The 120mm mortar system is nothing new to the U.S. Army and is the largest of the three systems currently employed by the Infantry, the other two being the 81mm and 60mm mortars. But out that the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, an old dog is apparently learning some new tricks.
The 120mm mortar tube is paired with the sling system and a fire direction system which greatly automates the process of emplacing and firing the mortar. During this test phase, the entire system was loaded onto a military vehicle to make it a mobile gun battery.
"This system holds your cannon in place and acts as your bipod. It can traverse the canon 180 degrees," explained Matthew Lukas who is a test officer at the Yuma Proving Ground. "The base plate is a little different from the standard — it has additional eye hooks to keep it in place when it is stowed. The base plate hangs off of a socket and needs a way to retain it."
The new system is capable of being automatically employed in under a minute and can fire 16 of the 120mm mortar rounds in the first minute of firing and 4 rounds per minute afterward. The range of the system is over four miles, which each shell having a kill radius of 60 meters.
"They’re trying to characterize the accuracy of the sling mortar compared to regularly emplaced mortars," Lukas said of the recent field testing. "We’re shooting strictly to see if the sling mortar matches the firing tables that already exist for the M933 cartridge."
The testers at Yuma were interested in stress testing the new 120mm system and fired at different ranges with different levels of propellant, including excessive amounts to see what the system could endure.
After a fire mission, soldiers operating the system can lower it with hydraulics and lock it into place before driving off to their next assignment.
