4- If the unit had 120mm mortar values in AA, then the unit wouldn't be good against mobile units. It has stronger scatter and reload values which makes it deadly by comparison. The whole point is that ALL mortar units had been nerf so they are weaker against mobile units nowadays.
If coh2db stats are up to date:
-AA RoF:
Howie: 9.94s
120mm: 14.15
OH 81mm: 10.81s
-Scatter (Angle/Distance Ratio/Distance offset)
Howie: 6/0.1/8
120mm: 10/0.1/10
82mm: 10/0.08/8
-AoE (Radius, Distance near, Mid, Far)
Howie: 5, 1.5 (68dmg), 3 (40), 4.5 (20)
120mm: 6, 1.5, 3, 4.5
82mm: 4, 1, 2, 3
Let me explain and add some bits. The most important value is the distance near(1.5). All indirect fire were made so they can be less wipe in full health models, so unless a straight direct hit, they are not doing lethal dmg anymore to 80HP models.
While the value difference might be small, let's remember that it's the radius and any incremental is practically double the area.
Also, for some reason, the 120mm barrage is less lethal than the AA (1.1/3.5/4.5)
At some point you'll have to define if it is a mortar or not a mortar. You can't ask for the PakHowi to be a mortar that has 3 shells barrage, very long cooldown and can't retreat while also costing 100 manpower more and be locked being Captain tech.
180mm has it use to saturate an area with its barrage like any other mortar, pakhowi don't. You can't compare its AA statistic with other mortars because that's not a mortar atm, you need AA to vet it and without good AA stats it is just a piece of garbage.
Pakhowi is a reverse concept of Priest/Left/Ml20 etc... an howitzer on AA. Its not a sniper, it doesn't kill full 4 men health squad, its AA is not so deadly vs team weapon in the sense of its not going to wipe it with AA (or you really need to be afk) and the barrage give you also room to avoid a wipe with its only 3 rounds.
So if you decide to transform it into something, that's not going to be a mortar-like, because USF already has a mortar, that's not going to be a sniper unit because USF already has the Scott, that's going to be a howitzer (which it is in fact) and my guess is that people complaining about it today are not going to like it either because those people complaining about it are mostly static players on which a pure howitzer will have a greater impact.
Instead of suffering models wipes on their squads but with enough time to react between 2 AA shells, they're really going to suffer squads wipe on the barrage the same way Priest/Ml20/left etc.. are doing it today.
Or the idea is to make it completely useless, which is also a solution.