Mortar Company

82mm Mortar Platoon - Soviet mortar platoons working with other platoons can lay down barrages of high explosive that can scythe down enemy infantry caught in the open

Pack contains 1 small and 9 medium bases, 1 officer, 1 NCO, 1 Rifleman, 27 crew and 9 mortars

The Soviets went through a quick succession of mortar designs before settling on the distinctive BM-41 design. It was designed to take advantage of mass production methods. It was generally simplified.

Comrade Dion has painted 6 Mortar teams, but the pack contains all 9 required for a full strength company

Its round base plate was stamped out and the bipod could have wheels added to speed the mortars movement, to offset the Soviets lack of transport and making the Mortar easy to transport on foot by its crew without disassembling it.

In Flames of War

At first glace the Soviet mortar may not seem like a good option, it’s crewed by Conscripts and has no smoke round to screen your companies’ movements.

In good red army tradition the smoke round was believed unnecessary. Why fire smoke when you can fire something dangerous?

But a whole company gives you 9 tubes, way over the minimum required (6) to give you a re-roll on failed hits, this means your mortars can take a bit of a pounding before losing their effectiveness on the table.

As Mortar teams are gun teams they also get the benefits of the Senior Arm Of Service rule.

Soviet Gun teams may fire a bombardment while Out of Command, provided that neither they nor their Command team moved since they were last In Command. This allows them to continue a bombardment in the face of heavy casualties.

Any team under a Soviet bombardment is always hit on a roll of 6, even if a 7 or 8 would normally be needed.

So with the combined effect of their large unit size and Senior Arm Of Service their bombardments can be quite devastating, and like all Soviet units bloody hard to stop!

Designed by Evan Allen
Painted by Dion Holswich