Ukraine's 40mm Grenade Mortar
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- čas přidán 27. 05. 2023
- In April a Ukrainian unit shared an intriguing video of a small mortar that fired 40mm grenades.
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armourersbench.com/2023/05/28/...
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Thanks for watching! Be sure to check out our accompanying article for this video here -
armourersbench.com/2023/05/28/40mm-grenade-mortar/ thanks - Matt
M203 40mm not mk19 40mm😮
I have this idea: Attach a smartphone to the improvised mortar using a 3D printed bracket and use some free inclinometer app to adjust inclination at launch. Should be accurate enough to 2-3 kilometers.
In the video soldier says that there is a lot of extra grenades that are either somewhat defective and could not be shot out of grenade launcher, or just leftovers from another units.
And they really hate to throw them away, so they use them. It has short range and questionable effectiveness, but they really hate the idea of disposing them
Thank you, Google translate gave a jist of that but is still pretty poor. Makes complete sense.
@@TheArmourersBench dude on the video speaks russian with accent and slang of eastern Ukraine, saying 'lishak' meaning 'izlishki' (excess) so that's why it couldn't translate
I thought it would be something dialectal. Much appreciated.
As a combat veteran Mk19 gunner… every time you load and unload the Mk19, you sacrifice a single round. There is nothing mechanically wrong with the actual round of ammunition. It just gets unseated from it’s belt links. It is possible to re-link it, but the re-linked rounds are very prone to jamming. And when a Mk19 jams, it’s no small task to un-jam it. It’s not worth it. So every time a MK19 gets unloaded, it produces 1 round that is risky to use. The 40mm Mk19 grenades also cannot be used in the M203 or similar hand held 40mm launchers. They both have 40mm projectiles, but they are very different casings with very different propellant charges. These mortars are a perfect use for those extra rounds.
That could well be what they're referring to as they do appear to have a MK19 which was operable (at least earlier this year). Thanks for the insight!
Babe wake up Ukraine got a lil mortar now 🎉
@@ColinMor-fj3qc haha
Lil' mortar is my rap name.
My personal guess: This mortar is a lot more mobile and lightweight, allowing for quick transport from cover to cover. Also, the west only donated so many Mk-19s, but this thing you can easily build in a machine shop. So you can potentially make hundreds of them and spread them out all along the trenches to fire your cheap and plentiful grenades, saving the bigger mortar grenades for valuable targets.
The ammo tubes are rifled too so they spin in flight. This will help range and accuracy. Very deadly. I pity the Russian conscripts who are being shoved into the front to soak up fire so the others can counter them.
@@largol33t1 the barrel of any US/NATO 40mm Grenade launcher has to be rifled, centifugal force is what arms the fuse on the grenade
You sir, have a big brain.
@@chillinlee nope, was just trained by EOD and there's a LOT of shit they know about munitions
@@MisterW0lfe It's not fair to compare normal people to EODs. That's like comparing me to Einstein.
The 40mm grenade mortar, reminds of the Imperial Japanese Army so called "Knee Mortar" of WW2 was effective.
First thing I thought of when I saw the video lol
The knee mortar is a misnomer, it was rested on the ground and fired from a kneeling position. Rare footage of a Japanese ww2 assault exercise shows the mortar being fired at almost direct fire angles
@@lestefani9517 pretty sure that's why the poster said "so called knee mortar"
Or the Soviet 37 mm spade mortar from the 30’s
@@Br1cht I'd forgotten. Thanks
Ukraine was the mortar training center of the USSR. They are world class masters of indirect fire.
I wouldn't qualify these weapons as 'world class'. Intriguing? Yes.
@@laus7080 They didn't say that the weapons themselves are world class, they said that the Ukrainians are world class at using them.
@@laus7080The reason russia is getting schooled by Ukraine?
russia misses Ukrainians to do effective fighting for them.
By extension so is Russia then
@@alexdunphy3716 they were, but after the fall of the USSR, the Russian military went downhill due to rampant corruption and in-fighting. Their performance to date in Ukraine is proof of that.
