5 Things You Don't Know About: Mortars

one of the most dreaded weapons of the Combat Infantryman simple yet terrifyingly effective this is five things you don't know about mortars the most infamous mortar to see action during the Civil War was the 13 inch model 1861 produced solely by the Fort Pitt foundry in Pennsylvania this massive weapon weighed just over 17,000 pounds and it used a 20-pound powder charge to fire a 227 pound spiracle shell more than two and a half miles perhaps the most well known of the model 1861 mortars was the one used by Union soldiers during siege operations against the city of Petersburg Virginia in the summer of 1864 nicknamed the dictator it was mounted on the strengthened railroad flatcars that allowed it to be moved from one firing between July and September dictator fired a total of 218 shells into the city of Petersburg since the era of the Civil War the mortar has been a staple of ground combat this particular model here an M to 60 millimeter mortar from the Second World War tells the story of how the technology of the mortar has changed very very little since the 1860s the anatomy of the m2 60 millimeter mortar is very straightforward it's good bipod legs that allow some adjustability the tube itself that the round goes down and then a base plate after that a sighting system to allow you to put rounds accurately on a target and with the m2 60 millimeter mortar this sighting system makes it possible for this weapon to put high-explosive rounds on a target out to a maximum range of just over a mile or accurately out to 600 or 800 yards [Music] [Music] during the trench warfare of World War one mortars with their high steep firing trajectories were quickly found to be ideally suited to the battlefield in 1915 the British invented one of the first truly portable mortars called the Stokes mortar with a total weight of just 108 pounds the weapon broke down into three sections for easy transport a 51 inch long tube that weighed 43 pounds a base plate that weighed 28 pounds and a bipod that weighed 37 pounds with the ability to fire as many as 22 10-pound mortar bombs per minute at a maximum range of around a thousand yards the Stokes mortar proved highly effective in combat in fact most mortars in use today are direct descendants of the Stokes mortar [Music] the m2 60 millimeter mortar of world war ii fired a variety of different types of shells starting with high-explosive rounds seen here in the pre-war yellow color and the wartime olive drab finish that was a little bit more appropriate to combat it also fire the smoke round that could be used to either obscure the movement of troops on the battlefield or could be used to mark a target but then finally there was the illumination and the illumination round contained a parachute flare so when it was fired through the mortar the round bursts a parachute flare is released that allows you to light up the target so with this one weapon you could fire one of three types of shells that could either write up the target market argot or blaster women hell out of the target [Music] although we often think of mortars as using a smoothbore tube there are actually several rifle variants now a rifle barrel produces greater accuracy but it also requires a tighter fit for the round this means that the fit between the mortar round and the tube has to be loose enough to allow the round to drop into the bore yet tighten up for the rifling to engage the fire in order for this to work the rounds for rifled mortars are made with an expandable band at the base called an operating which expands into and engages the rifling of the pressure of the firing charge the drop safe and more say in the rounds for rifle mortars of design confuses that only armed after the rounds is exiting the tube and spun a certain number of times and the era of stealth bombers and drones it's amazing to think that the mortar which has remained virtually unchanged for hundreds of years is still a highly effective and very dangerous battlefield weapon during world war ii the japanese use the lightweight and portable 50 millimeter mortar that earned a unique nickname among US troops do you know what it was and how it turned its name if so post your answer online or reach out to us through twitter using hashtag 5 things you don't know you

Channel: Military.com

Views: 1,363,164

Rating: 4.5869255 out of 5

Keywords: Military, Mortar (Military Resource), Aircraft (Type Of Fictional Setting), United States Army (Armed Force), US Marines (Armed Force), United States Navy (Armed Force), United States Air Force (Armed Force), Weapon (Interest)

Id: DDmcCBtfjHg

Length: 6min 16sec (376 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 12 2015