US Parachute platoon.

[Gunner]

Playing our first game at the weekend. In my US platoon there is a 60mm mortar squad. Is he commanded by senior leaders giving orders, or do they have a leader with the 5 man team to give commands?

[Truscott Trotter]

One of the SL can activate the 60mm mortar otherwise they activate on a die roll of 1 as a separate team

[Gunner]

That’s great thanks for your time.

[Truscott Trotter]

You're welcome. For forces that have to purchase their light mortars from the support lists have the same problem, at least the US paras have 2 SL's

[Rob Herrick]

This may be a bit of thread necromancy, but why doesn't the mortar squad have a JL assigned to it, representing the squad sergeant and the sixth man in the squad?

[7dot62mm]

"It's Alive!" ...

It's a CoC convention which has little to do with the rank of the person leading the support team. MMGs and HMGs likewise were usually commanded by NCOs of some kind but still only activate on a 1 in CoC. Something to do with lack of initiative or such. Maybe.

The size of the team is another CoC convention. Heavy weapons such as cannon seem to have five-man teams, smaller weapons seem to have three-man teams manning them. When I'm umpiring I always use historical crew numbers and that can make some weapons difficult to destroy, for example a Maxim MG might have a seven-man crew and a cannon eleven men...

[Archdukek]

This may be a bit of thread necromancy, but why doesn't the mortar squad have a JL assigned to it, representing the squad sergeant and the sixth man in the squad?

Not all NCOs are recognised as Junior Leaders in Chain of Command. Some support weapons like this mortar squad, MMGs, etc are assumed to come under the direct command of the Platoon's Senior Leader and can be activated by them or on a Command Dice of 1. It makes them tactically less flexible than if you give them their own JL and the platoon SLs need to be around to manage Shock.
Crew numbers for a support weapon are a rule mechanic to manage unit resilience rather than an exact representation.

John

[Rob Herrick]

Thank you very much for the clarification. Saves having to scrounge up a JL for the squad.

[ocollens]

US Paratroop units had extra 'command' provided quite deliberately to cover for the effects of scatter and landing casualties.

Personally I do assign the historical sergeant to the 60mm as a JL. It makes the platoon cost more but gives the flexibility which the unit had.

[Archdukek]

US Paratroop units had extra 'command' provided quite deliberately to cover for the effects of scatter and landing casualties.

Personally I do assign the historical sergeant to the 60mm as a JL. It makes the platoon cost more but gives the flexibility which the unit had.

Providing that additional element of command redundancy clearly makes sense for minimising some of the risks of a drop as you say. However, since that risk doesn't usually arise when fielding the Platoon in a CoC game the key question then becomes how independent was the command of the mortar squad tactically in battle? Does its tactical use justify acknowledging the presence of the historical sergeant by giving the squad a JL? I assume Rich concluded it didn't so followed the established pattern for such support weapons by not doing so but I don't know.

John