Shooting a WWII German 50mm Light Mortar (L.Gr.W.36)

#forgottenweapons #50mm #mortar #shooting #firing #lgrw36

[DarkraiDiety]

As a mortarman in the Army I gotta say that thing is pretty damn sweet.

[slchance]

that thing is 90 years....almost a 100 years old....a *century old!! ** and look at how well designed it is. The carrying case, the angle increments, the fine-tune knob, even the ammo case has a practical release switch. No rotted plastic or wood....just finely engineered craftsmanship. Truly admirable.

[alden]

"Can't see that in the air at all!"
*tube explodes*

[killrbamb]

Thats no mortar. Thats a work of fucking art. Legitimately mind blowing engineering.

[lovemunkey]

Forgotten Weapons does ASMR.The "bloop" is just the money shot.

[howardmaryon]

Watching this in awe a few times, the craftsmanship is obvious, down to the fact it not only has a precision range scale, but also a precision lateral deflection scale, adjusted with knobs designed to be easy to use in snow and mud.

[evolvedego]

Not gonna lie, I want one now. Even after almost a century, that thing is still remarkably well designed, and crafted. That “thunk” sound will never get old.

[baroquerookbr]

This gives "the enemies have ceased life, Captain" vibes. It's honestly disgusting how high quality the craftsmanship on that is.

[MrJimheeren]

Mein Gott, sometimes German engineering is something else isn’t it. Look at how well crafted that thing is

[Oblithian]

One of the weapons with the most satisfying sounds.

[Ken_Jold]

My Dad was part of Operation Gyroscope. He was sent around Germany dismantling machine gun bunker. First they cleaned out anyone trying to live in them and then mortar them with our equipment. They stumbled upon a bunker full of the German mortar and tried them. He said ours would hit the target but theirs would drop down the stovepipe. His team only use German mortar after that.

[codebebop]

I love how beautifully crafted and engineered it is. Down to the cases of the mortar rounds and unit.

[rexfrommn]

The country that had best 50mm mortar was the WW2 Japanese Type 89. This mortar fired regular issue hand grenades with a special timed fuse attached to the grenade to about 200 meters. The advantage to the timed fuse grenade was the grenade could hit the branches of trees in jungle foliage to bounce to the ground to land amongst enemy soldiers before exploding. The Type 89 mortar was rifled spinning the .9 kilogram/2lbs high explosive contact shell out to about 700 meters. A two man crew could fire ten to twelve rounds per minute with a three man crews firing 20 to 25 rounds per minute.

Japanese infantry companies had twelve Type 89 mortars in a mortar platoon with three rifle platoons. Every rifle platoon would have a mortar section assigned to them with four Type 89 mortars. Thus, every Japanese rifle platoon had four mortars capable of firing 80 to 100 rounds of contact fused high explosives or shorter ranged time fuse grenades per minute. This rate of fire was highly accurate able to be adjusted quickly to hit enemy targets. These mortar sections could saturate an enemy target area with high explosive shells. Typically, these light mortars could be moved quickly from one position to another set up to fire in less than a minute with trained crews. The fire from these Japanese Type 89 mortars came in quick, accurately and in heavy volume saturating an area with high explosives. At least 80 percent of all Allied casualties in combat against the Japanese occurred from mortars. The vast majority of those Allied casualties were the result of fire from the deadly Type 89 mortar.

[Tarik]

Took me a long time to realize when militaries refer to anything as "light" they mean logistically.

[Steamer]

That "tunk" for the launch is just beautiful. It tickles my brain almost as much as the Garand "Ping."

[horaciokanashiro-hvzn]

After the "boop🎵" I was expecting " bundy ahda bundy ahda 🎵" 😃 👍

[salty-]

After seeing Ian's home defense options.... I gotta step up my game bros...

[nat]

I'm not the only one who is noticing how nicely made that thing is. That is very nice engineering 👌

[sjbr]

The precision manufacturing is amazing

[simonburrell]

Used to be an 81 mm mortarman in the marines, you never get tired of hearing that sound when the round exits the toob, not an explosion not a thump, just almost a ploop