UKF counter strategies to axis indirect

Hi All,

As the topic states, I'm interested to find how other folks playing UKF deal with whole spectrum of axis indirect firepower, specifically in team games.

A good number games played recently ended up as ugly arty slug fests where I basically spend all match dodging indirect fire all the time. It starts with the very first encounters where the wher plyer gets a mortar as his second unit (the standard meta, especially for certain maps), later come the Leig's, then the rocket arty, then the fixed arty. It's just raining arty, non-stop.

So what can brits do to deal with this? I'm not talking about whether the situation is balanced, just wondering what other people have come up with.

Lets assume that the other side is competent and knows how to defend their arty positions with HMGs, paks, mines and forward reinforce.

Stock Options
Mortar pits are quite infective against a dedicated indirect spammer, by the time you get your pit up is badly out numbered by other mortars. They seem to have a huge bullseye painted on them as soon as they discovered and the axis stop at nothing to get rid of it.

Arty flares Does an okay job at forcing axis off a small position but the red marker and long time between flare and first shell arriving gives them more than enough time to pack up and move slightly further back. Also ever present MG42's means its really hard to get the flares where they need to go before your IS are pinned. Normally you would use smoke to get close, but you can't smoke cause you can't get a mortar pit up.
Going anvil and getting air burst rounds help, but doesn't get around the fact that an IS has to get the flare into place.

Reacon
A huge problem with any off map arty options is the massive lack of reacon abilities available to commanders. There is no stock option for reacon and no commander options to reacon specific areas, only stuff that is gimmicky and expensive. If you have a commander with an off map arty, then you don't have access to any reacon abilities. So you can't spot the arty that are wrecking your position so you can never retaliate with off map - am I missing something here?
Are UKF supposed to rely on other allied factions for reacon options or are you supposed suicide a vehicle to try spot or something else? I'm genuinely at a loss in this regard.

Assuming you can spot, what are the best call downs / units to use against indirect types, ie mortars/Leigs; rocket arty and fixed arty? Ideally one needs to destroy the arty piece out right, as your efforts are for naught if the piece can easily re-crewed.