Ukraine's 40mm Grenade Mortar

In April a Ukrainian unit shared an intriguing video of a small mortar that fired 40mm grenades.

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[TheArmourersBench]

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[Woobeone]

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

[Aldornas]

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.

[RMMilitaryHistory]

Babe wake up Ukraine got a lil mortar now 🎉

[randyadams]

The 40mm grenade mortar, reminds of the Imperial Japanese Army so called "Knee Mortar" of WW2 was effective.

[DarkestVampire]

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.

[baddestmofoalive]

Ukraine was the mortar training center of the USSR. They are world class masters of indirect fire.

[studentaviator]

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.

[davidj.leavitt]

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.

[psychoairsoft]

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!!

[petesheppard]

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.

[petlahk]

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.

[christopherwang]

Whether or not these 40mm grenade mortars are effective, they illustrate the Ukrainian soldiers' ability to adapt and improvise.

[ptonpc]

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.

[roadhouse]

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.

[realhorrorshow]

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.

[ArcturusOTE]

Pretty simple and ingenious, a slam fire mortar
I wonder if there's more of this out there

[katana]

That's a zip gun for 40mm...damn those guys have balls.

[jic]

0:21 Poor guy takes his hands off of his ears the exact second the 82mm fires...

[ryanthorne]

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.