counter-battery fire, so the need to “shoot and scoot” can be quite urgent.
Most mortars are terribly simple to use. Once the weapon is set up and aimed, you simply drop a round down the barrel and get out of the way. A firing pin at the bottom of the tube strikes a primer in the base of the finned projectile. This ignites a charge of fast-burning propellant, and the round is on its way. Since the pressures and velocities involved are relatively low, a mortar shell can be thin-walled and packed with a heavy charge of explosive. In the 82nd Airborne, the most common use of mortars would likely be to put up illumination rounds to support night attacks and to lay down smoke to blind an enemy position. However, the variety of other possible uses make mortars a valuable asset to any infantry commander.
M224 60 mm Mortar. The M224 60mm Lightweight Mortar is a smooth-bore, muzzle- loading, high-angle-of-fire weapon. “Lightweight” is a relative term, since the complete weapon weighs 46.51b/21.11 kg, and is typically a two-man drop load. One man carries the tube, which consists of a barrel, base cap, and firing pin. The other man carries the mount, which consists of a bipod and a base plate with elevating and traversing screws. Maximum effective range is 2.2 miles/3,490 meters. A maximum rate of fire of 30 rpm is possible, and 20 rpm can be sustained if there is enough ammunition. There are six different ammunition types for the M224, including high-explosive, incendiary (white phosphorus), and illumination. The range can be extended by adding extra charges, which are U-shaped chunks of propellant that fit around the shaft of the projectile. For correcting fire, an M64 optical sight is attached to the bipod mount. An additional short-range sight can be attached to the base of the cannon tube for firing the mortar on the move and during assaults. This is a nifty little weapon that is normally found in heavy weapons squads of infantry platoons.
M252 81mm Medium Extended Range Mortar. This crew-served, medium mortar is highly accurate and provides a greater range (4,500 to 5,650 meters /4,921 to 6,179 yards) and lethality than the earlier 81mm model. The weapon breaks down into four man-pack loads which are shown in the table below:
The tube has a crew-removable breech plug and firing pin (this is a handy way to disable the weapon if you have to abandon it in combat). The muzzle end has a tapered funnel which acts as a blast attenuator. The breech end is finned for cooling during heavy firing.
This mortar uses the same M64 optical sight as the 60mm mortar, and the munitions types include high- explosive, smoke, illumination, and incendiary (white phosphorus). The high-explosive round weighs 4.2 kg. In service since 1986, the M252 is an adaptation of a British 81mm mortar developed in the 1970s. In the 82nd Airborne division, the M252 is found in a separate mortar platoon that is part of the heavy weapons company of each rifle battalion. A trained crew can get off thirty rounds per minute for two minutes, and then sustain up to fifteen rounds per minute as long as the ammunition supply lasts.
Heavy Direct-Fire Weapons
As with any military unit, airborne troops face threats from the entire spectrum of technology. The primary enemies to these soldiers (other than enemy infantry) are twofold: armor, which includes tanks and armored vehicles, and aircraft, which includes both fixed-wing and rotary-wing types.
During the Cold War, the West held a general superiority in aircraft, and many felt confident that the air forces of the NATO nations would be able to establish air superiority over the battlefield if hostilities were to have erupted in a NATO/Warsaw Pact clash. This was not the case, however, with tanks. The Warsaw Pact armies in general and the Russian Army in particular held such a vast numerical superiority over the NATO nations in tanks that there was little doubt that the American Army would be in deep trouble in any battle. To counter these threats, the American military began to build up an enormous stockpile of antitank weapons.
Today, these same weapons provide the 82nd Airborne with its last heavy direct-fire capability. This is because the M-8 AGS, which was to have replaced the aging M551 Sheridan light tank, was canceled in 1996. Then the Sheridan itself was ordered taken out of service. These measures were based upon a need to reprogram modernization funds for operational contingencies, which is a fancy way of saying “the Bosnia Peacekeeping Force.” As such, it is the lighter XVIII Airborne Corps formations like the 82nd Airborne and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Light) which have paid the price for these ill-considered budget decisions. It remains to be seen if that price will involve dead troopers.
