Soviet Rocket and Mortar Spotters

[Tigrii]

I am wondering what the downside of mortar spotters is. They are cheap, have adequate ammo, and can have some pretty respectable calibers (like 160mm). Also, the same thing applies to rockets, and they shoot off a ton of large caliber missiles at once. So what's the catch?

[offtaskagain]

Rockets are only worth your time for prep bombardments. Otherwise they have like 15 minute delays. Not sure about the mortars because I dont play the Soviets much.

[zukkov]

on the purchase screen,when you move your cursor over each arty spotter unit, look down at the bottom left of the screen. it will tell you what level they are set at. small/medium caliber mortars are usually at battalion level. most of the other stuff is at division level or higher. the higher the level, the longer the delay. as far as downside is concerned(other than delay), the larger caliber stuff usually has much less ammo. the downside of rockets is inaccuracy. the downside of large caliber mortars is they have less blast effect than similar sized gun artillery. that's offset somewhat by usually being available at a lower level than gun artillery, thus there's less delay.