Quote Originally Posted by Rifleman View Post
Artillery and mortar types soundoff: would there be any advantage (or problems) in having a mixed battery of 105 howitzers and 120 mortars? Say a battery of four 105 tubes and four 120 tubes?

Would two types of ammo in the battery be a logistical problem? We have more than one type of small arms ammo in a company now and it doesn't seem to hinder operations.

I was just thinking (dangerous, I know): why to we need a heavy mortar platoon at battalion level at all when battalions have an artillery battery attached? It seems the 120s might fit better there.
Ken would be the perfect man to tell us about this; he bin' there, he dun it, and he'd probably have written the book about, but writing may not have been invented yet back then...

It seems kind of doubtful to me Rifleman. I'm no Gunner (my paternal grandfather was though), but it strikes me as just needlessly complicated for an Arty Battery. You'd need two sets of Plotting Tables, maybe even an extra radio set in order to get around the radio logjam for both the guns and the tubes; and maintainence and supply would be complicated. Calibration could be fun too. Survey shouldn't be a problem though, even if GPS weren't available to effectively avoid that "little" detail.

I think the Army tried something somewhat similar (but in separate Batteries, not Platoons/Troops in each Battery) with the Pentomic Division. Didn't work out real well.