The standard German light mortar in World War Two was the model 1936 5cm Leichter Granatwerfer. It was a very precise (Germanic, one might say) machine, and a bubble lever for careful aiming, and it threw a roughly 2 pound projectile out to a maximum range of 550 meters. Today I have the chance to do some shooting with one, using original (demilled) projectiles and 1939-dated propellant charges. Should be fun!
You can see my full video on the history and use of this mortar here:
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It would seem that the propellant charges could be reloaded, with a bit of modification to the base to accept a replaceable primer.
The charges look very much like 28 gauge shells.
I wondered if the charges were based upon some standard cartridge, considering how obssessed Germans are with following the standards.
https://guns.com/news/reviews/all-about-28-gauge#Metrics
Ian — can you give us the dimensions of the propellant shell?
I do not have dimensions for that, but maybe unveiling its’ true name will help, according to http://michaelhiske.de/Wehrmacht/Heer/D_HEER/D0435/Teil01/Anlagen/Anlg03.htm it is 5 cm Wgr.Patr. 41 (gr.Ldg.) and it is shared between le.Gr.W. 36 (5 cm) and M 19 https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/01/27/m19-5cm-maschinengranatwerfer/
It makes me reevaluate the Brixia Mortar.
Imagine going up against a strong point that’s got a couple of these and multiple MG34/42 gun positions set up in support of each other… With 81mm mortars on tap from the next level up.
These, along with the MG34/42, were the backbone of the German tactical/operational system in WWII. It’s hard to envision what they would be like, working together, but with a bit of imagination, you can do it.
Now, try to imagine little clots of individual riflemen making a frontal assault on that position, supported by their Brownings and their BARs. Or, alternatively, their Brens…
Wonder why we needed so much in the way of supporting arms for our infantry? So long as the German ammo lasted, these bastards were impregnable. I shudder to think what US logistics and German weapons/tactics could have accomplished together… Thank God we never ran up against anyone that could do that.
Tactically sound, but I’ve doubts about the realization. A mortar was also to be used in assault and, at 15kg, this one was heavy for what it delivered. The contemporary French 50mm infantry mortar weighted less than 4 kg IE. It obviously had a less complex aiming system but, with a so arched and slow trajectory, they couldn’t have any real pretense of accuracy anyway.
The Germans have a certain notoriety for overcomplicating things… Sometimes, this works out to additional capabilities and effectiveness. I’d argue that while there was a whole lot of “stuff” included with most of their weapons, it all served a purpose and made the team more lethal. Rangefinders for the heavy MG team? Assuredly an advantage; one that saved ammo (less ranging/bracketing fire required, for example) and added to the first-round lethality.
I’m not an expert on mortars; I know just enough to get one into operation and use it. I’m unsure what a reasonably mortar set might include, but if you look at it, the Germans were doing FDC fires with these as well as the usual direct fire stuff the Allies were doing with their 2″/50mm mortars. How much difference that made? I’ve no idea, but I’ll happily integrate one of these into my toolset.
Today’s equivalent is probably a couple of guys humping the FPV drones along with the controllers/batteries. Either way, you have your act together, you’re going to be a hard nut to crack for the enemy.
Somewhat off-topic, there’s a Trent Telenko post over on X/Twitter that brings out some interesting information about where the hell this space (low-level combat) is going. Mr. Telenko is sometimes wrong, sometimes overwrought, but he has made some good points in the past, ones that others have missed or ignored. The ones about man-powered logistics vs. MHE and modern logistics practice have been pretty good, under the hyperbole. This one is similar, and I hope people pay attention to the data. If it is correct, this may be the last generation in which the weapons we’re all so fascinated really play a significant role:
https://x.com/TrentTelenko/status/1853243184370844107
I’ve felt the cold wind of the future on my neck since about the first time I saw a toy drone at a friend’s Christmas morning, one that he’d bought for his kids. I don’t think anyone really grasped what a seminal moment all that crap was, for weapons and warfare.
The range differential is mind-boggling; FPV drones have an effective range damn near 70 times that of a standard infantry individual weapon… Counters? So far, we haven’t really got a lot of them going. The fiber-optic ones are scarier still, being more-or-less immune to jamming. You watch the drone swarms that are gradually augmenting/supplanting fireworks, and consider what those would look like, armed? And, coming for you? Not a pleasant picture, that; personalized death, something that even an atomic bomb can’t really duplicate. Bombs are big and impersonal; forces of nature. A drone is personal, with your name on it…
I can’t imagine the PTSD that veterans of the Ukrainian conflict are going to have, going forward. Hearing that vicious little high-pitched “hummmmmm” is something that’s going to haunt their nights.
Having compared this with the lightweight French 50mm mortar Ian I would be interested in you view of how the British 2″ mortar stacked up against them. Perhaps next time you go to Leeds, Brian Ferguson can get one of theirs out for you. As I understand the philosophy behind the German mortar was lightweight precession fire the British 2″ mortar was all about getting bombs down range ASAP then adjusting by eye for effect. The question is which worked better.
Have a look at low-level logistics across the forces. UK was totally mechanized; every unit had its trucks for carrying stores/ammunition. The Germans were generally still operating on a basis of horse-drawn carts.
If you read through a lot of the German stuff, they talk a lot about “getting the most out of” their limited logistics. Some of it was counter-intuitive, like the “too high a rate of fire” MG systems, but there was methodology to their madness: They were convinced (I think correctly) that the higher rates of fire made the guns more lethal, particularly at long range, sooooo… The higher fire rates were logical, to them. Same with the higher complexity of the mortars; they thought that they were building a more accurate one, so that was worth the trouble… It would save weight in the end.
Not saying that I necessarily agree with that, but I do believe that was the reason for their choices and decisions in these regards. Were they correct? Well, had warfare remained strictly infantry-on-infantry, they might have prevailed in those encounters. Once it was “German infantry on Allied infantry plus tanks, artillery, air support, and logistics…”?
Yeah, they were done. Operationally/strategically, the decisions should have been different. Inside the vacuum bubble of infantry on infantry alone, they were mostly “more right” than the Allies.