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4.2 mortar smoke BES with sabot

BMG50

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I have a friend who is restoring an unusual 4.2 mortar smoke base ejection smoke with sabot, similar to the one pictured.
Bit of an unusual beast, has a 3" body but with a sabot that fits the bore of a 4.2 and 4.2 tail fins. Was this experimental, what was the reasoning behind this. What was the black band for, is this a Canadian 4.2.
 

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A bomb should have a sabot for the 4.2" Mortar in two equal halves with a shear pin on each side, a 4.2" Mortar Tail No 8 as shown and a Fuze Time Combustion No.390 (the right marks for 4.2" as distinct from 3" have been covered in recent threads).
The 3" bomb body has been built up to 3.476" H and 3.471" L at a point which would bring the sabot 4.5" from the nose of the bomb body.
The black band denotes Base Ejection in mortar bombs.
There would have to be identification stampings to indicate whether it was Canadian.
If it was a Canadian 3" Mortar No.8 tail the straight line of 5 projection welds down the centre of the fin pair as distinct from the paired British projection welds would identify it.
 
Its real purpose was to match the HE streamline bomb so that you could mix and match streamline HE and BE Smoke using the same cartridges from the same mortar achieving the same range.
The only way to achieve this was by building a bulge on a 3" mortar bomb body at production and fitting a discarding sabot.
The overall weights of both bombs was very similar, meaning that no physical adjustment constraints were placed on the mortar men.
 
Just to say a big thank you to everyone for the info on this thread and the link. Always can rely on you guys to help out with info when needed.
 
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