On mortars out of contact

[Dean Robb]

Found something interesting last night. I had upgraded my 50mm mortar to an 81mm after the previous battle. The 50mm (original core purchase) was *always* out of contact. After the upgrade, the 81mm was ALSO out of contact for the entire battle. By chance, I clicked on the artillery eye and happened to notice that the mortar *had no radio*!

Well, that would certainly account for it's being out of radio contact, all right! After that battle, I changed it to an 81mm again (hoping to reset it's stats) and that worked...it had a radio and worked quite nicely in the subsequent fights.

Soooo...that's something to look at...maybe some of the mortar units are mis-set and don't have a radio; or that flag is somehow being mis/re-set in the code?

[Charles22]

Dean: The 50mm mortar is all but useless anyway, as it's range is only 10. In my general approach to dealing with infantry, the enemy almost never get within that 10 range anyway. With such a limited range, for that unit anyway, I don't know why anyone would place it out of the contact with the HQ. Seems it does a pretty good job of direct-fire though.

[Voriax]

Originally posted by Charles22:
Dean: The 50mm mortar is all but useless anyway, as it's range is only 10. In my general approach to dealing with infantry, the enemy almost never get within that 10 range anyway. With such a limited range, for that unit anyway, I don't know why anyone would place it out of the contact with the HQ. Seems it does a pretty good job of direct-fire though.

The main purpose of those 50mm mortars was in any case to lay smoke and mark targets, and the He round was about as effective as hand grenade so it's useless to expect any brilliant performance out of them

Voriax

[warhead]

I read something in the manual about on-board mortars,which I suppose are always on-board. Anyhow, apparently mortar fire can only be directed by THAT platoon leader, and I guess 50mm mortars are always part of a platton, while 81MM+ can be independant. So if you have 50mm you have to use their platoon leader to direct,while 81mm+ can use their platoon leader and/or another platoon leader if they have radios. Confusing isn't it? I use the "0" unit of an 81mm unit to direct its fire, and I have good success regardless of spotting stance, and I usually run these units out of ammo pronto because they are firing frequently (i.e. every turn). You can get a lot of dedicated fire from a mortar if you use its "0" unit.

[McGib]

I had the same experience with my 50mm's and then the 81mm I upgraded too. So after the next battle I upgraded again to 75mm FH. End of problem

[jsaurman]

I think all units now have a random chance to have a radio or not. If they don't have a radio they have to be within three hexes to maintain a "contact" link with their commander.

I think all units can be this way, tanks, etc. The trouble is just that for some tasks (like indirect fire) a command link is an absolute necessity, so you don't notice the missing radio unless you run into a situation like that.