Soldier, the army has spent a lot of money teaching you to fire that thing. Now set it and fire it.

120mm and Four-deuce "High Angle Hell" Master Race checking in...

Our light infantry rifle companies have a couple of 60mm mortar teams in the company headquarters element. And of course they have the bigger mortars at the battalion level. The Marine Corps is still a heavy believer in mortars also. So mortars are still very much alive and well in the U.S. military.

Now that is interesting.  I think the Germans used 81mm at the company level too.  Humping that tube and ammo

the base plate.

Your terms are correct.

Aren't the "donuts" called increments?  

"Increments."  That's a pretty goddamn college word for a mortarman.

Attached File

Joke was obviously indirect fire.

I'm pretty sure we just did a mortar thread, and it had a video over an hour long doing mortar stuff.

OP must be retarded or something

It was the lack of apothecaries in Malaki’s Iraq that yielded ISIS so much territory in their blitz.

History may not impress on future generations the value of a good grinding stone.

I was in RC south and our mortar team use to blow shit up quite a bit yes.

https://www.instagram.com/forwardobservations/?hl=en

Cool instagram with lots of mortar action

Just watched the new movie called The Outpost. They had mortars, I expected it to be pretty accurate of a movie.

That’s a good illustration of a Mortar round.

No Kidding!  As a former mortar maggot I can vouch for fact that humping the tube of an 81mm mortar through the jungles of central America sucked.

US H-Series Infantry Bn TO&E used to have 3x 81mm M125A2 track-mounted M29 mortars in the Mech Infantry Companies, then 4x 4.2in 107mm M106A2 track mounted mortars in the Combat Support Companies.

When Big Army went to the J-Series TO&E, the Mech Infantry Companies lost their organic mortars, then 6x 4.2in/107mm then eventually 6x 120mm track mounted mortars starting around 1995.

Both my units in Berlin had unique TO&Es, first tour  89-90 we still had 3x 81mm M125A2 track mounted M29 mortars in the Rifle Company, with 2 Light Infantry Plts and 1 M113A2 Mech Platoon, then 4x 4.2in/107mm M106A2 track mounted mortars in the Combat Support Company. Then again, we still had M67 90mm Recoilless Rifles, M47 Dragons, and M202A1 FLASH Launchers in the Weapons Squads.  We also had M109A1 155mm Self Propelled Artillery (Nuclear Capable) in E Battery 320th FA and one Company M1 Tanks (Co F 40th Armor Regt)

2nd tour 92-94, we still had 3x 81mm M252 Mortars in each Rifle Company, each carried in an M1025 HMMWV, then 6x 120mm HMMWV-towed Mortars in the HHC.    The E Battery 320th FA exchanged the M109A1 SP 155mm for the Lightweight M102 105mm Towed Howitzers, Co F still kept the M1 Abrams.

Mortars are the Rifle Company Commanders' own pocket artillery.  You can react quicker, maintain more flexibility without having to constantly clear everything through the Bn Fire Support Officer.       Most of the time we were attached to a particular Dismount Plt, then dropped off to the flank, one terrain feature ahead of their objective to provide fire support. Sometimes all 3 Guns were attached to the main effort.

Mortars can reach the reverse slopes of hill and mountain terrain. The newer 81mm M800-series and 60mm M700 series HE with the Multi-Option-Proximity Fuse can put frag on enemy attempting to use walls for cover from direct fire and small arms.

Used to be, Company Mortars could keep dropping rounds longer in coordination with CAS, the mortars having a much lower Max Ordinate (Max Altitude the round travels to reach a specified range)  Nowadays I'm told, everything is weapons tight for some time prior to and after CAS entering the battlespace.

Some mortar men just hang a round.

Back when I taught mortar gunnery at Ft Benning.  FDC procedures at the Infantry Mortar Platoon Course.  Just remember:  RALS, LARS and Hey Diddle Diddle: far pole in the middle.

There is a Stryker variant that is a mortar carrier. The gun is built into the Stryker.  There are 3 MCVs per infantry company. 120mm rounds.

LOL wut? There is tons of GWOT combat footage of Eleven Charlies launching mortars on a two way range.

Not just that, but there are many people that want to add more mortar systems. Like some single man portable system you'd give to 1 individual in every squad. It's not without merit; IDF inflicts way more enemy casualties than rifles and machine guns.

Every FOB in Iraq that I went to had some sort of mortar capability. When the conditions were right it was great to have those guys immediately returning fire when our base would get attacked with rockets or mortars. We’d run for cover while those guys ran to their mortars hoping they’d get to shoot back.

  This is true but it also needs noted that the only thing which has kept the drug war to such a relatively low level of escalation is that Mexicans never advanced past the molcajete and therefore their indirect fire technology is quite primitive.

I'm not surprised.
GWOT was - according to the news media - all about American servicemen coming home in a flag draped box.
There was a great deal of kerfuffle going on that was conveniently overlooked.

Indirect fire.
Mortars have been in use since before the Civil War.

Is your g oogle broke?

Kharn

Watching that vid and seeing all those WP rounds going downrange, someone had a really bad day.

It makes me grin like a Cheshire Cat when I see combat vids with Wiley Pete hitting enemy positions.

@AZshooter71 I’d be very interested to read the source on this.

Humping that baseplate never appealed to me. But it could have been worse:

These honkers dropped a 13" ball of iron into the midst of the target. As a siege weapon, it was near total destruction.
Post Civil War, mortars were used as (unneeded) coastal defense batteries - plunging fire onto armored ships of the time (similar to how tanks are vulnerable from the air) meant that armor belts meant to stop naval gunfire were useless.

  If you ever find yourself in Vienna you can see one of the most singularly effective conventional weapons of all time. This mortar hit a Turkish powder magazine during the siege of Belgrade in 1717 and sent 3000 of them to Allah.

 

Here is a tidbit that not many people know happened in Fallujah:


"A 60 mm or 81 mm white phosphorous mortar round, wrapped three times with detonation cord and a 1/4 or 1/2 stick of C-4. It was used to burn insurgents out of houses. "


Had a buddy with 3/5 that told me about this.



https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2005/7/1/2005july-marines-share-hardearned-knowledge

Mortars are the reason you shoot from the top floor window and not the roof.

those actually exist? I thought it was something Call of Duty made up.

Got to hang some 120's in Syria at some Russians. Good times.

The 120mm and a good crew is by far one of the best weapons to have on your side on the battlefield.

Religiously.  60s at the company level, 81a and 120s at the battalion level.  Probably the most responsive form of fire support available to maneuver units.