Artillery

[Agramer]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

This seems extra wonky to me. Let's consider the M224 60mm Mortar. It is designed to easily be both a direct fire and indirect fire weapon.

Mortar is indirect fire weapon.No matter how small curve of parabola is.

Situation A):

fire at target hidden behind hill:

As discussed before ...FO gives coordinates..plotter calculates shoot.FO must have visual to target OR hes making "educated guess" upon some parameters.
Plotter cant do math w/o FObserver.

Sit B): You have visual to target:
Plotter can do math without FO

60 mm Mortars are used usually in Infantry Companies to add more punch and usually consist of crew of 3 (1 carries tube,2nd bipod,3rdammo in backpack rack designed for it::>extra ammo can be distributed among squad mortar is attached to).There are usually 2 60 mm mortars per one company.

Not all armies use them,though lately their number in increasing radically.
In Croatian army they are standard for mountain units and are used extensively in professional guard units.

I think USA units also started to use them in increasing numbers while German military dont use them at all(only 120 mm).

You can look at those small mortars(60 mm) as heavy machine-guns(also 3 man crew...one carrying "stand"(bipod) another barrel 3rd ammo...with excess ammo distributed in squad to which heavy machine gun is attached).