What launches a mortar round from the mortar tube?

Question

In the movie "Private Ryan", the soldiers lose their mortars but still have the mortar "rounds". They pound the tail of the rounds on the ground to prime it and then throw them like hand grenades. So, what throws a round from a mortar tube? If its something built in to the tail of the mortar round, then those thrown by hand should have been rocketing off as soon as theywere primed by striking them on the ground. If its something in the mortar tube... what might that be? In movies, they set something and then drop the round in the tube. What is the propellant?

Answer 1

It is called cheese charge! You can cook with it also, just don't try to stamp it out!

Answer 2

There is no propellant in the mortar round itself, just the explosive charge. The propellant is a thin square piece of plastic like material with a hole in the middle. There is a cut from the outside of the square to the hold. The end of the mortar where the fins are located has a thin tube area, kind of like the neck of a bowling pin. Around this neck is where the squares of the propellant are placed. The more squares, the further the round will go. They are about the size of a slice of American cheese, hence the name "cheese charge" as the previous poster pointed out. Looking at them, you wouldn't realize that they were extremely volatile. But at the end of a training day, you will have a whole bunch of these things left over, because most rounds aren't fired for maximum distance. They are piled up at a safe distance and then some type of chain of propellant is built up. When these things are lit they go up is a blaze of glory.

I wasn't an 11C (mortar infantryman) during my time in the military. But I was an executive officer (11A) in a training company of 11C. I don't know the nuances of firing a mortar, but I'm pretty sure I am relatively close as to the way it works. The mortar round only has a small blasting cap or similar device within it that is used to light the cheese charges.

What I am telling you is based on the mortars from the mid 1990s. I have no idea what the technology was in WWII.

Answer 3

A typical US mortar tube functions due to certain physical attributes. When the loader pulls a pin on the shell he makes it "live". The shell is actually a form of rocket. The discharge of propellant gases produced when the shell hits the bottom of the tube is the force that makes it fly, The diameter of the tube has such close tolerances it almost seals the gap between the shell and tube, thereby increasing the propulsion power of the gases when fired.

Answer 4

The mortar round itself provides the propellant. as in, nothing in the tube is launching the mortar. However, the explosive force of the propelling explosion is omnidirectional... so the mortar tube functions as the gun of a muzzle loading rifle: it directs the force produced by the explosion to propel the mortar in a determined direction.

Think of it this way: instead of loading a musket ball into a black powder rifle, we just pour 50 grains onto a flat surface and set a musket ball next to it. When we touch off the powder, the explosion goes in all directions instead of up a guided barrel. The musket ball doesn't go very far. In the same way, an undirected mortar shell would probably jump a little bit as its propellant set off, but would not go very far before it detonated (in other words, its a flash burst explosion like a powder flash... not a sustained directional burn like a rocket)

As to what they set: an army soldier would have to confirm this, but i believe that is a timed fuse for when the detonation is to occur. the drop in the tube strikes the bottom of the round against the bottom of the tube, which sets off the propellant explosion mechanism.

Answer 5

the mortar rounds are same to gun's cartridges, the round is made up of the launch charge(in the tail) and the warhead (in the nose). In guns the launch charge is started by a trigger that let move the firing pin that hit the primer causing the ignition of the charge. In mortars the firing pin is fixed in the lower end of the tube, so when the mortar round fall in the tube, the firing pin hit the primer and the round is fired.
In "Save private Ryan" it is a great mistake, those rounds had to explode(the launch charge) in their hands.

Answer 6

Not exactly sure on the termanology, but works like a gun. But obviously you cant take a (as an example) a 9mm round and bang on the end and through it hoping for the same effect; the only reason for that is the explosives inside. If the 9mm round was made out of the same thing as the mortar round you could, if it had to explosive power I mean.

Answer 7

It is basically the same as a bullet, there is a primer that is struck by a firing pin which causes a small "explosion" within the casing.