Brandt mle 27
Brandt Mle 27/31 on display at the Romanian Navy Museum
TypeMortar
Place of originFrance
Service history
Used bySee users section
WarsSecond World War
First Indochina War[1]
Algerian War[2]
Portuguese Colonial War[3]
Vietnam War[4]
Production history
DesignerEdgar Brandt
No. built8000
VariantsL13.7
L/15.6
Specifications
Mass56 kg (123 lb)
Barrel length1.11 m (3 ft 8 in) L/13.7
1.26 m (4 ft 2 in) L/15.6
Crew3[5]
Shell weightLight: 3.25 kg (7 lb 3 oz)
Heavy: 6.5 kg (14 lb 5 oz)
Caliber81 mm (3.2 in)
Elevation+45° to +85°
Traverse8° to 12° variable with elevation[5]
Rate of fire18 rounds per minute
Muzzle velocity174 m/s (570 ft/s)
Effective firing rangeLight: 2.8 km (1.7 mi)
Heavy: 1.2 km (0.75 mi)[5]

The Brandt mle 27/31 mortar was a regulation weapon of the French army during the Second World War. Designed by Edgar Brandt, it was a refinement of the Stokes mortar. The Brandt mortar was highly influential, being licensed built or copied by numerous countries.[6]

Development history

Mk. II vaned HE bomb of Brandt's type for 3-inch Stokes mortar

In 1915, about the same time when English civil engineer Wilfred Stokes turned to developing trench mortars for the troops, French applied artist, silversmith and ironsmith Edgar Brandt did the same while serving in the French Army. He developed two pneumatic weapons, obusier pneumatique Brandt de 60 mm modèle 1915 on a tripod carriage and later also modèle 1916 on a cast aluminium baseplate.[7][8] Already the first type of the shell (projectile type A) had an aerodynamic teardrop body with flat stabilizers (called vanes or fins) and an obturation groove around its widest part,[9] both features which will define the design of mortar shells in decades to come.

In September 1917 under-secretary of state for inventions sent a circular letter requesting inventors to design a better projectile for the successful Stokes mortar, and Brandt scaled his 60 mm projectile up to 81 mm.[10] Both British and French military adopted the scaled-up design except for the grooves (apparently, their importance wasn't realized at the time) in 1918 as projectile BM (Brandt-Maurice) modèle 1918 (later simplified to FA (fonte aciérée) modèle 1921[11]) and Mk. II HE bomb respectively.

After several years of further development in January 1925 Brandt applied for a patent[12] on a mortar shell with several obturation grooves (of several types), a design which has not in principle changed in the century since. French shell FA modèle 1924/27 soon adopted in place of BM Mle 1918 closely followed the drawing in the patent, and FA modèle 1932 offered even more improvement in range. It was this refined projectile design that made Stokes-Brandt mortar so superior compared to WWI Stokes: with Brandt-type WWII shells, the latter was able to reach 2,650 yards (2.42 km) in range.[13]

Description

The Brandt mle 27/31 was a simple and effective weapon, consisting of a smoothbore metal tube fixed to a base plate (to absorb recoil), with a lightweight bipod mount.[14] The mle 27/31 could be disassembled into 3 loads, plus the ammunitions loads,[15] and a complete crew was 10 men. When a mortar bomb was dropped into the tube, an impact sensitive primer in the base of the bomb would make contact with a firing pin at the base of the tube, and detonate, firing the bomb towards the target.[16] HE and smoke mortar bombs fired by the weapon weighed 3.25 kilograms.[17]

Users

A Senegalese Tirailleurs crew with a Brandt Mle 1927/31 mortar, December 1939.

Brandt's innovative projectile design along with the Stokes Mortar provided the pattern for most World War II era light mortars.[6]

In 1928, an unlicensed Polish copy was made as the Avia wz.28, but due to French pressure it was abandoned in 1931 because the French Brandt company held the patent for the ammunition. The Polish then produced a licensed copy as the wz.31 model (Polish: Moździerz piechoty 81 mm wz. 31) starting in 1935; 1,050 were made in Pruszków. By 1939, the Polish army was equipped with some 1,200 Stokes-Brandt mortars, most of them the newer 1931 model. Each Polish infantry battalion was intended to be equipped with four such mortars, but there were not enough available to fulfill this disposition.[18] The upgraded 1931 version was used by the Polish Army during, amongst others, the Battle of Westerplatte in 1939. An unspecified amount, probably a few hundred, were sold to Republican Spain in 1936-1938.

In Romania, the mortar was licence-produced at the Voina Works in Brașov,[19] with a production rate of 30 pieces per month as of October 1942[20] (over 1,000 such mortars were built in Romania by mid-1943).[21] 360 mortars captured by the Germans from the French were also received in 1942.[22]

