Mortars: 51 mm, 60 mm, 81 mm, 120 mm & more

[Meditations in Green]

Has anyone taken a look at the Patria Advanced Mortar System (AMOS)? It has twin turret mounted 120mm mortars mounted on a chassis that looks very similar to a LAV chassis.

http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/artillery/patria/index.html

 

[Gordon Angus Mackinlay]

Sir,
This system was looked at here in Australia when we were still involved in the stupidty of the Army 21 concept.

It was an expensive, complex piece of equipment, which if mounted on the lAV II chassis would have resulted in a extremely overweight vehicle, with no off road ability.

It has no real advantage over the standard 18/120mm vehicle mounted systems.

There is a number of similar systems, all with similar problems. Whilst I know no details it is said that the kinetic energy displaced when both barrels fired similtanously will result in damage to the carrying vehicle chassis, over a period of time.

Yours,
Jock in Sydney

 

[Meditations in Green]

That makes sense to me. I was wondering if it actually worked out well, or if it merely looks interesting. What do you think would be a better approach?

 

[Brock]

It is interesting to here from an Australian. I am actually very impressed with the Australian military. The Australian Government seems to have a much better understanding of what a multipurpose combat force is to look like. The new Astralian Defence white paper called for 20 new 120mm amoured mortar systems built by Delco Defense. They appear to be a good close self-propelled fire support system. They do not have problem being utilized in the LAV II. The system is fully tested and developed. It has a range of close to 10km and is excellent for use in urban and open/closed terrain due to the inherent advantages of mortar fire. A turreted mortar system also reduces potential injury due to enemy fire. This looks to be a better set up than the Patria mount, which seems to be overkill.

 

[Gordon Angus Mackinlay]

Sir,

The purchase of the 20 120mm mortar systems was thankfully stopped, it was part of the ludercious Army 21 concept that has now gone by the board.

Apart from the change in the military concept (it was intended by our then Labor Government that all military actions should be reactive and NOT proactive), the system was just too expensive, the weapons, their spare parts, and the ammunition would all be purchased from overseas, with nothing being contributed to the Australian economy.

Really for mechanised/motorised formations a 120mm system is a overkill, if you have self propelled artillery. For support of the infantry battalion in all its forms, the L16 81mm tube is still ideal. And we make the ammunition and spare parts in country.

Yours,
Jock in Sydney

 

[Brock]

Mr. Mackinlay:

I am not so sure that I am wrong about the Australian Army‘s acquisition of the 120mm Armoured Mortar System from Delco Defense not Patria‘s AMOS. Jane‘s Defence Weekly reported shortly after the release of Australia‘s 2000 Defence White Paper that contract negotiations were taking place. Also I think that the 120mm AMS is for your ASLAV cavalry units and not an infantry support weapon. Thus the need for more artillery support. Please respond, maybe you have some inside information that I can not find.

 

[Gordon Angus Mackinlay]

Sir,

I have the latest Defence Report (2001-2002) in front of me at the moment, just received today. A 120mm mortar system is not on our list of requirements.

Besides we are broke, what with the UN owing Australia some 4.9 billion US Dollars for East Timor as of the end of the last financial year (30 Jun 2001), and is not paying any of it‘s bill‘s in Australia since. Add to it the illegal refugee invasion, and our financial committement to the Americans under ANZUS for their playing at cowboys in Afghanistan!!!!!

I umpired on Exercise Tamdem Thrust in May of this year in central Queensland, part of the with 2nd Cav Regt (the rest unfortunately with the USMC). The subject of fire support brought up, the regt wants the L16 system. The new ammunition take the range up to 6800 metres for the HE round (if the Merlin round is purchased it has a range of 6400), an efficient, rapid response weapon that is easy to use and maintain.

The purchase of a 120mm system is not in our interest, due to its small numbers would have to be purchased from overseas (as would all spare parts), the ammunition being the same, it would require substantial modification of our version of the Bison, plus the number of bombs required is limited and would require extra Bisons for ammo carriage. We have better and more things to spend our money on.

Besides tactically if a light armoured regiment (whose role is recce) gets involved in fighting which requires such heavy fire support, it‘s not doing it‘s job.

Yours,
Jock in Sydney

 

[Gordon Angus Mackinlay]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Whilst at dinner tonight we were talking about how the NATO Allied Mobile Force (Land) has been recently been disbanded.

