GDR 99 - Weapons Systems

A New Generation
of Mortar Emerges


Section Articles
• A New Generation of Mortar • Expert Combination: Krauss-Maffei • The Defence Supermarket • Making Tracks: the FCS/Tracer • Centre of Excellence: Mauser • Big Guns Given Greater Mobility • Man With a Plan: Herstal • On Top of the Action: Delco • Crusader on Target in 1999 • Special Application Rifles • Fuchs Fuses for Fighting Forces • Revolutionary: the OICW • Revolution in US Small Arms • SADARM: Smart Submunition
Top: Denel's fire control in use by the South African Army.

By Nigel Vinson, The Duke of Westminster's Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Mortars have often been regarded as the poor man's artillery. Lacking any credible hard-target capability against armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) or bunkers, mortar systems nevertheless were retained to suppress infantry and soft-skinned vehicles and to provide illumination or obscuration. In part their retention has reflected the effectiveness of counter-battery fire that has created a reluctance to unmask artillery batteries except to engage high-priority targets. Frequently this has left mortar platoons as the only guaranteed source of indirect fire for armoured and infantry battlegroups.

The majority of mortars have been solely indirect fire weapons, unlike guns and howitzers that can be employed in the direct-fire role. But the innovative use of mortar systems by the Israeli and former Soviet Union (FSU) armies during the cold war indicated the versatility of these weapon systems.

Many operations now involve humanitarian and peace-keeping operations that has driven a requirement for more flexible forces, equipped for presence operations often involving no more than a battle-group resulting in the mortar being the only indirect fire asset in theatre.

Mortars also have evolved to include new technologies, rectifying the previous lack of a hard-target and multi-purpose engagement capability. Building on the trend set by the Russian turreted mortar systems western companies now are pursuing this option. Royal Ordnance has been the first to clinch a firm contract with the supply of its 120mm armoured mortar system (AMS) to the Saudi National Guard. This system also has been tested across the Atlantic, in particular by the United States Marine Corps (USMC), and gives users a direct-fire capability with under armour protection against shell-splinters and environmental protection against nuclear biological chemical (NBC) weapons.


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A logical development of the turreted mortar has been the twin-barrelled Amos system, jointly designed by Patria Vammas of Finland and Hagglands of Sweden. The fully automatic version is capable of delivering 24 rounds per minute, particularly relevant when conducting multiple-round, simultaneous impact (MRSI) engagements. MRSIs involve firing ammunition in rapid succession at differing elevations, ensuring the rounds arrive on target together to increase the effectiveness of the barrage. Although configured towards the higher end of the warfighting spectrum by reducing engagement times and/or raising its destructive power, it possesses a direct-fire capability against buildings and other targets and is available to vehicles of 20 tonnes.

A joint development by the US' Picatinny Arsenal and Thompson Daimler-Benz Aerospace (TDA) has created the Dragon Fire, an autonomous mortar system. The current prototype consists of a modified TDA 2R2M rifled 120mm mortar, with a maximum range unassisted/rocket-assisted of nine and 14kms respectively. It can be operated remotely by radio and can calculate within three to five seconds its own location and elevation and bearing to the target. An on-board magazine holds 33 rounds ready to fire, and the package can be towed by a HMMWV jeep or fit inside a V-22 Osprey. A derivative, dubbed Mobile Dragon Fire, has been mounted on a USMC light armoured vehicle (LAV), and the addition of a gyrostabiliser should result in accurate fire on the move out to maximum ranges.

The US also is developing improved command, control and communication devices and sensors such as the Small Eyes binoculars, utilising an in-built GPS transceiver and a laser designator. Small Eyes automatically determines own and enemy locations and transmits these to fire-direction centres or direct to Dragon Fire, allowing untrained observers to exploit its capabilities.


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As well as improvements in the mortar system, precision engagement was pursued during the early 1990s to enhance the effectiveness of the ammunition. So far this has resulted only in the infra-red homing Saab/Bofors Strix programme entering operational service. But the US has taken the basic engineering design of the German Bussard guided mortar round and is seeking to improve its capabilities through the precision-guided mortar munition (PGMM) programme. Utilising an embedded global positioning system (GPS) receiver, the PGMM can either home in on a laser signal designated by a variety of ground or airborne platforms, or self-home by using an in-built imaging infra-red seeker.

The now-defunct Merlin programme designed to give a precision-engagement capability to the British 81mm mortar, utilised a millimetric homing seeker, and it is likely this technology will reappear on an operational mortar round. Although employing active homing in order to engage, with the attendant problem of altering suitably equipped targets to activate counter-measures, improvements in defeating imaging infra-red seekers might dictate the use of millimetric guidance.

The use of a suitably modified gyro-stabilised camera as a sensor, coupled with a fibre-optic data-link, threatens to change the nature of all indirect fire weapon systems, including conventional artillery. The European Tri-National Fibre Optic Guided Missile (TRIFOM) consortium, comprising Aerospatiale of France, Italy's Consorzio Italmissile and Germany's LFK Group, has recently secured a follow-on contract to continue development of the Polyphem missile. Slated to enter service in 2006, a typical Polyphem battery would consist of three to four fire units and attached unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and range over 60 kilometres. A fibre-optic guided, man-in-the-loop capability allows for limited reconnaissance, battle damage assessment (BDA) and target identification functions to be undertaken.

Increased range
Developments in the arms-control sphere have included action to outlaw the use of anti-personnel land-mines (APLs), with the consequent demand by military forces to seek a replacement for them. US studies have dismissed the notion of substituting APLs by allocating additional personnel, given the move away in western armies from manpower-intensive systems. A single untrained observer equipped with Small Eyes could deliver a substantial bombardment without the time-consuming emplacement of APLs and with little unnecessary risk to or effort by military personnel. Coupled with a remote ground sensor (RGS) or UAV, Dragon Fire could eliminate the man-in-the loop entirely.

Increasing ranges achieved by mortars already threaten the traditional role of the light gun, and the nature of warfare and the imposition of arms-control treaties, including the conventional forces in Europe (CFE) protocols, mean an expanded operational environment for the mortar. Precision engagement and automation also promise much in terms of lethality and maintenance and support costs, and the fire-on-the-move capabilities of Mobile Dragon Fire fit the concepts of manoeuvre warfare and the future empty battlefield envisaged by military futurologists.

What has enabled the maturing of the mortar has also unleashed other technologies that may alter the traditional bastions of all indirect weapon systems, including artillery. If US and European trials of fibre-optic missiles are successful, then for true precision engagements these may provide greater capabilities in the longer term, and moves to harmonise and embed these technologies into mortars will represent another chapter in the evolution of this versatile weapon system.