Light Mortar

The light mortar represents the ideal of indirect fire made fully portable: a short tube, small baseplate, and bipod that one soldier could carry on the march and assemble to fire in under sixty seconds. British forces in World War I fielded the Stokes mortar and found small teams could saturate enemy trench sections faster than artillery could be called and adjusted. By World War II every major army had standardized on fifty to eighty millimeter systems — the American M1, German Granatwerfer 36, and Soviet 50-PM 40 — operated by two to three men, keeping pace with advancing infantry. This portability gave battalion commanders an organic indirect-fire weapon needing no external support chain. In the game the light mortar crew provides fast, flexible indirect fire, suppressing positions and dislodging defenders from cover. Its light construction makes it fragile in direct combat; it must be protected by accompanying infantry.