ACE 3 Basic Mortar/Indirect Fire Tutorial | Arma 3

Step-by-step guide on ACE 3 advanced indirect fire using the M252 Mortar from RHS in Arma 3.
This guide is long-form. I go in order from start to finish, so feel free to skip around!
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:40 Mortar Placement
05:48 Range/Elevation
10:14 Direction/Azimuth
11:50 Maptool
15:38 First Target
22:30 Correcting First Target
31:45 Second Target
35:24 Correcting Second Target
40:35 Altitude Adjustment
51:46 Final Target (Mistakes made)
53:53 Correcting Final Target (Mistakes made)
56:24 Remarks

[@corneliusdoug]

dude gotta tell you this is by far one of the best tutorials out there! your knowledge comes across in abundance. very well explained i honestly don`t think you could have walked through step by step any clearer than you just did mind blown thank you bud also cant believe youv only 25 subscribers wishing you the best of luck with the channel mate you definetly deserve it

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

I really appreciate the kind comment! This video was mostly meant for internal use, but I'm glad I decided to post it to help others! Cheers :)

[@OCBValour]

To slow the numbers when adjusting, hold down SHIFT and it allows for a slower movement in getting elevation or azimuth correct.

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

I'm glad to be still be learning new things after nearly 10,000 hours! Thank you for this detail!!!

[@olivZeGeek]

Great video thanks !!!

[@WhiteDeVil3]

Thought for a sec my new headphones are already busted (barely just got em) till I had to rewind the vid, thank fuck. Great guide btw, preshiate it.

[@thereese27]

6.9/10 extraordinarily educational

[@borregoayudando1481]

9/11 would watch more than once.

[@SIMOCESASPANISHHUNTERS]

Thank you for your knowledge and your way of teaching. Just ask: What map are you using for this tutorial? This map looks interesting.

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

Thank you for your kind comment! I do believe this is Kalu Khan, though it's been a long time. It definitely looks like one of G.O.S.'s maps.

[@SIMOCESASPANISHHUNTERS]

@@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5 thank

[@MrDjbeatsmith]

Any tips for very hilly terrain?

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

Hilly terrain can make mortars a lot more difficult to use, though there are a few things you can do to improve your speed/accuracy. TL:DR - avoid firing at your max range, place your weapon on as flat a surface as possible, pay attention to how your azimuth changes affect your weapon elevation, and consider using one charge higher than necessary to reduce the effect of weapon-target altitude difference First, avoid positions that will require you to fire near your maximum range. When firing at maximum range, the path the mortar round takes is flattest, and is most susceptible to changes in terrain heights. If you can, position such that you will mostly fire well within your weapon's range. Second, place your weapon on as flat of a surface as you can manage. On a perfectly flat surface, changing the azimuth your weapon fires on has no affect on the elevation with which you fire. On a sloped surface however, your elevation will change when you change your azimuth, increasingly so with more slope. This can make laying the weapon a slower process, but the larger effect is when firing for effect on target. When firing multiple rounds on target, best affects are achieved when the gunner swings the gun left and right, forward and back with each round for better spacing on target. With slope, laying the weapon left and right may add/drop a significant amount of elevation and result in either a poor spread or a complete miss on the target. Placing the weapon on as flat a surface as possible helps speed up target laying and helps reduce error. My third tip is more my personal standard procedure and does not work for every use case. I tend to use one charge up/heavier/higher than required. Specifically, if I could hit a target with charge 2, but I could also hit it with charge 3, I will usually select charge 3. There are some negative effects to going a charge up. Your round's time of flight will go up. For example charge 2>3 takes you from ~23s to ~30s from shot to splash. This added time in the air also means the round accrues more drift from wind. Again for example from charge 2>3 you get around double the error from wind. The benefit to doing this, however, is that you vastly reduce the error induced by firing on a target above or below you. For a target at 900 meters distance, the charge 2 trajectory requires you adjust 18 mils of elevation per 100 meters of altitude difference. The charge 3 trajectory, however, requires just 5 mils of adjustment. If the environment is favorable with very low wind, the charge 4 trajectory cuts the error down to just 2 mils of elevation adjustment per 100 meters of altitude. Higher charges requiring less consideration for weapon-target altitude differences is a factor of their much more up-and-down trajectory. Higher charges send rounds much higher up, which mean for the same distance, the higher charged rounds come down at steeper angles. This method of "charging up" is especially useful in very hilly terrain where your target will often be 150+ meters above/below your firing position. It can significantly improve first-round accuracy. From personal experience using this "method", 30-40% of the time I'm on target with my first ranging round, and almost every other time my second round is perfectly on target. I prefer getting my round to the target as quickly as possible over spending time calculating corrections for crosswind, head/tailwind, elevation differential, air temp/pressure, etc. The idea is that odds are I will need to send a second round anyway, so I can accept *relatively* small errors like a crosswind or elevation differential. This becomes even more favorable when remembering that we're firing at a target and not a point on a map. If a unit's location is misreported, the most carefully calculated and precise round that lands at exactly the intended square inch of soil will still need an observer's correction onto the actual target. In windy conditions, or very high weapon-target altitude differences, "charging up" and dropping elevation differential calculations can add more error than it removes, so consider testing the math on whether the method works for you! Note for the third tip, I'm referencing data from a mortar table I have in a spreadsheet for the RHS M252. Numbers may be outdated and no longer accurate, but the concepts will remain the same.

[@johncorvus3789]

What map is that? It looks quite nice and I’d love to use it in a Zeus op

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

It's Kalu Khan I believe! Al Rayak also has a similar look to it if I recall correctly.

[@earlgeorge7573]

base plate does not appear to be properly seated? Where are the aiming stakes?

[@douglasd.3625]

Arma 3 doens't have the stakes.

[@dragnar0512]

can u plz give a demonstration of what happens when ur face is infront of the barrel?

[@Lee-Ying]

Mods?

[@2ndbn17thrangersunitoffici5]

Ace3 and RHS USAF are the primary mods showcased in this video. In total there are probably 60-80 I am using here, I cannot provide you with all of them. Additionally, most of the mods I use are designed for a multiplayer milsim experience, and not a singleplayer one. I recommend reddit.com/r/findaunit or the steam forums for finding milsim groups!