With squads getting unique structures that fit with their unique theme, and mortar squads often being deemed “less effective than artillery squads”, I would like to suggest adding in MORTAR PIT constructions.
Essentially, it is a construction that makes use of majority of the squad, rather than just the player.
It consists of 2 parts:
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The mortar pit, which is surrounded with sandbags, and fits 2 mortarmen.
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The spotter tower, which is a medium height wooden tower, similar to the towers seen around the maps already, in which the player can use binoculars to make and select pings for the mortar crew to fire on.
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They would be part of the same “structure” but would be separated by a few meters. This construction would only be able to be placed in areas with enough space, making it more difficult to conceal. (As part of the balancing reasons.)
How it functions:
Upon “entering” the structure, there are 3 positions (similar to seats in a tank).
- Spotter
- Mortar 1
- Mortar 2
-The player can access any position so long as it is filled.
-The mortar positions can ONLY be filled with mortarmen, and they use whatever mortar they are equipped with.
-The spotter position can be filled with any type of soldier.
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Ammunition for the mortars feeds out like an AT field gun or AA gun do. So it can be refilled by an engineer.
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This means that rather than having to mess with building ammo boxes, refilling ammo, and retargeting each time, they can lay down much more fire uninterrupted.
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The spotter uses a pair of binoculars and targets the mortars through the ping system. This means that anything they have line-of-sight to, they can target, but also can target pings set by teammates. Pings still show distance like they do for mortars, however, if the range exceeds that which is possible for the mortars, the number will appear crossed out.
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Switching to the mortarmen, you can manually target like you already do. When you fire with one, the other will attempt to hit close to where you are firing, allowing for more coverage of that area.
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Additionally, the mortarmen will stay with the selected ammo type that you choose for them to fire, unless overridden by a command from the spotter, which would be similar to switching tank ammo. Meaning you could potentially fire both smoke and HE simultaneously.
COUNTERING the Mortar Pit:
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First and foremost, you can counter it by shooting the troops within it. The spotter in the tower should be an easy shot for any sniper. All they have to do is locate them first.
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As I said earlier, it would require at least some degree of open space to use. Whether than be in a field or on a large rooftop somewhere. In addition to it needing line of sight, within range, and have a spotter tower sticking up from it, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to locate from the ground or the air.
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The ammo reserves located within the sandbagged area would be quite volatile, so if an explosive lands within the mortar pit itself, it will cause a large explosion, easily killing the crew and anyone else nearby. This can be set off by grenades, tank shells, AT launchers, aircraft bombs, even opposing mortars.
Please try to keep this subject on track, I’d really like to see the helpers and therefore the devs take note of this, and really help out the effectiveness and therefore the pick rate of the mortar squads.
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Very cool idea, but theoretically couldn’t someone just build an ammo box and a few sandbags around. I’ve thought maybe they could make a new ammo box specifically for heavy weaponry so we don’t suck all the resources from the regular ammo box when people also need ammo for their guns
On the same note, I’ve thought they could make Heavy Mortars be an Engineer construct
There are still 3 issues with that.
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You would still need to refill after every 10-12 shots. Meaning your aim gets thrown off.
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That would still only allow 1 mortar to be in operation at once. Meaning a lot of wasted potential and firepower.
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Concealment. While I don’t necessarily agree with them, there are a lot of people that complain about mortar squads being too difficult to locate and take out with aircraft, tanks, etc.
While my suggestion allows for more firepower, the tradeoff is concealment.
I’ve seen the posts, but as I said then, I will reiterate now:
The 80mm mortars ALREADY EXIST. They are carried by mortarmen in the Berlin Campaign. They will need to add one for the Americans but I doubt that will be difficult to do.
Trust me, the 80mm is plenty powerful, especially if two of them were operating at once with my suggestion.
Maybe instead of heavy mortars, what about howitzers.
Yes but if we already have light 60mm mortars and medium 80mm mortars, then the next logical conclusion is heavy 100mm mortars.
I’m not against howitzers being added, but I think Heavy Mortars are a better Engineer construct for Mortar squads. I’ve suggested before Infantry Support Guns that focus on HE, and howitzers are technically in that family, maybe they could be the Heavy Support Guns
Or perhaps howitzers could be “added” as a Radio Operator Call-In, maybe dealing a lot more HE damage but a longer cool down than regular Artillery. Or just being a different kind of artillery in general
But technically howitzers are already basically artillery so there may be no point in adding them anyway
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It doesn’t technically scale like that…
The 80mm mortars and artillery are extremely devastating as is!
Especially with how small the maps are, that is the extent of the size the mortars need to go.
… Perhaps if the maps got a size increase, or a different mode that made use of the full map areas, then maybe something larger.
Its already extremely difficult to get cover from artillery fire, given that it shatters pretty much any sandbag wall in its vicinity. So unless they do a significant buff to current fortifications or add in some sturdier, I’m massively against adding anything more powerful to artillery fire.
Howitzers would either have the whole map in range or will have a range of a wet fart (for this type of gun).
Neither are good scenarios.
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For OP
Personally I’d like mortar squads to have buildable LeIG 18. But I have no idea really what US and Ru could have except for 120mm mortars (this is quite big unbalance).
This is a great idea, I build these all the time with my mortar squad engineer using a shovel and ammo boxes. I’m not so sure about the spotter thing but a group volley would be excellent and allow the pit to be more peaceable and balanced because it’s more guessing and reliance on team callouts for a fire mission. I think it would also be neat to see the ammo box area covered with a camo net. An actual pit that could be built would be a great addition to the game, I’m always fighting with my squad to try getting them into the trench/foxholes I make. With a fighting position like the pit it would get a lot of use I’m sure.
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