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Two types of 81mm mortar?


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The US handbook on German Military Forces (TM-E 30-451), published March '45, states that there were two distinct types of 81mm mortar in service with the Wehrmacht.

The first is the Schwere Granatenwerfer 34 - used at battlion level from the start of the war.

It has a range of 2625yds and weighs 124lbs.

Secondly, there is the Kurzer Grantenwerfer 42 - used to replace the 50mm mortar at company level. This has a range of only 1200yds, but only weighs 62lbs.

Anyone have any info as to why this isn't in CM?

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Well, that's interesting. I just checked the German 81mm mortar in the scenario editor for January '45, and its listed range is 2400m. That sounds an awful lot more like "the Schwere Granatenwerfer 34 - used at battlion level from the start of the war" with its "a range of 2625yds" than like the company level 1200m " Kurzer Grantenwerfer 42". I wonder if the good folks at BFC made a goof?

Where's JasonC when you need him?

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Right here? :)

The kurzer 8cm - Granatwerfer 42, also called kz. 8cm-Gr.W.42 or simply 8cm Granatwerfer kurz ("short") also known simply as the "Stummel-Werfer" ("stump-projector"), was used mostly by ***paratrooper*** units. It's barrel had been shortened to 74.7cm. Although weight was reduced to 26kg, the shortened barrel also made for a much slower Vo of only 110m/s. Because of this limited range it was ***produced only for a short time in 1943, total production was 1,591***.

From the "Panzerfaust" site. For comparison, around 75k of the standard 81mm (Gwfr34) were produced. The short version did not replace the standard, heavy one "at company level". Someone on the US side might have thought that was what they were for, as the Germans had indeed moved to assigning 2 81mm mortars to each company, in addition to the battalion level ones. But these were the standard, heavy 34 models, outside of a few FJ units.

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Thanks for the reply - they do sound like useful things, but relatively rare.

The Tm is an interesting document - has information on 20mm and 15mm aircraft MGs being used in the ground role, as well as triple mounts (252/21?). There's also a fair bit on German Tactics.

That and more are on the page linked to in my "A useful little web page" thread

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