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Mortars in woods


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Heh. For the longest time in CMBO I would never deploy my mortars in woods for fear that something like that would happen, or—more likely—they would simply refuse to fire because of the danger. So I would deploy them behind the woods with a spotter in the forward edge. Then, I started getting a little bolder, and tried deploying them in scattered trees. That seemed to work all right, so then I tried woods and pines. By Jove, that worked too! So I guess you are right, Terrapin, they do have enough sense to miss the branches.

smile.gif

Michael

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Mortars...

No the granades arms automaticly... (if I remember correct...)

Here in Finland you then, and then read about a "tupla lataus" (happened mostly 1960--). You drop the granade in the tube, drop another one in the tube before the first one has time to launch. Nasty stuff happens :D ...

-The Bear Paddington

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In fact, some mortars were armed by pulling a safety pin from the fuse before loading it in the tube. My brother was in basice training in the US Army in 1953 and told me of a guy who didn't get his hand out of the way fast enough while dropping the round in the tube. The resultant explosion was kinda messy.

Dropping a round in upside down was instant bad karma too.

Michael

[ December 16, 2002, 03:54 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

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Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Dropping a round in upside down was instant bad karma too.

I was in mortar ( 82 mm) training almost a year. One day round stucked in the tube. It was pretty nervous situation.

Oh BTW, Olle Petersson , it is hard to fire at range 500 or 1000m immediately behind a large building in real life. ;)

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Originally posted by Pascal DI FOLCO:

Obsessed with realism I never put my mortars in woods nor buildings smile.gif

I know they work in woods in CMBB/BO, but what about buildings ?? This will be very gamey indeed... :D

Whaddya mean! As others have pointed out before in the old CMBO thread days... the mortar crews could always use the stove chimneys to fire those suckers out of the house.

:eek:

Regards

Jim R.

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There is a guy on the mortar line who has the responsibility to check that there is clearance on all firing elevations. Even so, our mortar platoon managed to hit a tree branch in the early 70s with a round which caused minor casualties on the mortar line. A couple of years later, the same platoon had an 2000lb aircraft bomb drop short and land 200m in front of the line, once again only causing a few minor shrap wounds on the line but scaring/shocking the crap out of everyone else. It was a lucky,unlucky platoon.

81mm mortar rounds have a safety pin that has to be pulled and the round has to travel a certain distance after firing before it is armed. The ww2 3in mortar rounds had a safety pin that had to be removed before firing but were not bore safe ie. once the pin was removed the fuze was armed. As a point of interest, the drill for handling a misfire(round does not leave the tube)is that the round is shaken out of the tube and into the hands of another member of the crew. When our crews were firing 81mm ammo they were pretty unfazed by the whole procedure knowing the round is boresafe. When we switched to 3in ammo for a couple of years to expend old war stocks, it was amazing to see the new dilligence the crews applied to the misfire drills ;)

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Originally posted by demoss:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I was in mortar ( 82 mm) training almost a year. One day round stucked in the tube. It was pretty nervous situation.

I wasn't aware a mortar could actually malfunction like that. You learn something new every day.</font>
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