Aloha everyone!!!!

Please forgive me if this sounds like a dumb question. I was wondering if there would ever be a chance that a Special Forces unit would employ mortars in their arsenal. I understand it is all dependent upon their mission and that most missions by special forces is of the quick in and out type with little signature but as the SF usage has seemingly changed over the years I was just wondering

Thank you in advance!!

Aussie SASR have been taking mortars with them on their vehicle patrols for a few years now. there are pics of some of the land rovers with ammo tubes and the base plates on the sides. Not sure about other countries

Most definitely. I trained briefly on three different US mortars in the Q course.

18Bravo would know best as 18B is the military occupational specialty for weapons specialist in the green berets.
You may be a little off in your assessment of their mission though. The main SF mission is to be a force multiplier. The usual unit to accomplish this is a 12 man team and they are capable of training up to a Bn size unit of "friendly" troops,while also taking care of them and their family members with advanced first aid.
Two members of each team are weapons specialists (18B) and are in charge of all the weapons training,although all team members are also cross-trained and can help with any training.
The smaller insert missions do,of course ,happen as well.
When I was involved with this whole thing the 18B guys also had to be proficient on all kinds of other countries mortars as well as ours.
So,I suppose for the sake of your dio you would have to decide what specific mission you want to model?
Sorry for being long winded. Mike Roof on this website was a long time SF soldier and would know more. I was just a lowly paratrooper.
J

Just depends on the specific mission.

SF units have mortars available in their TO&E for both training and deployment, and the 18B's are well-trained in their employment, operation and gunnery. (Heck, as a young 11B2S - before the 18-series MOS'es - I even spent about 6 weeks at Ft, Benning, GA attending the Infantry Mortar Platoon Officers Course - IMPOC. That was on top of the Q-course and unit training evolutions.)

On various teams that I was assigned to, we regularly conducted live-fire mortar gunnery as a team training event. Often times mortar gunnery was done at the consolidated company or battalion level with all the Light and Heavy Weapons Leaders (now all Weapons Sergeants) in the unit coming together for efficient use of the ranges and ammunition (rounds are allocated annually on a per-team basis but can be added together to make for a larger, better training events).

If the job requires mortars or the planned course-of-action indicates that mortars would be the best weapon to use, then an SF team could (and likely would) use them.

Fire support for raids and ambushes are likely uses as well as support for static base camp defenses. Even with today's plethora of night vision devices, teams working with less well-equipped indigenous forces could use mortars for battlefield illumination during night missions or basecamp defenses. There are any number of possible scenarios, and the capability and resources are available.

Well I thank all of you both for your service and great wealth of information sending me on the right path