2" British mortar lanyard

[Peter Laidler]

Exactly as they were!

[Topfmine]

Just the firing lever i am after. I belive there were 3 types of firing lever, first type being the round knob with a corse knurled edge , second type a combined knob and lever, the last just the lever and lanyard. Was the knurled knob still in use on the 2 inch mortar during its last days in service?

[Stanleyrf89]

Thanks Peter - all credit to your expert tuition :-)

[Topfmine]

I have now found a lever also the round firing knob.

[Peter Laidler]

Round firing knob......... MUST be some foreign addition in my opinion..., same as the round knobbed Sten cocking handles! I never saw a round knobbed one in my service but I did see a few round knobs! Not in the MR series of parts lists either although these weren't updated from the early/mid 60's I suspect. ope....., I dealt with quite a few and even painted the white alignment line on just as many too but never saw a round-knobbed firing lever

[Topfmine]

The round knob was used during the war on early mortars, seen on the base plate mortars with traversing gear and on spade plate models as well. In the 1966 service manual not the pamphlet, they show the base plate model with a round knob that looks like a course cog for grip which is then later modified with a piece of staight metal screwed in place and eventualy replaced with the conventional lever. Did you ever see any 2" mortars with this early base plate, funny how its shown in the service manual.

[Topfmine]

Not a foreign addition.

[Peter Laidler]

The only ones in service in my time were the spade type base plates of the late Mk2***, the Mk7* and 7** plus the Mk8 and 8*. The type you show (the Mk7) in the photo above was obsolescent in the early 50's and obsolete when the last Universal Carriers went out of service in the mid 50's - according to my training notes. But even then, the photo of the Mk7 in my Armourers training manual shows a landyard operated lever firing lever. Over to you!

What is interesting is the carrying handle of the mortar in the photo. These were salvaged from the rear butt grips from Mk1 Bren guns

[Topfmine]

My mistake not a 1966 manual but a 1960 handbook. There is the 1939 1944 hand book and the 1946 service manual all showing the firing knob or grip. It seems that the firing lever was introduced around early 1943 which repflaced the grip on later models as well as those in current use at the time during refits etc. Looking at the grip design over the lever, the lever shaft is square secured with a nut, where as the grip is a round shaft with a screw at right angles to the shaft to hold it in place. I suspect that this screw was a weak point in the design in that it snapped the shaft or screw with constant use. I my notes somewhere I read that the grip was not very user friendly in wet and cold weather the lever being a more positive way to fire the mortar in an emergency ie by hand if the fingers were out of action that would normally be essential to operate a grip. I looked in the manuals and could see no carrying handle that would relate to the Bren butt grip maybe it was a later addition from 1960 onwards. The picture posted 1942 shows an early Mk2 with flared/bell barrel, cleaning rod brackets and the rare lesactic sight used on the Bren guns.

[Peter Laidler]

In your picture, that is definately the BRACKET, butt, grip from the early Mk1 Bren guns fitted to a band around the barrel. However it does look as though the contoured wooden 'grip' part has been replaced with a length of metal pipe! But when the Bren rear grip was declared obsolete (together with the equally useless butt strap) they were to be returned to Ordnance solely for use on the 2" mortar. The fact that the bracket is a Bren part is also contained within the Armourers instructional notes and it is for this reason, that a) they continued to use the old Ordnance part number instead of the MR number VAOS prefix and b) the butt brackets were all(?) returned to Ordnance that makes original ones, made at BSA incidentally, so rare and sought after by Bren fiends. Original Butt straps on the other hand are easy to obtain. There is also a really cheapo strap mounted pressed steel carrying handle listed too with the usual WSE annotation - WSE= when stocks exhausted

I can't see the lensatic sight. The EMER just shows a cheap pressed steel strap-on SIGHT, No3/all marks. I don't think that's a flared barrel. If it's the same as ours at Warminster, it is just an in-built strengthening rim to beef up the muzzle end.

Who'd have thought that there was so much nerdy stuff about 2 mortars? Maybe it's time for a little paperback booklet Topper..................