"81mm mortars for US inf company" Topic

There are up to 12 tubes of 81mm mortars available for the US inf company in the V4 FoW rules. Is that historically correct? AfaIk the US btl only has 6 mortars available, or are my sources incorrect?
cheers

Hi dogtail,
According to George Forty, "U.S. Army Handbook 1939-1945":

The weapons platoon of a US infantry company consisted of:
2 x 30cal LMGs (presumably air-cooled)
3 x 60mm mortars
3 x bazookas
1 x 50cal HMGs

The weapons company of a US infantry battalion consisted of:
6 x 81mm mortars
8 x 30cal HMGs (presumably water-cooled)
7 x bazookas
3 x 50cal HMGs

Perhaps "Flames of War" is trying to somehow "play balance" their rules by fudging off-table fire support.

B

nightingale, I hear you trapping
I guess they want to sell more stuff

The Battalion Weapons company would be on call for any of the Battalion Rifle companies. So in theory they would have them available, but not exclusively and not usually directly attached.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

The purpose of the FOW set is to sell as many miniatures as possible, and to allow people to put all of their toys on the table.

The set-up for all US Inf Bn T/Os is an 81-mm Mortar Pl in the Heavy Weapons Coy (or HQ Coy, depending on the unit type), and 60-mm mortars in the Rifle Coys (either in a Wpns Pl or devolved out to Rifle Pls, as per unit type). There was no authorised org that replaced or supplemented the Coy level 60-mm mortars with 81-mm tubes.

It would be interesting to know whether they've found an actual example of a unit doing so, and if so which, when and where, and extrapolated that across (seemingly) all US Inf Bns.

Gary

Starfury, the 60mm mortar teams are already accounted for as being integral to the company. The 81s are a support add-on.

There are up to 12 tubes of 81mm mortars available for the US inf company in the V4 FoW rules.

Have a look at the V3 lists , as that has the correct number of 81mm mortars .

BTW that's 12 x 81mm mortars per infantry formation in V4 .

What do they consider a formation, a single Rifle Company?

Gary

81mm's are (or were) heavy. A normal man can easily carry a 60mm slung over his shoulder. No normal man could ever carry an 81 by himself. Then add to that the higher weight of the rounds. So if a unit did happen to pick up extra tubes (which I have never heard of) it becomes a major pain to not just move them, but to keep them supplied with ammo. While extra BARs could be picked up on the battlefield, and often were, that's probably not going to happen with an 81.

Could the regimental commander direct his reserve battalion to send their mortar platoon to temporarily support one of the front line battalions? That would give them temporarily access to 12 tubes (and the necessary manpower), and if the battalion in question would go into action with one rifle company leading, then that company could temporarily have 12 tubes in support. Not that I have heard of such an event, though it does not sound entirely implausible (even with battalion commanders being a bit jealous of their mortar platoons).

Not being familiar with FoW V4 lists, this however leaves me wondering how much other kinds of support does the US rifle company have access to, including M1917 MGs, anti-tank guns, regimental howitzers and chemical mortars (4.2 inch)?

On first reading I thought the rules suggested you could replace the 60-mm mortars in the Rifle Coy with 81-mm mortars, rather than the 81-mms being add-ons, and the 60-mms already accounted for as explained above.

It did cross my mind they might be talking about the mortars of a reserve Battalion as well, which still seems to result in an awesome concentration, especially if those other listed weapons get tagged on. There might be as many observers in the Company as riflemen…

Gary

The so called reserve company isn`t there just to add replacements to the two forward companies. It is the Regiments reserve to be committed en-masse in attack or defence as required. Frittering away the 3rd battalion`s elements in penny packets would seriously reduce its own effectiveness upon commitment.

So either this is a miss-understanding of the new FoW rule or (as has often happened throughout the rule systems existance) someone has found a loophole to exploit for gaming purposes. :)

I still haven`t really got over their Spanish Blue Division info sheet which allowed among other things – you to mount the 37mm AT guns onto trucks and the recce battalion could have horses (because they were called cavalry) – oh my aching behind :) :)

What do they consider a formation, a single Rifle Company ?

