"Pre-registered mortars" Topic

If a 81mm mortar battery had three pre-registered target area, how quick to move between them?

Thanks.

good crews? about a minute. The time it takes to put the tube in the right direction, adjust elevation and ready rounds.

Yes, any preregistered mortar, could lift and shift fairly quickly as Sabre6 mentioned. And yes crew quality is very important as always. Last time I operated/ran an 81mm Plt was in e.g. '81 …

Assuming comms were up, a minute or so would be my guess as well.

I can hear the Glaswegian neds clearly: "It was like, pure registered mortars, man."

I was wondering how they bred mortars and who was keeping the register. I would hate to go into battle with mongrel mortars, the shame!

(I assumed it was an auto correct issue; still worth a chuckle to my twisted sense of humor.)

The two FDC in the modern mortar platoon can handle multiple pre-registered firing points. We were 4.2" mortars for a tank battalion, 3/10 Cav of the 2nd brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. Being tank supporting we had to be mobile and had few long term Pre-registered points. Since more than half of our fire missions called for smoke or flares, accuracy was rarely an issue. We could always tell when we had an infantry company cross attached. They always wanted them and more requests for HE rounds. It got so bad that our XO, which was me asked them to bring more HE when they came next time.

Now my 4.2" mortars with the cavalry,, 1/9 cav, did do PPF for tests but again smoke and flares were the biggest request from the tank and scout section. Again the infantry squad had an old Vietnam veteran in charge and wanted POF especially if they were defending a crossing or vital location.
Since scouting was as much about stealth, PPF would give away our positions. Also the mortar track was its own FDC which was hard.

Stryderg, I try not to worry about typos online as touch keyboards do that,but funny Autocorrect/predictive is always worth taking the mickey!

This is for Italian platoon defending in Sicily. We are finding with Blood Sweat and Tears a meter square table, representing 200m square, works for a platoon attack. I've given my opponent a map representing 800m a side, an objective, and a company. He has given the platoons orders, and I work out who bumps into what, then set the table up.

2 plt just finished a 15 turn attack on a farm, capturing about a dozen Italians. That 10 minutes has somewhat alerted the rest of the defenders. The Italian commander is waiting to see if the British move onto point A, or whether he has to shift orders to B or C.

The US army had the Italian 81mm as comparable to the US 81mm (couple of kilos heavier). A danger zone of approx 60m square seems reasonable for a battery of 6 tubes from what I can tell.

81mm mortars make quite a big bang. Not sure I'd want to be anywhere at all within 200m of an entire battery firing.

According to the US Army manual for 81mm mortars, the typical sheaf for a six tube 81mm mortar battery is 150-225m across (depending on the dispersion of the tubes) and the secondary danger zone is 400m x 400m.

Hmmm.
Maybe there's only a couple of mortars available to the Italians then. I've had trouble finding much HE stats.

I believe I saw a 35m kill zone quoted for 81mm shell.

Rudy +1

81mm mortars can do a lot of damage and at a fairly quick rate. A good crew can have 2-3 round in the air at the same time. But again limited amounts of ammo could effect … well … everything.

The Italians now have the Brixia 45, not the 81mm. According to wiki

"At tactical level, an infantry battalion had two platoons each of 9 Brixia mortars assigned.[3] Each Brixia mortar platoon was divided in three squads with three mortars each, which were distributed to the companies."

Yes, just the 45-mm mortars in the normal Italian Inf Bn, at least into 1943, with the 81-mm mortars found in a Regimental level Company, of just six tubes.

Gary

How easy would it be for the platoon leader who had them assigned to say 'Drop 50 meters'. I'm assuming there is a land line laid in the 2 days they have been in position