Mortar spotters

[kcole4001]

Yep, build yourself a 'mortar park' or two in RB, RO, VoTG, etc. and use the cloaking display to keep track of what has fired etc.
You have to be very conscious of moving through the mortars' hex of course to not overstack or draw fire.

You get a LOT more rate sprees and crits than you'd expect, really you will see that a lot with a bunch of mortars scattered around in a CG, finding good firing locations is the problem using them individually, but the hidden mortar park solves that, and can be set up by either defender or attacker (2nd day onward of course) with careful planning.
I've had what become VERY tedious rate tears that the resulting effects are either a miss, hit need a 2 for effect, or crit.

Also some batches of shots that hit nothing and get no rate, either way it really encourages the other side to not stack, and it sure beats dragging those suckers around through debris & rubble.

 

[Vic Provost]

Does anyone actively use mortar spotters?

I always tend to think of the spotting unit as having potentially more useful things to do - but the mind boggles at the prospect of a hip'd spotter directing fire from a hip'd 81mm mortar who is out of LOS and therefore both units retaining HIP. That's one of my ASL Bucket List items, for sure.

Is the +2/-1 ROF a good tradeoff? I'm not so sure - especially for light mortars. What do others think?

I have used them in Stalingrad to keep the medium mortars out of LOS of Kill Stacks with a HIP HS as a spotter, it is not as effective as direct fire but keeps it safe for the most part and is a growing frustration for the enemy commander, as he screams, where the hell is it? Otherwise, rarely used but always an option to consider depending on what is going on.

 

[Vic Provost]

By the letter of the rules, spotting counts as the "use of a SW" and thus the Spotter needs to be marked by the appropriate fire counter.

A Spotter is often set up HIP and also the MTR which he directs is out of LOS of the enemy.
Placing counters on these units would reduce this tactic ad absurdum.

In practice, I have almost always seen this situation played that by mutual agreement no fire counters are placed on board. Some keep track of the counters outside of the playing area. As usually, there is not more than one HIP MTR/Spotter around, it is easy enough to just remember if they have fired or not.

The above described solution is the one I would encourage to use. Talk it over with your opponent before the game is set up in scenarios in which such a situation might arise.

von Marwitz

Exactly how we treat it as above, HIP don't work with fire counters giving away their location.

 

[JimWhite]

In practice, I have almost always seen this situation played that by mutual agreement no fire counters are placed on board. Some keep track of the counters outside of the playing area. As usually, there is not more than one HIP MTR/Spotter around, it is easy enough to just remember if they have fired or not.

My regular CG opponent and I only use VASL...and take advantage of the "linking" feature between the actual mortar and its ACQ marker. So when the weapon fires we place the required fire counter on the ACQ marker to remind the owner that it has fired.

Since a concealed or HIP weapon does not show the connecting line to the opponent this works great.

 

[Cpl Uhl]

I like using Spotted Fire in PTO, light jungle to put the mtr a hex behind a front line squad/spotter. As the enemy comes into contact, nasty surprise. HE, WP, all good.

 

[Vic Provost]

Especially if that Mtr is HIP, you think you are approaching a 4-4-7 and then splat, hope you like WP!

 

[Westy]

I remember many years ago in KGP1 we had multiple spotters each acting for stacks of 6 x 60mm mtrs……great panther killers when fired en masse!