Bigger isn't always better. A nice 20 lb mortar can be carried by one guy and used when needed. A 120 lb mortar is a specialized equipment that needs a dedicated mortar team. It's like a broom vs a toothbrush; neither is useless, they're just used for different jobs.
It reminds me of the 40mm “blooper” that we used in Viet Nam. We had different types of ammo for it, even flares in the standard 3 colors. Red = enemy, yellow = caution, green = friendly.
No, no and no. Not even close. Stop talking
When I first saw these videos, I assumed that the tubes were simple steel pipes of the correct diameter. The rifling, though, shows some rather involved machining.
They are probably barrels for some 40mm AGL. They aren't for a Mk19. The walls are far to thick. Maybe a helicopter gunship AGL? Who knows, those guys might not even know. Ukraine has so much random stuff having had Soviet design and production facilities and had so much random hardware donated to it.
Imagine dropping a 40mm grenade in the enemy trench 2km away every 30 minutes.
That's 48 40mm grenades a day.
You are psychologically wearing them down, and if you have a lot of rounds using an ammunition that may only get utilised. When directly assaulted.
I'd you use your ags it will have to be moved, or risk being morterd.
I should imagine these 40mm morters have such a low profile that it's uneconomical to counter battery.
Its essentially like a mosquito, constantly irritating you but to small and fast to be countered.
And like a mosquito it can definitely kill you if you are unlucky.
Whether or not these 40mm grenade mortars are effective, they illustrate the Ukrainian soldiers' ability to adapt and improvise.
You could fit that thing in an assault pack and make it a platoon or squad level weapon. The question is whether or not it would be worth the weight.
It makes sense as a small light, easily concealed and moved weapon. If the inserts are loaded and kept handy before use, the crew could send a barrage of grenades very very quickly.
So in a way, is this a slam-fire launcher tube used as a mortar? Or do they just let the weight of the sleeve drop the round in until it fires?
Ya, slam fire it is...
Equally speaking... they have the discharger tube with enough weight to keep inside the mortor and not A, cause an "out of battery discharge " of the cartridge, and B, not to fling the discharger out of the main barrel out of the trenches upon firing....
Nice work...
@@mckutzy Western militaries should have cooked up a system like this a long time ago. It isn't a new concept either. I remember the Japanese using this in WW2. Considering the size and weight of modern launchers, I don't know why I've never seen anything similar in the last decade. Just two of these would be a decent amount of misery to ruin any Russian's day...
@largol33t1
I'm pretty sure they have... but just got filed in shtf bin of thinking shit up for something to do and keep getting paid... type of category...
A cursory search for what this could be from... looks like they might have rechambered an AG-40p underbarrel launcher barrel, for HV40mm nato rounds, and machined to fit their common local mortor system.
I'm guessing something similar with the vog-17 grenades aswell...
DUUUDE THEY MADE A 40MM ZIP-GUN!?!?!?
that's wild! ive seen the 12-gauge version of a zip-gun irl but fuuuck they made a literal MORTAR with the concept!!
It seems like a good way to make use of available ammunition in places where the size, weight, availability, and maintenance requirements of the Mk-19 make it unworkable.
this size every soldier can carry one
Most thing will be more reliable than Mk19.
It's also like a mosquito, an irritant that the enemy hates, but too small to be counter attacked.
For a very small use of resources, you can greatly sap the morale of the enemy.
@@studentaviator3756 exactly, pop half dozen per hour all night they`ll never get any sleep & keep their heads down, nothing eats away ones personal sanity quite like sleep deprivation.
They've got a domesticized indirect fire Mk-19 variant which weighs about half as much. I guess they just don't have a lot of them.
Pretty simple and ingenious, a slam fire mortar
I wonder if there's more of this out there
Even more clever is basing it around the 40mm round, which means supplies won't be a problem. Many western nations use that caliber in their grenade launchers.
