German 50mm Mortar

[Ratzki]

I agree re the German and Brit 50mm. They are quite useful bits of kit, but at first you wonder what on earth to do with them.

The answer is close support supression of whatever the parent platoon happens to be firing at. The German 50mm can do this 2-3 times before it runs out of ammo, the Brit 50mm only the once really, but it can also smoke something, eg that 150mm SiG that just opened up, while you get a counter into position and/or run away.

Still...there are better choices for your points. But if a scenario or OOB assigns them to you, no need to despair at all.

Suppression is what they do best. I ran a few tests last night to see the differences between the German 50mm and 81mm mortars against a dug in gun. The test was done with a Reg., Vet., and Crack mortar teams in both sizes, all modified by a +2 combat bunus HQ.
In every case the 81mm tubes knocked out the gun, with the average number of rounds fired being 7-8 for the crack and vet. teams and 15+ for the reg. team. I ran the tests several times and could not come up with any difference of note between the crack and vet. 81mm teams. Maybe it becomes more apparent in the longer to extreme ranges, but it did not show up in my tests at all. All the 81mm teams pinned the gun and kept the gun pinned after 5 to 7 rounds were fired. In pinning the gun, there was no real difference in mortar teams, they all were as effective as one another on average.
As for the 50mm mortars, they knocked out the gun about 30% of the time with the edge going to the crack and vet. teams. The number of rounds to knock out the gun was all over the map with a low of 6 to a high of 30. This time the edge did go to the crack team over the vet. team, but not by much. Now with pinning the gun, the 50mm teams were all equally effective with 6 to 7 rounds on average being needed to pin the gun and keep it pinned.
I did run a few tests with +1 and 0 combat bonus HQ's but not enough to comment on them too much. What I can say is that if you can get the rounds close to the target, there is little difference between the 81mm and the 50mm as far as pinning guns is concerned. I will not dispute the killing ability of the larger mortar, but the smaller 50mm is potentially able to setup, fire and pin before the first round falls from the 81mm. This can be an advantage, specially if the gun does not have to be KO'd.