light mortrars

[Mobhack]

All observers (including coy HQ and platoon leaders) can call in any indirect artillery that the force possesses. FOOs just do it faster. All SP FOOs are AOP/MOP/Air/NGFS joint fire teams.

All on-map arty has less delay than off-map arty. That is the ONLY differentiation in artillery types in the game (and we added that - in the original game off-map was as quick as on-map).

Now if we made artillery that was part of a company's formation hierarchy even faster to call in:
- Players would only buy companies with integral mortars/light guns
- And/or players would cross-attach artillery batteries (on or off-map) to rifle etc coy HQS
- If we made observers part of a coy faster - players would ditto x-attach FOOS to coys

And then all human players would get the superfast calls. Since SP does not limit the FOO to fires onto enemy that he knows about, then the players would use their "Gods eye view" of the battlefield to map fire this new superfast arty all over the map in map fires on stuff that B company HQ would in reality know zilch about.

Thus the AI and any PBEM player would find their units followed around by a constant drizzle of low delay artillery wherever they were on the map. Fun - not!. The artillery delays in the game are there to limit the player's God View of the battlefield by simulating the chain of command to call on fires, somewhat.

The AI of course would know nothing of this little party trick, and get even more disadvantaged.

In short - play balance is why the artillery is as it is.

Now, if you really want some sort of insta-bang for your company 60mm or similar mortars then the Z-fire feature probably does what you are looking for already. Simply Z-fire some hex nearby to a unit that you the player-as-all-seeing-God knows about and the scatter may well hit it.