PS: the Russians use 30mm launchers so I think it was a VERY good idea for the Ukrainians to not use that caliber...
It makes sense, but I think it would be better if they made the liner tube a little longer so it would stick out from the outer tube after firing. That would make it easier to pull out and you wouldn't need to cut the slots.
Maybe they used existing rifled tubes from something or that was the largest size they could produce.
I think it's simply that the Mk 19 just doesn't provide sufficient indirect fire, being something in between a direct and indirect fire support. They might just need something light, small and capable of very high-angle lobbing.
In the trenches it might be useful to harrass the enemy without having to use the real mortar rounds with a limited supply.
I've been thinking for a while now that a spotting drone could provide a very accurate grid reference via data link back to an indirect fire sight mounted on a shoulder fired grenade launcher. The sight could then use GPS, INS, magnetometer units to give an artificial horizon and aiming point for the user. Mounted to something like the 6 shot Milkor MGL it could be quite potent. The drone could even tell the sight wind direction and strength to improve the solution.
I'm thinking of a little "beacon" that would release an RF signal for ranging and locating areas of shots. Fired out of the mortar tube of course.
Been talking about these needing to come back for a long time.
The barrel sleeve is almost certainly necessary because those types of grenades have fuses that are activated by rotation by the rifling in grenade launchers. So the sleeve is to activate the fuses.
Yes, exactly and to allow it to achieve its maximum capable range.
Would love to see this improved with some kind of BASIC sighting system. Just a couple of sliders with pointers would help improve consistency a lot versus eyeballing it
Looks like M430 HEDP. Yeah, remember seeing some crazy Russian vids from years ago using homemade 30mm grenade mortars. Though this one is very nicely made...not the most practical compared to a 60mm (or even 50mm) mortar...but if you have the ammo, might as well use it!
It's not an improvisation or a stop-gap. Not with that rifling, and they have multiple tubes per mortar. I had my doubts about the effectiveness of such a small round, but harassing fire ceases to be merely harassing when it hits you. One or two guys could drop those things on you all day. It would be hard to get things done.
Well it isn't a stop gap but I think it is an improvisation at some scale, I suspect they're locally manufactured as these are the only examples which have been seen so far. I'd be very interested to know how and who is rifling the sleeves.
It seems that the Ukrainians are very good at cobbling together usable weapons from broken or destroyed ones. I would surmise that the rounds are the high velocity ones used in the MK-19, thus making them unusable in the low pressure M-79, M203, M320, or Milkor. Many times I have seen the belt feed tabs on the MK-19 ammo belts break off or you will have a lone round on the bolt face after firing that you pop of with a rod to clear the weapon, leaving single rounds that are difficult in the best of times to re-link.
Interesting stuff... I guess that this sleeve tube gets pretty hot and harder to handle after a few rounds and that is the reason they have three sleeve tubes per "mortar". That gives at least some time for the sleeve to cool down and divide that strain while also increasing the rate of fire.
0:21 Poor guy takes his hands off of his ears the exact second the 82mm fires...
Question
Is it me, or that 40mm "Mortar" is on the quiet side on the noise spectrum.
Without visual verification. Guessing the smaller 40mm grenade likely be more difficult to signt, as compare with the large 81/82mm Mortar bombs.
They've had different names but mini mortar's these days are called commando mortars.
It’s slam fire. Plenty of videos of people in the US doing it with shotgun shells with two pipes but this is much more interesting.
Look at it, it's adorable!
That's a zip gun for 40mm...damn those guys have balls.
How cute. Reminds me of the "knee mortar" used by the Japanese. Highly portable. The sleave set-up kind if implies that it is modified or jerry rigged set-up, though it has been done very well. I can imagine a small mini mortar like this would be really useful for a squad to provide their own on the move fire support.
It also reminds of the French LGI
Thanks to the high-low system, firing this thing from your knee might actually be doable without injuring yourself.
@@yetanother9127 Ha yes. Firing the knee mortar or this thing with high pressure rounds will defiantly break your leg, but the high-low might actually work...still feels better to stick the butt into the dirt though I am sure.
