Platoon mortar

[Gen. J-sun]

How aggressively did mortar teams behave in the field, it seems that the 60s are distributed as a platoon weapon. Were they left bag 100m firing at HQ discretion or did they push with the troops and use direct fire more often?

[YankeeDog]

I think it would be very hard to come up with more than a SWAG as to percentages of which type of deployment was used more often, but I can tell you that both techniques are specifically described in the U.S. Infantry training manuals of the period, so either way was an "accepted" tactic from a doctrinal standpoint.

My personal SWAG its that which you'd see when would probably follow fairly common sense rules -- distributing the light mortars amongst the platoons was probably more common in fluid, move-to-contact situations, while deploying the mortars as a group in battery was probably more common on the defense and in prepared attacks on known positions.

[Michael Emrys]

My personal SWAG its that which you'd see when would probably follow fairly common sense rules -- distributing the light mortars amongst the platoons was probably more common in fluid, move-to-contact situations, while deploying the mortars as a group in battery was probably more common on the defense and in prepared attacks on known positions.

This. And my own readings would suggest—although not conclusively—that more often than not they were deployed very close behind the forward troops and used in a direct fire mode.

The 81 mm mortars though were pretty strictly held in one group by battalion and used for on-call fire.

Michael