BGM-71 TOW Anti-Tank Missile
The first major break for the U.S. Army in the field of antitank missiles was the TOW (Tube-Launched, Optically Tracked, Wire-Guided) antitank missile. Manufactured by Hughes Aircraft Company, and given the code name BGM-71, this heavy antitank missile first entered service in 1970. Since then, TOW has continued on as the premier heavy antitank missile operated by the Army. What the TOW did for the Army was enable any small vehicle, from a jeep to an armored personal carrier, to engage and defeat an enemy main battle tank, thus evening the balance of power for allied land forces. Today’s version of the TOW is very similar to those used in combat in Vietnam (1972) and the Middle East (1973), with several notable differences.
All TOW missiles have remarkably similar characteristics, with the biggest difference resulting in warhead size and operation. The current model is the TOW-2, of which the Army has three variants: TOW-2 (BGM- 71D), TOW-2A (BGM-71E), and TOW-2B (BGM-71F). TOW-2 was first introduced in 1983, and represented the first major improvement to the missile system since the Improved TOW missile, BGM-71C (ITOW), arrived on the scene several years earlier. Among the improvements from the original TOW missiles were a hardened guidance system to resist electro-optic countermeasures, a redesigned standoff probe, an improved flight motor, and a much larger and heavier warhead than either the basic TOW or ITOW As a result of the improved flight motor, while the overall TOW-2 missile is heavier than the earlier models, flight performance for the TOW-2 is not degraded. The new version, of which over 75,000 have been produced, is probably best known for its heavier warhead which adds dramatically to the stopping power of the missile. This new TOW missile had a 13-lb/5.9-kg high-explosive antitank (HEAT) warhead which was capable of penetrating over 35 in/900 mm of armored plate on a tank or other armored-vehicle. When compared to the original, basic TOW, this was a vast improvement.
As the Russians began equipping their tank forces with better and better tanks, they also began the dangerous (from an American point of view) practice of using explosive reactive armor to protect them. Reactive armor, first invented by the Israelis, posed a serious problem for Western antitank weapons designers. The basic principle for reactive armor is simple. Small boxes of explosive were fitted in a fashion so that they covered the parts of a tank most likely to get hit by a missile. As the antitank missile approached, a sensor would detect the incoming missile and, milliseconds before the incoming missile hit, the reactive armor would detonate outward, diffusing the force of the missile’s HEAT warhead.
Russia soon caught on to this ingenious new defensive system, and in the mid-1980s began rapidly equipping a growing number of its new tanks with reactive armor. Overnight, it seemed as if the Russians had turned the tide of armored warfare back in the direction of the mighty tank. However, Hughes was ready with a new solution, the TOW-2A model. Designed to defeat tanks and other vehicles fitted with reactive armor, the TOW-2A version had a remarkable device — a tandem warhead. In the small probe fitted in the front of the TOW-2A missile, Hughes managed to fit a tiny “precursor” warhead. The precursor warhead is designed to set off the explosive fitted in a tank’s reactive armor. With the reactive armor now detonated, the tank is vulnerable to attack from the TOW- 2A’s powerful main HEAT warhead, which is exactly the same type used for the TOW-2.
Still, technology moved on, and it soon appeared that in the late 1990s and beyond tank armor would continue to improve. If so, it might not be enough for the TOW missiles to just “trick” the reactive armor — since the tank’s main armor was now getting stronger and thicker. A new solution was needed. Again, Hughes and the entire TOW team met the challenge. It was decided that in the future there would always be one specific spot which was the primary vulnerability for a tank — the top. All around, a tank is protected by heavy protective armor. The top, though, is a tank’s Achilles heel. Therefore, the new TOW-2B was designed to attack the tank from the top
