On-Map Mortars = "Superunit" !?

[Pandur]

ok here we go, i played the demo a lot since it was released. i am still not sure if i buy or not, the game-play differences are not so big to me as i would have liked them to be.

anyways, game-play wise this release is far better then CMSF was at release and almost everything works together as you would expect it. i guess this is also a reason why this time the demo is released ahead of the game instead of after the game.

BUT, and there is a big BUT, the on-map sniper mortars. when they fire with spotter without LOS they behave as expected but as soon as they got LOS to a infantry unit they transform to sniper mortars, or so it seems!?

example is the closing the pocket scenario. played it several times as axis so far and found that the most deadly and dangerous unit the allies have in the scenario are the 2 on-map mortars firing directly with LOS to the target.

when i get to the very right side of the village and the mortars can spot a unit directly from the graveyard the unit they spot is a write off in less then a turn, sometimes half a turn.

even when the unit tries to run away the mortars track them(in this case through one or two hedgerows/bocage´s) and kill off the unit to the last man while they are running, with sniper like precision. at this point the map feels like a flat board instead of a map with lots of vegetation.

anyone else saw that or are my enemy mortars "special" !?

[LemoN]

Not seen anything like this yet, but then I didn't see mortars employed in a direct fire role either.

[Hiram Sedai]

using armor as spotters does rock in my hirsute opinion. I giggled and pooted as I am wont to do.

[Baneman]

That's what I was talking about in the "Spotting" thread :

Eg. 2 60mm mortar teams in the churchyard decide to drop some ordnance on my guys behind a hedge. We can see them, except, they keep vanishing and reappearing ( usually they vanish at the end of the replay, so direct targetting is impossible, which is just "aaargghhh !" ).

Now I can understand an infantry unit would be prone and so hard to spot, but mortar crews need to be at least partially upright, yet they were invisible often enough to decimate my guys without me being able to put down sufficient suppressive fire to prevent them.

Surely in a 1 v 1 firefight, the exposed mortar team should be the one taking most of the hurt ?

Not so sure about them tracking, since my guys decided not to run, but to shoot the mortar crew - boy, was that a mistake !

[Wiggum]

My own on-map mortars were most of the time not very accurate.

But yes, the AI got some real sniper hits on my guys with their own...

[dpabrams]

I love the 60mm mortar. German AT guns are helpless against them. Role up the scout's just shy of the hedgerow/ bocage. Slow crawl the scouts into the hedge/ bocage and spot the AT gun. Sneak in the 60mm and direct fire until said AT gun is dead. Usually takes 10-12 rounds for the desired effect. Best part is you can't spot those little 60mm firing. A true wonder weapon when in the employment of skilled mortar men. I think the only defemse would be to make the AT guns harder to spot. I learned off the get-go that AT guns are sometimes hidden in a gap in the bocage. Find that gap, scout it and you my pop an AT gun before he pops you.

The real kill killer that is hard to spot is the Panzerschrek. I have had scout teams 40 meters from Schrek's that fire 3 or 4 times from the heavy bocage and never get spotted.

[gunnergoz]

The 60's had a reputation of being dead on accurate in line of sight shooting, given a well trained and experienced crew. One thing I wonder about though - is wind tracked in the game? I know that small mortars in particular are susceptible to crosswinds and that can badly affect accuracy.

BTW I too had a mortar crew engage in a direct fire engagement with German infantry near the command post in that scenario. They killed some, but the infantry (about 100 yards away or so) finally did knock out the mortar crew by disabling 2 and killing one.

[dpabrams]

I try not to get closer than 300 meters with my 60mm snipers when doing dirty, close in direct fire. If you get spotted you get pasted! Problem is the little buggers fire all their ammo in 3 or 4 turns. I wish you could adjust the rate of fire.

[Lanzfeld]

I try not to get closer than 300 meters with my 60mm snipers when doing dirty, close in direct fire. If you get spotted you get pasted! Problem is the little buggers fire all their ammo in 3 or 4 turns. I wish you could adjust the rate of fire.

Target light will slow the fire rate of mortars.

[akd]

I try not to get closer than 300 meters with my 60mm snipers when doing dirty, close in direct fire. If you get spotted you get pasted! Problem is the little buggers fire all their ammo in 3 or 4 turns. I wish you could adjust the rate of fire.

Using "target light" will slow their rate of fire.

[Pandur]

i see others made similar experiences with on board mortars. in my specific case i thought a infantry squad will pin the mortar team pretty quick but this was not so.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

There is a story told by a German tanker in one of the Stackpole books, that a British mortar team was in the corner of a field, 30 yards from their positions, giving them hell for some time before they figured out where the Tommies were and put a stop to it.

[beatmasta]

When I served in the infantry we used 82mm mortars with direct LOS and even with very little training they where easy to get them very accurate so I don't think they are too accurate in the game.

