Brandt Mle 27/31

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.

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. The mle 27/31 could be disassembled into 3 loads and a normal crew was 3 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.

Mortar bombs fired by the weapon weighed either 3.25 kilograms or 6.9 kilograms.

This weapon along with the Stokes Mortar provided the pattern for most World War II era light mortars. France, Russia, Italy, China and the United States all had weapons built from this design many times with similar weights, dimensions and performance. The ammunition fired by each was often compatible as well. Romania license-built the Mle 27/31 mortar prior to and during the Second World War.

Known derivatives include the US M1 mortar (license-built) and the Japanese Type 97 81 mm infantry mortar.