Question about rangefinding for mortar

[deathadder]

so i like the idea of raining death on a unsuspecting enemy. and the joy i give to a fellow SL when he sees that his opposition has been lightened. but before this can happen... i must know the range to my target?

the spotter doesn't help me at all, all he does is tell me where to put my marker. so lets say i wanted to hammer there main all day i can do that on my own without endangering my spotter. but the targets are only correct within a 50m radius, so how can i find my range to target.


Also i was looking at the "hints" you get at the loading screen and one was for a the Pythagorean. which was A^2+B^2=C^2 . and my geometry/trigonometry is a bit rusty so my question is....? how does this equate to the the range finding process. ( or is it just some joke that the Devs put in to make it a laugh?)

[Celestial1]

If you swap to the "calculate" screen, then go to your Spawn/Squad screen you will see "Distance: xxxx" to the left of the Suicide button. That increments by 50m, so it can be off by 25m.



For more accurate gauges of distance, you could, if so inclined, use the distance formula.
sqrt( (DeltaX)^2 + (DeltaY)^2 ) where DeltaX/Y refers to "the change in" X/Y (calculated by subtracting the first value from the second).

a^2 * b^2 = c^2 is the pythagorean theorem, it is used to find the hypotenuse of a triangle; if you can figure out how far North/South and how far East/West the target is, you can use those values for a & b, which will give you c, which when you take the square root of to find the distance "as the crow flies".



Both equations do the same thing, they're just "phrased" differently. I'd suggest keeping a calculator nearby if you pride yourself on accurate hits. For less effort and quicker results, you can use the rangefinder on the Spawn/Squad screen.

[deathadder]

thanks a lot for the info, and also is there any deviation as to where the round will land? like if i drop fire rounds from 1000m or so will if i have it to the 25m mark will i get at least 1 round on target? or are all rounds almost lasers where all rounds hit in the same spot?

[Spec]

Pretty much laser from what I can tell. Didn't mortar too much yet, though, but I always hit my targets in practice.

[Hunt3r]

so i like the idea of raining death on a unsuspecting enemy. and the joy i give to a fellow SL when he sees that his opposition has been lightened. but before this can happen... i must know the range to my target?

the spotter doesn't help me at all, all he does is tell me where to put my marker. so lets say i wanted to hammer there main all day i can do that on my own without endangering my spotter. but the targets are only correct within a 50m radius, so how can i find my range to target.


Also i was looking at the "hints" you get at the loading screen and one was for a the Pythagorean. which was A^2+B^2=C^2 . and my geometry/trigonometry is a bit rusty so my question is....? how does this equate to the the range finding process. ( or is it just some joke that the Devs put in to make it a laugh?)

It's for rangefinding. If you want to get accurate I think you need to use the projectile motion formula, and then factor in the drag from the air that would prevent it from having a perfectly parabolic path, but it depends on how it's modeled in game.

[goguapsy]

It's for rangefinding. If you want to get accurate I think you need to use the projectile motion formula, and then factor in the drag from the air that would prevent it from having a perfectly parabolic path, but it depends on how it's modeled in game.

AFAIK you can't add wind to bf2... therefore rangefinding is the best you can get. Elevation difference, well, that depends on the map.

[Hunt3r]

Best idea really is to create a graphing calculator application that will dynamically calculate the angle in mils for total elevation from the perpendicular of the vertical axis relative to the firing position. One could determine the maximum range, and be a lot more accurate while they're at it. Use a^2+b^2=c^2 by calculating the exact distance in grids, possibly using a ruler and scaling.

Then calculate time of flight for both mortar positions. Fire in such a way that both will land near instantaneously.

[Gore]

What about height, do you add the approximate height of the target or the height of the mortatr position?

[Chuc]

Height is relative to the mortar, so it would be the height of the target.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

It seems that the DEVs have made the new mortar system NEED to be guided onto target by someone with eyes on, with the SL and mortar teams rangefinder in increments of 50m (ofc it could be 100% accurate) the DEVs are obliging the SL's to walk on the rounds to the target.