How the hell do they aim it thou?
@@Seth9809 Fire, see where you hit, move...an inch this way, fire again, see where that hit, now you have a general idea of where the thing is shooting...most likely never going to be a super accurate system, ha.
Pretty neat, basically a big zip gun..
Ingenious and simple design 👍 The inner/ outer tube breech loading design also enables the inner tube to be rifled, while retaining the classic drop from the top mortar firing action. Presumably they could be issued more inner sleeves than launchers, so they can pre load a few for more rapid volley fire 🔥
Excellent video............Excellent channel
the most likely reason for use of these is just the weight of the Mk19: 35 kg. This setup is very light in comparison. Of course this can be connected to simple lack of enough automatic grenade launchers but the weight is totally a big reason.
Reminds me of a 12Ga slam fire shotgun.
Oh cool like a gravity powered slam shotgun.
Nifty.
the return fire will be 240 mm motar shell, 6 times repay, such good reward.
Hey, that's a clever idea. I used to fire a 2inch mortar back in the day and you aidm with Mk 1 eyeball, same system really.. without the rifled sleeve.
If the 40 mm round is so ineffective then why have we been using it for so long in the American army? I can eee the value in this set up.
And rifling!? Holy heck. Looks very well made.
I have long wondered about the possibility of a light weapon capable of firing 40mm high velocity grenades. I was thinking of a very scaled down howitzer, not this, but it is interesting.
I am surprised that the rifled tube is not blown out of the mortar, I looked carefully for some sort of retaining catch but could not see anything. I can only assume that the weight of the tube and friction holds it in place.
Carrying several tubes for each mortar will reduce the weight advantage.
The barrel of the mortar seems too thin to function without the tubes, however, I wonder how useful a version that could be used in a normal 60mm mortar would be.
All of the explosive force is directed out the muzzle, so I imagine recoil alone is enough to keep the sleeve inside the tube.
I think it's just the recoil impulse that keeps it in the tube.
@@TheArmourersBench Recoil is pushing the case back. Friction between the tube and the projectile would push the tube forward. Only weight and friction between the tube and the case would hold the tube in place. The case does appear to be a tight fit in the tube.
@@charlesphillips4575 It wouldn't surprise me if there was also some kind of ridge in the chamber area specifically for the grenade case to expand into and bind against once it's fired.
The grenades for the automatic grenade launchers are high pressure so you are getting case expansion. Something you don't get with the high/low pressure system used on the likes of the M79 or 203.
Seems like it would be much smaller and lighter than either the Mk19 or a larger mortar, so would be a lot more manoeuvrable and work better in smaller trenches/foxholes. Not as potent of course but still a novel approach and pretty flexible. After all to properly operate the bigger options, you'll need at least three crew just to move it all around effectively, but this could in theory be operated by a single soldier in a pinch.
Reminds me of the WW2 Japanese "knee" mortar
Clever, I like it. Keeps the enemy on its toes.
it's hard to say that its a light system if you have to carry extra barrel sleeves if you want to achieve a reasonable rate of fire. It's a cool idea tho,
Sort of reminds me of the Italian Brixia Modello 35 from WWII. It fired 45mm bombs using blank cartridges and sort of was a mix between a grenade launcher and a light mortar.
A slam fire mortar , it is like a slam fire improvised 12 Ga shotgun. Just bigger.
Cheaper than the other 40mm GLaunchers. Good to go.
Reminds me of the japanese knee mortar...neat
The uk used to run a small "two inch" infantry grenade mortar as well before going to automatic grenade launchers. I guess the small mortars are more cost effective to make?
That's exactly what I thought
@@JinKee and ver easy to use
@@JinKee IIRC light mortars like the earlier 2" mortars or 2"/51mm L9 are still being retained or replaced by newer models, the US retains the M224 60mm and the French operate the 51mm F1 too. The light and handy nature meant lead to many nations deploying them and continuing to deploy them today.