Yes plus support units .

In team yankee if you take 3 British FV432 coys ( a full battlion ) , each coy can have 8 SP 81mm mortars . Even though a full battalion only has 8 in total .

Col Piron

Just another gamey piece of crap then :(

If a full battalion can only have 8, each company cannot possibly have 8 – utter gamesmanship :(

How very GW of them :(

Richard Barber
A full battalion FV432 had the following :

The Milan Platoon contained a Pl HQ, 4 Milan sections and a Milan Mobile Section.

The Milan Section was transported in 3 FV432 and included:

2 Milan Detachments of 2 Firing Posts with the MIRA thermal imaging sight from 1985?

The Section Commanders vehicle with 1 Firing Post, this was frequently treated as a spare and not deployed.

The Milan Mobile Section Consisted of 4 CVR(T) with Milan Compact Turret.

You can take 3 of these coys blelow .

FV432 Mechanised Company HQ – 1x SLR Rifle, 1x FV432 (1 pts)- 2x CPMG SF (2 pts)

FV432 Mechanised Platoon – 4x GPMG with 66mm anti-tank, 3x Carl Gustav anti-tank, 1x 2" mortar, 4x FV432 (7 pts) – 2x Milan, 1x FV432 (2 pts)

FV432 Mechanised Platoon – 4x GPMG with 66mm anti-tank, 3x Carl Gustav anti-tank, 1x 2" mortar, 4x FV432 (7 pts) – 2x Milan, 1x FV432 (2 pts)

FV432 Mechanised Platoon – 4x GPMG with 66mm anti-tank, 3x Carl Gustav anti-tank, 1x 2" mortar, 4x FV432 (7 pts)- 2x Milan, 1x FV432 (2 pts)

FV432 Mortar Platoon – 8x FV432 mortar carrier (4 pts)

FV432 Milan – 4x Milan missile, 2x FV432 (4 pts)

Spartan Mobile Milan Section – 4x Spartan MCT (4 pts)

42 Points

Frankly I think there are far too many Milan but hey ho

Again looks like a power-gamer list to me very GW :(

Going off topic a bit I know (and era for me) but they might have actually got the Milan issue about right. The then bang up-to-date Encyclopaedia of the Modern British Army, 3rd Edition of 1986 (!) had a wiring diagram that gave the Mech Inf Bn an Anti-tank Pl of four Secs, each with five firing posts, and a fifth Sec with four more. The text seemed to suggest each standard Sec was carried in a single FV432 and paired with a Ferret scout car, though it isn't exactly clear. I sort of remember reading about the twin launchers on a CVR(T) family vehicle, the sawn-off Spartan APC?

I cannot say anything for their understanding of mortar issue, either in the 1980s British Inf Bn (which was eight 81-mms, as noted above) or the WW2 US Inf Bn, which seems to be based on 'think of a number, now double it!'.

Gary

Maybe as Blutarski hinted the additional 81mm mortars are a substitute for the missing 4,2 inch mortars. Or for the missing towed 155mm artillery.
Or maybe not.

Frittering away the 3rd battalion`s elements in penny packets would seriously reduce its own effectiveness upon commitment.

I have to agree that messing around with the reserve battalion assets might be a bit questionable in real life, but when it comes to "wargamer logic" it might not always look the same.

That said, what wargamers tend to forget is that mortars tend to be massively ammo hungry weapons, and that a usual mortar team would have limited amount of shells with them. Gary's website lists typical allocation for 81 mm team as 63 shells, with another 15 to be found in the battalion supply train. That amount can be consumed quite quickly if firing intensive fire missions.

I always try and play with a historic base and write my scenarios on that basis. We usually limit the number of turns of fire available – usually half the number of turns we expect the game to run :) This forces players to think about ammo usage.

I normally allow units in a defensive posture to have stocked ammo which would of course not be available to moving/attacking units.