Artillery

[DRG]

dwmalesevich said:
Artillery in direct fire mode is much different than artillery in in-direct fire mode. So far the most effective AT weapons that I have seen are the 81mm Mortars which is BS. I've had more vehicles killed by 81 mortars than by direct fire AT weapons. I am a retired US Army Armored Platoon Sergeant who was also a Master Gunner for 16 years of my 21 years Active duty. I would also like to have a loader that can fire his machine gun and load the main gun at the same time. And any gunner who constantly fired his coax at the same time as the main gun would no longer be a gunner.

SFC Dave Malesevich
USA-Ret 19K4HA7

When I get comments like this I really wonder if everyone's playing the same game we playtested but when we do get reports like this the first thing we like to do is go back and retest the game based on the information we are given.

Since I have NO idea what side you are playing but will assume it's the US side I set up a desert advance by the Germans against a mixed US infantry , mortar and AT gun formation. Very heavy on the mortars because you reported them to be the primary tank killers and with a back up of AT guns. Admittedly this was in the desert in 1942 and the 37mm AT gun isn't the best but if the mortars do the job you say they do I should leave a trail of destruction with them.

After ending the first turn I had plenty of targets to fire at but I choose two armoured cars that had advanced further than the rest and were between 650 and 750 yards from my mortars with good visibility and a clear LOS. I started firing at them in an attempt to see how many shots it would take to knock them both out. These were "double" mortars so for every three shots showing available to a unit 6 rounds went towards the two targets.

14 individual mortar units were fired at those two armoured cars 14x3x2= 84 rounds went downrange towards those targets. I recorded 15 hits ( 17% ) with the net result of one destroyed AC and one disabled so I had one kill and one disablement from 2.4 % of the 84 shots fired.

It took only five shots from 800 yards to finish off the disabled AC with a 37mm AT gun.

Now..... maybe a 17% to-hit ratio for direct fire mortars against a vehicle at 750 yards in perfect visibility is too much ( any mortarmen out there ??? ) but I expended a lot of assets at the enemy for very little return using Mortars as AT guns. I reran the save game only this time I fired the 37 mm AT guns that were backing up the mortars at the two armoured cars. I had killed both AC's after firing a grand total of 7 shots ( that's 7 shots to kill two AC's not 7 per AC ) so I would say that it's "BS" that mortars are better AT guns than AT guns.

However, if you would like to provide us with a save game that demonstrates your contention we will be GLAD to look into it. We already know something is a bit off with the arty code and we think we may be on track to isolating it so if you can provide a save or better still a test sceanrio that proves your theory you will be helping everyone out. However the test *I* ran seems to prove otherwise

Don

UNLESS you were comparing indirect mortar fire to direct AT gun fire??? It's not clear from your report just which mode the mortars are the best "tank killers"