Mortars are cartoonishly short-range

[mountainmike406]

I tried a skirmish to experiment with massed mortar barrages. The mortars could barely fire half the distance of no man's land. IRL, a stoke's mortar could fire 750 yards, with a max range of 800.

I should be at least able to hit the other guy's front trenches.

[Vuld_Edone]

You want the weapon that fires constantly, accurately and at zero supply cost to also have the range of a small artillery?
Welp... time to mod.

[mountainmike406]

Originally posted by Vuld_Edone:

You want the weapon that fires constantly, accurately and at zero supply cost to also have the range of a small artillery?
Welp... time to mod.

I wrote another post on why maps need to be taller/more strategic depth. Mortars should not have the range of small artillery, but they should be able to shoot more than 600 yards.

And yes, massed mortars is a thing- much cheaper than artillery for stacking up bodies, even if it can't cut wire or collapse trenches.

[brickvapie]

I can agree, but on point mortars don't simply exists yet. Sure, they're cheap to produce, easy to im-place, and easy to man, but mortars aren't accurate as hell yet. Their rounds were originally made to be incredibly large and incredibly explosive-y to just actually hit something. Also, Trench Mortars were originally created to launch explosive at im-placed infantry in opposing trenches.

This should change until aroudn 1917, when we get the first example of field-mounted mortars.

[Yuithgf]

Gonna put this here, irl machine guns had a muuuuuuuuuuuuuuch longer range than mortars.

[mountainmike406]

Originally posted by Yuithgf:

Gonna put this here, irl machine guns had a muuuuuuuuuuuuuuch longer range than mortars.

Machine guns had longer range in direct-fire mode, whereas using them for indirect fire had a comparable range limitation.

[Yuithgf]

I think you mean the opposite, given MG indirect fire was used on targets several kilometers away

[mountainmike406]

Originally posted by Yuithgf:

I think you mean the opposite, given MG indirect fire was used on targets several kilometers away

Individual machine guns engaged at less than a kilometer. MG indirect fire was only ever made by batteries- at such long ranges, the beaten zone of a single gun was too spread out to be more than stray rounds. So if you want this mechanic, it would have to be tied to teching up MGs to be batteries, rather than single guns.

[Yuithgf]

Fair enough, but a singular MG is described in the manual i got as very effective in direct fire up to 800 or 1000 meters, which is about equal with most mortars (7.58 minen, 58 etc) but noticeably more than many others (granatenwerfer, stokes, brandt...)

I say how about we meet in the middle and agree both could use more range. And imo a proper rework, mortars had special shell types too...

[mountainmike406]

Originally posted by Yuithgf:

Fair enough, but a singular MG is described in the manual i got as very effective in direct fire up to 800 or 1000 meters, which is about equal with most mortars (7.58 minen, 58 etc) but noticeably more than many others (granatenwerfer, stokes, brandt...)

I say how about we meet in the middle and agree both could use more range. And imo a proper rework, mortars had special shell types too...

Yes. And the maps need to be taller. :)