81MM L16 BRITISH MORTAR

[Flying10uk]

Was the 81mm mortar a completely new design when it first entered service or was it developed from another mortar, please?

[Gil Boyd]

Beyond my pay grade, one for Peter perhaps as he would know the developments it reieved to make it a world beater!

[Gil Boyd]

Remember these little beauties which we all had to hoof around???

[Peter Laidler]

I THINK that the barrel was developed from the heavy 3" mortar. It was much lighter and its strength was borne from the fact that it had 'cooling' rings around the high pressure breech end. They aren't really cooling rings as such but the do act in that way. They are radial strengthening ribs in effect. The bipod was a work of art and I think that this was a Canadian design. The base plate was an improved version, round for simplicity cast from tough aircraft stress spec alloy - a variant of Dural (?) with an easily replaceable barrel insert.

The C2 sight was made to be a variation of the GPMG sight that adapted really well. Correct me if I'm wrong but the scales differ but only those because the principles of indirect map fire are indirect map fire are indirect map fire. Difficult (?) to teach but once it's grasped it all seems to fall into place quite quickly as BAR and Gil will confirm. The crews were close knit and VERY good. Think a good mortar commander could get his crew into action from the 432 without any words of command - except for the fire orders

Fantastic bit of kit and killing made cheap

Oh yes, the mortar bomb carriers were useful to everyone for keeping stuff in!

[Gil Boyd]

Strange when you remember blokes being nicked by RMP who found naughty magazines in those mortar tube boxes as well as down the wombat barrels coming back from NATO exercises in Denmark.........of all places hey, what young soldiers get up too!!!

[browningautorifle]

"SLIPPER' tubes

OK...Those I saw for sale years ago through surplus dealers and went to collectors. I thought perhaps they had been deactivated like that...

As for the nightmare of the bushing replacements Peter...your thing thankfully. We kept the rebound socket in shape by foot powder and buffer washers but the rest was beyond our scope. Just clean and dry the telescoping parts.

Remember these little beauties

Mostly on mechanized thankfully. The footborn times were few. You guys in the Falklands would have had a hard hump with those.

The C2 sight was made to be a variation of the GPMG sight that adapted really well.

Our sight unit was the exact same sight.

naughty magazines in those mortar tube boxes

Our trucks came back from the US with 40 oz bottles in the empty ammo boxes. The ammo liners kept them safe.