Company of Heroes

if your are axis and go tier 2 you always have to have a mortar in a field, because they provide great suport
for exzample: your grenadiers have 1 shreck, and are in no cover, your mortar is in the back, the enemy sends a halftrack with quad upgrade and rushes to them thinking they will die in a matter of seconds
you select smoke barage, throw it on ur grens, and they gain a tremendous cover, alowing them to kill the halftrack
Or: also 1 grens vs BAR's, while the grens get insta pinned, the mortar from the back starts baraging the enemy forces, and deals big damage, killing 2-3 members of the squad with its first hit
the smoke cover works well against tanks, even with the new patch.
in all if used smartly the mortar is a big advantage to the player playing it

By: NuvioN

This post has been edited by purpose: Dec 17 2006, 23:03 PM

i dont know if mortars are as useful as they you make them out to be. putting smoke down on your grenadiers takes a lot of time and i would still put my money of the quad. even if the smoke comes down, what is to stop the quad going right on by the grens and killing the mortar squad?

I've heard a lot of people say smoke is bugged too... if it works as well as you say though, that'd be an awesome reason to get a mortar.

Believe me, they are. They are my initial tier 2 unit almost always, unless i am in dire need of Grens, and they are far more useful then you would ever suspect. For example when you're in an infantry vs infantry battle if you have mortar even remotely close to the battlefield it will wreak havoc on enemy troops forcing them to continuously keep moving which denied them the cover bonus and causes and them accuracy penalty as well as inflicting heavy casualties. I rarely remember to use the smoke ability and still i find mortars indispensable.

1 note: if your mortar is being sniped or engaged close range then either retreat asap or don't retreat at all. Once 2 members are killed the 3rd instantly commits suicide (i don't know why and i hate it) which means if they are in the process of retreating or unpacking the mortar then the entire unit while be knocked out leaving NO mortar to re-man. But if you let them die and have forces nearby to avenge your death then you can always re-man the mortar for under 90 MP compared to the 270 MP required to buy a new one.

humm interesting neva though of using mortars for such. always used then to take mg in buildings or bunker.

I thought mortars were so sucky because of their lack of precision and damage but I can imagine in support it will own.

I heard that you were supposed to drop smoke in between your grenadiers and the opponent instead of on your grenadiers. Does anyone really know?

no just throw it on your grenadiers

Btw. purpose tnx for posting my tip of the week

the annoying thing about support mortars is when the enemy charges into your men, then retreats and the shell takes out half your squad =/

The only time I (always an ally) use smoke from mortars is when there's a choke point through with I have to travel (ie: center cross way on Vire River) and the axis have multiple ATs and/or garrisoned MG teams waiting for me. I fire a few rounds of smoke just past the choke point allowing my tanks to use its cover and flank the at guns. Follow that up with your support squads (riflemen, rangers, flamers, etc) and you're good to go. I've found that units that move behind smoke don't get pinned as easily.

Make sure your mortar team has support and some cover (though their defense is pretty good as-is).
Edit: one more thing - as an ally, also use the Barrage ability! Your team will lob many more shells in a shorter amount of time (though accuracy takes a hit I think).

This post has been edited by StevieWonder: Dec 18 2006, 17:18 PM

Dropping smoke ON your troops has varying results, from good to useless. Throw it inbetween your troops to be sure that the effect will happen.

Also, the smoke reduces the accuracy of the grenadiers too. It's far better just to stick your grenadiers in cover, and they'll blow away the quad with ease.


But yeah..I do agree that mortars are amazing units.

problem with this is the quad will most likely to kill the grenadier squad before the smoke comes down

building a mortar = auto 1 squad less

I dont use mortar much but here is my 2 cent:

use mortar to take out AT guns, and once the crews are killed dont stop firing until the gun is unabled

when rifleman are supressed by your mg 42, launch multiple rounds of mortar explosive rounds into enemy postion

fire at caping units, tanks with engy by its side, or even howitzer maybe =S

Wow I've forced myself into using these babies lately. Some things I found out:

1) Keep close but not too close; If you move in your mortar further then it's accurancy will increase dramatically. Don't get it to close though, mortars get eaten by about any unit in the game within seconds. Even with support those units are super vurnerable.

2) Great for infantry, versus tanks not so great. They do very good damage and I think even some supression effects to infantry, plus it forces them to keep moving and thus losing accuracy and cover bonusses. It is pretty useless against tanks though. It's a lot harder to hit them as infantry. Add to that that vehicles can move relatively fast and mortars are rendered pretty much useless against em.

do bear in mind that you need to go assault phase for smoke barrage. going tier 3 also gives you lmg's so in fact, tier 2 is not as powerful until you reach tier 3...

I think this thread became obviously flawed when the OP used the word "exzample"

the best way to use them by far is to prevent your enemy to cap points. If you got a mortar nearby putting a barriage on a nonsuspecting rifle squad capping a high fuel or ammo can do great damage. Really can annoy the hell out of him to cap points. This way you can cover points without having units nearby.

It's a typo... Get over it.

Hm... Interesting, i neber used mortars a lot, considering them very vulnurable. I have snipers to take out mg in buildings, and at guns or panzerfausts for quads... By the way the quad can just kill your mortar team really fast, make a false retreat and when the smoke is no more present rush back. If nicely mocroed it will take one shreck shot for all that time.