0341-USMC

I know this is kind of an old subject and thread but I had to laugh reading some of the comments by folks who have never seen a 60mm mortar let alone trained to fire one! Obviously there aren't too many 60mm mortarmen left out there. The 60mm mortar used in the private ryan movie was the same one we used in the marines in the 70's. Ours had a stamp right on the tube "US ARMY 1941" The only thing that changed was the date on the amunition and the sight box. Instead of a leather box (wwII) ours was aluminium but you never carried the sight in the box. The sight went in your pocket and your ciggaretts went in the box because it was waterproof. If you were lucky you had some beers to put in the tube. The 60mm HE rounds and all 60mm rounds have a primer in the base simular to a shotgun primer. This is your ignition charge that strikes the firing pin which "ALL" mortars had. This primer ignited the lanching charges which in the case of 60's were four small flat square increments clipped between the fins on the tail. You adjusted the range by removing the increments from charge 0 to charge 4 and then adjusted the elevation on the sight and the gun acording to the range card which was in every case of rounds. I have never seen nor heard of anyone using the rounds as impact grenades! When the round fired at the bottom of the tube a bore riding safety popped out of the side of the fuse and rode the inside of the tube until the round exited the muzzle and then flew clear of the round. Two feet after leaving the muzzle the round was armed and any impact on the plunger in the nose of the fuse would set it off. Some folks have identified the wire clip on the fuse as an arming wire. This is incorrect, it is a safety wire to prevent the plunger from being depressed. If you fire the round with the safety wire in it will not detonate. Just my 2 cents worth.