"Light mortars vs tanks" Topic

Yeah, it's been around the block before but I didn't want a 'necro' thread…..Anyway, I Iam scratchbuilding/bodging and LCT5 and in the course of research came across this comment:

"Sub-Lieutenant Glengarry's craft suffered four direct hits from mortar bombs and as a result only one tank was serviceable enough to go ashore. Sub-Lieutenant Glengarry was temporarily knocked out by concussion. "We felt awful mugs bringing our tanks back when everyone else got theirs ashore," he said."

As so far as I'm aware, the only mortars the Germans deployed in the beach defenses were the 50mm semi automatic guns in the Tobruk bunkers, it has to be one of those that did such a dramatic amount of damage.

Also many years ago I worked for a man who had been a Sherman commander in Normandy; he said that on D-Day his tank was hit by a mortar as they were crossing the beach. He said the bomb landed square on the glacis plate and a splinter took off the bridge of his nose causing him to lose all interest in proceedings until he woke up surround by corpses on the beach some time later. What became of his tank, I only wish I knew, but it was certainly out of the battle at least for a short while.

The classic one was a Tiger II destroyed in Normandy by a British 2" mortar while being supplied with ammunition.

Yes – but the round did hit the ammo truck not the Tiger itself!

Still a great story though.

I'm fairly sure they had 81mm firing on recorded targets from further back. Any mortar round will be a nuisance to tanks, forcing the crew to close down and destroying optics, but not much more than that. Were these the swimming tanks with the canvas screens?

Madsen made a 52mm mortar that fired HEAT rounds post-WW2. The mount also had the 'option' to fire with the tube horizontal for direct fire.

As noted above, it is extremely unusual for mortar rounds to seriously damage tanks, even with direct hits.

They make cause external damage, wound the crews etc but I'd love to know how those tanks were actually disabled by mortar rounds.

Engine covers off? Piles of ammo lying around? Refuelling? Crews all sitting around outside drinking the RN gin??

None seem hugely likely on the run-in to an opposed landing (although a a group of Churchill commanders were caught outside their tanks drinking gin when their LCT hit the beach).

a famous case of a mortar round evacuating a tank was in Normandy where the crew thought safe inside when a mortar round set fire to the engine deck stowage and camo nets, the crew spotting the fire had to get out quick, it was a petrol Sherman, the fire had to be put out rather quickly before it was damaged.

A hit with a mortar round could start a fire on the deck of the tank (especially if there's a lot of stowage. If that fire leaks into the engine compartment, it could disable the tank.
More common will be breaking track.

If either happen to the vehicle while on the landing craft the only option is to turn and go back to the launch ship.

In his book Tigers in the Mud, Otto Carius was concerned about mortars disabling a Tiger. He said that a mortar round hitting the radiator grill would send fragments into the radiator cause the engine to overheat; effectively shutting it down when it comes to combat effectiveness.

It's likely one of those things where, if you fire enough mortar rounds at enough tanks, sooner or later, something will happen.

And WW2 happened to have an awful lot of mortar rounds being fired :)

In an old game of Steel Panthers o nthe computer, I did have a T34 get knocked out by a German mortar shell. Only ever happened the one time, I always figured it must have fallen down the hatch.

a famous case of a mortar round evacuating a tank was in Normandy where the crew thought safe inside when a mortar round set fire to the engine deck stowage and camo nets, the crew spotting the fire had to get out quick, it was a petrol Sherman, the fire had to be put out rather quickly before it was damaged.

That happened to an Abrams in Iraq during the initial Thunder Run.

Re: reports of specific ordnance hitting certain targets, one must be very careful about reading too much into these reports.

Based on WWII memoirs nearly every German gun was an 88 and every tank a Tiger or Panther!

Unless the guy on the receiving end was a veteran with lots and lots of experience it must have been pretty difficult to definitively identify every type of round impacting the area.

It comes down to launch and flight signature of a weapon and its impact signature. Some are easier to ID than others. And under stress of combat, maybe some effects are "magnified".

Most importantly, there's the difference between the destructive effects if weapons and their emotional effect. Buttoned up in an AFV and taking fire the imagination runs rampant according to combat memoirs. They know that the incoming small arms fire won't hurt them but if there's small arms fire then there's infantry who might have an ATRL or maybe a supporting AT gun.

A 50mm or 60mm round hitting an AFV's hull might not harm the tank but it could raise questions in the crew's minds: "If were getting hit by that, then what's next???"

Two things come to mind.

#1 – LCT loading pattern: if a forward loaded tank received damage it could block the remaining vehicles from being off-loaded.

#2 – Could there be confusion between taking a hit from a 50mm mortar round and taking a hit from a 50mm AT round? Both weapons were used in the Normandy beach defenses. 50mm mortars were deployed in Tobruks and other prepared positions. 50mm AT guns on carriages and kwk mounts were deployed as anti-boat guns and anti-vehicle guns. Obviously, the arc and trajectory would be different and a 50mm mortar round could be seen on its approach. (Note: my father's brother landed as an infantryman with the US 1st ID and I believe his unit was transported by LCAs. His boat was hit and sunk by a 50mm mortar round on approach to the beach.)