"Mortars in Nuts!" Topic

How do you use platoon-level mortars in Nuts! ?

My good fellow: Being only recently introduced to the rules fro Nuts! (bought them a week ago and I'm reading them now)there may be a more accurate answer, but as best I can tell mortars are not addressed in the rules directly, but on page 6 of the Nuts!-Final version paragraph 4 under the heading " Yeah, but what about the…" it ways "use the stats for a weapon in the category that best fits"
Hope that helps

This is a core issue that has always confused me.

As best I can tell:

You spot for a mortar. The spotter now has LOS to the enemy, which puts them directly into a Reaction Test. A gun battle ensues, until either the Spotter or the Enemy has disengaged or been killed.

Nobody left to spot for the mortar, or nobody left to shoot at.

Please correct me where I'm wrong.

You need to go to the Two Hour Wargames Forum. Ed answers questions on there very quickly and with the utmost patience.

Here is a link to a freed download on the mortars question.

link

Tom

Alright, Garryowen's link above shows me three pages which are 99% blank.

Confusion reigns supreme.

thosmoss, you might need to be a member of the THW forum.

We always used mortars as direct fire at this scale.

Weasel makes a great point. Light mortars ideally set up where the crew had direct sight to the enemy but in a shallow depression. FO's normally did not have a radio but used a field phone that could stretch 50-100 yards.

Gamers seem fascinated by spotting rounds. However, speaking for the Marines in WWII Pacific typically a two tube battery would fire a 3-5 round barrage in an "X" pattern with a gunner adjusting a few mils after each shot.

A typical two tube battery could get off 6-10 rounds in 5-10 seconds and the rounds impacting in 10-30 seconds depending on range and powder increments used. This would generate a beaten zone 50x50 yards to 100x100 yards. If the enemy hit the deck they'd adjust and start sustained fire of 5-10 rounds/minute depending on circumstances and ammo supply.

An experienced FO with binoculars could estimate the range within 10%-15%. This means at up to 300 yards a barrage should bracket a normally deployed infantry squad in the open.

A typical German tactic was to have an 80mm mortar battery work in conjunction with a MG team. The mortar would be registered on a choke point. When an infantry target got to that choke point the MG opened up and the target infantry hit the deck. When the mortar crew heard the MG fire they started dropping rounds down the tube. Now the target is pinned down in the open (most likely) with mortars impacting among them. Try to run and hide or hunker down.

Firing spotting rounds at infantry will give them time to run and you'll never catch up with them because of the delay in adjusting and rounds time in flight.

Here's what we do. A mortar fires off a barrage. All infantry within 300 yards of the mortar hear the thumps and know a barrage is in the air but not who the target is. The player can react by having the squads hit the deck (self-suppress), continue on as normal or start running in an attempt to get out of the beaten zone. Now you have 3-4 squads reacting to the fog of war.

Ask a VN vet what it was like to be caught in a mortar barrage.

Wolfhag

The link leads to a corrupted PDF that is basically blank…

The files were corrupted when the site was updated a few days ago. Here's the replacement file.

link

Also address thosmoss's concern about the In Sight.

Thanks Ed.

They look great!

Of course, this begs the question of stats for 4.2" and 120mm mortars too. Anyone have stats for those, just for grins?

Thanks all, and especially Ed for posting up that file.