Brandt’s 81 mm mortar, 1927/31

This mortar was developed by Edgar Brandt after studying the 81-mm stokes mortar , is a simple and effective weapon. Brandt's mortar had a smooth barrel and fired with fired mines. The charge ignition scheme was developed by the English engineer Stokes. Ignition and combustion of the main propellant charge according to this scheme occurs in a closed volume (in the tube of the mine stabilizer) at a pressure of 900-1500 kg / cm². Powder gases erupt into space after a mine. The very same ignition occurs by self-gouging of mines, lowered into the barrel on the sting of the impactor at the bottom of the channel.

Bipedal and smooth pipe

At Brandt, the bipod was redesigned so that it could be quickly and easily mounted on any type of soil. The grenades used in the Stokes mortar were replaced by streamlined mines (it was only in 1924 that the French engineer Brandt was the first to get a sample of a “correctly flying feathered projectile” - a prototype of a modern mine), which increased flight range. Calculation: three people. The mortar was disassembled for transportation into three parts - the barrel (weight in the pack - 20.7 kg), a biped (18.5 kg) and a base plate (20.5 kg). It was the first mortar, created by the later imaginary classical scheme of an imaginary triangle. The kinematic diagram of an imaginary triangle - three hinges and two links. The third link is imaginary. This link is the soil on which the mortar is installed ^[1] .

... the Stokes-Brandt mortar fires mines weighing 6.5 and 3.2 kilograms at distances of 1.5 and 3 kilometers, respectively. Heavy mine gives him the same fragmentation and high-explosive effect, as a 76-mm grenade.

This mortar is very cleverly provided with a large: rate of fire - up to 20 rounds per minute - with a small gun weight, only 59 kilograms. The mortar does not have a shutter and is charged from the barrel, with the charge (gunpowder) and the igniter capsule being placed in the hollow tail of the mine.

Therefore, the loader does not need to open and close the shutter, and do not even pull the trigger. It is enough to put a mine into the barrel: when falling, a mine hits a sting fixed on the bottom of the barrel with a capsule, the gunpowder explodes, and the powder gases emit a mine.

A mortar of this type can be of great help to the infantry in any combat situation.

- Chapter Seven Cannon Jules Verne and “Tsar Cannon” // Artillery / Head of the team of authors and artists executive editor Major V.P. VNUKOV. Literary editor L. SAVELYEV .. - 2nd revised and enlarged edition. - MOSCOW: State Military Publishing House of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR, 1938.

The mortar rate was up to 25 rounds per minute. By 1940, the French army received about 8,000 units of 81mm Mle 27/31.

Brandt developed a wide range of mines for its 27/31 model, which can be divided into three main types: mines with a high explosive charge, mines with an increased charge (heavy, they were fired at shorter distances) and smoke mines.

1. light mine FA Mle1924 / 27: 3.31 kg (400 g of explosives)
2. FA light mine Mle1932: 3.34 kg (560 g of explosives)
3. heavy mine FA Mle1935 GC: 6.84 kg (2400 g explosives)
4. smoke mine: 3.34 kg (225 g smoke component)
5. lighting (without and with a parachute)

The American version of the mortar used locally-developed ammunition:

M43A1 lightweight RP: 6.87 pounds (3.11 kg), range min 200 yards (183 m), range max 3290 yards (3010 m); instant fuse (explodes on the surface).

M45, M45B1 Heavy RP: 10.62 pounds (4.82 kg), range max 2258 yards (2064 m); time delay fuse.

M56 Heavy OB: 15.01 pounds (6.81 kg), max range 1300 yards (1200 m); the fuse has two settings: instant action or slowdown.

M57 WP (white phosphorus): 10.74 pounds (4.87 kg), range max 2470 yards (2260 m).

Brandt Mle 1927/1931 had a serious impact on the designers involved in the design of mortars around the world. Within a few years, mle 27/31 began to be produced throughout Europe and far beyond its borders, with production being carried out both under the company’s license and without it. The 81.4-mm mortar caliber has become the main caliber of European infantry mortar.

The mortar was produced under license in the USA as M1 ^[2] , in Japan as Type 97 ^[3] , in Poland as 81 mm wz. 31 , in Czechoslovakia as 8 cm minomet vz. 36 The Polish military leadership decided to acquire a license for the production of mortars. In 1931–32 its mass production began. By September 1939, enterprises of the Polish military industry produced about 900 mortars. In total, by the beginning of the war, the Polish army had more than 1,500 Brandt mortars of various modifications. In the early thirties, the Kingdom of Italy bought the Brandt 81 mm MLE 1927 in France to equip troops sent to Ethiopia. In Italy, an electromechanical construction company in Saronno, in addition to producing a licensed version, began to produce an improved version of the 81 mm Mod mortar . 35

After the defeat of 1940, a significant part of the 81mm Mle 27/31 went to Germany. Among the Germans, he received the designation 8cm Gr.W.278 (f) . It turned out that the “Frenchman” ballistics was better than the German counterparts. Part of mortars arr. 27/31 Germans used in the usual way, and some were used in self-propelled guns.

After the Baltic states joined the USSR , the Red Army was given a significant amount of Brandt’s 81-mm mortar. These mortars were used in parts of the Leningrad People’s Militia and Marine Corps of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet ^[4] .

Soviet mortar 82-mm battalion mortar arr. 1936 was a direct copy of the French mortar, the rest of the mortars of the family were so much processed that they did not even violate the license ^[5] .

All these peoples made their own changes and innovations, but the resulting weapons remained the modernization of Brandt’s mortar model 1927/31, or even the 1926 Brant model ^[6] . Only British 3-inch mortars and German 8-cm sGW34 were developed completely independently.

• Alexander Shirokorad. Secrets of Russian artillery: The last argument of tsars and commissars . - M .: Yauza, Eksmo, 2003 .-- 480 p. - 5000 copies - ISBN 5-8153-0172-8 .
• Ivanov A. Artillery of the USSR in World War II. - SPb. : Neva, 2003. - 64 p. - ISBN 5-7654-2731-6 .
• THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WEAPONS OF WORLD WAR II / Chris Bishop. - London: Barnes £ Noble Books, 1998 .-- 544 p. - ISBN 0-7607-1022-8 .