The American nemesis: Iraqi mortar squads

The mortar, war's most deadliest weapon, has only now made its presence known in the Iraqi war. Iraq manufactured a lot of them, and the US has no effective defence agaisnt them

by William Kay

“Mortars” are short-barrelled, short-range artillery pieces that fire exploding projectiles in high arcs at slow velocities. The mortar debuted at Constantinople's demise in 1453 as a mammoth device punting boulders over city walls. Giant mortars, like the Civil War's rail-mounted behemoths, were used until the 1940s, when howitzers replaced them. The giant mortars' redoubt was coastal defence. The exception was the hefty 240 mm self-propelled mortar the Soviets developed in the 1980s.

As big mortars disappeared, infantry-portable mini-mortars emerged during WWI to hurl bomblets from trench to trench. The world's armies universally deploy infantry mortars for good reason. Nimble German infantry mortar squads inflicted 70% of Allied casualties during the Battle of Normandy. On the other front, Germans frequently mistook Soviet mortar barrages for aerial bombardments. Mortars caused most Korean War casualties. Mortars played Grim Reaper in the Vietnam War, Afghan Civil War and numerous African insurgencies.

The standard mortar today varies little from the original British “3-inch Stokes”. This weapon has a metre long tube with a diameter of 82 mm, with one open end (the muzzle), propped on a bipod pointing skyward, and one closed end (breech) resting on a base plate. Two soldiers take turns dropping pop-bottle sized bomblets tail-first down the muzzle. Sufficient force is provided by the dropped bomblets' 5-kilogram weight to detonate a primer in the bomblets' tail when it lands on the firing pin in the breech. This primer explosion shoots these fin-stabilized projectiles out the tube and up to 4 kilometres away where they explode on, or near, the moment of impact.

Iraqi State Arsenals manufactured three mortars. They produced a Soviet-model 82 mm mortar with a total weight oif 63 kilograms, a range of fire of 4.9 kilometres, and a 25-per-minute maximum rate of fire. They also manufactured a 60 mm mortar weighing only 22 kilograms and able to sustain a 30-per-minute rate of fire. But its projectiles are small, and its range is only 2.5 kilometres. Most fearsomely, Iraqi State Arsenals produced a 120 mm artillery mortar. The tube, base plate, and bipod weigh 148 kilograms, making small truck transport essential. But it blasts eight 16-kilo bombs per minute with a range of 5.4 kilometres.

Iraq wasn't merely mortar self-sufficient. It exported all three models. Neither mortar nor projectile requires special steel and the design and manufacture of mortar tubes and base-plates is child's play for Iraq's metallurgical engineers. If high explosives aren't available, TNT or gunpowder will do. As well, the Iraqi military has stockpiled mountains of mortars and ammunition.

From 1978 to 2003, the Republic of Iraq kept 500,000 to 1,000,000 troops in active service. Iraqi defence thinking emphasised ground forces armed especially with light standoff weaponry like mortars. In the Iran-Iraq War (the 20 th Century's longest conventional war) the front resembled WWI's deep-trench stalemate—the mortar's alma mater. Both Desert Storm and the 2003 invasion were preceded by major Iraqi mobilizations, including training thousands in mortar warfare. The internal battles of Hussein's era also involved mortars. Hence there are thousands of Iraqis who are fit for service, trained in mortaring, and who are in fact mortar-combat experienced.

Mortar squads are 6-packs. Squadsmen transport bombs, drive small vehicles, keep lookout, relay bomb damage assessment to the gunner, and feed ammo into the muzzle. The gunner needs specialized training. Guerrilla mortar squads frequently accompany larger attacks. In some instances, Iraqis, using tank-mines, rockets and small-arms fire, ambush a US convoy, and if the vehicles are halted, they become mortar targets. Conversely, a police station may come under mortar fire. Then, taking advantage of the chaos, a rifle platoon may charge the smoking building.

The Americans principle mortar vulnerabilities are their 100-plus bases. A good portion (30% to 50%) of the 140,000 Iraq-stationed US troops live in tents, thin-skinned trailers, vehicles, and shacks protecting them from not even 60 mm fire. They're sitting ducks. One Colonel responded to his tent-dormed battalion's complaints about omnipresent sand by under-laying the base with thick gravel, only to be assailed because the rocks flying off mortar-shell explosions made for mega-shrapnel. No pleasing some people.

Iraqi Armed Forces employed few long-range weaponry during the war's first weeks. US and UK Divisions moved fast, bristling with counter-battery weapons, and proved adept hiders. Few Iraqi mortar squads were able to lock onto Coalition Divisions, and those that did seldom successfully ventured too close. There were no US soldiers killed-in-actions (KIAs) by mortar fire in the war's initial phase.

