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Originally Posted by Weasel
I would be interested in seeing what TO&E was used to determine direct fire 81mm mortars as support; I have never heard of such a thing so a reference would be fantastic. I cannot find anything on it, but I can on indirect fire. My point really on those para btn support unit is that the mortars are not listed as DF (I guess the next patch will be so?) unlike the 60mm mortars that have DF with them. I bought them thinking they were indirect, I shouldn't have to read the manual for each unit before buying it (nor should my opponent).
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No but we at least HOPE people will read the game manual before playing to understand the game mechanics ( and that includes the MOBHack help that details things like this )
OK......lets go straight to GAME BASICS which is what I should have done last night but I was distracted by other issues and this is something I thought was settled and understood over a decade ago. I forget sometimes that not everyone does understand instinctively how the game works.
Vehicle / aircraft have three carry capacity ratings all built around the one byte code limit of 255
a unit that shows a carry capacity up to 99 can carry foot passengers ONLY
....so if it has a capacity rating of 34 it can load up to 34 troops ( but NOT "guns" and NOT vehicles )
if it has a three digit carry capacity starting with a 1 then it can carry guns....so anything 1xx can carry men and guns up to the limit of xx so a unit with a 134 carry capacity can carry men AND guns (including mortars) up to the limit of 34...if it had a rating of 174 then it can carry up to 74 "weight points" including guns/mortars
if it has a carry capacity rating starting with a 2
UP TO 255 ( the largest number that can be entered) then it can carry vehicles, guns and men up to a limit of 255 "weight points"
because mortars are "guns" and we didn't want people loading and para dropping howitzers from things like Dakotas but wanted to allow some type of mortar support we created these direct fire only mortar units....that have NOTHING to do with any "official" TO&E.....it's what we had to do to allow mortar support loading into aircraft but keep players from loading things into said aircraft that they shouldn't.....so the ENTIRE reason we went to all the trouble of adding and coding DF mortars into the game was to avoid having to give transport aircraft a 1xx carry capacity then have players decide a 105mm howitzer will fit so they load it in....which would generated complaints from PBEM opponents that we were allowing players to "cheat".
THAT is why there are DF mortars in the game. It was much simpler in SPWW2 where there were gliders to carry the mortars and guns but in MBT there are larger transport aircraft that can carry guns and vehicles which "complicates" the issue ......as well not everyone understands if you para drop a normal mortar unit the game splits it into two parts when it gets kicked out the door and the player is expected to find the appropriate crew and mate it back with the appropriate mortar...integrating them was much simpler for players....it meant you could not indirect fire them but it at least gave players the ability to project fire beyond normal rifle range...so a compromise between reality and game mechanics.....again NOTHING to do with an RL "official" TO&E. Once Helicopter got large enough to carry guns they kinda/ sorta took the place of the gliders for moving indirect capable arty onto the game map.
That said I will admit that the game guide explanation of all this is a bit too brief not detailed enough and I have now expanded the explanation in the guide considerably.
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Carry Capacity
An indication of how much this unit can carry. XX means it can only carry troops, 1XX means it can carry a crewed weapon ( guns, mortars etc ), 2XX a vehicle.
Here is a more detailed explanation:
Vehicles and aircraft ( including landing craft and barges ) have three carry capacity ratings all built around the one byte code limit of 255
1/ A unit that shows a carry capacity up to 99 can carry foot passengers ONLY. If that vehicle / aircraft / barge has a "load cost" capacity rating of 34 it can load up to 34 troops ( but NOT crewed guns and NOT vehicles )
2/ If that vehicle / aircraft / barge has a three digit carry capacity starting with a 1 then it can carry crewed guns and troops ( but NOT vehicles)....so anything 1xx can carry men and guns up to the limit of xx. For example-- a unit with a 134 carry capacity can carry men AND guns (including mortars) up to the limit of 34 "load cost"...if it had a rating of 174 then it can carry up to 74 "load cost" including guns and mortars
3/ If it has a carry capacity rating starting with a 2 UP TO 255 ( the largest number that can be entered) then it can carry vehicles, guns and men up to a limit of 255 "load cost" so to use the previous examples if a vehicle / aircraft / barge has a capacity rating of 234 then it can carry troops, guns AND vehicles up to the "load cost" limit of 34
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