Mortars; bloody expensive

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Mortars; bloody expensive

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Steel Panthers World At War & Mega Campaigns >> Mortars; bloody expensive

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Mortars; bloody expensive - 8/16/2000 3:56:00 PM

edgar

Posts: 16
Joined: 5/20/2000
From: Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Status: offline

When playing SPWW2 (dos version) I always mange to buy a fair amount of mortars at the beginning of the game. They are cheap, fairly accurate and apart from shelling (and suppressing) my opponent, mortars can be used to lay smoke. All in all mortars are the kind of weapons I appreciate very much. When playing SPWAW and I am buying my units at the beginning of a game I am forced to leave mortars on the shelf. Why? Because they are bloody expensive, that’s why. In my opinion this is not very realistic; mortars are known as the poor man’s artillery. I guess that reason why mortars are so expensive in SPWAW is because of the fear that the gameplay will become dominated by artillery (a complain referred to SP3). However I might state that the chance that the gameplay in SPWAW will be dominated by artillery is much smaller. Artillery in SPWAW is much harder to handle and less efficient when in comes to actually killing infantry or damaging vehicles. Then why, you might ask, is it that I would like to have some cheap mortars? Because they cause suppression and can be used for laying smoke. Edgar

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- 8/16/2000 11:09:00 PM

Graf Speer

Posts: 99
Joined: 7/23/2000
Status: offline

I appreciate the observation that mortars in SPWAW are far more expensive as well as more lethal. Like Edgar, the purchasing of 'small' cheap mortars to provide smoke as well as accompany infantry platoons for close arty support was a favored tactic of mine in SP and SPIII (never played SPII). While the new SPWAW mortar implementation is far more expensive but also more effective / lethal, I am confident there are sound historically supported reasons explaining the increase in cost and mortar effectiveness; but like Edgar, I would value a summary report why these dramatic changes for SPWAW (my apologies, that this topic was likely covered many moons ago . . . .) Thanks! Albert

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The Good Nazi

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- 8/17/2000 1:31:00 AM

Major Destruction

Posts: 881
Joined: 8/10/2000
From: Canada
Status: offline

[QUOTE]Originally posted by edgar: When playing SPWAW and I am buying my units at the beginning of a game I am forced to leave mortars on the shelf. Why? Because they are bloody expensive, How do you rate expensive? It is difficult to relate to subjective words such as 'expensive' unless some baseline is suggested. It is easy to compare the cost of an 81mm mortar to a 75mm howitzer. How does the comparison fare? How do the two weapons perform vis a vis availability, range and firecontrol. In a 30 turn battle, with ammo resupply if possible, how much damage can a mortar do during a game compared with, say, a CS tank. How does a mortar survive in comparison to a similar weapon? Remember, if your spotter has good ratings and LOS, those mortars are very deadly. without LOS, they can still provide plenty of suppression. How much infantry cannon fodder would you need to commit to provide the same degree of suppression?

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They struggled with a ferocity that was to be expected of brave men fighting with forlorn hope against an enemy who had the advantage of position......knowing that courage was the one thing that would save them.

Julius Caesar, 57 BC

(in reply to edgar)

Post #: 3

- 8/17/2000 2:42:00 AM

Paul Vebber

Posts: 11430
Joined: 3/29/2000
From: Portsmouth RI
Status: offline

The costs of everything n the game are being recomputd based on "the numbers". What started as taking some of the ideas for "scoring units" has gotten nearly out of hand :-) THe realtive class merits are proving the hard part...and I'm sure I'll hear about scoring anomolies once version 3 comes out (getting close now)

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