Mortars and HQs

[Lee_DiSantis]

Hey, I've heard everyone talk about using HQs as a way to spot for mortars, but I have no idea how to do it...could someone let me know? I think it would make my play a bit more effective (since now whenever I have mortars they just sort of sit there and gaze at each other).

[Auggy]

Have them in C&C and whatever your HQ can see you can shoot at. Use the los tool to help. It is only area target so you can't shoot at a specified unit.

[Austrian Strategist]

Given that radios did exist, aren´t the limits of what on-map mortars can fire at a bit unrealistic?

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Lee_DiSantis:

Hey, I've heard everyone talk about using HQs as a way to spot for mortars, but I have no idea how to do it...could someone let me know? I think it would make my play a bit more effective (since now whenever I have mortars they just sort of sit there and gaze at each other).

The benefit is that your HQ unit (who is *commanding* some mortar teams) can have his mortars fire at a target that only the HQ is exposed to- this effectively prevented the enemy from using their own direct fire to kill/suppress your mortars.

Direct mortar fire is usually more accurate, but the danger of accurate return fire exists. Indirect mortar fire is best when your mortars are commanded by an HQ with 1 or 2 lightning bolt "combat" bonuses...with those you can even take out open topped AFV with some ease.

One 'cheat' in CM is that you can put your mortars right behind a house and they'll still fire; in real life, the house would block your outgoing shots.

I like to use mortars on the enemy's front line troops (esp. on a med/large hills map), b/c otherwise they can retreat to where my HQ/mortar teams don't have LOS.

On defense, you can buy TRPs and have your mortars shoot at them even in neither they or a commanding HQ unit have LOS. This only works as long as you don't move the mortars; movement negates this feature.

The best way I've seen to have a bunch (say 8 or some big #) or mortars fire indirectly is to double-click the HQ (activating all his mortars), and have him target a spot, then un-target ONLY the HQ; the mortars will remain targeted.

S.M.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Austrian Strategist:

Given that radios did exist, aren´t the limits of what on-map mortars can fire at a bit unrealistic?

There are grogs out there with a much better understanding of the details of Artillery paractice than I, but my understanding of things is that the answer to your question is a qualified no.

first of all, radios on the WWII battlefield were not as common as you might think. I don't know the details of what units had radios in what army, but it certainly wasn't true that every squad, or even every platoon, had a radio. I think in the U.S. forces, it was more like every Company had a radio. Until CM can deal with the whole relative spotting issue and actually track what units have radios and who they are in communication with, just assuming that every CO unit on the battlefield can communicate with every mortar on the field is very unrealistic.

Second, consider the problem of a mortar team that has just moved into a new position trying to communicate by radio an infantry units a ways ahead of it (presumably also on the move). How are the two going communicate range and bearing information?? The unit calling for fire can't just say, "Fire at the large farmhouse in the northermost corner of the village" because the mortar can't see said farmhouse, or we'd have Direct Fire (i.e., fire with LOS), which CM does model for on-board mortars.

Targeting information must therefore be communicated in terms of range (how far from the mortar to the target) and bearing (in what compass direction (usually in degrees) does the target lie in relation to the mortar).

For batteries of guns (what CM models as "Off-Board Artillery), the location of Artillery batteries (guns or mortars) was carefully surveyed, and then artillery FOs carried maps with a grid overlay so they could give the battery the precise location of the target. With this information known, determining range and bearing was simple trigonometry. For truly accurate fire by long range guns, this information then had to be adjusted for wind, barometric pressure, and other factors. Even with this kind of careful caluculation, a few adjustments were usually still needed after the the first few rounds were fired (i.e., spotting rounds).

For small mortars, range and bearing are usually done by simple observation by the mortar crew themselves. Adjustments are then made by firing off a couple of rounds and seeing how close they get, and then adjusting by rule of thumb.

This is fine as long as the mortar unit can see the target.

If you have a CO unit spotting for the mortar that is reasonably close to the mortar (i.e., in command range) so that communication is easy and range and bearing to target aren't very different for the CO and the Mortar, things still go pretty well.

Now imagine that the spotting unit is a fair distance away, but still in radio contact with the mortar. How do you figure out the mortar's range and bearing to the target? High-school trigonometry will get you there if you know range and bearing between the spotter and the target and between the spotter and the mortar, but now the mortar's location has not been carefully surveyed, and the forward CO's location certainly hasn't been. As with any mathmatical calculation, the GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) rule applies - without precise information as to location of the spotter and the mortar, the fire is going to be wildly inaccurate.

Of course, you could just take a wild guess, fire a round off and then keep correcting until the rounds start falling reasonably close to the target. Unfortunately, given that On-board mortars carry a pretty small ammo load, you'd probably fire of a good part of your ammo before you got anywhere near the target - not a good tactic.

Now for a defending player in CM, there is a possibilty that the location of an on-board mortar would have been more carefully surveyed ahead of time so that likely targets could be fired on without LOS. CM models this by allowing On-Board mortars to fire on TRPs so long as they do not move from their initial location.

I hope that clarifies things for you. Some grog will probably come by soon and explain where I've gotten things wrong.

Cheers,

YD

[Austrian Strategist]

Originally posted by YankeeDog:

I hope that clarifies things for you. Some grog will probably come by soon and explain where I've gotten things wrong.

Your explanation makes a lot of sense; I´m sold.

[CMsoldier]

in simple terms....

make sure the HQ has good line of sight and is in cammand of a mortar...

[Michael Emrys]

I think YankeeDog has it about right.

The only amendment I would make is that so far as I know, the American army, and the British army in the period covered by CM:BO, were supplied with radios down to the platoon level, but they weren't always reliable and I won't guarantee that they always kept them. I don't know about the Germans, but I suspect they normally lacked radios below the company level.

Individual mortar teams, so far as I know, did not have radios, so they had to have spotter nearby who could convey information by voice, hand signals, etc. I think in fact CM is quite generous in allowing the spotter to be as distant as it is. Actually, I think it was usually a member of the crew who most often did the spotting after taking a position near the mortar that provided LOS, though they would be firing at targets requested by a leader.

Michael

[ June 04, 2002, 06:17 AM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]