Mikeathome

mike-c@wn.planet.gen.nz Haven't looked at the new scenario yet - anyone wanna share?? Mike

There were many different types of mortar - America used 2 different types of 60mm - the Mortar M2 on Mount M2 was the "standard" bipod fired version based on a design from Brandt (as were most mortars in the world at the time). There was also the mortar M19 on Mount M1 which was much like the Japanese "Knee" mortar - ie only a barrel mounted to a small curved baseplate. The Bipod mounted version had no means of holding the mortar on target appart from the bipod - it just had the ball mount on the base plate, so any "free tubing" as discussed would probably have been horribly inaccurate. The notes I have for the M19 mortar say it wasn't bery accurate and had limited range, and was limited to small numbers issed to airborne and special purposes units. The Russians had 4 versions of 50mm mortars - 3 of them had "standard" bipods but were much lighter than the US 60mm (19kg vs 9-16kg). Their final one did away with hte bipod for an all-in-one baseplate/traverse mechanism. There were only 2 elevations - 45 or 75 deg, range being varied by venting exhaust gasses forwards from a tube under the barrel. The Brit 2" was mostly used for smoke than HE support (BTS note!! ), was triger fired and indeed could be fired horizontally - but not loaded that way!! Perhaps the most bizarre light mortar was the Italian 45mm which was breach loaded and the propelling charges came in magazines of 10. A lever opened the breach for the bomb, and closing hte breach automatically loaded a charge. Apparently hte rate of fire was very high, and accuracy excellent, but the bomb only weighed 1 lb, which was only 1/2 to 2/3 the weight of other light moratrs - the Polish 46mm for example weighed 1.5 lb, the British 2" 2.2 lb, the Jap 50mm grenades 1.17 and 1.75 lb. The French 60mm had a havy bomb weighing 4.5 lbs. Almost forgot the Russian 37mm spade moratr - imagine a simple spade with a square blade and a simple straight handle - well the blade was the baseplate, the handle hte barrel. A monopod was formed by the plug that closed the barrel when configred as a spade!! Hope this has all amused and informed. Mike

How about re-crewing your own abandoned equipment? I just finished Reisburg as the German - 1 88 was knocked out but only 1 crew casualty, the other was abandoned - the crew all killed - I had enough time to march the crew over to hte other gun, but it just sat there doing nothing. And all that time the last Sherman moved over to the corner of the board whree the abandoned 88 was, then turned around and moved back towards the town - it had taken 2 'schreck hits - 1 crew kia and gun damaged from a hull and turret hit - so I guess the driver fell on the accelerator??!! Mike