Heavy Mortar

### Cons

No fire effect. Projectiles can be shoot down by anti-air defence. The mortar itself is highly vulnerable to being destroyed by Flak.

### Overview

The Heavy Mortar fires an explosive projectile in a high lob, arcing up and falling onto the opponent. They explode upon contact with anything on the fort they hit, and apply their full direct damage and splash immediately. This makes Heavy Mortars fantastic at hitting weak spots, especially those that other weapons can't hit. Their arcing trajectory allows them to hit the top of forts, destroying the fort from above.

Heavy Mortars by themselves have relatively low splash and direct damage, especially compared to heavy weapons. Despite their weak stats individually, they are very cheap to both build and fire. They also build and upgrade very fast. To that effect, building groups of two or three mortars capitalizes on their cheap individual cost, and going up to six mortars can be necessary if they aren't landing enough.

When firing mortars, the position in the aiming cone matters. If they are fired at the beginning of the cone, they have very low velocity and do not go very far. Conversely, firing the mortars too far at the end of the cone will make the mortars go much further. The ability of mortars to fire with a controlled velocity and firing angle gives them a wide range of trajectories, and lets them hit a greater portion of the opponent's fort.

Mortars also have zero firing deviation, at least when fired manually every time. This allows them to hit the same spot repeatedly, continually damaging the same weak point.

### Strategies

When using Heavy Mortars, it is imperative one has enough to break the opponent. Grouping mortars into threes and firing them all together reduces the demand on APM to micromanage them. Three mortars hitting the same spot at the same time is also more devastating than three mortars hitting with a small delay; the opponent gets hit by all the damage at once, instead of getting a small time window to repair and rebuild.

Using a bait mortar or bait mortars increases the chances of the rest of the mortars landing. Firing mortars at angles that are completely different splits the focus of aa, causing the opposing machine guns to shoot at some mortars and miss the others.

Another strategy for mortars is horizontal portal mortars. Putting mortars under a portal and firing them out sideways at the opponent makes them much harder to shoot down. This is because they have a greater velocity and the angles are harder for the gunners to hit.

### Counters

Since mortar projectiles die to one machine gun bullet, they are the cheapest response to mortars. While they can be inconsistent, machine guns only cost 75 metal and shoot down the mortars more often than not.

Flak, being aa, is also a good counter to mortars. This is for two reasons: 1) they can shoot down a group of mortars and 2) they do massive damage to the weapon itself. Flaks can burst their shrapnel over a mortar pit or wall and destroy all of the mortars before they even get the chance to fire. This only works if the flak can burst close though, so a tall wall can mitigate the effects of the flak.