# Rapid mortar barrage — 27 September 2026

An authorized HQ fire mission retains eight HE rounds distributed over an 80-metre radius. Mission-owned AI mortar crews use a dedicated behavior tree with the two fixed 1.5-second firing-loop delays removed. The native loading animation, physical projectile event, ammunition transfer, per-round ballistic solve and spread still determine the real firing rate. The 0.75-second settling pause after leaving the aiming seat is retained.

The tree is derived from the installed Arma Reforger 1.8.0.13 `AI/BehaviorTrees/Chimera/Soldier/StaticArtilleryBehavior.bt`. Only its resource identity and the two delay values differ. It is selected only for a mortar registered with the mission mortar service; unrelated artillery keeps its stock tree. Player firing actions are unchanged.

The existing shooting-cycle gate waits for an actual projectile before advancing the native shot counter. Removing a fixed delay does not replace that event, create ammunition, skip the loading animation, or manufacture explosions. The final transfer still checks the delivered report, current ballistic aim, friendly exclusions, mission state and eight-round limit. Orders retain their finite ammunition, report freshness, cooldown and helicopter airspace coordination.

The old salvo fixture now unlocks the prison through the normal mission API before waiting for crew readiness. Previously it stayed in the prison phase while HQ was paused. The fixture moves its player to the distant airfield after unlocking, keeping the participant away from the crew while testing the synthetic range target. It also stops automatic UAZ responders before unlocking: the first live rapid-fire trial correctly withheld fire when those vehicles pursued its synthetic report into the impact area. This arrangement is restricted to the opt-in Workbench fixture; production friendly-fire checks are unchanged.

The unchanged single-report baseline fired once and then correctly expired its target report. The first unobstructed rapid-fire run fired seven actual rounds, then correctly withheld the eighth because the older refresh fixture stopped generating sightings halfway through a salvo. That fixture now continues observations until six rounds have fired, leaving two rounds for the final downlink to arrive; its existing 90-second update bound remains. Freshness and the production order deadline are not relaxed. The fixture also waits within its existing deadline when normal crew/status traffic occupies the radio: a zero queue result creates no observation and no longer fails the test immediately.

A further run refused a radio update because the original native aim owner was no longer available, amid nearby combat involving the released test player. The test player is now placed away from the battery; the production rejection remains intact.

The unobstructed eight-round run exposed a completion race after the fixed waits were removed: the native eighth-shot callback completed the activity, but the zero-delay repeater began a ninth aim before HQ observed the completion event. Its normal eight-round guard then marked the already-completed barrage rejected. The shooting-cycle node now returns RUNNING after superclass processing of the last confirmed shot, waiting for normal HQ cleanup. Repeated ticks cannot increment the native counter again. An executable regression covers eight physical events, pending supply, exactly one completion, no ninth aiming request and unchanged unrelated artillery behavior.

Final native run passed all 57 assertions with eight distinct physical projectiles and eight matching commits. The original stock decreased from 27 to 19 shells; the native activity completed naturally and the 25-second replay watch observed no extra projectile or replenishment. Launch intervals measured from mission journal time were 5.1, 4.9, 4.9, 5.9, 6.0, 6.0, 6.1 seconds (5.557 seconds on average; 38.9 seconds from first to eighth launch). This is one isolated firing-range result, not a guaranteed cadence under combat or server load. Initial order delivery and barrel setup occur before the first shot.

The runner recorded `smoke-completed`, source/dependency hashes unchanged, and cleanup confirmed. The generic report still returns nonzero for the same 13 installed dependency/prefab errors seen in the stock baseline; it reports no script/runtime failures or new engine errors. All repository checks passed, including the executable last-shot regression. Removing just the completion wait makes that regression fail.

These results qualify local native Workbench launch behavior and ammunition accounting. Multiplayer replication, actual impact positions and damage are not measured by this fixture. Evidence: `.local/analysis/mortar-cadence-2026-09-27/`.