Profile of Mazianni

Afaik, the USF mortar is an exact copy of the Ostheer mortar, except it has 5 less range (75 instead of 80) and gets reduced smoke barrage cooldown instead of counterbarrage at vet 1.

Because scatter doesn't depend on the maximum range of a unit (unlike accuracy), it will have the same performance as the Ostheer mortar at the same ranges.

So while it might not have the same flexibility as the Ostheer mortar, I wouldn't go as far as to say it's only good for smoke.

Besides slower setup/teardown and lesser range, the USF Mortar suffers from worse AOE distances that reduce overall damage output, and unlike the Ostheer mortar the barrage offers no improvement to scatter. I just can't justify building it on the basis of anything other than free smoke, and would never build one if I develop towards grenade techs instead.

In the context of 3+ MGs being suggested here I suppose it could be useful, however, though still more as an anti-garrison weapon as the barrage is not reliably capable of killing or sufficiently damaging (so as to incur a retreat) a MG crew out in the open IMO. Last time I bought the bullet on building double mortars in a 2v2 we got rolled and both mortars ended up feeling pretty useless with maybe 1-2 kills between them, despite heavy MG useage by Ostheer player.

If you can stomach the fuel and muni costs I'd say grenades are a more reliable investment most of the time.

İ am strugling aganist ost mg spam as usf. I am open to logical advice.

Mortar can offer free smoke and barrage garrisoned buildings. Other than that, certain commanders offer tools for countering MGs, such as the WC51 (Mechanized: be careful not to lose vehicles to the MG42's AP rounds, however, as it can very quickly destroy light vehicles) and "Fire Up" (Rifle Company) for flanking, and rear echelon rifle grenades (Urban Assault) for driving the MG out of buildings and cover, or otherwise attacking the MG from beyond cover. Think of it as a more mobile mortar; it's about as good as your regular one when it comes to killing.

If you are really feeling ballsy, you can tech to grenades which will help with wiping out team weapons and stealing them. I used to like to do this with Rifle Company since you can get close with the Fire Up ability and then pop a grenade, hopefully without getting suppressed beforehand.

If you go captain, you can also use his "On Me!" ability to remove suppression from a squad. It is worth noting that this ability is supposed to retreat units to the captain, but you can make the squad stop or move towards the enemy instead; the movement portion of the ability is not a hard retreat function and can be easily overridden.

2x mortar. People say the USF mor is bad, and it may not be the OST mortar, but it does its job well enough.

2x Mortar early game as USF - honestly any faction probably - is sure suicide in anything lower than a 3v3.

You should only ever be using USF mortar for smoke so doubling up isn't going to help anyway.

Can someone explain why this unit is cheaper - and more durable - than the WC54 Ambulance and the M3A1 Scout Car again

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Holy hell, and that's versus double brens?

Lmao

I'm surprised that, in the end, when you were talking about thematic failure and the portrayal of the Soviets, that you didn't bring up the campaign mission where a bunch of conscripts rescue the main character, and then are executed for it. It was the single most upsetting part of the whole game for me, suddenly I was feeling exactly what I assume all those Russian players felt.

Here you have a bunch of the titular, nameless "Heroes" of the game killed in cold blood by their own officers for rescuing one of their own. Soviet doctrine certainly discouraged initiative, sure, but I doubt extremely highly that the Soviet leadership at any tactical or even strategic level would have demanded the execution of a group of soldiers for such an act of heroism - if anything it would have made great Red Army propaganda. It was the single most disgusting moment of the campaign for me, and to this day I have not finished it. Simply cartoonish villainy.