@@CATASTEROID934 The British 51mm has been entirely replaced by 40mm grenade launchers at section and platoon level. They were a pain to carry. A ball ache to set up and the underwhelming end result never kept pace with your typical advance to contact when it was easier to just throw grenades or use a LAW. It's a little known fact that the Brits purchased quite a quantity of M79s for use in Northern Ireland and they were also used during the Battle Of Goose Green and the battles for the heights around Port Stanley rather than the 51mm. They probably are retained at company level as far as I know but the only practical use for them is for illumination.
Kinda reminds me of WWI era trench mortars- relatively small, but could be taken on the assault and very effective when fighting positions were close, where artillery would be too close for comfort or alert the enemy to take cover.
Clever and cool!
Those were REALLY clever!! They must be alot easier to aim as the load is muuch more persistent and constant for every shell?
And only a manual vector-sight needed for quite the mangling hit👍👍
Fascinating.
Next a VB style rifle grenade.
Type 89 grenade discharger the Japanese used in WW2 - but simpler
the way he slapped the base of that grenade into the sleeve gave me anxiety
Unless he has a metal stud sewn into the palm of his glove, there’s zero danger.
They will probably come to the same conclusion that the Brits did about the rather similar 2"/51mm mortar. That's its bugger all use as a section weapon and it's best left in the armoury unless you need something to illuminate a company night attack.
AFAIK the British issue was the 2"/51mm was mostly being used in either mechanised manoeuvre warfare where it was too slow, or in counterinsurgency where again it proved slower and about as powerful as an underslung or standalone grenade launcher. I think the L9 mortars got replaced with launchers in the sections and a 60mm at platoon level?
For true urban fighting or trench fighting though a lighter mortar sharing ammo with other heavy weapons can be handy I guess, but you're right that at section/squad level it's probably not a whole lot of use overall if there's alternatives around like regular grenade launchers or even RPGs.
@@Del_S 60mm mortars were procured as an UOR in Afghanistan. They were then removed from service as they were deemed to be ineffective. The light mortar was never a component of modern armoured infantry warfare it was intended for light infantry, the British Army rotate regiments through either air mobile, armoured infantry or light infantry roles (on foot). In the advance to contact for light infantry the biggest single reason the 51mm was no longer required was quite simply the change in small arms to self loaders and the move to paired fire and manoeuvre by fire team or by individual riflemen. It just moves too quickly now, no longer do you have a separate gun group and rifle group. You don't require a light mortar when operating from a Warrior AFV as fire support is already organic to your rifle company in the form of the Warrior it self.
@@zoiders Ah, I see
But as they said, they have a bunch of the ammo and they cannot bring themselves to throw it away. They have the time while in the trenches, so it is a good thing to use while they have the ammo.
The "old fashioned" British Army two inch mortar? A lot easier (and probably safer) to use, as it has a trigger mechanism.
That's really cool! It's like a slam fire shotgun.
its a slamfire shotgun upscaled to 30mm, oh my god
Very interesting 👌
I like it also liked the Japanese style knee mortar necessity is mother of invention also boredom.
Damn! Thats cool!
2 klicks! If you can add precision then that gives the average soldier an excellent fire-power upgrade for not much weight.
Where I get one of these
I can't hear any information why the tube sleeve is used. Is it because the mortar tube is larger then 40 mm, maybe 60 mm?
The sleeve is used to drop the grenade into the tube. It's a gravity assist.
so its for shooting slightly damaged, or old stock 40mm grenades that might not work otherwise? essentially a slam fired mortar?
You thought about covering other conflicts? You videos are great 😃
sounds like tripod adapter for M203/M320 might be a viable option
Ukrainian ingenuity at its best! ♠️🎩🇺🇸🎯🏁🇺🇦🔱🌻🌸💮🌼🏴☠️🏹
Is it a 51 mm mortar with a size reduction insert 🤔
Not bad especially considering that you can carry about two to three times as many rounds than a conventional more, all the while being relatively small and lightweight allowing even a rifleman to use one in a close support role in which either indirect fire is required or if say a mortar barrage is needed to suppress a given enemy and whilst it lacks the accuracy of a rifle grenade or the rate of fire of all automatic grenade launcher it makes up for in being both relatively cheap, lightweight and easy to operate being primarily a tube with a pin and baseplate and a second tube for the grenade to sit in.
