Manokan Republic wrote:Well the ammunition cost and weight is the main advantage and the mortar itself could be expensive and not really a problem in the long run. There's also the fact that many costs are negligible, like say if the mortar backpack was say, 10,000 dollars, that's the price of a single M1 abrams round. So, for an infantry soldier to have a mortar +20 rounds for that price and be able to reuse it would be expensive in comparison to the price of say, a 1000 dollar assault rifle, but not expensive in regards to the rest of the military. Cost is relative, and so expensive infantry equipment usually isn't expensive for the overall price of the military.
The main advantage is the low price of ammunition, as a javeline missile is 50,000 dollars per round fired, and a mortar is at most a few hundred. Even if the mortar itself was 50,000 dollars, that's a one time downpayment. It also would probably be about the same weight. The basic idea would be to type in the coordinates on like a gps and then have it fire there rather than self aim per say. So it's not auto targeting, it's just moves in the right direction and then fires. As for automatic loading, the basic idea would be breach loading and have it be automated like a chaingun.
cost is relative, which is exactly why comparing the price of a 120mm APFSDS round to an infantry mortar is a bit irresponsible. granted, I undercut this argument constantly by refusing to buy expensive things on the basis that I can buy n amount of bacon with that money instead, but the good thing about the internet is that we can pretend to be better people than we actually are.
bluntly, just because a cost is fixed and not variable doesn't negate it - for example, at some point the Japanese decided to procure a 3000 dollar domestically manufactured service rifle instead of, say, a 1000 dollar foreign alternative. what this meant was that it took years and years and years to fully re-equip the GSDF with new service rifles. buying an exceptionally superfluous automated mortar system that would require some sort of power source and presumably automated components and gyroscopes and sensors and GPS functionality because you object to the idea of just planting it on the immediately available ground would inevitably increase the fixed cost of the weapon, and just because a 120mm round optimised for killing million dollar steel beasts costs as much as it does, that fact will nonetheless not negate the fact that your tube offers barely more than a regular mortar but will still cost multiple times as much on the balance sheets.
E: personally I feel as though the MGI Mle F1 is a fantastic infantry tool - not only lightweight but also provides a substantively different capability to direct fire GLs, with the capacity to provide indirect fire support and fire a wide range of munitions (from your regular HE to smoke and star rounds)
