Airborne light mortars in direct fire mode.

[hm_stanley]

How useful are they?

Also, is it smarter to throw all mortars under the company hq and just squat them somewhere and call in fire? I'm curious what others think, since I have no experience with light mortars in direct fire following the platoon.

[Wego McPbem]

I'd say they're quite useful. They're quick to deploy and target, very accurate and can wipe out a single squad\mg\atg pretty quickly. Obviously theres the risk of exposing them to fire when used like this though and theres no option for linear\area fire targeting.

In the devils descent campaign I liked to take a couple along with platoons and leave a couple sat back somewhere where the fire can be called in remotely. That way I had the option of both methods when I needed it.

[Juju]

Yep, what Wego said. In CMx1 I always did what you described, as they were fairly useless otherwise.

But in CM:BN I only ever use them in direct fire mode. So far their usefulness totally outweighs the risk of exposure to enemy fire. As long as you don't send them out unsupported, that is. As a rule, in this game, I find it far more important to keep my HQ's out of harms way, anyway.

Actually, the way I use them I'm a little surprised how few casualties they suffer at all. I must be extremely lucky, because so far I don't think I've finished a scenario with a team suffering more than one casualty and one light wound.

[Juju]

Hmm. Not allowed to edit, eh?

Edit: I should probably add that so far I've pretty much only played on bocage heavy maps. I'm not at all sure I'd use them the same way in any other cover than bocage.

[LemuelG]

I'm all about the direct-firing light mortars, bring em in after you've got fire superiority and deliver the coup de grace from an angle which those damn hedges can't defend. Waiting X minutes wont do.