The conversation veered upon the 1960‘s and how only the British, German and Italian armies actually provided their infantry battalions with artillery support (L5 105mm Pack Howitzers in each case). Of the other three battalions, only the Canadian one had close support. This being provided by a battery from 4 RCHA equipped with M107 4.2inch mortars.

The question being, was this battery solely equipped with the 4.2inch mortar, or was this a secondary weapon to their normal field piece (be it M101 or M114)????

Yours,
Jock in Sydney

 

[Michael OLeary]

There are two issues that led to (supported, if you will) the decision to remove the mortars from the infantry battalions.

The first is that for a number of operational tours, shortfalls in available infantry soldiers resulted in the artillery providing personnel to fill the mortar platoons. This also had the effect of balancing the operational tasking load to a corps with less than average participation among the combat arms, a situation that could potentially have led to questioning their numbers if they weren‘t "pulling their weight" in the current operational environment.

Secondly, the argument was put forth in NDHQ that there was a degree of redundancy of indirect fire support capability with both mortar platoons and close support artillery.

These arguments led to the removal of mortars from the Regular Force battalions. As far as I know, there was no supporting study to examine the roles and values of the mortars in the existing battalion and brigade organizations, or an analysis of historic example and employment against current operational intentions to verify or refute the validity of maintaining the weapon system.

The fate of the weapon systems at this time is to transfer them to operational stocks once the orders to do so are promulgated. The artillery‘s plan is to pull them out annually for refresher training but not to man them continuously in the Regular regiments. I guess the associated SAT equipment for mortars will also be summarily retired.

There has been no discussions that I know of to consider any of the Reserve Artillery regiments to take over mortars.

Sadly, one of the hidden casualties of this system is the one long-standing success story for support weapons in the Reserves. The Princess Louise Fusiliers (PLF) in Halifax has had a mortar group for over 25 years, including maintaining Reserve Advanced Qualified mortarmen throughout this period. It is only with the recent decisions to remove mortars from the infantry that the PLF have ceased pursuing their own mortar program. (This unit has produced a number of soldiers who transferred to Regular service as NCMs and as officers with these skills, including three members that went on to become RCR mortar platoon commanders, one even becoming the Subject Matter Expert (Mortars ) at the Infantry School.)

Mortars are the one support platoon task that can easily be maintained on the Armoury floor by a committed unit (infantry or artillery). With a 20-day basic qualification course, very portable weapon systems and available simulator training systems, skills can easily be maintained in an Armoury to support twice annual live firing exercises.

For now, however, for all the infantry mortarmen, its:

"END OF MISSION"

Michael O‘Leary

 

[Michael OLeary]

Now if you argue that the arty will try make the mortar a more complex wpn system than it has to be, I might agree with you. (Gunner, in Infantry/Mortars topic)

This may well be the most serious shortfall of the artillery approach to adopting mortars. The Artillery Corps will simply approach the problem as one more indirect fire system, for which they don‘t need to change any other aspect of the fire control system, training or manning. Traditionally, one of the greatest strengths of mortars in experienced "mortar" hands as been its immediacy of response based on relatively simplistic systems of navigation/orienation by map and Mark I eyeball, coupled with the inherent knowledge that the high trajectory and time of flight defeats most available algorithms for electronic met corrections. (Frankly, the HP 41-C Mortar Fire Data Calculator was a failure for most functions beyond what the manual plotter could achieve, both in effectiveness and speed.)

The basic Artillery approach to consider mortars as simply a different weapon to calculate data for, using the same computational systems as for guns, will be a limitation, not a strength. In short, shooting mortars well (in a combat support sense) compared to Artillery gunnery is like shooting a sub-machinegun by instinctive firing compared to shooting a service rifle at Connaught ranges. The approaches that make mortars most effective run against the grain of good artillery gunnery.

Michael O‘Leary

 

[Gunner109]

I would have to agree that the computer systems available are no more accutate than the plotter. However I would say that the 81mm mortar is not a very consistant wpn. It is accutate at times but not consistant. In ballistics there is a definate diffrence between consistansy and accuracy.

