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Type 99 81mm mortar
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Author:  NebrHogger [ Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Type 99 81mm mortar

My latest adventure playing with crayons relates to Japanese military. Comrade Publisher asked me to "write up some infantry support weapons".

All righty then! Not that hard. But while taking notes on mountain howitzers and mortars, I was amazed to find the Type 99 81mm mortar fired by smacking a cam on the tube with a hammer or mallet.

I've fired mortars, and the drill was to simply drop a bomb down the tube where a fixed firing pin detonated the propellant primer cartridge.

It seems tolerances were so tight on the Type 99, the bomb couldn't gain sufficient momentum sliding down the tube to strike the firing pin with enough force.

So a soldier smacked the cam near the base which forced the firing pin against the primer. **Pow!!** Amazing! I'm intrigued by the image of a soldier wailing away on a mortar tube with a ball peen hammer.

Has anyone heard of this before? Read of it? Veteran stories? Any book titles I could look for? SW

Author:  mabk [ Sun Jan 25, 2015 10:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Type 99 81mm mortar

Don't have a lot of information on Japanese mortars but what I do have says that the type 99 was a short tubed mortar patterned after the Stokes-Brandt mortars. And they did have a tight bore to get a better sealing of the powder gasses because of the short tube. With rounds having to be shoved in and down the tube with a leaver protruded from the base of the tube so the mortar was fired manually by smacking the lever with a mallet. There other 81 m/m mortar the type 97 was a long tube conventional hang and drop type.

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