What was the effective range of the 2" mortar? I was led to the question because I'm wondering how far anti-tank crews could fire flare rounds with theirs (I'm not sure if this was EVER used!) but I imagine the distance would be the same for any explosive rounds.
Manual here https://vickersmg.blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/01-08-39.pdf which seems to give range as 100-500 yards
I’ve only ever fired 2 inch illum and smoke . Smoke bombs would go about 300 meters , ilium about double that , they were much much lighter bombs ( no pun intended ) but they were never popped off to range , it was always in the air above what you wanted to illuminate so effectively, they were both around 300 meter range and in the case of the illum about 100 meter altitude max . Only other thing I’ll add is that once you’d fired a few, you could get pretty accurate with it . Far, far better illum wise than a shermuley and with no nasty rocket trail back to the firer ( and I used to imagine I was in Normandy dressed in serge not on Sennybridge dressed in DPM, but that’s probably just me )
This comes with the caveat that it's from the 1959 Infantry Platoon Weapons Pamphlet No.8, bought as a bundle with the 1939 Handbook on the 2-in mortar from MLRS books. There's nothing on the illuminating round in the 1939 part but the 1959 portion includes the following. I'm offering it on the basis I presume the round and weapon were pretty much the same. "These bombs contain a flare attached to a parachute. When the bomb is fired at an angle of 80 degrees the parachute is ejected at a height of about 600 feet. At this height the flare gives its best performance. It will burn for about 30 seconds, descending slowly and drifting with the wind as it does so. "In still air or light winds the mortar should be fired at an angle of 80 degrees. This will allow the flare to be ejected at a distance of about 100 to 150 yards from the mortar position. If light is required at a greater distance the angle must be lessened as when firing smoke bombs. At its reduced height the flare will not light up so big an area." The 1959 pamphlet does not give any dimensions on the mortar or ammunition to attempt to compare against its WW2 equivalent however. I found in my own searching that pretty much anything regarding the weights, lengths, etc of the 2-inch mortar is at best labeled 'approximately' or at worst simply omitted. Gary
Thanks everyone! I was really wondering about how far out they could potentially project a light. Now I need to go look at the map positions involved in a night battle and see whether it was even possible.
As i recall without referring to hand my info, the 2" mortar during the war and just after had a number of star, signal and parachute ilum rounds. You had single star, red, green or white, you had multi star in the same different colours plus you had red and green together. You also had signal success which was a multi star round emitting red and green but fired at a greater hight and with a much stronger balistite cartridge which came down on parachute. These rounds the Mk1 in the early part of the war gave problems with ingress of moisture especially noted when used in tropical use ie jungle. The Mk1 signal, ie para ilum rounds and signal can be identified with having four flash holes at the top of the tail section at the base of the round, these holes were closed off by thin round metal discs sealed with red compound. This method was changed to the Mk2 round that had two flash holes till last use in the 1980s when the 51mm was developed. There were a few mods during 43 44 sorting this out. There were about three types of basic smoke during WW2 plus 1944 mods to the standard smoke that became familiar in post war times with its manufacture. Of the two standard types one type was used for AFVs with instant smoke upon firing and long delay for infantry with smoke emitting on its decent, these rounds came in about three different types of smoke compound. The last third type smoke is WP only used for a short period 42 to about 47 ish this was also used in AFVs as it gave instant smoke upon impact. The AFV smoke rounds also used a lesser balistite cartridge charge about 18 grains for the bombs to land short closer to the tank.