US President George Bush did not speak of mortars in his May 2003 victory address. The first consequential mortar attack came June 6 as mortars struck a US-backed Iraqi Security Forces depot, injuring 12. A month later, Camp Anaconda, 68 kilometres north of Baghdad, (home to 15,000 US soldiers) came under coordinated assault, including the lobbing of four mortar shells into the compound, wounding 16 US troops. The first mortar-caused US KIA came September 20 when two soldiers were killed near Abu Graib prison.

As the insurgency matured, mortar attacks intensified. Notable January attacks started with a January 2 strike on a lookout post near Balad killing one, and wounding two US soldiers. A week later, at Logistical Base Seitz (outside Baghdad), the evening was shattered by six incoming mortar shells, some puncturing the roof of a barracks where servicemen lounged. The result: one dead, thirty-four wounded. Remote-controlled mortar launchers were suspected.

Mortar use rose with the overall violence in March and April, with mortars killing dozens of Coalition troops and wounding hundreds. US facilities were “pounded” by mortar fire at Najaf and Fallujah. This “incessant” mortar fire helped compel Colonels to seek controversial truces. April also witnessed the bizarre 12-mortar volley over Abu Graib's prison, wall killing 22, and wounding 92 Iraqi prisoners.

May (the war's 15th month, the mortar campaign's 6th), is the most recent calendar month of documented mortar usage. Late May 2, US Army soldiers, recently relocated to the vacating Spaniard's base near Najaf, were awoken by 20 mortar blasts around the base. No serious injuries were reported in this attack, nor in the next day's mortaring, which provoked a heavy-weapon Army counter-attack inside Najaf. On the same day, but west to Ramadi, one mortar round landed in a Marine base causing panicky troops to cluster precisely where a second 120 mm shell was heading. A 1.5-kilogram explosive tube in the core of another tube containing 12 kilograms of steel balls discharged in a crowd made for six dead 30 wounded. On May 4, the US Army's Najaf base was hit by a mortar barrage followed by an easily repulsed but impressive multi-directional small arms attack, followed by another barrage.

On May 7, Stryker Brigade was kicking-in Mosul doors looking for mortar squad members who scored a hit the previous day killing one Iraqi collaborator and wounding several. Soon after, a single mortar round fell from the clear blue smack-dab on Mosul's Iraqi Security Forces' recruitment office entrance, killing four recruits and wounding 15. The same day saw the new Governor's mansion in Najaf hit with six mortars and a 1 st Infantry Division platoon patrolling near Baghdad get dinged by a round (one KIA). On May 25, mortar-shells thundered down on a Baghdad police station injuring, amongst others, two US soldiers, while north to Balad, a mortar attack killed one US service member and wounded nine, while further north, Army lookout post Kelsa was mortared, killing one soldier. May ended with the ironic death of a mortar-hunting Stryker Brigade officer, from wounds received in a Mosul mortar attack. It gets personal.

The Americans aren't mortar hapless. Mortars are ballistic weapons that have projectile trajectories undistorted by rocket engine or guidance system. Knowing two points along an arc reveals its source, so computerized radar can easily isolate a mortar's firing location and this intelligence can be zipped to howitzer batteries who can then rain grenades around the suspected location. That's one strategy, and it's called “counter-battery.” Another strategy is to build heavy-duty fortifications and move in. Yet another strategy is have dedicated fast-attack armoured companies search out and destroy mortar squadrons.

Counter-batterers await an attack and then play cat-and-mouse with hit-and-run mortar squads. Only large bases can have counter-battery systems. Therefore, police stations (trendy mortar targets lately) and other Iraqi government buildings can't be so protected. Counter-battery also could cause war-crime level collateral causalities. On te other hand, fortifications and anti-mortar companies draw forces away from work the US must accomplish if they're to survive until a political exit is found. CENTCOM can't stabilize Iraq whilst hunkered in bunkers exchanging fire with the newly liberated.

A British battalion near Basra boasts being the Coalition's most battered base (240 logged attacks.) Their assailant's favourite weapon is the mortar. This beleaguered battalion, in addition to Baghdad's Green Zone, and the US compounds near Najaf and Fallujah, have repeatedly come under mortar barrages recently. Mortars weren't used in the first nine months of this 16-month-old war.

Thus we can plot the trajectory of mortar usage. There'll be more mortar squads. They'll have better intelligence. Their aim will improve. Their barrages will last longer. Multiple mortar attacks will be common, as will the potent 120 mm “al jaleel” artillery mortar. A sea of tombstones will soon be rising.

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