Mortar stat please

[Lameth]

Hello

A player got a hold of a tl9 Thermobaric mortar, made by a corp on my world that is known for poweful and illegal in most nations weaponry . I was wondering if anyone could help me with stating it or locating if already done? Such as damage, area of effect, effects, etc? And can it be fired with the firing tube? They only have the mortar itself and are stuck in a tl5 world.

[Gedrin]

Do they just have the tube, or do they have the shells as well? The shells are the dangerous part, but if you don't have the tube, you just have a thermobaric grenade...which, depending on how far you can throw, might not be what you want.

As for the power of the shell... Refer to this post:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=47676

[sjard]

Well, for the warhead of the round, there's a table for TL9 Thermobaric warheads in Ultra-Tech page 155.

But if they only have the mortar itself, that suggests to me that they don't have any ammo for it, which means you just have a metal/composite tube which is basically a 2-4 foot long pipe.

[Gedrin]

In fairness, it's probably a very well made pipe, and better yet, they probably have a 50 pound steel plate to set it on.

[Lameth]

No they have the round only, no tube. So how can you use it than? Does it have timer or can it be set to blow up above the ground as a air burst?

[Ulzgoroth]

A TL9 thermobaric round, I would expect to have a radar altitude-burst fuse, potentially with selectable trigger altitude. Possibly backup impact fuse.

However, a mortar round may be pretty hard to arm without a mortar to fire it from. Making good and sure that shells don't detonate before they've been fired is an important design consideration. Your best bet might be to pull the regular fuse and hack in a home-made substitute to turn the thing into a small IED.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

However, a mortar round may be pretty hard to arm without a mortar to fire it from.

Are they that sophisticated? I thought there was just a firing pin in the base of the shell that gets smacked by a hammer (a bit of steel sticking up) on the base of the mortar tube when you drop it in. After that, the fuse does whatever it's going to do. I presume you could arm a shell with just a hammer and a nail setter.

Whether or not you want to be holding a live mortar round at that point is a whole 'nother question.

But if it had some sort of reliable radio altimeter, it seems like you could get away with whatever the plan was from that point. I don't know how sensitive the impact fuses might be.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Are they that sophisticated? I thought there was just a firing pin in the base of the shell that gets smacked by a hammer (a bit of steel sticking up) on the base of the mortar tube when you drop it in. .

That's a TL_6_ mortar not TL 9. Even at tL7 there are breechloading "gun/mortars. See HT.

If you go by UT you almost couldn't have a separate round as the TL9 mortars there are "Pre-loaded Barrels" (the Metalstorm system).,Hand grenades at tL9 can be "mart" ofr a modest additional cost. AT TL10 it's free.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Are they that sophisticated? I thought there was just a firing pin in the base of the shell that gets smacked by a hammer (a bit of steel sticking up) on the base of the mortar tube when you drop it in. After that, the fuse does whatever it's going to do. I presume you could arm a shell with just a hammer and a nail setter.

That's how you ignite the propellant, not how you arm the fuse.

I'm not in a place I can research mortar fuses right now, but I know some artillery projectiles have things like only arming when they've been spun up as if fired through the rifled barrel of the gun they go with.

[safisher]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_E._Kelly
"At this critical point, with the enemy threatening to overrun the position, Cpl. Kelly picked up 60mm mortar shells, pulled the safety pins, and used the shells as grenades, killing at least 5 of the enemy."