I need to Form 1 of these to go with my 50mm RM-38
The small one looks a lot like the Japanese knee mortar from WW2.
Necessity being the Mother of invention!
They look like M430A1 HEDP grenades.
Just a sleeve for a 60 mm morter
This has been around
40mm zip gun. Brilliant
Could a different rifling have a effect on the distance?
Potentially, not sure on what the 40mm is capable of beyond about 2.2km
It works just like a slam fire shotgun. Super simple.
🇫🇮aid to 🇺🇦old m/50 handgrenade’s were donated.
It’s ex Soviet war head with just handg fuse.
Tail section was simpy taken off.
it's like a homemade slam fire shotgun
How clever!
Do I understand right they use a rifled stainless tube at every shot?
And carry a whole batch of them around?
this mortar is essentially a pipe shotgun
I fired a LOT of illum and smoke 40mm grenades from (i think) the M-79? The poop gun. I've mentioned before, i workwd in a training section, infantry weapons specifically, although the odd change to play woth something unusual did come up a couple of times.
Its a bit of a tradition to put the COs bush hat out on the range suring grenade training of any kind, in the Australian army. Usually the hat will take a few minor hits with frag, everyone has a laugh, its a bit of fun.
One course we had through of reserves a three week intensive infantry refresher, (in which i often has enemy party roles (yay)) a kid landed his shot right into the hat and blew it to absolute shreds. Just the brim and some cotton strands. It was very funny, totally disrupted the planned range schedule, but yeah, lots of laughs.
So i got sent to drive from the range in to Battalion HQ (which was actually only 15 of us), to ask the quartermaster for a new bush hat, the smoking ruins of the previous hat in hand.
No matter how you put those rounds down range, they are gonna do serious harm to anything they hit. I wish I'd had a chance to play with the modern stuff, semi auto cannons and self loading models look like fun.
For me, it was all about that vietnam era, break breech poop gun. Thats all we had back then! The only real use to us in training was smoke and illum rounds, cos you cant exactly blank fire a grenade launcher lol. One of those things that is largely a nusance in training, but vital on the battlefield.
Sorry, i blather on. Love your show, man. Working my way through the back catalogue, since i only found you recently. But it all makes me grateful for my safe home and old(ish) age...
Great story, didn't know about that tradition! Glad you found me, thanks for watching!
As an aside, we used a dedicated "40mm grenade" range that was 1km deep by about 400m wide with two firing points and two bunkers. From memory, the barrel rifling turned the round through 7 and a half rotations before it left the barrel, and the adjustable sight was notched out to 800m, maybe less? Aim points at around 300m.
A 40mm zip gun. Will wonders never cease?
It's so portable. ..
Just a thought but has anyone played warhammer 40K if not then don’t worry because in it there’s a tank called the wyvrn which is essentially a quad barreled mortar on a tank, and for any military enthusiasts, how effective would such a weapon be in real life.
Where is Grot video? ;)
They have reinvented the WW2 Japanese Knee Mortar!
Looks like the old knee mortors
Really it’s just like a hardware store slam fire shotgun but for 40mm.
I'm not an expert but I can see that mortar being a more precise way to hit a fixed position with 40mm grenades. Sacrificing rate of fire but increasing precision and ability to walk in the shots with drone guidance. Just guessing though.
Interesting
They are probably barrels for some 40mm AGL. They aren't for a Mk19. The walls are far to thick. Maybe a helicopter gunship AGL?
The mortar is probably ancient, might even date to WWI.
Who knows, those guys might not even know. Ukraine has so much random stuff having had Soviet design and production facilities and had so much random hardware donated to it.