Mortars are a form of infantry support artillery type weapon designed primarily to either suppress an area, eliminate and/or damage enemies, vehicles and buildings, to flush out enemies from entrenched positions, to envelop an area with smoke rounds that can both provide cover for allied forces as well as chaos between enemy forces, and to serve as a way to light up an area that is otherwise enveloped in darkness, such as during night operations. Mortar squads exist for the reason of giving close fire support to other types of units such as infantry and cavalry that are in the process of moving onto an enemy position.
The first mortar weapons were devised and used on the 15th century battlefields, from which until know they have often been a deciding factor in combat situations. Initially, mortars were colossal and cumbersome, and portable versions did not begin to appear until the 1st American Civil War in the 1860’s, when they truly showed their potential for carnage and destruction. Eventually further research and development into mortars managed to make them a more compact and mobile version that was scaled down enough to be carried by an individual soldier, yet was still able to deliver a hard punch in terms of indirect fire support. One notable example is the campaign in Sicily in World War 2 in 1943, when American forces managed to use 4.2 inch mortars to continually dismantle counterattacks by Italian forces, forcing retreats by infantry forces together with tanks to positions that could be destroyed by artillery and naval bombardments on behalf of US forces.
In urban operations carried out by the American military in France in 1944, 60-mm, 81-mm and 4.2-inch mortars were used during infantry advances and house to house combat. Mortar units were able to calculate an arch of fire and direct their shells to fall in narrow corridors, roads and alleyways between the houses. Mortars are consistently being developed to improve their efficiency as an indirect fire support weapon and have been used in modern warfare in places such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan by US forces. In combination with infantry and cavalry, they can be a useful tool in the commander’s repertoire for combining the dynamics of different units to achieve mission success.
In order for a close combat support action by a mortar unit to be effective in assisting a maneuvering unit, it needs to be accurate and with acceptable timing to successfully coordinate action between the two units. Speed is paramount to the success of mortar units in executing their mission. Sometimes the request will come in for mortar teams to conduct multiple fire missions either concurrently or in succession, and they must be able to coordinate and execute their duties with speed, accuracy and steadfast communication between units. The effectiveness of mortar fire is determined by things such as density of fire, timing, projective type and fuze. A mortar barrage has a diminishing effect on enemy morale if there is a sustained barrage from multiple mortar teams across a target area where the maximum amount of rounds are fired over the shortest timeframe.