Country Weapon name German designation for captured mortars Observation
 Austria 8 cm GrW 33(ö)[5]
 Czechoslovakia 81.4 mm minomet, 8.14 cm GrW 278(t) License-built variant[23]
8 cm minomet vz. 36 8 cm GrW M.36(t) Modified variant[23]
 Republic of China - French and Austrian versions[5][24]
Type 20 mortar - Local copy produced from 1931 in Jinling Arsenal[24]
 Denmark 81.4 mm L/12 8.14 cm GrW 275(d) [5]
 Estonia [citation needed]
 Finland 81 mm Tampella - [5]
 Norway 8.1 cm Bombekaster m/35 - License-built variant[25]
 France Mortier Brandt de 81 mm mle 27/31 8.14 cm GrW 278(f), 8.14 cm GrW 278/1(f) [5]
mle 44 ACC, mle 44 ATS, mle 44 ARE - [citation needed]
 Ireland - [citation needed]
 Kingdom of Italy Mortaio da 81/14 Modello 35 8.1 cm GrW 276(i) Slightly-modified copy[5]
 Empire of Japan Type 3 81 mm mortar Slightly-modified copy[26][27]
Type 97 81 mm infantry mortar Modified variant[26]
 Nazi Germany 8 cm Granatwerfer 34, Kz 8 cm GrW 42 [citation needed]
 Netherlands[28] Mortier van 8 Brandt (M.27/31) 8.14 cm GrW 286(h) Produced under license[5]
 Portugal m/937 8 cm[3] French variant
 Philippines [citation needed]
 Poland wz. 31 8 cm GrW 31(p) [5]
 Kingdom of Romania - License-built variant
 Sweden 8 cm GrK m/29 - [29]
 Soviet Union 82-PM-36 8.2 cm GrW 274/1(r) Modified copy[30]
82-PM-37 8.2 cm GrW 274/2(r) Upgraded 82-PM-36[31]
82-PM-41 8.2 cm GrW 274/3(r) Upgraded 82-PM-37[32]
 United States M1 mortar ? Modified copy[33]
 Vietnam[4] - French-made
 Kingdom of Yugoslavia 8.1 cm MWM 31/38 Kragujevac 8.14 cm GrW 270(j) [5]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Ezell, Edward Clinton (1988). Personal firepower. The Illustrated history of the Vietnam War 15. Bantam Books. p. 41. ISBN 9780553345490. OCLC 1036801376.
  2. ^ Huon, Jean (March 1992). "L'armement français en A.F.N." Gazette des Armes (in French). No. 220. pp. 12–16.
  3. ^ a b Abbott, Peter; Rodrigues, Manuel (1998). Modern African Wars 2: Angola and Mozambique 1961-74. Osprey Publishing. p. 18.
  4. ^ a b Rottman, Gordon L. (10 February 2009). North Vietnamese Army Soldier 1958–75. Warrior 135. Osprey Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 9781846033711.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 5
  6. ^ a b Chris Bishop (2002). The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-58663-762-0.
  7. ^ "L'Artillerie de tranchées servie par l'infanterie - les mortiers".
  8. ^ Tumbir post Archived 5 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine[user-generated source]
  9. ^ "L'Obusier de tranchée pneumatique BRANDT de 60mm (3ème partie) par François BRANDT - Musée de Chevau".
  10. ^ "Revue des sociétés : Recueil mensuel de jurisprudence, doctrine, législation française et étrangère... / M. A. Vavasseur, fondateur". January 1937.
  11. ^ Instruction du 20 juin 1919 sur le Mortier Stokes de 81 m/M modèle 1918 (Mise à jour le 15 avril 1922) / Ministère de la guerre, Direction de l'Infanterie. 1922.
  12. ^ U.S. patent 1628527A; referring to an unpublished French patent
  13. ^ "TM 9-2005 Ordnance Materiel - General, Volume 3: Infantry and Cavalry Accompanying Weapons Field Artillery, 1942". December 1942.
  14. ^ Manuel du gradé 1939, p. 308.
  15. ^ Manuel du gradé 1939, pp. 309–310.
  16. ^ Manuel du gradé 1939, p. 311.
  17. ^ Manuel du gradé 1939, p. 310.
  18. ^ Steve Zaloga; W. Victor Madej (1991). The Polish campaign, 1939. Hippocrene Books. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-87052-013-6.
  19. ^ Great Britain. Foreign Office, Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1944, Rumania Basic Handbook, p. 27
  20. ^ Axworthy, Scafes & Craciunoiu 1995, p. 75.
  21. ^ Axworthy, Scafes & Craciunoiu 1995, p. 147.
  22. ^ Axworthy, Scafes & Craciunoiu 1995, p. 76.
  23. ^ a b Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 3.
  24. ^ a b Ness, Leland; Shih, Bin (July 2016). Kangzhan: Guide to Chinese Ground Forces 1937–45. Helion & Company. pp. 343–345. ISBN 9781910294420.
  25. ^ BK Weapon ID kvf.no[permanent dead link]
  26. ^ a b Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 14.
  27. ^ John Norris (2002). Infantry Mortars of World War II. Osprey Publishing. pp. 39–40. ISBN 978-1-84176-414-6.[permanent dead link]
  28. ^ Lohnstein, Marc (23 August 2018). Royal Netherlands East Indies Army 1936–42. Men-at-Arms 521. Osprey Publishing. p. 13. ISBN 9781472833754.
  29. ^ Gander, Terry J. (2001). "81 mm m/29 mortar". Jane's Infantry Weapons 2002-2003. pp. 4317–4318.
  30. ^ Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 28.
  31. ^ Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 29.
  32. ^ Chamberlain & Gander 1975, p. 30.
  33. ^ Ian V. Hogg (2001). The American Arsenal: The World War II Official Standard Ordnance Catalog of Small Arms, Tanks, Armored Cars, Artillery, Antiaircraft Guns, Ammunition, Grenades, Mines, Etc. Greenhill Books. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-85367-470-9.

References

External links

French infantry weapons of World War II (1939-1940)
Categories