Mortars

A mortar is a simple artillery weapon, constructed of a metallic barrel attached to a flat base (a breech block which usually rests on the ground or is mounted on an armored combat vehicle); it fires bombs only in a very steep trajectory. These rockets are on the small side, usually improvised, carrying only conventional warheads. Mortar range is a few kilometers, and the warhead is small. Hostile forces engaged in acts of terrorism make use of mortars as they are easy to operate and camouflage.

The word “mortar” comes from the Latin “mortarium,” meaning a hand-held bowl for grinding medicinal herbs into ointments using a pestle. (The mixture of sand, water and cement used to fix stones or bricks to each other is called “mortar” for the same reason.)

The mortar is considered a reliable weapon that can be rapidly deployed and folded up. It does not required specialized resources or personnel, other than a range officer. As use of the GPS and firing computers has become widespread, the company mortar has become no less an accurate weapon than tank artillery, while retaining its basic characteristics: a steep firing trajectory, ease of operation, cheap ammunition, and a very brief training period for its operators.

The ease of operating the mortar has made it into a common guerilla weapon:

·         Hezbollah used 82 mm. weapons against the I.D.F. in Lebanon in the 1990s, including against moving targets; the enemy could maneuver into destructive range, and quickly withdraw from the battle zone.

• Palestinian Authority terrorists use mortars (and rockets) against stationary I.D.F. targets and Israeli settlements. To date, Palestinians have fired some 5000 mortar bombs at settlements in the Gush Katif area, killing four and wounding dozens. Most mortar bombs fall in open areas and do not cause damage.
• Anti-American forces in Iraq use mortars against American targets. In the fall of 2004, there was widespread use of 82 mm. mortars in the Battle for Fallujah. Guerilla forces proved that skilled use of mortars in urban areas yields more deadly results than could have been anticipated based on experience from typical battlefields.

Small mortars: 52/60 mm. diameter with a firing range of 450-1000 m.

Medium mortars: 81/107/120 mm. diameter with a firing range of 4900-8200 m

Heavy mortars: 160/240 mm. diameter with a firing range of over 10,000 m. (10 km.).

Mortars can be divided into two categories based on how they work:

• A fixed striker: Inside the mortar, there is a nail-like metal piece called a “striker” or a “striking pin.” The loader drops the bomb backwards into the mortar through the barrel. There, it hits the cap at the bottom, and, as a result, the mortar bomb is fired by the pressure of the gases released in the explosion. Most mortars have fixed strikers.

• A dynamic striker: The striker is hidden inside the breech block. A piercing action must take place to initiate the chain reaction leading to firing. Such mortars are 52 mm. in diameter, and serve as platoon supporting weapons. In the past, even 120 mm. mortars, used as company/battalion weapons in western armies (though never in Israel), were equipped with this type of striker. However, there were many cases of error in which the mortar team received an order to fire, the shell was inserted into the barrel, the order was rescinded but the shell was accidentally left behind in the barrel, leading to many a disaster. Therefore, such mortars were taken out of service in order to outfit them with fixed strikers. Today, such errors do not happen.

The importance of a weapon with a steep trajectory relates to the fact that fortifications and enemy systems are always more vulnerable at the top than on the sides. The first steep-trajectory weapon was the catapult, which served as a siege weapon that rained fire down on those under siege, while bypassing the fortifications.

The mortar was invented in the third quarter of the 17^th century (according to Research Project Canon). Small diameter mortars (3”-4”) were installed on ships, while mortars with diameters of up to 13” were used only on land. They were placed at a fixed angle of 45°, and their range was regulated by using propulsive loads of varying sizes.

2”-3” mortars were commonly used in the European trenches in World War I. The static nature of that war enabled the enlarging of the mortar diameter and improving its ability to penetrate fortifications, at the expense of ease of operation and mobility which were, in that case, not important considerations.

Before the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, the British army equipped every infantry division with six mortar batteries, three 2” diameter, two 3” diameter, and one 9.45” diameter. The heavy mortar, which came to be known as “the flying pig” because of the slow muzzle and the size of the shells, was not widely used, and was finally completely abandoned.

On the Galician front, the Austro-Hungarian Empire used a mortar manufactured by Skoda with the unusually diameter of 305 mm. The mortar was moved around on the back of an X44 vehicle, the invention of Prof. Ferdinand Porsche (this was actually his doctoral dissertation in mechanical engineering), the man who would later found Volkswagen, build Nazi Germany its tanks, invent the Volkswagen Beetle, and retired to devote himself to developing sports cars.

As an organic unit of the 45^th Infantry Division of the 2^nd Corps of the United States Army, the Second Chemical Mortar Battalion landed in Sicily with 107 mm. mortars transported on the backs of truck trailers. On land, from the beach, the battalion intermittently fired at escaping targets. The towed mortars moved along with the infantry that advanced at the rate of 25 miles per day.

In 1937, Germany placed an order for six units of 60 cm. mobile mortars (the German army referred to weapons diameters in centimeters, not in millimeters, as is customary today). These were built and saw service during the course of the war. Two were captured by the United States army in 1945.

The maximum weight of shells was 2.117 tons, and the mortar fired at the rate of six shells per hour.

Four of these mortars were used in the siege of Sebastopol in September 1942.