[Amgot]

Could anyone tell me how to edit the mortars' accuracy in WaR? I've just done a quick test and found that I could destroy an enemy ATG (on the other side of the map and upon which my mortar has no LOS) in one to five rounds, giving the ATG a life expectancy of a couple of seconds once spotted. I think this highly unbalances the game as it makes ATGs near useless, so I would like to tone down the mortars' accuracy.

Andrew told me to have a look at the Ground Tactics data here but I'm not sure how to do that.


PS: Not to offend anyone but I'm not interested in recommendations on how to use ATGs. I've just finished a TLD H2H campaign and I've seen by myself that mortars are also over-accurate and over-deadly against ATGs there. I would just like not to systematically have to put my ATGS in buildings.

[diggin.robat]

Hi!


My opinion is, that the problem is not only the Milan-rocket-like accuracy of mortars but not less the vulnerability of ATG and other guns. They are much to brittle when under artyfire and brew up easily even by a near miss. Also they are too easily spotted, especially the smaller PAK 38 and 6pdr/57mm. A coding test in weapons.txt in the coloumn "Integrity" could be made.

I don´t expect an ATG to explode like a tank, when hit by shells. Either it get´s damaged and is therefore useless or the crew is killed.

diggin

[Amgot]

Hi Diggin!

thanks for you reply. I totally agree with you, and any try to rebalance the mortars vs ATGs issues should definitely include increasing ATGs resistance to mortar shells.
However, I find that toning down mortars' accuracy is even more important because it is not only a problem against ATGs (even it is definitely the main issue). It is also very much an issue when used against other targets such as half-tracks and armored cars, which quite often get destroyed by direct hits from mortars (and I even had tanks immobilized by mortar fire). It is also a potent anti-infantry weapon: a well used mortar by the defending player can severely handicap the attacker with its accurate and quick ROF, preventing the attacker from using any other move modes than "sneak" (which is quite cumbersome when you get near the enemy and need to engage quickly in close combat before being cut down to pieces by that damned MG).

[mooxe]

Theres a few other ways to tone down mortars, some mods already do it as well.

- Increase minimum range
- decrease ammo
- Heavy mortars (120mm) made into static squads
- Decrease number of mortar teams in a BG

In some cases where mortars are too accurate and quick firing, theres no tips but the obvious to give. Keep your heads down and under cover. Counter mortar fire seldom does much if anything. Treat enemy mortar teams like command teams, when you spot them redirect your firepower to that team (even regardless how powerful mortars are). If by chance your opponent is not doing well and ends up having to use mortar teams to assault or defend positions, welcome that, its an easy opportunity to kill that team. And ofcourse cutting off a battlegroup severely limits the amount of mortars they bring to the game, if your opponent does bring them, they are usually saved for critical situations not targets of opportunity (is he's smart).

[ronson]

It would be a good idea to 'slim' down some of the mortar teams too, especially in WaR where the 'football' team size of the US mortars make them a redoubtable melee squad, who quickly see off any attack by any 4 man German infantry squad who are lucky enough to get close to them.

When I played a GC of WaR in its original form these teams reminded me of the CC2 sniper, a man who could take on any number of enemies in hand to hand combat and win!

Unfortunatly the mortar seems to have been very overrated in all the new releases. Why this should be so after years of CC5 mods is a complete mystery, they seem to have used the original vanilla CC5 data without any regard to realism.

Cheers
Ronson

[Dima]

Install TLD:GT .

[diggin.robat]

After some 40 battles with Ronson in GT2.0 on GR I can say IMO that the mortars are toned down well enough. Lart time I had a battery of 2 Flak 38 under mortar fire and they didn´t scored a hit. They are so much cut down in efficiency that I hardly deploy them, when I can´t get two of them. But this is a personal taste.
Still I wonder about the vulnerability of ATGs, maybe they didn´t received much attention of the modders as did the tanks? Just a question.


cheers

diggin

[Amgot]

[diggin.robat]

Should be easy, if you know how to manipulate the basefiles.  Use the workbook for WaR
In Weapons.txt look for the mortars and for the coloumn "base accuracy". try out what value work good enough for you. AFAIR a value less then 100 prevents the crew to shoot at anything.Also look for the minimum range and set this higher. A mortar team is then forced to deploy more in the rear of the front.

It would most easier to open the weapons.txt of GT2.0 and copy the values and paste them into the WaR weapons.txt.


hope that helps.

[Dima]

[diggin.robat]

[Dima]

[diggin.robat]

I would say they are too vulnerable. Please see my oberservations in the thread linked above.

cheers

diggin

[davidssfx]

[diggin.robat]

David, I think what you summed up is well achived. Recently observed how a single mortar shell alomost wiped out a grenadier group while moving fast.
In the past I used single mortars well forward to get into clear LOS with point targets. Not sure if that was done with the tiny tubes like 50mm, 2" and 60mm in reality?

Robat

[Amgot]

Good to see I'm not the only one to have found the mortars unbalanced in the vanilla game. I can only regret I didn't use GT for my first GC, as what davidssfx and diggin.robbat described in terms of mortar behavior is exactly what I'm looking for.

Thanks for the explanation diggin.robat, I'm gonna try to alter the mortar values for WaR by myself (except if you're willing to do a GT "light" for WaR davidssfx? )

[davidssfx]

[diggin.robat]

Amgot, maybe you just take the Workbook for War and compare/copy/paste the basefiles in question with the one from Davids GT2.0. After this follwoing instructions from Workbook to extract new basefiles for WaR.

Easier to explain then done, but maybe this could be a way to try out. I guess that WaR and TLD basefiles are similar in layout.


cheers

diggin

[Tejszd]

Yes, one of the WAR patches made the file lay the same between it and TLD....

A full mod can now run on either title,,,