I know the discussion in game terms is closed, but I want to quote various elements of the Military Intelligence Division of the US War Department's Special Series No. 30, which covers Japanese Mortars and Grenade Dischargers. It is dated March, 1945.
It has a complete description of tactics, and having not seen the Japanese manuals or a translation of a Japanese description of tactics I have no reason to imagine this information was incorrect.
It notes that in the offensive, the grenade discharger squad was deployed to an infantry platoon, and the grenade discharger squad receives its orders directly from the platoon commander who essentially preplans all of their initial firing and targets. The initial bombardment is usually on whatever appears to be the enemies front line, and is not conduct from a static starting position, but rather from a position once on the move with the infantry platoon in the assault.
After the initial bombardment of visual targets, it says that discretion is left very much up to the GL squad leader, but that their role is still very much in the neutralization of heavy weapons or other dug in emplacements. The inference is that all the targets are visually aquired and fired upon, with no blind shooting and no command and control setup allowing for massed indirect fire on targets beyond the visual capacity of the firing unit. Though there is C&C to the platoon commander for massed technically indirect fire against certain visual targets.
Quote:
Likewise, if the Japanese squad leader discovers hostile automatic weapons or other important targets not designated in original fire plans, he places himself where he can observe the new target.
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Essentially, the squad leader acts as the FO for his unit in this case. In game terms it would be hard to separate this out unless each unit was made individual mortars, and then you would have to stick to tactical doctrine of only using the first unit to designate targets for the rest of the squad, and only when in visual contact with the intended target.
On the defensive, the weapon is only intended to be used, according to the pamphlet, on largely pre-registered segments of the line against visually acquired advancing infantry.
For game purposes, it seems that it being a "direct fire" weapon very much fits with the tactical offensive and defensive utilization of the system.