The Commander Series Forum

I can't see these listed in the soviet army list How do folks think they should be treated? As 82mm mortar but 6/120* only allowed to fire once per turn (ammo resupply)

I think the last consensus was treat it as an HMG stand?

If that was the last consensus, I think that is undercooking it a bit.

Sure, treat an AGS-17 30mm auto grenade launcher as an HMG stand. But an 82mm mortar?! I think not.

I'd be tempted to treat it as 120mm mortar for effect, and fire as often as you get orders. No idea what an MTLB can carry but an FV432m has over 100 rounds on board.

IanS

Oh yes, I think I'm confusing the conversations on the 30mm AGL, sorry Perils of working for a living whilst reading forums. Still, got some conversation going

I'd agree, now I've read the question

It slots into the TOE and tactical usage the 120mm fills, so treat it the same. Keeps it simple.

Total amounts of ammo don't really figure in the game, it's more the reload times that effect how frequently the weapon can fire. As it fires a 4 round clip and clips are fed by the crew, there should be no restrictions on fire in game terms. The rate of fire is approximately twice that of a conventional mortar, so I would treat it as an 82mm mortar firing at double the standard 82mm mortar rate, so fire twice at the same target per activation. Yes, they are nasty things.

Cheers, Andy

But how accurate are they?

One of the concerns I've long had about mortars is their ability to hit what they see (subject to a successful command role). So no deviation.

Add a double-hit per fire turn to the no deviation rule and that would make them unbelievably powerful.

Or should we be treating them as area template weapons with deviation - like off-table artillery?

If you're firing twice at the same target you could just double the dice, but it doesn't really scale linearly so that's a bit off.

The advantage of the high RoF is the same as the 25pdr had - the initial rounds all hit very rapidly, before the troops on the receiving end can take cover or go to ground. Thus it produces casualties and shock effects well outside of a "normal" barrage.

Sustained fire (watching people use them) is still better than a normal 82mm mortar, but that's not entirely useful - after the initial attack you need ever greater weight of fire from ever heavier pieces to produce the same effect.

TBH I think just running them with the stats of a 120mm mortar is probably easiest. That'also looks pretty close to their range (4.7km under ideal conditions), at 200cm's.

The massive carriage is deffo not "man portable" (although it is pivotable by the team for aiming, and maybe you could say it's a 5cm move, single move action per turn?)

Big Insect - Accuracy -I've watched a couple of videos of their use in the Ukraine and Syria this morning. The piece shifts around something rotten. It's detractors say it's too inaccurate to be useful, it's proponents say it's a design feature and plasters a wide area to spread the love.

Balls, I now can't find the one that was really handy, the initial link is dead

However, this one shows how much it bounces about if you can peer past the crew! It also shows a very handy use for it.



Stick it on a portee, race up, stop, unload a clup or two, race off again before counterbattery fire arrives. I'd read in passing the Ukrainians have become very adept at CB fire (depending on PoV either because NATO/American troops are doing it, or because the Ukrainian army has now become a proper professional force), and it seems the Seperatists/Russian Army units do NOT like it up 'em.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwyFCWmpiU...

Nice find on the video. My Vasiliks are mostly mounted on MT-LBs.

Perhaps the way ahead is to let them fire as many times as they get orders, but if they fire more than once per turn, then they can be targeted by CB fire with the appropriate modifiers if emplaced or SP. I don't think they should be treated as off board artillery though as that would make the beaten zone too big for what they are. I thought they were reasonably accurate, if the subtitles are to be believed they are hitting an area of 18m radius, which is only 1 inch radius at standard ground scale, so about right to concentrate effects on a single stand.

Cheers, Andy

Any firing mortar should be targetable, picked up after the 1st round. Counter Mortar Radar has been around since '45, and it works well. They aren't off board arty, range considerations if nothing else. Only the British/Canadian L16 could be used that way, just with 5.5 km range. Vaslisk will be somewhat less accurate cause you can't bed it in. When a mortar deploys you bang off 1-2 rounds to get the base stabilised on the ground, called bedding in.

IanS

In game terms though, on table mortars can't be targeted by CB fire IIRC.

Difficult to bed in a Vasilik on the back of an MT-LB as well, unless you count cracking the shock absorbers/suspension.

Cheers, Andy

How about giving Vasilek one more hit dice than a standard 82mm to account for its high ROF and the 'first impact' effect noted?

I actually quite like the way CWC handles mortars. i.e. they are like regular units and can fire as many times as the HQ issues orders successfully, each time at a single target stand. To me this adequately reflects the reported effectiveness of mortars as casualty causers in C20th warfare.

Personally, I don't think one extra dice would cover the significantly higher rate of fire. The effect shouldn't be that of a larger calibre weapon, just more 82mm bombs than a conventional mortar. My inclination is still 8d6, but I'd settle for 6d6. It does appear to fire 3x faster than conventional mortars.

Cheers, Andy

Keeping the RoF up isn't easy - except for that "portee" they seem to operate with the ammo a safe distance away. So whilst slotting a clip back in after each burst is easy enough, the crew actually have to fetch them - even the few metres distance is enough to drop the RoF down to about twice that of a normal mortar.

The high RoF also only really affects the first few rounds - once you're into a continued stonk you need much heavier fire concentrations to achieve results (the whole point of the 25pdr, auto-mortar and time on target or newer multi-arc, same time to impact systems). The whole point is to get maximum surprise casualties when the target is vulnerable.

8d6 or even 6d6 would make it a "super mortar", effective way beyond it's real world effect. Although if you wanted the "chrome" you could make them 6d6 but fire only once per turn, which would encourage players to drop a stonk, limber up and move, drop another stonk next turn and thus avoid CB fire

In actual usage they seem to be a bit of a "solution looking for a problem", tbh. Big, awkward, relatively low effect for a high cost in manpower, cash and time.

Or treat it as a 120mm mortar, as that's dead easy and simple and doesn't require any rules furtling

I'm not much of a fan of additional special rules: the whole point of the Commander series is to abstract things so that the player is elevated to a brigade commander or higher.
I think TP's suggestion of 8 or 6 attacks and fire once per turn is a good one. That should be enough to seriously ruin the target unit's day, without the Vasilek becoming a super weapon. I think it would nicely represent the sudden concentration of fire that this weapon seems to specialise in.

As an aside, CB fire against mortars? Maybe that could be an additional Recce unit action? It would be a gross abstraction, but perhaps a simple fix.

I like the "Recce action to use CBF against on table artillery/mortars" idea; as an abstraction it models the armies ability to use it's various sensor aides rolled into an easy action that's still covered by the existing rules without multiple special cases!

Most of the games I play tend to feature tanks, tanks & more tanks, so mortars seldom get a look in. It might not be worth drawing up an additional optional house rule for them.
I've never played Blitzkrieg so don't know if mortars have an AT ability in that game. If so, then on-table CB might be worth looking at if & when CWC2 is released.