[Pandur]

its not about their final accuracy, but the speed they set up into a completely different direction(like 90°+ off the old position) acquire a infantry target shooting on them and successfully destroy that target within a turn while being suspect to rifle and MG fire for the duration.

maybe i did a mistake naming them sniper mortar´s. another therm would be more fitting i think.

[Magpie_Oz]

using armor as spotters does rock in my hirsute opinion. I giggled and pooted as I am wont to do.

There you go with those hairy opinions again.

My tuppence worth is that as artillery causes the greatest number of infantry casualties, it seems right for an on board direct fire mortar to be particularly deadly.

[MikeyD]

thing I wonder about though - is wind tracked in the game?

I haven't actually tested this on mortars but in CMSF strong cross winds would play havoc with just about everything you could put into the air.

[Chek]

Me Grand Pappy and his brothers all WW2 veterans said the worst thing were the little mortars.You know they are close enough to see you,are almost impossible to see,can be quickly moved somewhere else and"ya never hear the f****n little buggers falling".

[argie]

I remember a day in the times of CMBO in which in the AAR, a British 2" mortar claimed a Panther kill (they had the tank unbuttoned, I suppose).

Until that happens again, I'll not call the on board mortars "super".

OTOH, I remember the complains on the CMBO Demo on the American 60mm being "long range bazookas", because they took any open topped vehicle they had in sight. It was somewhat tuned down in the final release.

[Faelwolf]

It would be worse in the Pacific theater, with those Japanese "knee" mortars I'd imagine.

[Magpie_Oz]

It would be worse in the Pacific theater, with those Japanese "knee" mortars I'd imagine.

That weapon is basically the same as the British light mortar

[Michael Emrys]

I remember a day in the times of CMBO in which in the AAR, a British 2" mortar claimed a Panther kill (they had the tank unbuttoned, I suppose).

I once had a German mortar shell drop into the hatch of my M5. Destroyed it of course. One in a million shot. Boy, was I pissed.

Michael

[LJFHutch]

I was playing busting the bocage as the US and was doing remarkably well with only a few casualties and half the map taken. Then of course the Germans managed to destroy my entire force using what I think were direct fire mortars. Well they didn't themselves destroy the whole force, but they certainly accounted for a lot of it.

[MikeyD]

By nature I'm a methodical player and that's definitely working against me. I spend 5-10 minutes carefully sending a scout team ahead, then turn around to find my main forced being mortared to oblivion! I've definitely started picking up the pace. Shifting my units positions even if there's no need to, just to present a moving target.

[Pandur]

I spend 5-10 minutes carefully sending a scout team ahead, then turn around to find my main forced being mortared to oblivion!

what you get for playing RT mode

no seriously, you dont watch for spotting rounds? if my men get mortared i at least can tell shortly before impact and can take measures against it, instead of shuffling everything around just because... .

however, i find arty spotting times pretty generous in the demo, playing iron. i was expecting CMSF syrian delays or worse, so this definitely surprised me a few times, which lead to casualties.

[StrykerPSG]

Gentlemen, I would like to offer up my real world experiences as a former 11C (Army Indirect Fire Infantry). I spent 13 years as an 11C, firing all systems from M224 60mm to the M-120/121 120mm guns. With the 60's we were always jokingly referred to as oversized grenade launchers, but can tell you, with the multi-option fuze, we were truly a God send to the supporting main effort, always within a few hundred meters of the supporting elements. Our only weakness is the number of available rounds, so we truly took much efforts to maximize our accuracies while in a garrison firing point.

There are two means for mortars to engage, direct lay and direct alignment. Typically, direct alignment allows you more cover and concealment, but less accurate as you are adjusting to a spotters corrections, one that hopefully knows what they're doing. Things to factor are angle of observer to target, elevation of target to gun line and observers experience. These are the majority of your missions.

Direct lay is a teams emergency mission. This is either a target of opportunity or suppress long enough to live to fight another day. In direct lay, the rounds are generally much more accurate, because the gunner has direct sight alignment and the engagement is generally under 1000 meters, therefore eliminating much of the guess work involved during a spotter involved mission. Because the gun and target are aligned, it usually just comes down to range estimation, which is far easier to eliminate and therefore able to put greater effects onto target much quicker. I would argue that the game portrays this mode quite well.

Arguably, the current set of 21 Century mortars are far differerent than when I was a squad leader or gunner, where we now utlize the 120mm far more than our 60's or 81's because of the bigger guns linkage to GPS and the mortar ballistic computers. Gone are the heady days of adjustment, now we have second round fire for effect.

Anyway, not wanting to regurgitate doctrine of then versus now, but feel the mortars are getting beat up a bit, unjustifiably. They are not sniper rifles, but they do have the capability to suppress and destroy quickly and can traverse a wide area of coverage rather quickly, just a matter of shifting the bipod onto the new direction of fire. Thanks BFC, I think you've done an outstanding job, not only with the CMSF series, but with your latest incarnation of WWII.

Matt