I think mortars would be very cool to be honest.
You know, mortars aren't especially easy to use. Assure that you made it had a trajectory that was very high, and the projectile travelled to a high altitude. In this case, it would be pretty difficult to aim the projectile, and would mean that you would really have to become good with it for it to be effective.
In addition, if you're looking out at the target from farther away, it's difficult to judge the depth that the projectile is hitting at. You may not even be hitting the exact target. If the mortar has a minimum angle at which it can be lowered, it would prevent people from shooting it straight at the target.
In addition, rather than making it a weapon that is carried by the soldier, it could be made a static emplacement with 360 degree rotation. This would allow freedom of direction and a limited firing angle, however it wouldn't be able to be deployed on a hillside to fire straight.
I personally think mortars would make the game quite interesting and encourage more teamwork.
Just from memories in DC, I could never get an artillery spotter to help me unless I was playing with a friend. That was particularly aggrivating. I mean come on, I'm sitting here on my a** with a howitzer, waiting to help you... The least you could do is pull out your binoculars and click.
Regardless... I think that it could definately encourage more teamwork. If the commander could see that a certain squad has a man on a mortar (much like he can see if a person is in a tank), he could direct the person to fire at a specific spot. This spot might be able to show up on the person's 3D map as an attack symbol or something, however he would have to manually adjust the mortar to hit the target. Difficult over longer ranges.
My advice: Implement it. If it becomes too much of a noob tube as feared... remove it. But I believe that by making it a static emplacement it will eliminate most of the feared problems.
My two cents.
