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Originally Posted by piersyf
Fair comment. Depends on usage, model and training. Don't forget mortars have been rejected for service because they were too accurate. I am aware that the old British 2" mortar in the hands of a good operator could drop a round onto a point target (like a MG) with only one or 2 shots, but at ranges of around 300yds. The Taliban are nothing like that. Plenty brave enough, but not really the education base for the majority of them to do proper training. The smarter ones are usually employed in other areas like planning, comms, intelligence and making things. I still stand by my comments though, it would have been a risk assessment by the unit commander as to the levels of protection needed, and the man on the spot deemed the risks to be low. If the Taliban had demonstrated a capacity to shoot a tight group at 15rpm and actually hit something I dare say the protection levels would have been higher.
As to being more accurate than artillery, I watched from an OP as my regiment did a demo shoot for some visiting infantry. Their faces turned white as the FOO called in corrections of 10m (the guns were 6km away) and walked a converged grouping (guns firing at a set point rather than as a pattern) over a weapons pit and caved it in. Haven't yet seen a mortar team do that.
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I agree on most but the accuracy issue. The practices can differ from country to country but here we can hit a point target with mortars in 1-2 shots atleast 99% of the time, from any range. In a normal situation the target isnt visible from the fring position. This isnt a infantry vs artillery thing for me as i love both and long range artillery/MLRS, is what i usullly have in use in recon missions. We dont have fixed units under one FO, FOs are in the platoon level, he buddies with the platoon commander in the infantry and artillery has some of their own. The units and (tulenkäyttöoikeutta, dont no the term) amount of firepower in your use, is given to you based on the situation by the FO commanders in company, batallion etc. level. So in theory a situation could come that i could be commanding several batteries at one time, as was the case in last war where the Soviet invasion was stopped with massive concentrations of fire. Ofcourse i can only give my word but we have both artillery and mortar units that can do what you described. But if your ever in Finland i can take you to have a look, you being ex military and me having connections it shouldnt be a problem.
