Knee mortars & CHs

Chris Milne

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Probably an easy question, but what appears (to me, anyway) to be the correct answer feels a little odd. Wanted to see if folks have covered this themselves.

Knee mortar firing HE at 2 hex range dense jungle. Ordnance notes deny it any airburst TEM. Critical Hit therefore gets a -2 TEM? It seems odd that what is intended as a penalty for low trajectory fire becomes a benefit in this situation.

Needless to say, I think it's a -2 DRM on the IFT roll because it's my mortar :cheeky:
 

Brian W

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I think there is a perry sez on this. If I read the ASLRB correctly, while air-burst does not apply to the knee-mortar, neither does woods TEM (which only applies to direct fire per B13.3). However, Dense Jungle says only that a +2 TEM is in effect without specifying whether it is for direct fire only, so I think your answer is that it is a -2 DRM to the CH unit, +2 against others.
 

WaterRabbit

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The Indirect fire TEM vs. Dense Jungle is -1 (see G. PTO Terrain Chart).

Unfortunately, it isn't made clear as to whether the 2 hex or less firing of the Knee MTR is direct fire or indirect fire. So if you are going to claim a -2 TEM for the CH, then you must also claim a +2 TEM for non-CH attacks at 2 hexes or less. So, it would be more penalized in that case. Light Jungle would get a +1 TEM/-1 CH TEM against it as well.
 

Ole Boe

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WaterRabbit said:
Unfortunately, it isn't made clear as to whether the 2 hex or less firing of the Knee MTR is direct fire or indirect fire. So if you are going to claim a -2 TEM for the CH, then you must also claim a +2 TEM for non-CH attacks at 2 hexes or less. So, it would be more penalized in that case. Light Jungle would get a +1 TEM/-1 CH TEM against it as well.
The actual rule text is: "When firing HE at a range of ≤ two hexes, the ROF is lowered to "1" for that shot and Air Bursts are NA"

Mortars use Indirect Fire, and there is absolutely no sign of exception to this in the mortar's ordnance notes, so it is clearly using Indirect Fire, with the exception that Air Bursts are NA, i.e. TEM is 0 instead of -1.

So during a non-CH hit, you have a DRM of 0, which during a CH is inverted to... 0 :p
 

WaterRabbit

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It is reasonable to assume that this weapon is firing in a "direct mode" since that is how the actual weapon worked -- despite the rules not specifically spelling this out. It is even more reasonable if someone is looking at it from a different perspective that someone immersed in ASL minutia.

This weapon could fire either the Model 89 50mm high explosive shell (nominally 120-670 meters) or the Model 91 grenade at close range (nominally 50-170 meters).

However, I have no dog in this fight -- most people forget that the Air Burst does not apply at close range anyway (at least from my observations). :cheeky: However, like so much of the RB this is another area where a simple phrase could have avoided a ton of ink.

B9.1 is the defining rule unless the notes for this weapon are changed. "Mortar Fire is never resolved as Direct Fire..."

Ole said:
The actual rule text is:
I guess the phrase "So if you are going to..." means nothing to you. So let me spell that out more clearly for you. It means hypothetically, if you are going to play that way these would be the ramifications. I left off loosing the ability to hit targets out of LOS, not being able to use Spotted fire, etc. because I assumed that Chris was smart enough to figure those things out on his own.
 

Pitman

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If Air Burst TEM is NA, then normal TEM applies, which means that a critical hit against Dense Jungle at short range for a knee mortar would result in a -2 DRM.
 

WaterRabbit

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Unfortunately, Ole is right here. The rules exempt the mortar from air burst, they do not empempt them from indirect fire -- unless you can find something to the contrary.
 

Brian W

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pitman said:
If Air Burst TEM is NA, then normal TEM applies, which means that a critical hit against Dense Jungle at short range for a knee mortar would result in a -2 DRM.
The thought I had above was that the rules did not say that the +2 TEM applied only to direct fire, as they do for woods. However, the implication is that indirect fire uses -1 airburst. The chart is also clear that the +2 applies only to direct fire.

However, I thought that there was a perry sez about this that was not quite in line with my thinking, but my mind may be playing tricks on me.
 

WaterRabbit

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I looked on Sam's website and didn't find one. I also took a look through the various Q&A and Errata. Didn't find anything there either.
 

WaterRabbit

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He flip flops more than John Kerry. Before it hits print I bet he will have changed his position at least twice. :cheeky:
 
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Ole Boe

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Chris Milne said:
Hmm. More complex than I'd thought. I've submitted a Q&A to Perry - anyone care to place bets on the outcome?
I don't think there should be much doubt. As Waterrabbit points out, B9.1 makes it clear that mortars are always using Indirect Fire, and the ordance note clearly makes an exception to the Air Bursts -1 TEM, not to the Indirect Fire.

Furtermore, although G2.2 doesn't spell it out, the chapter divider makes it clear that the normal +2 Dense Jungle TEM is a Direct Fire TEM, and therefore NA when firing a mortar.

So, the Indirect Fire -1 TEM is NA by the special ordnance note, and the Direct Fire +2 TEM is NA since this isn't Direct Fire, so the only possible TEM is 0.
 

Chris Milne

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I'm not going to deny that. I think it was an 'error' in the original Chap H notes - just some wording that appears slack in this modern age of ASL rules interpretation.


Got the response from Perry. I've put it in the Perry Sez folder, but a summarisation is this:

CH applies a -2 TEM DRM.
Can still use spotting rules even at range of 2 hexes.
All indirect fire rules/capabilities apply (other than Air Bursts) apply to HE shots at range 1 or 2.

Reconcile that how you can, gentlemen...
 

Ole Boe

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I guess it doesn't surprise you that I dislike the resulting Perry sez, for two reasons:

1) It says (correctly) that all Indirect Fire rules (except Air Bursts) apply to the mortar, but at the same time says that Direct Fire TEM applies during a CH - thus saying something the actual ordnance note doesn't say.

2) It doesn't address the question of non-CH TEM, but I guess one should assume from the Q&A that Direct Fire TEM applies for non-CH hits as well.

So this Perry sez is another irritating example of an unofficial errata. :mad:
 

Brian W

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Ole Boe said:
So this Perry sez is another irritating example of an unofficial errata.
I really do think there was another perry sez saying the same thing (about light jungle), but I never could find it. I thought it was rather at odds with the ASLRB.
 

WaterRabbit

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This is an example of 'legislating from the bench'. His ruling is actually changing the rules and not interpreting them. In other words he needs to put this as an official rules change. :(
 
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