The Armed Forces of Ukraine received from the USA an extremely interesting and important tool, which, despite the fact that it is a trailer, allows to increase the effectiveness of mortar fire several times and save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers.
The photo from the front line saw the use of the M326 Mortar Stowage Kit, a special trailer that was developed by BAE Systems in the late 2000s, which is a means of automating the mortar. An extremely pragmatic solution that takes on the task of installing and assembling 120 mm mortars, the weight of which is about 150 kg for modern ones and more than 200 kg for Soviet ones.
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For this, a hydraulic system is mounted on the trailer, which takes on this task and allows the mortar to be installed in position and prepared for firing in less than 3 minutes.
That is, thanks to the M326 MSK, the mortar actually turns into a self-propelled one, which allows to increase mobility several times, change positions faster, open fire and constantly be in motion in order not to fall under counter-battery fire.
Even an off-road vehicle such as an HMMWV can be used to transport such a system, and the trailer itself is also used to transport ammunition.
Aalthough the M326 MSK is still not comparable to full-fledged self-propelled mortars, it is an extremely effective solution for significantly increasing the effectiveness of existing weapons. In addition, this solution is not expensive. It is known that in September 2007, BAE Systems received an order for 588 such systems for 13.9 million US dollars, that is, even at the time of the first order, the cost of the M326 Mortar Stowage Kit was only 23.6 thousand dollars.
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