WARDOGS: L81 Mortar & Artillery — Exact Range From Map Coordinates

Steam Community guide by Jupliket.

Why your first shell misses

Most people range a mortar by firing, watching where it lands, adjusting, firing again. That works, but it costs you two or three shells at 30 ammo supplies each — and the first shell tells every enemy on the map exactly where you are.
There is an exact method. You read two map coordinates, do one calculation, and the first shell lands on target. It takes about fifteen seconds once you have done it twice.

The short version

• Mark Coordinates on your gun. Copy them.
• Mark Coordinates on the target. Copy them.
• Range = square root of (difference in X² + difference in Y²), then × 100.
• Dial that number into the RNG slider. Fire.
  That is the whole method. The rest of this guide explains each step properly.

Step 1 — Getting your coordinates

• Open the map and zoom all the way in on your gun. This matters — zoomed out, you lose decimal precision and your range will be off.
• Right-click your gun position and choose Mark Coordinates. Chat opens with the numbers in it.
• Press Ctrl+A, then Ctrl+C to copy.
• Repeat on the target.
  You now have two pairs of numbers, something like 98.43, 110.38 and 94.53, 109.03.
  The first number is X, the second is Y.

Step 2 — The maths

It is Pythagoras. Nothing more.
a = difference in X
b = difference in Y
c = √(a² + b²)
range in metres = c × 100
Worked through with the numbers above:
a = 98.43 − 94.53 = 3.90
b = 110.38 − 109.03 = 1.35
a² + b² = 15.21 + 1.82 = 17.03
√17.03 = 4.127
4.127 × 100 = 413 m
Ignore the minus signs — squaring removes them, so it does not matter which coordinate you subtract from which.
Why × 100 and not "read the first three digits"?
You may have seen the rule "take the first three numbers of the square root". That gives the same answer under 999 m, but it breaks above that. Multiplying by 100 keeps working at every range, which matters the moment you get on the artillery tank.
Getting 412 where someone else says 413?
Both are fine. Rounding 1.35 × 1.35 down to 1.82 trims a little off. The exact answer is 412.7 m. A metre makes no difference to where the shell lands — the RNG dial is far coarser than that.

Step 3 — Putting the shell down

• Middle-click the target on the map to drop the white diamond marker.
• Swing the gun until the diamond is centred in your view.
• Set the RNG slider on the left to the range you calculated.
• Between two notches? Split the difference.
• Fire.

Quick reference

L81 Mortar

• Range: up to about 700 m
• Shells loaded: up to 3 — press R to load each
• Unlock: available in your first hour
• Build cost: 91 building supplies, plus more per hammer swing
• Ammo: 30 ammo supplies per shell — a full 3-shell barrage is 90
  Artillery Tank
• Range: 750 m minimum, about 2630 m maximum
• Reload: quick-time event
• Blast: much larger than the mortar
  Note the artillery minimum range. If your target is closer than 750 m, the artillery cannot reach it. That is what the mortar is for.

Bombarding an area

• Load three shells with R before you start.
• Press C to skip the killcam so you can fire again immediately.
• Nudge your aim slightly between each shell to spread the damage.
• You can reload during the killcam — so a base can be kept under continuous fire for as long as the ammo holds.
  Remember the supply cost. Three shells is 90 ammo supplies, and your FOB has to have it.

Watch the terrain

The range can be perfect and the shell still clips a tower, a tree or a ridge on the way down. If a shot lands short against an obstacle, the maths is not wrong.
Move your firing position or your aim off the obstruction — and remember that changes the distance, so run the numbers again.

Reading the map by eye

Each small square is 10 m. Zoom out until the 100 m lines appear if you would rather eyeball it.
It works, but expect to burn two or three shells finding the range — and the first one tells the enemy you are there. That is the whole reason to do the maths instead.

Doing it faster

Once you have done this a few times the maths is easy, but nobody wants to square numbers mid-firefight.
I built a free calculator that does it: paste both coordinate pairs in, get the range in metres. No ads, no signup, works on phone if you play with a second screen. It also shows the working so you can check it against your own arithmetic.
ermano.website[ermano.website] — also available in ua\ru.

Credit

The method and the range figures come from SwoleBenji's video guide — worth a watch if you prefer seeing it done. Give him a like and a subscribe, he did the legwork.
Video guide by SwoleBenji
The maths here is exact; the weapon limits are his observed values, not data mined from the game, so treat them as close rather than official.