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From: "Charles Phillips"
Newsgroups: sci.military.moderated
Subject: Re: 120mm Mortars
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 19:59:48 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: BT Openworld
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"Mika Sihto" wrote in message
news:HNjZ7.229$BJ4.31998@read2.inet.fi...
> There is one page that shows bit closer view and some additional info:
> http://members.surfeu.fi/stefan.allen/AMOS.html
>
> Note that the dual mortar barrels are lot longer than standard mortar
> barrels, suggesting also lot higher velocity for mortar round.
>
> Cheers,
>
> M.S.
>
The AMOS is yet another and even longer ranged mortar, 10+km.
A longer barrel is certainly the traditional way of increasing mortar range:
The Soltam heavy mortar fires the M57 round to 8.5km while the light mortar
fires the same round 7.2km, this is thanks to a barrel that is 2154mm
instead of 1758mm.
Overall my view is that infantry mortars lack the targeting assets that the
artillery have and so can only hit targets their observers can see, say 2km
forward of their positions. Unit boundaries, communication and logistics
mean that the mortars want to be 1 to 5km behind the front. Hence 7km sound
like a good range to me. More range would always be nice, to have in
reserve, but I would not give much to get it, even lifting each bomb the
extra 400mm to the muzzle is probably not worth the extra 1.3km. It all
comes down to my original statement that you can't get something for
nothing, hence you have to decide on the correct balance for a given role.
The French rifled mortar is an exception as it is often used at brigade
level, like a light howitzer.
Enemy guns and mortars are located using specialist equipment belonging to
the artillery and then hit with guns or MBRLs. Without these assets even a
100km range mortar cannot hit back at the weapons bombarding them.