How a mortar works?

[Legbreaker]

Assume the mortar is located on a boat and travelling through this sort of environment in predawn without sonar equipment to prevent grounding.
The boat would need to make sudden turns and stops without more than a few seconds warning.
The mortar crew also cannot see the target area although do have a general idea of it's location (as they should anyway).
Only a handful of rounds are available but an FO is on hand with an unobstructed view of the target area.

Given those details, how likely is it for even one round to strike the target zone?

[jester]

Like I said, all the guncrew needs is distance and direction, then it is up to their data, they can dial in the gun and make sure it is dialed or sighted right. After that it is up to the winds, the gunsite being half a mil off or even a quarter or even the recoil of the gun as it fires as well as the round how well it leaves the barrel, how heavy, how well balanced how old, the charges did they burn right those are all some of the factors that can cause the unknown to happen.

But, they can do everything on their end, get it sighted in and the direction and make sure the data is right on their end. I am figuring they will aim for point X and firing from a moving target going at about 6 knotts they may hit target X plus 30m in the direction they are traveling, they may be a little closer, it depends on how fast their guncrew is. And then the rocking of the vessel from recoil may cause a checkerboard pattern of impacts, firing on the uproll the roads go inland and on the down they land closer, which may be cool since you could cover the target area nicely depending on the size of the round.

As for being common, they do the math for modern naval gunnery so it can be done, it just takes a good amount of math.

Remember, a mortar is not a point target weapon, can you hit the target directly SURE! I have done it many many times back in the day. But it is an area target weapon so if the round lands within the casualty radius area then it is considered a hit.