Mortar team on SL Mumble FTW!

Fire for effect one smoke
Left 30 metres
and too short by 25m
Fire for effect
Perfect now HE then airburst please....

[kaufman_23]

this way takes too much time. its much easier to use the ingame range that is given to you, and just ajust your fire with the spotter.

or you can fire 3 rounds, being the first -20m, second is the distance given trough your calculator, and the third would be +20m. so your spotter can tell you which round was good

anyway, i think the mortars are verry well made. they dont get too many kills. so far i never saw more than 20 kills by the mortars itself in a round. teamwork is needed for them to function properly. and they have a psihological effect to the enemy. when you have a mortar zeroing on you, you just want to crawl under a rock

and they are so fun to use

great work

[BloodBane611]

I've been spending about 1/2 my time in mortar squads, the standard rangefinder is more than good for fire missions. Definitely helps to have a spotter up front walk it in, too many SLs will just call a fire mission then not bother adjusting rounds after impact, but even just being within 50m and random walking rounds gets decent results

[mat552]

I use a much rougher version of the theorem, count the grids over, count the grids down/up, mesh them together, orient the mortar towards the target, and open up. It's easy and accurate, don't even need a spotter anymore, just an officer kit to call in the strike.

How do you know where to shoot? Keep an eye on the team if they won't talk to you. Watch for squads to surround a position, especially in insurgency. Two squads flanking in the same direction and taking casualties means there's fire coming from somewhere. Wait until they stall their advance, then guesstimate the enemy position, drop a few smokes or airbursts, and that's usually that.

[deathadder]

So what I'm hearing is that the 25m deviation is a close enough hit. i really do guess it is, but this is project reality right? shouldn't mortar teams and such try for maximum possible accuracy? I'm going to try to find a program for my TI so i can do these corrections fast and accurately. and see if it actually helps in near pinpoint mortar fire. if so wouldn't it be awesome if some team is pinned down by a enemy sniper on a rooftop and they are with 25m of the sniper that i could drop a shell directly onto him? that just sounds Badass to me, so I'm going to pursue this a little further and see what happens.

and thanks Kaufman 23 that picture really helped me understand what was happening.

[kaufman_23]

well basicaly you need a good spotter to guide your shells. its a no brainer to fire the mortar, the thing is in ajusting your fire, and without a good spotter it just doesent work. its like the cobra. without a spotter cobra is worthless. teamwork FTW

[Rissien]

Get a marker on the target, switch to your scales, bring up the map for distance and put it into the calculations to adjust elevation, not hard really, takes all but a few seconds.

[deathadder]

H[=Rissien;1469583']Get a marker on the target, switch to your scales, bring up the map for distance and put it into the calculations to adjust elevation, not hard really, takes all but a few seconds.

i knew how it worked but i just wondered if you could just get perfect pinpoint accuracy within the ~5m range. and i get it just use teamwork and all of this is not needed

[Celestial1]

I've considered writing myself a quick and dirty app for my iPhone that would ask for map size, location of mortar team, location of target; would store map size & mortar locations so you'd only have to change target loc for fire missions

Would tremendously speed up the math and could give extremely accurate results.







Don't judge me, I just want to make applications.

[baptist_christian]

what i usually do is just adjust it to exactly the range given by the range finder in the map screen and then just fire 3 or 4 rounds, adjusting + or - a couple minutes. Usually yields the most amount of kills that way in coop.

Oh man, spamming mortars in coop is so much fun. Sometimes its even more fun when you're being hit with mortars. I just have to tip my hat to a mortar team that managed to find my squad.

[deathadder]

well celestial that is exactly what i wanted to do. make something that was possibly lengthy to set up ( size of map, position of mortar ect.) then could be altered with just one or two simple variables then get the spot on distance.