[jester]

Why does the mortar have to be just 75m? There is close, then there is danger close and then there is the enemy is overrunnng my position so I am dropping it even closer and hiding in the bottome of my hole and hope for the best. And yes that is something we would talk about when I was on a mortar team.

Also, if the badguys are within 100ms and closing well then you only need two men firing the get and the rest of the crew, if you have them can be better used laying down rifle fire because the FDC is no longer needed, the gunner can just direct lay the target, and use small elevation changes or even go to hand firing it while the second guy preps the ammo.

And here is something to also consider.

How long does it take a man to move 100m? If the enemy is that close then something bad has happened and something worse is about to happen. The mortar crew is not just within rifle fire, but also machinegun and shotgun fire. The effectiveness of their rounds will be eh, not that great, and the enemy will be on them in a matter of seconds or minutes at best unless you are in a well prepared position, or, there is a trenchline between you and them. I can only imagine the mortatr crew in a regulation mortar pit with ammo pit and connecting trench, as the members pop up to fire riflefire and a couple of its members continue to drop rounds, that actualy sounds terrifying.


Here is something else to consider,

Machineguns can be used in an indirect fire role where they are implimented so that the rounds end up giving plunging fire <damn its been so long I am unsure if thats the right term> but basicaly the arc is so tall and the angle is so steep they are almost falling down on an enemy in a deadspace or on a reverse slope or in a trench.

Something else to consider, a riflegrenade, they have more explosive than a round fired from a grenade launcher.

And the 60mm can be fired in the handheld mode as well, much like the Japanese "knee" mortar was.

And didn't the Germans and British have a smaller portable mortar or two, I think they were in the 50mm range both handheld similiar to the Japanese "Knee" mortar, and I think the Germans has a tiny 50mm mortar that had a metal stand as well, I recall seeing one in a photo of action in Eastern Europe.

But yeah, the explosive power between the two is pretty good, a few ounces of explosive verses about a pound more or less.


But then we also have defensive fire that is multi faceted, which should include indirect fire assets, automatic weapons, smalls arms and of course terrain, mines, wire and other denial weapons and methods and pre determined areas and zones of fire, points, targets limits blah blah blah, alot more that I have forgotten.