 

[Michael OLeary]

You‘re right, there is a difference between consistency and accuracy. Keep in mind the relative elevations and times of flight of artillery compared to mortar rounds. The long flight time of mortar rounds and the numbers of ballistic elevation meteorological atmospheric layers they penetrate create incredible variances on fall of shot compared to artillery guns. I have fired current mortar ammunitions in stable met conditions that were accurate enough to have surprisingly small probable errors (PEs), both for range and elevation. At the time, I considered this almost a limitation, mortars (both medium (81 mm) and light (61 mm)) are area suppresion weapons, most effective against light targets and troops in the open. For best effect, good dispersion is required, not simply desired.

…, and the medium mortar, one of the [Second World] war‘s major casualty-producers, gave the infantryman the ability to reach out to the other side of the hill. - Keegan/Holmes; SOLDIERS: A History of Men in Battle

 

[portcullisguy]

I have asked about mortars and the sudden appearance of M203‘s among res regt‘s while I have been on BMQ.

Instructors opinions varied, but mainly went along the lines of: "The M203 is replacing mortars in the infantry regt‘s".

Reading between the lines, could this possibly mean that M203‘s are cheaper than mortars? I would imagine the training is less time consuming and costly in ammunition, more ammunition can be carried by the individual soldier, more soldiers can be equipped with this weapon, and the M203 fulfills _almost_ the same need, short range indirect fire support?

Something to think about!

 

[Gunner]

The M203 is NOT a replacement for the 81 mm Mortar.

Just as the 81 mm provides an indirect fire asset to the BG Comd, the 60mm Mortar provides it at the pl level and the M203 provides a mechanical means of "lobbing" a grenade a greater distance than arm thrown grenades, with a greater chance to hit the target.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Just look at the difference in the size of the charge (round), distance attainable and amount of ordnance that can be put down range. That should be proof enough that the 203 is not a replacement for the 81 or even the 60mm. The Mk 19 belt fed 40mm may provide the required firepower, but I think, if anyone in the CF has access to this weapon, only the Secret Squirrels do. May be wrong. Just never seen one in the normal Canadian army.

 

[Jungle]

... and don‘t forget: the M-203 is a DIRECT fire support weapon, available at the section level.

 

[Jarnhamar]

I was a part of the testing team who did the user trials on the M203 a few years back (Under human systems)
There were 4 choices. Colt, Dimaco, R&M (out of flordia) which were all basically the same style and the 4th was an H&K. The H&K Looked really weird because instead opening the breach by sliding the hand guard forward the H&Ks barrel would pivot (drop)downwards on about a 37degree angel at the back. The hinges being at the front.
After testing them for 3 weeks doing an obsticle course twice a day with webbing and then the new TAVs we would spend the rest of the day shooting the grenades (ceremic practice rounds that never worked properly)down range. (Also spent 2 days doing the PWT3 with each launcher attached to see how it affected accurcy).
At first we did not like the H&K at all but by the end 90% of our team chose the H&K as the best launcher. It never popped open by accident like the m203 style ones did and no word of a lie the accurcy was 4 or 5 times better then the m203s (because of the rifle like sight used, completly different then the others). Someone said somewhere that a skilled shooter can get a grenade in a large window at 400 meteres. Thats a joke. We were missing a 6 to 8 foot wide target at 150 meters 50% of the time.

In the end they went with the dimaco anyways.
(We rated it 3rd out of 4)

 

[Pikache]

Is 60mm mortars being taken out of infantry too?

Because hand held role for 60mm mortar is taught during BIQ and it won‘t make any sense otherwise.

 

[Michael OLeary]

There‘s been no indication that there is any consideration to remove the 60 mm mortar. I wouldn‘t be surprised if some units make the effort to ‘capture‘ the collective medium mortar knowledge (before it disappears) in the units to improve the potential to employ grouped company mortars using the large (square) baseplate, bipods and the C-2 sight units. Some units were experimenting with this as long as a decade ago and it does give one employment alternative, especially in the defence, to individual platoon mortars in the handheld role.

Mike

 

[Jungle]

A number of troops in R22R Batts received training in operating the 60mm mortar in a conventional role ie: with bipod and C2 sight. As Michael Oleary stated, they were grouped at the coy level and became a mortar "group". This is how most R22R rotations deployed to the Balkans during the 90s. Note that you can fire the 60mm mortar with full charges when dressed up with large baseplate and bipod. The 60mm is a very good weapon, but we rarely use it to it‘s full potential.