently large IEDs have definately destroyed IDF tanks in the Occupied Territories.

For a comparitive idea, the UK barmine has been known to flip Chieftain tanks onto their backs.

[Dawg Bonz]

What are the typical 'hang times' for mortar rounds?

Playing a QB in the open desert and I got @ 9" 'hang time' = time till impact, on a 3" mortar at @ 400 meters. Is that about right?

What are the typical sizes of the Iraqi mortars now in use?

On TV they look very large = taller than a man.

[Cabe Booth]

Old thread I know, but....

Panther killed by 105mm US artillery (off map) direct top hit. turn prior to this tank CO was killed/injured by tree burst. just thought i would share.

[JasonC]

HE vs. armor is extremely inefficient in real life. It is too easy in game, but still not really efficient.

In game, I've killed Panzer IVs with 81mm mortar FOs getting a top hit. A large target helped (meaning multiple vehicles in the impact area over the course of the barrage, which adjusted a time or two).

150mm and large artillery has a solid chance, in game, of getting immobilizations or gun damage against just about any class of tank. Very near hits can KO. The probability of those depends heavily on exact alignment of the targeting point with the tank, which is it easy to achieve only with a TRP. Normally, slight movements by the tank along with the delay from adjusts prevent very close targeting alignment and reduce the chances of direct hits to low levels.

200mm and larger artillery has a significantly better chance of full KOs than 150mm.

105mm caliber stuff has so low a chance of damage or kills that it will not repay the cost to fire them at tanks, unless you are also hitting infantry stationed right with the tanks.

81mm have the best coverage and have a decent chance of hurting open topped stuff, and are cheap as FOs go. To pay on average you really need multiple vehicles in the impact area, though.

On map 81s in game can kill fully topped thin armor, but not Tigers in my experience. It is usually a waste of the firepower, though. Consider it a desparation form of AT, if you have nothing better.

In real life, log bunkers are specifically constructed to resist a direct top hit from a 105mm shell, but nothing larger. This takes 2 layers of logs set crosswise and about 2 feet of earth or sandbags, but every modern army since WW I has known the requirements and acted on them. A log bunker is not a wooden shack or woodpile. The logs are structural supports for the sandbag or packed earth walls.

In real life rather than in game, indirect artillery fire was commonly employed to break up tank attacks. It operated mostly by defeating combined arms, secondarily by inflicting minor damage to some of the vehicles. The amount of shells used and the calibers were quite large, and the direct effects quite limited.

Occasionally mass 105mm barrages killed vanilla Panzers by direct hits, but we are talking handfuls in battalion sized targets fired at by entire div arty parks for a couple of hours, not 4 guns for 4 minutes at one or two tanks.

More often the productive artillery weapons were 155mm caliber, fired on the order of 1000 shells all told, and damaged on the order of 10 vehicles. The typical outcome was immobilization through track damage, with a few full KOs. The most common cause of a full KO is igniting an engine fire with a rear deck hit - the fire then forces abandonment of the tank.

Being in a serious artillery barrage even in a buttoned fully topped tank was not fun, and larger tank formations broke up or withdrew voluntarily when hit by massed indirect artillery fire. It was not sensible to remain under it and risk continued damage. The local retreat or force dispersion used by the tanks to deal with the arty, typically also neutralized their immediate offensive threat. Basically they lost a few and backed off, to try elsewhere or when it wasn't raining 100 lb shells.

Stripping infantry and this "induced voluntary withdrawal" were the main tactical effects of massed indirect HE on armor attacks. Not direct full KOs in any significant numbers.

As for mortars, I know of not a single case in which a serious armor attack was dealt with by defending medium or light mortar fire, successfully. Occasionally I've read of a tank in full defilade being "flushed" by medium mortar fire, not damaged but induced to change positions voluntarily. But actually killing armor with on or off map mortars seems to be pure "gamey", with no real historical cases to support it.

Modern 120mm mortars with smart ammunition and HEAT warheads are potentially highly effective AT weapons. But even to date this has remained pure theory. The weapons have been developed, but nobody has actually broken up a battalion-scale tank attack inflicting numerous real kills using even these, though they exist and have the technical ability to do it.

[Nemesis Lead]

I generally only fire mortars at infantry/guns and even then prefer to fire at infantry in trees.

I have killed halftracks and even armor in desperation, but don't consider this efficient. There are much better tools for the job.

One exception....in CMAK, on-map 3-inch mortars are actually pretty good against log bunkers (not sure about others). I once played Spears and had no armor. He confronted me with a series of log bunkers and I killed them with British 3 inch mortars.

Walpurgis makes a good point about splash damage on concrete bunkers in CMAK, but this is really more the purview of weapons with blast values of 49 and up.

[Cabe Booth]

Just happened again, unfortunately. this time to one of mine.

Pz IVj top hit and killed.....My HQ unit too.....

[Bluesman]

Killed an M-24 Chafee with a 120mm mortar near-miss; landed just behind; fragged the bastard out.

Lucky hit; I wasn't shooting at the tank, and it was the first shot, the 'spotting' round.

[BrianL]

To add to JasonC, HE in real life is efficient at blowing off antennas. Bye-bye radio comms – at least until a crewman gets out and replaces the antenna. “Let’s see, now where did we stow that spare…”