Forum

Light mortars basically fall into two categories. There are those fired by weapon teams, mostly around 60 mm in caliber, which don't differ in use and accuracy much from larger caliber mortars. And then there are what's often called "commando mortars" used by only a single soldier. The British used the latter for a long time, even after grenade launchers became available. Clear pros of these 51 mm mortars were there range, when compared to single-gunner grenade launchers, and accuracy. US 40 mm grenade launchers, like the M79, weren't really accurate, whereas the British felt that especially in close-quarter battles, their mortars offered enough accuracy to be used. Also, in urban areas, a mortar can shoot over buildings, grenade launchers are line-of-sight only.

The distinction between typical 60mm and 51mm "light mortars" is a light year wide.

60mm mortars are usually "real" mortars, in that they are crew served, stand on a bipod, have sights — true indirect fire weapons. (Although there are several 60mm "Commando" or "handheld" mortars, too — "handheld" in the sense that the bipod is substituted with the operator's hand; the baseplate still being planted on the ground.)

The 51mm mortars (or, more generically, "handheld mortars", calibre notwithstanding) are, I strongly feel, most useful to lob illumination and smoke. Their usefulness in firing HE shells is, compared to what their "true" 60mm light mortar brethren can accomplish, pretty limited — although there is no arguing with their simplicity, low weight, and low cost, of course.

I have difficulty believing an indirect, sightless handheld mortar is more accurate than e.g. an M79 against a target that the M79 can engage with direct fire. If the M79 is forced to fire indirectly, sure — marginally — but that's not what it's primarily built for anyway.
The big difference is of course the mortar's ability to engage targets in deep defilade, which any other weapon has difficulty doing.

So apologies, but does this mean you can still do corrections during indirect fire with a GL just so long as you have a spotter calling them in? You just can't do them during direct fire?

Also, that kind of begs the question - howitzers and mortars can technically be fired directly as well. Can they do corrections during direct fire, due to the fact that they have separate aiming tools than standard direct fire weapons?

So apologies, but does this mean you can still do corrections during indirect fire with a GL just so long as you have a spotter calling them in? You just can't do them during direct fire?

Also, that kind of begs the question - howitzers and mortars can technically be fired directly as well. Can they do corrections during direct fire, due to the fact that they have separate aiming tools than standard direct fire weapons?

The guys are showing off a little bit with their IRL knowledge about heavy weapons, but if we go to the game and the quite straight forward rules then:
* You can do corrections with mortars and howitzers.
* Grenade launchers, mortars and howitzers are capable of indirect fire.

Sure, there might be exceptions to this and a group have vast knowledge of weapons and weapon system IRL, then you can of course use that, if you don't, then the RAW works fine.

So apologies, but does this mean you can still do corrections during indirect fire with a GL just so long as you have a spotter calling them in? You just can't do them during direct fire?

Also, that kind of begs the question - howitzers and mortars can technically be fired directly as well. Can they do corrections during direct fire, due to the fact that they have separate aiming tools than standard direct fire weapons?

The guys are showing off a little bit with their IRL knowledge about heavy weapons, but if we go to the game and the quite straight forward rules then:
* You can do corrections with mortars and howitzers.
* Grenade launchers, mortars and howitzers are capable of indirect fire.

Sure, there might be exceptions to this and a group have vast knowledge of weapons and weapon system IRL, then you can of course use that, if you don't, then the RAW works fine.

Apologies - I promise I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I'm actually just trying to clarify the RAW as much as possible. For context, I'm building a series of referee aids that will hopefully allow new refs to more easily understand the actual rules of the game as written, so everyone's personal house rules and real-life experiences are a little irrelevant to my purposes. As a result, this work requires a certain amount of deconstruction of the reasoning behind specific rule/mechanic decisions made by the authors.

So in the section on Corrections, it's very clear that mortars and howitzers can do corrections - GLs are simply not mentioned here at all. In the next section on Indirect fire however, the book specifically mentions that GLs, mortars, and howitzers are all capable of indirect fire. It says that in order to do indirect fire, you need a spotter. It further goes on to talk about the spotter having the ability to call in corrections (as above), but doesn't appear to delineate between GLs and the artillery in this section at all, which IMO (and in the opinions of other refs on the discord) kind of implies that GLs are capable of corrections so long as a spotter calls them in. So I'm just trying to understand clearly whether the intent of the rules is that GLs can do corrections or not during indirect fire, assuming they have a spotter calling them in.

Mortars and howitzers have bipods or some sort of carriage that they are fired from, this enables you to adjust your aim (do corrections). A typical grenade launcher usually don't have that. An M203 Grenade Launcher for example can most often be found under an M16 or M4, so it is a hand-held weapon. A grenade launcher (GL on the weapon lists) can be used in an arc which means you an shoot over things, so that is the reason you can use it for indirect fire (mortars and howitzers are normally used that way).

So you're saying that a GL cannot gain the benefit of corrections from a spotter when being fired indirectly? Okay that's good to know. Thank you. I'll adjust my diagrams accordingly.

So you're saying that a GL cannot gain the benefit of corrections from a spotter when being fired indirectly? Okay that's good to know. Thank you. I'll adjust my diagrams accordingly.

That is what the rules say.

So you're saying that a GL cannot gain the benefit of corrections from a spotter when being fired indirectly? Okay that's good to know. Thank you. I'll adjust my diagrams accordingly.

That is what the rules say.

And that’s also what makes the most sense. Not 100% correct perhaps, but given the degree of abstraction in the game, it’s what makes the most sense.

As for “showing off” or not — I am sure we can all agree that on some level, the rules are supposed to, if not actually simulate, then at the very least represent an IRL phenomenon or process?
Therefore, surely underpinning rules interpretations with discussions on the reality the rules try to model must seem highly relevant? And should those discussions be conducted from a level of experience and/or insight exceeding that from which the rules were written — as so clearly is the case here — surely that can only add value to the conclusions?

If characters train it enough and a grenade launcher (or UGL with a rifle) is fitted with a bi-pod, then certainly, you could use it for indirect fire. But this would necessitate for firing tables to be calculated so a gunner knows what angle corresponds to which range. Also, reloading would have to work without lifting the launcher from its three points of support, otherwise the zeroing has to be redone completely.

So this is a lot of effort to make a 40 mm weapon a proper "mortar" according to the rules and you'd need around 50-100 shots for baseline zeroing. It's just not worth the effort, I guess.