Mortar
Having a discussion with a friend who claims the mortar has a "trigger" and I said I thought it had just a firing pin and the weapon works simply by dropping it down the tube. Obviously, neither of us know. Any mortarmen out there who can explain?
It's not what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so!
Resident Pyrrhonist
It's not what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so!
Resident Pyrrhonist
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Firing pin sets off a slightly delayed charge. Drop in and step back.
Nord0 -
The Krauts had a 50mm light mortar in W W II, that was trigger fired. Other then that, I don't know how common it was? 0 -
To my knowledge, all US mortars were operated by simply dropping the bomb down the tube and hitting a stationary firing pin.
The Japanese "knee" mortar had a lanyard, also.
Keep off the Ridgeline0 -
Der British Panzer Buster was Spring Loaded and Trigger Fired.......
Captain Kirk, Tech Staff0 -
Thanks, guys, we'll have to redefine the subject the next time we together (maybe he was thinking of foreign mortars????).
It's not what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you know that just ain't so!
Resident Pyrrhonist0 -
It's been a long time but I seem to recall a double action
firing mechanism on at least one of the mortars we had in the early '50s. If I were to guess it would have been the 4.2" .
It's also possible it was a captured one. I know I've seen one.0 -
After 20+ years of traveling around the world and looking at military arms I long ago came to the conclusion that motars were about the least interesting items of study. There are however a few types I've encountered that do not use the typcal firing method. One of the most common is the French 60mm Type A "commando" Produced by Thomson-Brandt, a branch of Hotchkiss. The firing of this particular mortar is controled by a firing lever. You drop the round into the tube and then pull back on a lanyard which is conected to the firing lever and this cocks the firing pin. Trip the firing lever release and the round is fired. The British ML 2" MK 7 and 8 series of mortars are also operated by firing levers. There may well be other mortars out there that don't fire in the conventional manner, but these two come quickly to my mind. Perhaps it was one of these two allied mortars which v35 saw in use in Korea? I beleive that our own 4.2 inch M30 mortar was of the conventional drop fired type. These things show up where you'd least expect to find them!
Mark T. Christian0 -
You are right on the 81mm and the 120mm - drop and forget. Firing pin is ignited by the round dropping. However, the 60mm (found only in Ranger units and some SOCOM units now) has two firing modes - either a drop and fire mode (as we have been describing it) or a trigger mode. I have only seen the trigger mode used in training exercises on the range, but it does have that feature. 0 -
So since most of them don't have a trigger, are they civilian-legal to own?[:D] 0 -
Mortars are National Firearms Act weapons and are catagorized as Destructive Devices. This would mean a $200 NFA Tax and the typical CLEO sign off. Live mortar shells are also DD's and each would have to be registered as well. Most mortar ownwers use practice mortar shells and use a slightly modified 20 gauge shotgun shell loaded as a blank to launch the round from the tube. There are a number of Mortars on the Federal Curio and Relics list so these could be shipped directly to C&R holders without the need to locate a Destructive Device dealer to complete the transfer.
The mere presence (or lack) of a trigger has little bearing on a firearms status. Many years ago a bright boy decided that he could get around the definition of a machinegun (more than on round fired by a single function of the trigger) by building a STEN type gun with no trigger what so ever. When you loaded the weapon and cycled the bolt to load the first round the gun would begin firing automatically without the need for a trigger and could not be stopped until the ammunition in the magazine was expended...kind of dangerous! Since the weapon could not cease fire once it began to cycle the plan was to use differing capacity magazines to limit the volume of fire. The BATF took a look at the gun simply declared the bolt handle to be the weapons trigger and that was the end of that idea. Back to the old drawing board!
Mark T. Christian0
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